DeArmond Pilot Plus 5-String Bass

This is a follow-up to my first review of this bass.

2001. Indonesia. 5 String bass with 22 frets. Balance, Low, Hi, Mid, Volume controls. 2 passive jazz pickups with an active EQ. Maple neck. Polar white finish. Wide 35" Scale neck.

I play many different styles of music, from funk to heavey metal. I have played in my highschool jazz band for 3 years and this bass gets great jazz tone. If plucked near the neck it gets a decent upright tone. We tend to play a lot of funk in jazz band as well. Although it may not have the bess slap tone, it gets the job done well.

I also play a lot of Tool. With a new set of DR strings, this bass gets that signature Tool bass tone. I am quite happy with the way this bass sounds.

One major downside to this bass is its horrible 5th string. I could blame it on the pickups, but this thing sounds horrible even when unplugged. I still like the 5th string because that is where I rest my thumb when playing jazz.

From what I remember, this bass was set up decently from the factory. However, when I got more advanced in my playing I adjusted everything myself. I ended up lowering the action slightly and adjusting the intonation.

The only flaw in this bass was the finish in the neck. In 3 places the finish was non-existant. This resulted in big green areas where oil and dirt from my hands got into the wood. For now I dont plan on fixing this but I might eventually.

This is a very solid bass. Rock-solid neck and body. Very good hardware for the price paid. Solid, chunky bridge will stand up to anything you put it through. Finish seems very thick and durable.

Strap buttons suck. Button on upperhorn tends to loosen very frequently. I plan on replacing them with Dunlop Straploks.

I have never had to have the neck or truss rod adjusted. Stable throughout all seasons.

I would definately go without a backup but I would recommend having a spare set of strings and a spare 9v battery.

Never had to deal with Fender about this bass.

This is my fourth year playing bass. If stolen I would probably opt for a better bass than this one, but this bass has served me well indeed. My favorite feature is its neck. Although it is very wide, it is comfortable to play on. The only thing I plan on changing is the pickups eventually.

For $169, this bass could not have been beat. Original price for this bass was $350. Soon I plan on moving on to the father of this bass, a true Guild Pilot. I give this a 10 because the drop down box for the rating said "10-Fantastic value." However, a true rating of this bass would probably be around 6-7.

I got this two or three years ago - as my first bass. At the time I liked stupid bands like Korn and wanted the cheapest 5 string I could get. CHEAP - I guess you really get what you pay for. Hesres a physical discription: One of the ugliest basses I have ever seen. I HATE the body shape. HATE IT!! I remember looking in musicians friend catalogs and thinking "God, thats the stupidest looking bass ever - Its the last bass I would ever want" and yet I bought it. Hate the pickups and electronics. I'm never buying a bass again that runs on battery. One of my stupid friends left the thing plugged in and used up the battery in one day. I bought the floor model so it had a few scratches. And in case you care I bought an ugly black one. I hate the neck - the string spacing is too far apart for my taste. 5 strings are stupid, by the way. I wound up just taking the 5th sring off - It made me angry.

Try to picture hearing the crappiest bass posible. At this point you're probably thinking "who does this fool think he is? This is his first bass, he's got nothing to compare it to." I'll have it know that I've played other basses - just never bought other basses. And I dont need anything to compare this to - once you behold a pilot, you KNOW its crap. The sound it JUST PLAIN AWFULL. It doesnt sound warm or bright or clear. Don't even try usind this bass to play slap style. Dont. Theres an annoting click sound every time (un amlifyd) that you can only hear instead of the actual bass notes. An my god - that awfull buzz. If you like a nice, buzzy sitar sound then this is the bass for you.

Dont get me started

Dont bother buying this bass because you'll just wind up needing to buy a new one. So far every single part of my bass it broken. You also cant rely on this bass because of the battery thing that I mentioned before.

Dont even bother - just get rid of it like I did

I hate virtually everything about this bass. The only reason I'm still going to hang onto this bass is because I've made it my own. I've made it into a work of art. It has multicolored strips of duct tape running down it now (silver, red, white, black) and looks very cool. I also made additions to the body scult using a varietey of materials 9Igave it a normal looking shape by making a corner there where there should be one and I also added a scroll to one of the horns to make it look similar to a Carl Thompson Bass. The reason I'm giving this horrible bass a reveiw is to 1) warn you not to buy it and 2) About an hour ago I just bought a new bass of of ebay after I finally got WAY to fed up with this bass. I'm writing this kind of as a way of closure - to kill my old bass's spirit. This time I did it right by buying a much more expensive bass with much better quality. A Warwick Corvette Standard 4 sring. Let this be a lesson to you all: you get what you pay for

2001, Made in Indonesia, active preamp [9v]:bass, mid, treb, bal, vol. Maple neck w/rosewood board, agathis body. mine is crimson red metallic. I got it for $160 @ Sam Ash during the blow out sale. spent $80 more to get restrung and setup with Ernie Ball 5s. Altered jazz body style. came with wrenches-to the above about getting the plastic thing off the knobs-take wrench loosen knobs, take knobs off, take off plastic, reattach knobs. This will also help tighten them-however mine still come loose and i've decided just to leave off the mids knob.

