« Tons of bass for the money »

This offering from Fender comes from their plant in Mexico. It is considered a best of both worlds bass taking features from both the Precision and Jazz bass. I own the Blizzard Pearl model with a maple neck.
The bass is equipped with a 20 fret Jazz type neck. There are options available for maple or rosewood except for the navy blue metallic which is only available with the rosewood fret board. This bass comes standard with a vintage type bridge where the string rest on a barrel type saddle.
The bridge allows for adjusting the string height and intonation of the individual strings and is finished in chrome. The bridge also holds the strings ball ends and does not have a string through body option.
This bass is equipped with both a P and a J style pickup. These are the vintage noiseless variety and work in tandem with the onboard active electronics. Both pickups are controlled by a single volume control, which is the first knob. Instead of a traditional selector switch the second knob acts as a blend switch. At each extreme of this knob one individual pickup will be active while the other is silent. As the knob travels between extremes the pickups are blended in varying degrees. There is also a center detent on this knob which offers an equal amount of the P and J pickup.
The next 2 knobs are responsible for the active equalization of the bass. The third knob in the series is actually a two part knob where the smaller top hat of the control adds or cuts the high end and the larger skirt of the knob does the same for the bass frequencies. They both have a center detent to indicate unity with altering of the tone. The fourth and final knob controls the midrange frequency and as the third knob it also has a center detent for unity gain and adds or subtracts midrange frequency as it is dialed away from center. The electronics are active and do require a 9 volt battery in order to operate.


UTILIZATION

This offering from Fender is a solidly built instrument. It feels substantial when held and is well balanced. The neck is fully accessible and plays very easily. The quality of the fretwork and neck build allow for action to be set to preference as long as the user has the neck set up properly. The bass sits very comfortably on the knee but as with many full size basses might get shoulder heavy after a long session. The bass sits very comfortable against the body and the contour on the lower bout affords a high level of comfort to the picking hand.
Being a best of both worlds design this bass is very easy to get that sound you are looking for as well as some you might not have expected from it. The pickups are quiet as the name suggests but still retain that open sound. The electronics offer a huge amount of useable control but be careful as they do allow for large decibel increases and will easily overload if the user does not use the volume in tandem with all the gain available. This bass is capable of producing just about any sound that might be in your head.


SOUNDS

I use this bass in three different situations. I use a fender bassman amp for one, Amplitube, Ampeg edition for another, and the last is with a Tech 21 Para D.I. box. In all three instances the bass has exceeded my expectations. My main reason for this purchase was to have a bass that would offer that classic P bass sound but have the flexibility to do other styles when the situation called for it.
It covers P bass tones from Steve Harris to Roger Waters up to my greatest expectations. I am overly impressed however with the pop and slap style that it can also achieve. As I alluded to earlier this bass also has enough equalization variance and gain to achieve heavier or more distorted tones.
I play and record music from heavy metal to old classic rock as well as some worship music. I find that unlike my other bass or others I have tried over the years in this price range this instrument pleases wherever it is applied.


OVERALL OPINION

I believe this bass to be one of those truly great values that so few instruments offer. I have tried a few bases out and for the money this one could not be beaten. I have played more expensive instruments that have been better but that is to be expected. It would take over double the price in my opinion to top this instrument. The sound quality and build have exceeded my expectations but at this price point and with a mostly machine build there are variances in quality that should be noted.
First off the neck is very playable and the frets are set and crowned nicely, the instrument does intonate well across the whole board, but without the niceties like rolled edges you would find on a higher priced model. The bridge is useable but I fully understand that a higher mass bridge would be better for it. The finish is comparable to my American series guitars but with very minute tiny flaws that have to be closely examined to see. One was a slight swirl in the finish color that is a tad darker and the other a slight bump as if something got caught under the finish or a spot missed sanding between the bridge and control area. Both of these are minute and would not call for a return of the instrument I am just highly observant and picky about my gear. The bass played and sounded too phenomenal to try another or nit pick, I have seen many higher priced instruments suffer worse over the years. The only other gripe is aesthetic and an easy fix, the gold pick guard is defiantly an acquired taste to say the least.
Given my experience I would replace this instrument in a heartbeat if it were lost or stolen. It has taken me from someone that plays a bass because he had no choice to someone who now loves the bass playing experience.