JB Player JBAB-6

Late '90s Korean made 6-string bass. Dual truss-rod 7-piece Maple neck through body construction with solid Swamp Ash body wings. Two passive soapbar pickups with active electronics with 1vol, 1blend, 1bass,and 1treble control. Finish is a transparent "matte cherry" with good figuring showing through. Bridge is die-cast. Neck is relatively thin with Jumbo frets.

This is a great sounding bass - live and in the studio. The only con is that the pickups are a little weak and I really have to pump it up in the studio if I'm running direct into the board. I'm able to get a huge variety of sounds out of it with the pickup blend controls: anything from boomy to thin. I usually have all the bridge pickup selected with just a little neck p/u dialed in to fatten it up. My only dislike is that if you only select one pickup the output (volume) is noticeably less than with both full on. The jumbo frets are a real plus with this bass - no rattle.

Action was good as set up from the factory and pickups were adjusted well. The strings were heavier than I like so I swapped them out with some lighter guage and had to re-adjust everything. No big deal, though. The fretwork was perfect and the action is low and easy. You don't have to pound on this thing to play it. Which brings up another con: if you DO pound on the B-string you'll get bad intonation - you just have to finesse it. One thing I had to get used to moving from a four string to this bass is that the string spacing is quite narrow for a six-string: 3 inches at the bridge. It took me half a year to get used to that, and it could lead to trouble if you do a lot of pop and slap. I think that is it's biggest con. But if you're willing to work with it, the sound more than makes up for this inconvenience. The finish is nice and smooth on the contoured body.

This bass has withstood live playing on a weekly basis for 3 years and I would imagine it will see many more years. The tuners will probably be the first thing to go, however. I'm thinking about putting in some Gotoh's the next chance I get. The truss rods only need adjusting when I change string guages - the 7-piece laminate neck is very stout. I use it regularly without a backup.

Never had to deal with them.

I've been playing since 1984. And for 10 years I played a MusicMan Sabre fretless. The JBAB-6 has a better sound than the MusicMan. It's very punchy and cuts through the mix well. I'd say it has a sound similar to Mark King's early recordings with Level 42. If it were stolen, I'd certainly replace it with another. I took a gamble with this guitar as I bought it sight unseen (and unplayed). But I figured I could'nt go wrong with the price. It has certainly surpassed my expectations.