Johnson JJ-880

2003, 4 string, 20 fret, solid alder body, volume-volume-tone controls, dual single coil johnson pickups, passive, maple neck/rosewood board, transparent wine-red finish, jazz style, string thru bridge, non-locking tuners, thin neck, came with necessary alan wrenches. and a cord.

i mainly play rock, funk and pop covers. it's good for that. it sounds, well, like a jazz bass. best for funk, a great slap bass. bright and pingy.

i use this with a variety of amps depending on where i'm playing. all peavey amps. i find that this bass in particular needs a compressor to sound it's best.

noisy at times, mainly if one pickup is soloing. both pickups on, no noise. that's the nature of this setup for the pickups.

there's not a lot of variety here stock...from the factory, this is a poor man's jazz bass.

i got this from superbass.net via ebay. they asked when i won the auction how i wanted it set up and did a great job...i like my action low, and it came a little too low for my taste, but with no buzzing at all. wonderful. about ten minutes of work and everything was right where i wanted it.

this bass is a solid piece of work.

the wonderful finish does have dark and light spots. i think it gives personality, but i'll take points off nonetheless...

it's done well...basically this is a backup for me. but i usually pick it up to do a few songs at some point during the night. no issues, it's solid.

i switched to bass a couple of years ago, this is my third actually, along with a washburn fretless and a g&l 5 string. it's been a great backup.

does a great job of the jazz sound, i also put in a switch to go series/parallel. with the increased low end it does a decent job on nearly anything. easy mod, i highly recommend it, look on the discussion forums under "bass forum faq's" for instructions.

i got it for the price, and in all honesty if it were lost or stolen i don't know that i would get another. not because it's shoddy, just beacuse the sound of a jazz bass is really not for me.

not to be generic, but i would call this a killer student bass, backup bass, or project bass.

I'm Tommy. Please read, "MARCUS MILLER SOUND". Let me say this off the top, "my Johnson JJ-880 jazz bass(with the new AXL head stock) is "GREAT." This bass sounds exactly like Marcus Miller. That's the only reason I bought it.

This bass was made in 2003, in China, has 20 frets, and 4-strings. The body is solid, the passive controls are volume, volume and tone, and two(2) single-coils jazz pickups are not hum-cancelling. The body is alder and the neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard. The body finish is one of the prettiest 3-color sunburst I have ever seen(the paint job on the body looks like it costs $300 by itself). The finish on the neck is satin and smooth like a baby's bottom. Everything else on the bass is normal.

This JJ-800(new one) sounds exactly like "Marcus Miller". It's crazy!!! It suits all the music I play. The pickups are noisy because they are jazz bass single-coils, but are not hum-cancelling. Plus, the bass doesn't have any shielding for static noise. Regardless, the bass sounds absolutely fantastic ;-)
NOTE: The pickups are in the '70s Fender jazz location(4 inches apart). The '60s Fender jazz bass pickup location are 3-1/2 inches apart. For $172, this bass sounded better than a $1,700 Modulus-Genesis I heard in a music store. I'm sorry, this is the truth ;-)

The action, fit & finish were all cool. I tweaked the neck about 1/8" to straighten it a little. Other than that, the Johnson is cool.

I believe this bass will be reliable. And, if it isn't I'll buy another one at that price. However, the bass has a 5-year limited warranty. For $172, what else can I ask for.

The bass has a 5 year limited warranty.

I've been playing for 30 plus years. For the last 10 - 20 years I have pursued the "Marcus Miller Sound", this bass has the exact sound I have been searching for. Please understand that this bass sounds like Marcus, but it doesn't have a preamp. It crazy, but true. I love it!!!

Standard 4-String Fender knock-off, made in China around 2001. Passive electronics, two J-style pickups, two volume controls, one tone. Not sure of the body material, rosewood fretboard. Gave it a 5 on features because it has everything you need but is certainly not loaded with features. The best feature of this bass is the price!

This bass sounds as good as or even better than any Fender clone out there. I run it through a Snarling Dogs Bawl Buster Wah to a Electo-Harmonix BassBalls to a Roland flanger to a Roland keyboard amp (already had it when i decided to be a bass player). This thing sounds great! When I first bought it, there was some noticible hum and noise (this was before I owned a single effect). Not knowing a thing about guitars, I simply opened 'er up and re-soldered all the connections, problem solved. I also replaced the factory strings with a set of D'Addario Slow wounds and that improved the sound greatly. I really do think this is one of the best sounding basses out there. I play alot of Widespread panic inspired psychedelic stuff all the way through to the straight in your face rock of Jerry Joseph and Bloodkin, and this bass can handle it all.

