Fender American Performer Mustang Bass Review

Ride Sally Ride!

This Fender Mustang Bass is made in Corona, CA. It is in the "Performer" series and it is indeed quite the Performer! Straight out of the factory this Bass required no set up and is in perfect pitch from the nut all the way to the 12th fret intonation point. With the .95 gauge 5250 Fender strings this Bass plays with ease and is a joy to play. The neck is really nice and the pickups… read more give you a nice full sound. Great job Fender … this Bass is awesome. Thanks also to Andy Sheer for being the best rep I've ever dealt with at Sweetwater.

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Short scale? Hell yes!

As a life long Fender P-bass player I never thought I would entertain playing a short scale bass....boy was I wrong. At my age arthritis was creeping into my hands making fretting more and more difficult so why not give it a go? I contacted my Sweetwater rep Jonathon Casarow and he said they had one left in stock so send it to me. This bass has been an absolute joy to play. The… read more workmanship and hardware is top of the line and talk about tone! The American Performer has all the tone and growl you'll ever need. With Sweetwater's 55 point inspection my bass showed up in perfect playable condition and has been a joy to play. I'm very happy with my purchase and Sweetwater's sales tech Jonathon Casarow for assisting me on this purchase.

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Love it

The look is even better than the amazing photos. It's fun to play a short-scale bass. Felt like a toy at first, but this bass is serious. Added flat wound strings and the sound was awesome.

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This bass is amazing

This is an awesome bass. Top of the line electronics. Great sound and with a few tweaks plays amazing.

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A beautiful bass

I own two other American Fender basses (American Professional Jazz and American Professional Precision) and a Fender Mexican Precision. I love them all, so I was looking forward to receiving this Fender American Performer Mustang Bass. It's my first short-scale bass, and it doesn't disappoint. You hear a lot of people say that they sound just like their long-necked brethren and… read more it's definitely true. I love this Mustang bass. It looks and sounds great, and the rosewood fretboard is perfect. This is my third purchase from Sweetwater, and it's always a pleasure.

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Good Choice

As a guitar player wanting to add a bass, I was wooed by the Fender Firemist Gold player, but it wouldn't be available for months. That gave me time to reconsider, and I am glad I did. After watching more reviews, I thought I should upgrade to the performer series. White wasn't my first choice, but once I had this thing in hand and saw how nice it looked and how much it felt… read more and played like a quality instrument, I was glad I went with the performer series. Looks great, sounds great, and for a guitar player, easy to adapt to. Versatile, east to play. I recommend.

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Best bass I've ever owned

Killer tone,quality setup quality hardware.this bass is so easy to play& sounds amazing you can get any tone nice growling nice p bass tone&it is easy to play power chords on this bass .its small size lends itself to acrobat playing.like a guitarist who plays bass kool guitar!!!!!

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But I'm a guitar player...

So after auditioning several bass players for an original music project our singer says "why don't you play bass, you write the music", he writes the lyrics. I told him "I have a bass but the scale is to long for me". So I started looking for a short scale bass. I didn't want to sink a lot of money into one so I set a budget of $600. But everything I looked at seemed like to big… read more of a compromise. Then I looked closer at the USA AP Mustang bass, it ticked all the boxes. So I double my budget, heck it's only money and I don't like compromising. I pulled the trigger and man am I ever pleased. This just flat out rocks, I can reach the notes needed with the shorter scale and it just feels right. If you have trouble with a full size bass or are a guitar player that needs a bass this is your instrument. The staff at Sweetwater all work as one cohesive team so if your normal rep is on vacation you will still get the respect and commitment from any of their reps. Everyone is entitled to a vacation! Aaron T. I hope you enjoyed yours. Thank you Sweetwater for your industry leading customer service.

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American mustang bass

I have been playing the mexican version of the mustang for about a year, but have been wanting to upgrade lately so I purchased the American performer mustang last week! The American versions fit and finish is awesome and the sound and sustain with the strings through the body is very good. The American is just a joy to play, glad I upgraded.

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This is an awesome bass!

I love short scale basses. This Fender American Performer Mustang Bass might be my favorite I've ever played. It looks great and the quality, fit and finish are superb. It arrived well packed and while tempted I waited 24 hours to open it. It was setup great and was still in tune. Kudos to Fender and Sweetwater!

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Great Bass, but Mine Had Some Issues

This bass is fun to play and looks and sounds great. Mine just had some issues from the factory that required warranty repair. First, the nut was cut poorly. There was more buzzing than there should have been and the G was way too close to the edge. I got a warranty credit to upgrade the nut and it fixed the problems and played great. A few months later the neck pickup died.… read more I'm glad I bought from Sweetwater and had the warranty. I wasn't expecting the quality issues, but this is a unique and fantastic short scale bass, and I'll be playing it for a long time. I don't regret buying it at all.

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My first bass in 1975

Good first bass. First song I learned was Cuttin the Rug by Skynerd. I made a lot of money playin this bass over the years. Wish I still had it.

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Awesome.

I'm 58 years old. I started out in the 1970's with this same bass, sans Jazz pickup. Always wished I still had my old Mustang. So when this came out, I went for it. Before I received it I was a little worried about the addition of the Jazz pickup. I have to say what a surprise. This bass is a solid little monster. Awesome tones and so easy to play. I'm a smaller guy with small hands… read more so for me it's perfect. I'll def keep this one.

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AWESOME

Very happy with this one. glad i invested a couple extra hundred for the real deal! feels awesome, sounds awesome looks awesome!

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Legendary tone

I seldom review let alone give 5 stars but this diminutive bass gets all the classic tones from clunky precision to hoppy jazz - really - I think it"s the new pickups, but jaco and berlin are there as well as classic funk clunk. Fit and finish great. I lessened the relief and lowered the bridge pieces, and it"s now really smooth and fast. Fret edges are finished well and they are… read more not overstating the subtlety of the tone circuit, which plays nicely with the individual volume pots. Just a great little bass that"s fast and has that short scale ability to easily take vibrato making it mimic fretless wobble. Try one. I wish I had a bass line this when I started out I"d certainly still be playing it ( actually I had an ebo copy!).

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Great neck, cheap electronics, strange design elements

I think the neck of the bass is sturdy and feels like a $1000 guitar. Nonetheless, the electronics are cheap, the wiring is cheap, the Yosemite pickups sound great, but the bass and the pick guard are not shielded anywhere which adds a lot of noise and adjusting pickup height gently and for the first time ever, the pickup plastic cover loosed it"s grip so I had to change the screws… read more for bigger ones in order to be able to raise them. Body seems resonant which is a good thing, and I think the pickup carving might fit a pair of p bass pickups. Don"t know yet. Another thing, the bridge is a bit off. