Reviewer	matt blake
Experience	5
Email	matt_blake@gmx.at
Review date	August 22 2003
Manufacturer	Fender
Model	American Fretless Jazz Bass
Price	€ 1350
Item owned for	1-2 years

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Bass type	4 string fretless
Neck join	Bolt-On
Neck construction	maple
Fingerboard	rosewood with plastic fret lines
Body	Fender says body made of alder
Finish	black
Pickups	2 standard Jazz PUs
Hardware	strings through body bridge, chrome
Electronics	passive, 2x volume, 1x tone

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I tried 4 at the shop, all of them with flatwound strings, I took the one that seemed to have most sustain. they all felt very different, had different weights and sounded different, too. mine is rather heavy. I changed the strings and had to adjust the neck, because the flatwounds had much more tension than my favorite set of roundwounds (d'Addario .045 .060 .080 .105; some people say that these strings ruin the fretboard, but I guess this will happen only if you play very hard. on the other hand, I don't really understand why Fender doesn't coat the fretboard with epoxy like on the Jaco Pastorius Bass; ebony would probably be too expensive in this price-class) how to adjust the string action on a fretless is a matter of taste. it depends on the amount of "buzz" you want in your sound. I acted as if the surface of the fretboard was the top of the frets, and I like it this way. I use it for about 10% of the program we play, mostly in the high range, where it sounds very vocal-like, but with the neck-PU on it's also able to produce serious low punch, only with less sustain compared to a fretted one.

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Construction	85%
(the rosewood fretboard may not live forever...)
Appearance	100%
(looks perfectly like a Fender Jazz bass)
Playability	100%
Sound	100%
Value	90%
(for me it just had to be a Fender; you could get more out of an active bass i
.e. by Yamaha)
Overall	90%

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