Warmoth Jazz Bass

Fretted: NECK ebony board / flame maple neck / medium/jumbo frets. Finish is nitro lacquer (me). BODY Multi piece alder body with flame- maple laminated top. Finish is Warmoth factory poly.tobacco sunburst. Passive J DiMarzio neck and Bartolini MM bridge p/u's. Schaller and Gotoh hardware.
Fretless: NECK Rosewood board / birdseye neck. Finish is oil (soon to be lacquer). Body is one piece mahogany. /stained/ nitro lacquer.
Passive / J DiMarzio's neck and bridge. Schaller and Gotoh hardware. Both basses are rear routed with just Fender Jazz knobs showing at the front. I don't think Warmoth does lacquer finishes.

Depends on the woods and pickups you use. Because of the Warmoth neck reinforcing rods I would say there is slightly more sustain than a factory Fender bass. Strings and setup effect this also.

Duh......ACTION is only as good as you make it and the time cutting the nut etc. but the necks and truss rods are very stable and adjustable. Factory fretwork is good but you obviously need to level, runout, finish etc. a bit yourself to complete a set up. Remember this is build your own.
Fit ...neck to body, pre drilled bridge screw holes, pickup routing etc. is excellent. Visit their website for history and production automation etc.

Good

Good

If you are going to pay someone to do all the finish and setup work add all the labor and parts cost carefully ...it adds up fast. I have not followed Warmoth prices for the last year or so but if you do it all yourself it is well worth the time and effort. If you just do a hand rub oil finish job you end up with a homemade looking project. Spend the time, effort and $ for a lacquer or poly finish. When the time comes to sell it will make a big difference. Priced a new Fender US made bass lately ? OUCH !

I built this bass in 1999 with a Fender Jazz neck and Warmoth ash body. I changed the neck to a Warmoth maple/maple neck with 21 frets and no inlays (34" scale)in April of 2000. The body is a solid, 2-piece Ash with a yellow tint nitro-laquer finish. It has standard jazz bass pickup routes and a standard jazz control cavity route. The neck has a satin polyurethane finish (as an experiment). It actually worked very well and feels good. The pickups are Seymore Duncan Antiquity Jazz. The bridge is a Gotoh #206 from Warmoth, and it has the strings through the body. The electronics are a standard vol/vol/tone with a 10dB gain buffer/preamp w/bypass in it. I designed the preamp for a friend's Lane Poor equipped Jazz and put one in my own bass to test it out. It adds a depth previously not there, while maintaining the classic Jazz sound. It is defeatable and I can use it passive when desired. I made it as small as possible to allow a 9V battery in the cavity, too. Oh, I have a neck pickup cover on it, too, with a black pickguard off a '77 Jazz. Sweet!

I rate this a 9 on features because it's almost what I want. I'll likely add a battery compartment so I can quickly change batteries if need be. I will also be refinishing it soon as the original nitro was my first attempt and I've learned alot since then. I'm working on my next Warmoth right now.

This bass has the TONE! It's very deep, with a smooth top end. The mid-range speaks well, too. It's a very cutting bass, but not sizzly. The preamp helps the highend come through, but also adds some punch. I've used it with a number of styles (jazz, rock, pop, blues, etc) and it fits in every situation. It sounds very clean, but it still has the "raw" Fender sound. The Antiquity pickups rock! Classic jazz bass all the way.

Well, my finish stinks, but I'm redoing it this summer. Action is absolutely perfect, though. I set up my basses extremely low, and this one is no exception. The neck feels more solid than any bass I've ever played. It fit's me perfectly. The neck sits very tight in the pocket, too. It is straight and extremely solid. The only thing I'll change is the neck plate. I find the Fender plate a bit bulky. When I refinish it, I will use washers counter-bored into the body. I'll also cut a little bulk off the heel.

This bass is the most durable I've ever played. It's fallen a few times and comes up in tune. The Nitro finsih is thin right now, so it has worn very poorly, BUT... It has a tone of character. It looks like a well used Jazz.

Warmoth is absulutely a joy to work with. I've ordered a number of things from them over the past few years. Very helpful, and quick to respond to emails, too. I'm a Warmoth convert for life.

I've been playing about 14 years. I have a highly modified Yamaha BB1600/G&L fretless, a highly modified Fender Jazz 5 (also with custom wound Antiquities) and I'm completing a Warmoth Gecko 5 with alder/quilt body and birseye maple/BM neck, Bartolini pickups, and my own custom electronics/DI. My current rig is an SWR St220 (still stock for now) and an Eden 210XLT cab.

