DeArmond Pilot Deluxe 4

Neck-through, active electronics.

Great for any style.

Fantastic.

N/A

I happened upon a DeArmond Pilot Deluxe at a pawn shop I frequent. Bought it cheap, and love it. I???m a full time recording engineer/musician and I???m very, very picky about tone. This bass sounds great. It???s very versatile and can get any tone desired. The fit and finish are fantastic, and the neck-through design has great sustain. The action is good and the intonation is exceptional. In short, these things are rare, but if you find one cheap, buy it quick. These basses are very under-valued, to say the least.

This was my first giggable bass. It features an active onboard 3 way preamp - it's pretty f'n hot too - when recording I ran into some popping if I pushed it hard - Never noticed it live though. It's totally capable of some sweet p/j tones. The neck-through design ensures tons of low end + miles of sustain. Like most lower - end basses the bottom string is difficult to tune - tune tends to change based on how hard you play. Intunition is great though - it holds the tune well. Just an oil finish - very vulnerable to rubs/scratches. I actually chipped away a nice little hole in it by playing alot of slap. It does sound great and feel pretty good slapping, but the neck pickup is just plain in the way, and the action is too low beyond the fretboard. Don't have that problem on my new MM Sterling!! Hahaha.....

I think the body is way cooler looking than fenders. I think with a paint job and some new electronics it would be a kick - ass hotrodded gig bass.

The pre-amp is hot, but not the greatest. When recording, it got pretty noisy when driven hard. On stage - if I switch to it from my main bass (MM Sterling,) without adjusting my amp, it tends to sound a little dark - all lows- no highs- When it was my main I got good stage tone - more bottom end than the ernie ball. Could get P or J or anything in between. I used it with an Electro-Harmonix Micro Bass Synth - when I used the subwave on the synth it was really muddy when I played anything below an low A. Like I said before - tuning tends to fluctuate on the bottom end- the synth didn't like that -Don't have that problem either on my new MM Sterling!! Hahaha.....

It stood up to months of gigging and worse abuse. After a few months, one of the nylon rings in one of the schaller tuners busted. Toward the end of it's run as my main bass(about 1 year of aggresive use)the pots started to get loose, and so did the 1/4" output. Overall I'd say it's well put together - they seemed to cut costs on the electronics- the hardware was pretty damn good though -schaller tuners, and a nice (very) de-armond roller bridge. I still use it live occasionally.

It has always worked when I need it. Be sure to keep a couple of extra 9V batteries for the pre-amp (I probably had to switch it out 3 times in a year.) After a year of abuse, it could use some TLC. Someday I think I'll hotrod it cause it looks great, and is built on a solid platform. Right off the bat it could use a rewire with additional sheilding, if not just replacing the pots and preamp. The p/u's seem comparable to bartoloni soapbars, but it's tough to tell masked by a somewhat shaky active preamp.
I've never had any problems that delayed a show besides a broken string, and thats my damn fault.

Never tried it.

It was a good first gig bass, now it's a great reliable backup to my NEW MM STERLING!!! HAhahahAhahahahah....

If your an accomplished bass player, and looking for something to gig alot, and record, your gonna have to spend more than $300. But, if you got about $300 (or less) to spend on a bass, you could do alot worse than this, and not really any better. BANG FOR THE BUCK!!

Nice passive pickups/active EQ, more volume, tone and selector knobs on there than I could decipher, but I soon figured it out. The bridge is really nice and given the right EQ settings you can get a really lovely curved sound or a nice clicky sound (brilliant for pick.)
It's got a thu-neck which is nice, the un-laquered wood really pisses me off though as a pick just strips the varnish right off, the headstock is nice and small (unlike my other basses) and the hardware is solid.

A huge range of sounds here, clicky, curvy, a really nice full bass tone and it can also growl like a biatch when you put brand new strings on it.
I prefer to play it with the active EQ, the neck pickup on full, the bridge one rolled off to half with the tone on full (I usually roll the tone off on my basses, but here it's really good)

Argh, that damn bare-wood. I'm sure if this bass was laquered it would be no problem, but as someone said before, you can't use this thing live, the varnish would be gone by the end of the evening and as I bought this 2nd hand it is already full of little dents made by picks and fingernails.
The action is fine, no problems there, nice and low. The fittings are all ok, except for the strap nut coming off a bit, but that is inevitable with all basses in my experiance.

