Westone Thunder 1 Fretless Bass

date of manufacture unknown but serial no. 5081434 exellent build quality using nice hardwoods - it is a bit heavy but the resonance is superb the original actives I have ripped out and replaced by active circuitry of my own design (supplied on request) this bass will feed back with my Marshall VBA400 and sustain most notes indefinitely! machine heads are a bit slack but it stays in tune for months with only slight tweaking needed at gigs. the only drawback is the rosewood fingerboard which has to be scraped by me every year because of the dents made by the guage of rotosound strings i use (110 E)

I can get any sound I want from this guitar - from heavy metal to swing

this bass has been set up and reset by me many times and is very easy. the truss rod is smooth in setting ( I reset for each new set of strings) the frets have all fallen out though (ha ha)

I have used this bass live for 10 years and apart from extreme buckle rash it is holding up very well - I knock the living **** out of it every gig and it puts up with me brilliantly ( I use another westone thunder as backup as I break lots of strings cos i,m a violent player)

I have been playing 40 years and I have literally tons of gear - I have used Fenders, Gibsons, Ricky,s, Gretsch, Alembic, Yamaha and many others but as a professional player the Westone beats em all. I reccomend this bass to all bass players

34" scale, fretless. made in 1983 in Japan, 4 string, P-Bass pu. Specs are on www.therathole.org. Maple and laminated ashwood body. light weight, narrow neck. The minimum necessary; i like that. Lightweight tuners, metal nut.

I can get a nice deep and warm sound with flatwounds and the tone knob down. Sound is forceful. Turning tone up gives plenty of brightness.

bought it used

The tuners look frail and they indeed haven't stood the test of time: The D and G have slack.
The PUs are not noisy and the volume and tone work perfectly. The truss rod was so far out it hit against the head stock, but still adjustable. Neck isn't perfect, I need a little too much bow and/or action to keep the low E from rattling; pressing the strings down at 1 and 17 shows much less distance for the low E than for the others. Dead spot at G position 6.

I think the factory burned down

Been playing 3 years. I cannot spend much on a bass. If I manage to buy new tuners for this bass I'll be rather happy with it, in spite of the imperfections of the neck. It is easily playable, and I very much
like the sound of it.

made in the early 80's in japan. 4 strings 20 frets (if it has some)solid top. one p-bass style pick-up. two knobs-volume and tone (how original. passive electronics. natural finishings. body style is unique. double cut-away. thin neck. regular tuners.

i play mostly blues and rock. i use a peavey mark VIII XP 350W head to a 2x10 cab. great fat fretless sound. got a natural chorus. and not noisy at all. spite the fact it got only one pick-up it has a large range of tone. the tone knob does the job!! full warm sound to bright sound. i mostly use it in home or studio. used it on stage only once and it was fine. one minus is noisy output jack, so i cant touch it when it connected to the amp. liked it alot.

the set up is good but i bought this used so i cant really tell whether it came that way from the factory.

very strong. going to last just fine. i have no other fretless so i have no back uo and its great. never adjust the neck. a solid rock!

i play for 7 years. i have a rickenbacker 4003. i would buy it again if it were lost or stolen. it is very light weight bass. very easy to play on. loved the ful round sound. for slinky neck i'd give it a 7. generally its a great instrument.