This bass has no comparison in my opinion. I love it.

Parts made in 2000/2001 in Warmoth factory in Washington State. 21 frets, 4 strings. Neck is made out of Paduk, a red African hardwood with a Pau Ferro fingerboard. The body is made of walnut. Both are of the standard Jazz Bass style. 2 Dimarzio Ultra Jazz humbucking jazz bass style pickups. Standard Jazz style wiring, 2 vol, 1 tone. I ordered neck with dunlop size 6100 frets, the biggest warmoth offered.
It does all a standard Jazz bass should do, I could have added a coil tap for more sounds - any lack of features is due to my own design since I assembled this bass. I got a great deal on the pickups and schaller tuners($29 and $25 at music store closeout). Got a lot of the electronics from stewart macdonald. The neck was $200, and the body was $187 if I remember correctly. Bridge, pots, wiring, jackplate, and knobs brought the total cost up to around $500.

I like to play around with slap/funk type stuff, and play basic rock, and heavy metal. I'm using this with a Trace Elliot BLX-80. Sounds good, and gets lots of sustain due to mass of neck and body. I'm really reviewing the neck and body, and they definately add to the sound of this bass - hard to say what it would sound like with active electronics, but that is something I could try in the future.

Well I set this up myself, so any flaws in set up are my own. I made a few minor mistakes constructing it, most of which aren't very obvious. The neck came from Warmoth's thrift shop with the frets I ordered in completely flawless condition. The body did have a minor scuff at the bottom when I unpacked it. Might have occured in shipping, but I was able to sand it out in about 10 minutes with no problem. when I unpacked each of these components, I new that I had parts that are far about the quality of most production instruments. Some advice to anyone wanting to do this themselves - be very careful of your wood choice if you want to be "unorthodox". The red paduk neck and light brown walnut body I have don't really match that well. The are close enough in color to not contrast, but not close enough to match - like blue socks with black pants..:-) My own fault there, the warmoth website showed me the EXACT neck I was going to get, and the color of the body (which is typical walnut). Also, pay special attention to drilling the neck holes - I missed a lining it up perfectly, and have a "gap" at the top of the neck/body joint almost big enough to slide a credit card in between. The strings don't line up exactly over the neck due to this - they are about 1/16" farther away from the edge of the E string side than on the other side at the neck joint. Don't let this happen to you..:-) No fault of warmoth here, but only my own lack of attention. The paduk neck is beautiful with a funky grain and color, and feels great. The body is fairly plain by comparison, but is pretty cool. I have seen some >$1,000 basses that don't have wood that looks as nice as this - but it's your standard walnut wood.

Well, it's the time tested fender design, which is pretty solid. I believe that the neck is possibly tougher than a maple neck, only time will tell. The body is pretty hard and solid. Wouldn't want to gig without a backup, but this bass would be as good as any, I guess.

I talked to them on the phone twice to order the neck and body. I ordered the neck from the thrift shop portion of their site, which is great - because it lets you view a photo of the front and back of the parts. The guy I talked to was able to tell me that my first choice of a similar neck with ebony fingerboard was already sold. I told him to try this one, and he went and got this neck while I was on the phone, and told me about it. Since I could look at the photo as he was telling me about it, this was pretty cool - almost like being at their factory and checking it out in person. I told him what kind of frets I wanted, and that was the end of the call. Took about 1 1/2 weeks to get it delivered. The body I had made to my request, and just told the guy on the phone what options I wanted from their catalog. In retrospect I would had them do something less traditional - since they were making it from scratch per my order anyways. They told me it would be around 3 weeks for the body to arrive, and they were right. Everyone I talked to at Warmoth was friendly, and much more knowledgable than your average music store type employee. The body and neck are warranteed for a year, according to the literature that came with them. The website is great - I look at it all the time. The best website out there if you want to do this type of thing, since you could build a guitar or bass - seeing the exact pieces of wood you would get.

I have been playing guitar for almost 18 years, and bass for about 17.
I have a fender Japanese P-bass, a telecaster, 2 stratocasters, a musicmaster guitar, a gibson marauder, a jackson strat-style....blah blah blah. I like this bass as much as anything I own. If I had it to do over again, I would match the neck and body color up better, and pay more attention to the fit of the neck. Also, I would have went for a less traditional style, like a warwick or something. I love the solid feel of this bass when I strap it on. It's heavy and powerful feeling. Very organic with the wood grain showing. I think I'm selling one or two of my guitars, and building a guitar next. If I lost this bass for what ever reason, I would be very upset. I would most likely build another one from warmoth parts - maybe not the same style, though. A final bit of advice - cutting the nut on an instrument like this is not trivial, at least not for me. Wiring up the pickups was easy, but I spent hours on the nut. I don't think I'm even going to try to do the guitar nut when I build the guitar - I'll get a guitar tech to do it for me....