I have 3 basses but I tend to play more often with a plectrum, I have to say that i'm not all that happy about gigging with it. Sure, it's brilliant for fingerstyle and slap and in the studio it has a great pick tone too. But live, I tend to go a little crazy and stripping off the varnish isn't such a great thing to do. It may sound stupid, but there is always the worry with a thru-neck that the wood will warp or the neck will snap, in which case the whole damn bass (save hardware and electronics) is totally useless. So i'm not too keen on karting it about. So this is the one area where this bass bottoms out, it may be outstanding in the studio, but live, it falls flat on it's face.

Well, considering DeArmond was once it's own company, then became part of Guild and now seems to be gone forever, i'm not entirely sure who i'm supposed to ask for when this bass goes wrong. The people at Fender are pretty useless and I highly doubt that spares are available for this bass anywhere anymore.

This bass is a studio bass, nothing more or less. It is a great studio bass in fact, but you'll be unpleasantly surprised when you try to use it live. If you're really gentle with your basses then use one of these, but I tend to beat the living crap out of my basses live and in practice, so make your own decision on that one.
It's comfortable, easy to play, sounds great and it looks cooler than anything available on the second hand market. Unfortunately DeArmond is no more so you'll be hard pressed to find one of these great basses at a good price anymore, I got a phenominal deal (brand new they apparently went for 600 Pounds in England).

my bass had arrived! packed, it weighed 13#.....this is going to be good! it came in tune, with the truss rod over adjusted. after loosening the rod, i tuned it up only to have one of the nylon spacers shoot off the tunner shaft and hit me in the nose; oh well! I quickly adjusted the bass, minutes later I was on my way to practice. here's what i think about this bass. year? don't care. crafted in korea. 22 vintage type frets (small)which allows one to get the string closer to the fingerboard; I like that! 5 piece maple neck with walnut stringers. swamp ash body wings, yes it's a neck thru. like most oil finished products, the finish is thin and on some parts, is not rubbed or polished; i've seen worse oil finishes on $2-3k basses. the body is offset, and the neck has a thin profile, feels nicer than my jazz bass. the thin neck with it's 5 piece lamination and 1/4" fingerboard, will surely hold up in the iowa humidity.........very, very comfortable to play! the bass is a 35" scale...never owned one before, and is easy to adapt to. i don't really feel the diff. tuners and bridge are of the gotoh type. all hardware is "matte" finished....looks good! 3 band active eq with humbucks. i played this thing with my amp (350 watt hartke / 4-10 cab)eq'd flat and the pilots settings flat; center detents. sounds strong, punchy, has a nice growl to it. almost p/j sounding with a touch of thunderbird! i'll probably eventually replace the p-ups with emg's, my favorite transducer.

after palying it for 3 weeks, i have found different setting to my liking, especially with just the rear pickup. yes it's somewhat noisey with the treble beyond 8, but i usually leave it flat. I can get punchy, spankin' tones, or deep, dark, full growly tones. i'm so stuck on the p/j combination that i usually revert back to that setting............hey it's a safe bet! miles and miles of wiring in the control cavity, complete with sloppy a sheilding paint job. i also dont like the preamp board fastend to the cavity cover. i really think this bass will wake up when i put some DR hi beams on it; and run it thru my sans amp di, peavy dpc 1000 and acme B-2 cab. it will be used in a 700 cap. chapel and various small clubs. by the way, the strings that come with it, guild i think? aren't that bad, i kinda like 'em! this bass will be used for gospel, blues. r&b, motown and western swing.....................i'm done with metal and fusion.

set up was lacking; had to work a number on this one, the bridge was mounted crooked. there is a slight raise in the neck lamination on the back near the bridge as well as a faint grease mark, probably from the cnc machinery. all hardware was mounted tight. frets are pressed in nicely and seem to be even......no buzzes here. the quality of the wood is good, nothing fancy. this bass is built to last.

i'm rating the reliability/durability a 10, even though i think the finish is thin. i'm very hard to please when it comes to oil finishes, being that i prefere my own finish techniques. i'm just glad that it's not a laquer finish. i believe that this bass will hold up well in the iowa heat and cold.......things get a little sticky around hear during the summer, and my vintage j & p basses suffer because of the humidity. i wish they had matte finish strap buttons, but these will do, they're solid. i think once this bass is adjusted, that it will stay in adjustment. i can tune it up at home, put it in the gig bag, pull it out and play in tune. this will be my primary bass.

