JB-75MN NA Vintage Series : Great bass for "fiddlers"

Really wanted a 4 string fretted to go with my Warwick Rockbass fretless. J bass or P bass? Why not both!

Saw the HB basses and read the reviews. So given the money back guarantee I thought why not.

I had played a £300 Vintage V74 bass so knew what to expect (that bass was dreadfully setup and the output socket imploded when I tried to plug it in).

This HB was completely different. Solidly built (1, possibly 2, piece ash body), good maple neck with skunk stripe and maple fretboard. No major complaints. The machine heads work but there was a little wiggle room for retuning, but not bad if your in one tuning for a while. Nut was a little high, the relief was a little too much, the action was a little too high. Having said that much better than that Vintage bass. The pickups are Wilkinson (cloth covered wire, looks vintage). Only problem with the pickups are that the pole pieces are a little proud of the cover and I tend to "dig in" a bit when fingering and with a low action I was shaving the tips of my fingers off on the pole pieces. Nice bridge with brass saddles. After a setup including setting the truss rod and action the bass was perfectly playable. Could probably do with a fret level, crown and polish to get super low action and the nut cut down a fraction more, but nothing wrong for what you pay. (I would think most basses from the far East would all need this treatment, not just the sub £100 ones!)

Would I upgrade it? Probably not, the bridge is OK (I like the rapid loading Warwick bridge, but it's cheaper to buy a second bass to set up for flats or drop tuning than buying an expensive top loading bridge). The pick ups are fine (may put in a DPDT volume for series pickups. It's only the machine heads that could do with an upgrade if you slam the bass around a lot and knock it out of tune.