I don't remember how it was set up from the factory. This being my first guitar, I immediately took it apart to see what made it tick. Through trial and error (and a little help from my friends) I'm very pleased with the final outcome. I've messed around with the pickup height aboout a million times, but I've never had to touch the truss rod. The screw holes for the pickups are horribly mis-aligned so adjusting their height is a bit tricky, but oh well. Overall the bass looks great with its high gloss black paint and white pickguard.

I've dragged this bass all over the country in nothing but a soft-sided gig bag and there is not a sratch on it. Now that I know better I am investing in a hardshell case so I know it will last forever. I'm a big guy and I sweat all over this thing when I play and it still looks as good as the day I bought it. Once I got it all dialed in, I haven't had to make a single adjustment to it. Since all my "gigs" are pretty infomal I usually only bring this guitar and my Johnson accoustic bass (another GREAT Johnson product!) without any worries.

I've never had to deal with them. However, my wife delt directly with them when purchasing my Johnson accoustic bass as a Xmas gift and she says they are all great people.

I've only been playing bass for a year now, but what a year it has been! I've been a drummer my whole life and just decided to buy a basss on a whim one day. I knew nothing about guitars so I went for the cheapest bass I could find. Lucky for me it was this bass! Over the past year as I have gotten better and better and started to understand what makes a guitar good or bad I've come to love my Johnson bass more and more. I still like to go to music stores and play around on more expensive basses, but I always find myself comparing them to my Johnson. I just don't understand why people feel the need to buy such expensive equipment when it all boils down to a slab of wood and some strings. Granted, there are many bass players out there who need high quality equipment to do what they do, but I believe they are in the minority. Finally, if my bass were ever lost or stolen I would definitely replace it with another Johnson, no question.

I paid $190 for mine. Made in 2k. No idea where. 21 frets. 4 strings. Solid top. Two pickup volume controls and one tone. Two Johnson J style pickups. Passive electronics. Alder body. Maple neck, rosewood fretboard. Jazz body. Jazz neck. Non-locking tuners. Medium width neck. Didn't come with anything.

Well, my music style is rock, and this suits it just fine. The sound isn't "wow, that was awesome", but it's sound, and anyone knows you can manipulate your sound beyond the guitar. Sounds kind of hollow unless you put both pickups on the same setting. It's pretty versatile, too. You can slap pretty well, though the hammer ons are slightly a strain--you can work past it if your hammer ons are good. I'd say it's better for the stage, cause I've used it at about 45 performances and people keep telling me how good I am. I like it just fine. You get a nice guitar for 129, or 190 in my case. Oh, by the way, it look really nice with the blue finish, and it's got a tuner board like I haven't seen elsewhere.

The bass was set up ummmmm well. The pickups needed to be raised a little for my taste, but that's just cause I like a full sound more like jazz. Didn't have any flaws whatsoever.

It's withstood a lot. It's taken some hard hits being my first bass, and made only tiny dents. The finish is great. Strap buttons hold perfectly. Truss rod never never needed to be adjusted. I'd use it w/out a backup.

Wouldn't know.

The Johnson was made in 2000, not sure where it was made though..21 frets, 4 string, your standard Jazz bass configuration. It came with some crappy as hell passive Johnson J-Bass pickups...yuck. The body was made of Adler and was actually really nice. The neck was made of maple and had a rosewood fretboard, your standard jazz neck yet much much worse. Transparent blue finish, looked pretty decent.

The bass suited my style fine, just sounded like crap. I replaced the pickups with Dimarzio Ultra Jazz pickups, man what a difference. I then replaced the bridge with a Badass and the sound got even better. It wasn't too noisy, the pickups had no output though so that would explain that. I don't know how to describe the sound.....just plain crap. It can make a wide variety of chessy, crap sounds. Since the sound of a bass can be totally changed I did so. I bought this bass as a project bass and at the end it turned out with a really good sound, but thats just typical. We'll talk about playability later....

Bass wasn't set up....no good at all. The neck is horrible, if you try to get decent action the frets buzz. There's nothing you can do about it though...just have to play with bad action. The bass would have been a good project bass if the neck didn't suck so bad. As long as something has a good neck you can make it great, all the cheap hardware can be changed.

It's as durable as a cheap slab of wood can be. I've got no complaints here. Excuse me, but the word gig and Johnson don't belong in the same sentence. (except that sentence)

I wouldn't know.

I've been playing for 5 months. That doesn't mean anything bad though, I'm pretty damn good as far as punk bassists go. I also own a Fretless Fender Precision bass, a Peavey Combo115, a Sansamp Bass Driver DI, a Laney Hardcore combo amp, an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, and a Vintage 52 Reissue Tele. The Johnson is by far the worst pice I own. Not a good project bass, get something with a good neck on it and go from there. I bought this one because it was cheap and I thought I could turn it into a good bass.