This is an active jazz 5 made over seas. thats how the tone is. Gets great gritty Jaco-esque tones to Funk slaps, to reggae thud/dub. I've used this bass for Marching band, Jazz Band, Show Band, and for show choir-gets all the sounds i need. Dislike: B is kinda flabby.

When i took it outta the box the setup was terrible, the bass was intonated nearly a half step off. Pickups: the bridge pickup needs more foam underneath it. No finish flaws though. After a set up i'll give it a 9 but before a 1 that goes to a 5 in my book.

This bass survived goin through all kinds of changes in humidity and temperature with out going outta playing condition. I'd use it without a backup. It's made by Fender
dearmond->Fender:

Great customer support through local dealer. however for this it's n/a

Overall, this thing will last a while-however i'm upgrading within 6 months to a DP Custom 5 so this one will be strung with flats or something. it's a $160 bass that plays great-what can i say?

marone mettallic plus 5. Not really metallic. Came fitted with four string pickups and I had to wait for seven weeks for the correct pickups to arrive. It has the sloppiest 5th string of any 5 string I have played, yes it is worse than an Ibanez.

Has shocking fretbuzz after the 14th fret and the pickups hum so badly you can hear them through the amp. After a lot of playing with the setups it sounds OK but is a beginners guitar. They are going to use this shape for squiers so sell yours before it is worth nothing.

Finish was OK after they polished out crazes in the paintwork. The V that the 5th fret sits in is too small and needs modifying to get rid of the sloppyness of the fifth string.

I am returning mine to Fender because it is a complete lemon and will buy something else. There has been way to many problems to risk using it live.

Fender has tried to fix some of the problems but they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Someone did a big mistake with the four string pickups.

I have been playing since 1974 and have played on numerous albums. I own 11 Fenders and have had little trouble except for the setup on a Mexican Jazz that needed to be lowered by 2.5mls. I wish someone would steal this lemon I hope Fender takes it back. Fenders quality apart from setting up has improved over the 70s to 90s guitars. They should never have built this model.

2001. Indonesia. 5 String, 22 frets. Balance, Low, Hi, Mid, Volume controls. 2 jazz pickups. Passive pickups, active EQ. Maple neck. Polar white finish. 35" Scale neck.

I like playing heavy metal. Nice sound for metal. I still use my cheap Rogue because I like the distorted sound of it better. VERY quiet pots. I would recommendc this as a stage axe because it looks really cool.

Likes: Awsome pickups, although I plan to replace them with EMGs.

Dislikes: Takes a good while to learn the EQ system.

Awsome stock set-up, although I had to raise the action a bit to suit my preferance. The frets are small, too, but that just takes some getting used to.

Polar White finish.

Likes: Finish. I love the wide neck.

Dislikes: Frets are noticably farther apart. I don't like playing fast high note riffs such as Anesthesia by Cliff Burton.

This bass will be my primary stage axe. Very solid feel. Hardware is awsome. Really stout bridge. Finish will last a long time. I would use this without a backup because my band and another usually play together.

I don't know. I have had no problems with it. I will give it a 6 for that reason, although its made by Fender, so I suppose they have good Customer Support.

1 year manufacturer's warranty with 12 month extended warranty.

I have been playing for 6 months now and this has allowed me to progress further. I would probably buy another guitar just to have a different brand, but I would definately buy it again if I had the money. My favorite feature is the polar white finish. I compared it with Fenders, but when this went on sale, it was mine. I was close though, the last order of 18. MF discontinued the color.

Sweet guitar. Active EQ, volume and balance control, everything you need to slap out the funkiest jams to the hardest riffs. Chrome hardware, and a nice black finish. The only complaint I have is that the botton isn't straight aligned (it's supposed to be that way), which really doesn't look quite as good as other basses when you're playing. Good guitar though.

Sounds fine, I'm more of a guitar player, but as far as basses I've heard and played, it's up there. Not to mention that I'm runnning it through a guitar amp, so I can only imagine how good it sounds in a real bass amp.

The action is fine, nothing special, but because of the huge neck, it's hard to reach the higher frets (low B, E, and A strings), when your playing in the 15th fret and up range. They don't get used much though, so it's not much of a problem.

