All user reviews of 3/5 for the Fender Deluxe Aerodyne Jazz Bass

I paid $630 for this bass and bought it online. I have been playing bass for about 1 year and only seriously started practing the last 6 months since I joined a band. I had a ESP bass and I liked alot but the wireing somehow went bad. A friend fixed it for me but after a couple of weeks I had the same problem (a strange rattle for a while and then it would stop making a sound at all). I had bought my neice a fender squire bass along time ago and she never used it. so I borrowed that and the guys in my bad said the squire bass sounded great. I missed the feel of my ESP bass but the sound was good on the squire. So I decided to upgrade to better Fender bass. I chose the Fender Aerodyne bass because it seemed to have the smallest neck radius and it was light weight. I thought that this would help me with my left hand. During fast parts of songs like Tom Sawyer by Rush my left hand/arm was reaching the failure point and I couldn't play until the song went back to a less intense part. I know that more practice is the best cure for this but I thought since I am buying a new bass anyways I might see if a smaller neck raidus helps. Also, the light weightness of the bass would prevent my neck and back from getting a little sore the next day after practice.


The weight of the bass is light and I can play all night without getting a sore neck or back. I like the placement of the input jack on the body of the bass. With my old ESP bass the guitar cable would always hit the floor and bend at the head of the cable when sitting in a stand. This doesn't happen when the input is on the body under the volume and tone controls. Also, I like the placement of the tuning machines. I just like having them on one side of the neck instead of having some one side and the rest on the other. I guess the most important thing is the sound. So far I like the sound I am getting out of this bass. When my band recorded some of our stuff during practice I was very happy with the sound of the bass on the recording. It sounded very good.

When I first got the bass in the mail I was a little suprised by the look compared to what I had seen on the web. I thought it was solid black but around the edge of the body there is a very thick and noticable wood/white color strip. It changes the look alot in my opinion. It looks kind of like white wall tires. At first I was unhappy and when I called Fender they said it should be solid black. But the person I talked to on the phone didn't know what they were talking about. I mailed their customer service department and some guy from Fender called me and told me that the wite stripe is supposed to be there and that you can't see it in the pictures on the web since they were taken using a white background. The fender guy said they were not going to get new photos for their web site. I had a few other questions/complaints but the Fender guy seemed pretty hostile and I was busy at work so I tried to get off the phone with him as soon as possible. Anyways, the guys in my band like the look of the bass and I am starting to come around. I guess the strip gives it a sort of classy look and it would fit in being played in jazz band as well as a rock band. My ESP bass was solid black and I loved the way it looked. But when I am playing all I really care about is a great sound. I am still playing around with the volume controls on the Aeroydyne. Right now I am turning the middle volume control all the way up (I think this gives the bottom jazz pickup the most control/volume). I am turning the top volume control all the way down. I seem to get alot of fret rattle and harmonics when I turn this control up. I think this control affects the percision pickups but even when I have it down to zero I think the percision pickups are still contributing to the sound. So its kind of confusing. Since there is not a manual for this bass I can't read about exactly how the volume controls are supposed to affect the sound of the different pickups. It almost seems like each volume control affects both pickups. Note, I can probably fix the fret rattle by adjusting the action but but for now I like the feel of the strings and I don't want to change anything.

On the back of the bass there is a small cover that you can unscrew to get access to the wiring of the controls. When I got the bass the cover looked like a piece of cardboard. It stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the high gloss black color of the body. Later when I took off this cover to see what was inside I found that the other side of the cover was plastic and had the high gloss black color. So the cover had been screwed on backwards. The Fender Customer rep seemed angry when I mentioned this to him and he stated that they do not come out of the factory like that. He said my bass must have been used and someone else screwed the cover on backwards. It wasn't a big deal to me since I could just screw it back on the correct way. But when you spend alot of money on something you want the little things/details to impress you. You don't want to find minor flaws like this. Which brings me to the pickups. One of the pickups was tightened down alot on one side and barley screwed in at all on the other. One of the swrews looked in danger of falling off. All the pickups seemed to be very loose. The guy from Fender said it was supposed to be like that and that it made the pickups fit the contour of the bass. I had no idea what he was talking about. I have read about how the hight of the pickup can affect the sound of the bass but I haven't heard that you would want to have one edge of the pickup very high and close to the strings while the other edge is screwed down tightly. I may be wrong since I am not an expert. But I went ahead and tightened the screws a little and tried to adjust the pickups to be alittle bit more even.

I am getting a good sound out of this bass and I like the fact that it is so light weight. Because of this I am keeping the bass and am happy with it over all. My experience dealing with Fender customer support was not good. But when I am jamming with my band I am not thinking about that.
I thought my old esp bass looked better but stoped working and my new Aerodyne bass is serving me well.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com