i'm still waiting for my nylon spacers!!!!

the bridge mounting, finish, control cavity will be fixed by me. i plan on tearing it apart and will give it a 4-5 coat hand rubbed oil finish. i'll center the bridge and shield the cavity. i wanted a low cost bass that would sound great and be reliable.....i found it. i bought this one beacuse i'm constantly switching parts on my fender / custom made basses.........i'm addicted to modifying. i'll massage this one and leave it be. i have owned countless fenders, musicmans and 2 alembics. if this bass was stolen, i'd replace it, as for my alembic distilate, no. i have played lots of basses in my 22 years of playing, for some reason, this one suits me fine. for the $, you can't go wrong! if you have any questions about this bass, please feel free to contact me.

I submitted the review above. I need to make a few changes. It has passive pickups with an active EQ. The rest was right.

Still sounds great

Still looks wonderful, and plays like a dream.

This is the least reliable bass ever. You can scratch it badly with a stray fingernail, zip, button or breath of wind. That sucks.

What is worse is gigging with it. I ripped the strap button not just off but through the bass last night, leaving a big fuckoff gouge in it. Not only that, its gonna take some work to get a strap back on it at all, so might be a write off for live performance. Never ever gig this bass if you are a very active player. I take my basses to the extremes by leaping around, but even a beginner bass wouldn't do this. I am not happy. 300 quid on a piece of (admitedly lovely) shit.

Dont buy this bass for live playing. Great studio bass, no noise, nice action etc. Falls apart under strain.

Neck through, active electronics, pickup blend knob, 3 band onboard EQ, Gotoh style machine heads, 5 piece neck, 9volt preamp.

I think this is pretty much what you want for a bass. Pickups are unbranded but of good quality. Maybe an 18volt preamp would be nice, but not for the money. Whats an added bonus, is that its Fender built, which adds a touch of quality

Overall, a very well specd bass, especially for the money

I use a Qtron envelope filter, and a Zoom BFX708 mainly for distortion and octaver. Mainly however, I run clean. It has a very warm sound when the EQ is set flat, and when you give it some bottom end boost it can really punch. If you set the balance too far forward (to the neck pickup) and the bass up it can become a bit wooly, though this is easily sorted, by either turning the balance slightly toward the bridge pichup.

Overall, this has all the sounds you need for rock, funk, reggae, blues and pretty much anything I can think of. Its very quiet, and although not all the settings sound good all the time, its easy to find a sound you want.

This is what sold the bass for me. It is finished absolutely wonderfully. Raw wood (I think mahogany) with just a surface wax. The neck is baby's ass smooth and the cutaway allows easy reaching of its 22 frets. The long scale keeps everything tight, and the strings are unbranded but at least as good as the Rotosounds on my other basses.

Action is set very low, which is good for me as I don't play all that hard, but when I do it can genearate a bit of buzz round the 12th fret. Easily remedied if your style demands though.

Everything is adjustable, though most people wont need to. Quite frankly, a beautifully put together instrument, as you'd expect from a Fender owned company

The bass is quite light, but feels rock solid. At its first ever band pradtise, I passed it to my guitarist, who dropped it on to a hard floor, and it was totally fine. I have upgraded the strap buttons to schaler locks, but I would do this anyway, whatever the quality of them (they seemed ok). Stays in tune very well, I never have to retune during a performance. I have played live with this bass, and I do so with a backup, but I would play without without much worry. I really only take a backup in case I break a string, cos its quicker than restringing.

Haven't had to adjust trussing yet, and can't see myself needing to. A very solid bass.

I think it's a lifetime warranty, though I have no idea where it would go wrong. My local shop is very helpful and I'm sure they would sort everything as they have before.

Haven't called the company yet, though the website is not very helpful.

Been playing 2 and a half years, and this the 4th bass I have owned (I am a gear whore). This is better in my opinion than the Ernie Ball Musicman 4 string, at three times the price, and easily better than Ibanez, Yamaha, Fender or Warwick basses at similar prices. I'd definately replace it if it was stolen, unless I had a lot more money, when I'd get a Warwick.

I wish I had a case, but thats pretty much my fault for being skint.

Basically, I love this bass, and would recomend it to anyone with 300-800 to spend. It really is that good. I may upgrade the electrics later, but purely for the sake of perfectionism, it really doesnt need it.