This one is a jazz-bass made from Warmoth parts. It features a mahogany body with quilted maple top and a maple neck with rosewood (slab-) fingerboard and jumbo frets. Both, neck and body came unfinished, but the neck was sealed in an oil bath, ...that serves as a finish. The body was oiled by myself.
The body features backside routing, two volume-, one tone control, and active EMG jazz PU's. I installed Schaller BMFL Tuners, an ETS tuning-fork bridge (German manufacturer) and Schaller strap locks (all hardware is finished black (incl. neckplate, jackplate, controls), no gold on this one!!!)
I usually use D'Addrio Slowounds, if I can't get them, I take Ken Smith Bass Burners.

This Bass is VERY heavy (I've never had a 70's Jazz, but this one must be at least as heavy as a 75 Fenderjazz, thanks to the mahogany...). Neck always points up in the sky (or PAR's). Besides the wheight, perfect handling, due to the oiled neck and the large body (I like bigger ones best, ...ever owned a Gibson Ripper?)

Rating for features must be 10, not because of the amount of features, but because it's perfect the way it is, and that's E-X-A-C-T-L-Y the way I wanted it to be!!!

I'm playing a large variety of styles, from pop-ballads, to Springsteen/ Cream/ Velvet Underground to Beastie Boys (cover band for adults, age 30+), but my favorite styles are Stoner Rock (Kyuss, Fu-Manchu) or altenative (Weezer...), sometimes stuff like Oasis...

My setup: Bass ---> EH Big Muff ---> Tubeworks tube overdrive ---> DOD envelope filter --->Boss FZ-3 fuzz ---> Dunlop bass-wah ---> SWR Workingman's 300 (amp) ---> Workingman's 4x10 (enclosure)

In combination with my setup and the EMG's tone control, I'm able to realize a wide variety of sounds, which have one thing in common: They have to be FAT. Even fatter than the fat lady next door, fatter than ten tons of french fries!!! No Level 42/ Mark king sounds here, no sizzeling hights here!!! BUT, at the same time in no way muddy like an old Gibson SG-bass. The bass is always punchy and right there... Fat, but clean (thanks to my SWR).

The bass was set up by myself, only the nut was installed and cut by a local music store.
Action is very comfortable and the frets were installed very accurate by the guys at Warmoth.The parts were perfectly finesanded by factory and ready for finish. Some holes (tuners, neckscrews on the body, controls) were predrilled. The body looked gorgous, even without the finish (wait untill you put some oil on, uhhhhhhhhhhhh baaaaaaaaaaaaaaby!!!).

This bass is built like a german tank (and it has the weights, too)!!!
The only thing i have to think about, are the EMGs and the battery they need. I can totally rely on this bass.

Hey, I'm from Germany and I orderd the parts from this side of the Atlantic. It took some time till I had the Parts but they were exactly the way I had ordered them.
Customer Support? On this side of the Atlantic, you're kidding... If you decide to to get some Warmoth parts over here, I suppose it's at your own risk...
Since I haven't dealt with them, no rating.

This is MY ultimate bass.
All other instruments I own are more or less backups (even though I don't need them): Fender FotoFlame Preci., Fender Musicmaster, Roland GR-77 (does anyone remember this one, he he?). I only use them for certain sonic needs: Musicmaster for muddy sounds and Beastie Boys fuzz sounds, Precision for classic rock (R. Stones, Neil Young...).

Almost all basses I know, have something I don't like, visually or sonicly, and this Bass is the only one I'm totally contend with.

It looks fantastic and the sound is awesome. God bless Warmoth!!!

All Basses that can compete with it are way to expensive for me (especially here in Europe!!!); if I could, even then I'm NOT going to pay 5000,- to 7000,- Deutsche Mark (DM to $ is about 2 DM to 1$, so make it half) for a Sadowsky, Lakland or any other "Turbo Fender".

The only other Bass I'd like to get my hands on, is a Japan made 75' Jazz Bass reissue.

If you know what sound you want and in which way the sound of a guitar/bass is affected by wood, pickups and hardware, and if you are a little skilled with tools and paint/oil, then (AND ONLY THEN!!!!!!) are Warmoth parts a good solution to get a "customized" instrument.