JB-75MN NA Vintage Series : Good Enough to Gig with Professionally

To begin with, I initially bought this as a back up for my Fender Geddy Lee Jazz bass.

My first thoughts were, how can they sell a natural '75 style jazz bass with D'addario strings, Canadian maple neck and, in my case, a two piece maple body with a join so good I thought that it was a 1 piece body for this price?

To put things into perspective, I use a Radial Tonebone for tone shaping and DI which cost twice as much as this bass did.

Out of the box I found that the fit & finish was excellent for a bass at this price point. I have found over the years that the main difference between a low priced bass and a high priced one is the attention to detail in the finishing process. I had a couple of frets that were protruding ever so slightly as can happen with new basses many times the price of this one but less than 5 minutes with a small file and it was sorted. The tuners hold the bass in tune and the bridge is the usual familiar style but with brass saddles which is a nice touch. The body has what I imagine will be a tough poly finish and I can find no flaws in that either.

The neck is very well made with a very smooth satin finish and I actually prefer it to the very thin neck on my Geddy. It's still slim but feels a bit more substantial front to back.

The bass balances well on a strap and is very comfortable to play for long periods (90 minute to 2 hour sets at a time)

I play in a wedding/function band entertaining anywhere from 200 to 2,000 people and made the mistake of using this at a gig shortly after buying it. The mistake being that I enjoyed playing it so much that my Fender Jazz bass is now up for sale and I will be using this bass for all future gigs.

I see ads all the time where people have bought a cheap bass and sell them on due to having upgraded to a more expensive "name brand" bass. Over the past 30 years I have owned and played over 140 basses from one that I got for nothing to some costing over £3,000. This bass is good enough to use professionally and the only change to this bass I have made is that I prefer D'addario EXL165 strings over the EXL170s fitted to this one as I like a heavier A & E string.

I get the impression that this won't be my last Harley Benton branded bass if this one is indicative of the quality.