robandrews's Reviews

Awesome bass

Brilliant bass guitar and, as a huge Dream Theater fan, I have always admired John Myung's playing - especially the speed and the range of effect-driven tones he's used on DT albums and on side projects like the Jelly Jam. This bass, which was one of Yamaha's era of signature instruments (which included other bassists' signature guitars by Billy Sheehan's Attitude III bass, John Patitucci's TRB and Nathan East's BB bass), offers a huge range of tone and when it as first made, was one of the best-value basses out there in terms of instrument production quality, tonal versatility and playability.

I got mine off of E-bay for about £850 in 2014, which was a bargain as I have seen them go more much more. Warning: B-String is floor-shakingly thunderous! The neck is fantastic and is much faster to play than the 'conventional' neck on my Fender American Jazz Bass. Really good bass guitar for rock music and will offer tonal range and playability capable of accommodating most other styles too. Controls are for three-band EQ, pick-up and master volume.

You'll be lucky if you can pick one up these days but If you're buying second hand, watch out for the condition of the bridge, tonal controls and the machine head pieces, I have seen the coating ware away quite quickly on the 'used' models. I really can't fault this instrument for those bass players wanting range of tone. I also love the 'infinity' inlay on the neck which was designed to compliment Dream Theater's Falling Into Infinity (1997) album, released around the same period.