It's decently durable, but I have one big complaint. The company puts those damn plastic things under the knobs that tell you what knobs do what, and give you no easy way to take it off. It looks like crap sitting there, so your forced to tear it off, using knives and such. Not only is it hard to get off, but the process wreaks havoc on the knobs. My volume nob is now extremely loose (I can jiggle if from side to side, although it still works), and my mid eq knob actually came off, and you can't just stick it back on, you have to go to a professional. So for the past month I've been playing with a missing knob, and it looks like crap. In all practicality, it works fine, but they really should stop putting the plastic things under the knobs. Another thing which I have no idea how it happened, and have yet to get fixed. The 14th fret on the high D and G strings, umm, well doesn't work. The frets all sound fine, until you get to the 14th fret, where it emits a buzzing sound, and the note that is supposed to sound doesn't come through at all. It didn't come like this, and it came up out of the blue, it just happened one day. I don't know what it is, but it's kept me from playing some favorites like the intro to Around the World and the solo during the bridge of Papa Roach's Between Angels and Insects. Despite the knob and fret incidents, the bass seems to otherwise be a long-lasting bass that you could play for quite a while.

I will have to deal with the company soon, but as of yet I can't say how the service is.

It's decent enough, I'm not an avid bass player, I lean towards the guitar, so it gets the job done. But if your a hardcore bass player, you might wanna consider giving this bass a long hard second thought.

Five string bass, made @2001 in Indonesia, body shape not too dissimilar to a Fender Jazz( Guild resurrection). Cobalt blue finish ( it says metallic, but not really), Maple with rosewood board neck, active electronics with built in battery compartment, two J pickups, die cast bridge, actually fairly nice tuners for a De Armond; 35" scale with 22 jumbo frets and a 2" nut expanding to 3" at the neck pickup. Allen wrench ( L-end) the only tools included. One Volume control, a treble, middle, bass and balance (pre-amp) control. Five controls - count-em.

Wide variety of sound. I play jazz/rock, always wanted a nice 5 string but didn't want to pay $800 for one. This thing can play any style if you can handle the wider neck and learn the electronics settings.

Action was good, for a De Armond ( De A guitars are typically horrible out of the box). Everything seems to fit fine, finish is pretty much immaculate. All the controls seem to work fine.No problems so far.

This bass would take live playing. Seems like it would last, but I don't play bass all the time (guitarist first. I wouldn't think twice about playing it out. Need a spare set of strings nearby ( thats true for any stringed instrument). Unless you really beat the crap out of your stuff ( I don't), this is a very solid 5 string.

Warranty is limited lifetime from Fender. I have a De Armond guitar that needed correction out of the box, and they took care of it, no cost, no problem. I would expect nothing less.

I've been playing for @ 28 years, am a guitarist first, but taught bass and guitar for 15+ years. I fell in LOVE with a Warwick 5 string in the range of $1000, but you know what? This thing fits my bill. $159 for a 5 string, built in pre-amp, good (not great) hardware and that beautiful Guild knock-off look??? Only a fool would pass this by.
Incidentally, Bass Player Magazine did a special review on this bass about one year ago and pronounced it a BEST BUY at $599 !!!!. Their review was on the mark. If you can get this for $159, and don't, well...........

One other comment. The neck is a little wide at the top for the 5 or 6 string novice. If the neck was just a tad trimmer than 3", this bass would be out of stock, everywhere.

PS This bass kicks the shit out of Fender basses in the $600 - $900 price range.

New 2001, Indoneasian, 22 frets, 5 string, solid body basswood, maple neck - rosewood board, 2 humbucker p/u's, active, enclosed tuners. 5 knobs - vol, bass, mid, treble, balance. Comes with Allen wrenchs for set up but no book.

Strings that came on it were garbage. Installed GHS flatwound. B string is not as loud as other 4 but not too bad. I only just got the new strings and haven't figured out the controls with my amp yet, but it sounds pretty good. Particularly for less than $200 total delivered.

Set up was close out of the box. Neck was right on and intonation and action weren't far off. No fret buzz or dead spots. 1 small nick in the paint. Neck has a small tight knot, about 1/16", high up that doesn't affect anything. Except for the paint nick and the knot the Action, Fit & Finish is very good especially at the price. The wide finger board takes some getting used to.

I think it will be a keeper and will last.

N/A

I'd been thinking of getting a 5 string for the low B for awhile when I saw this bass on the Sam Ash web site. I have a fender jazz bass that I've played for years. I'd get another Pilot Plus 5 string if I lost this one. I wish it had a book explaining the controls. This is a good bass and a good deal for $159.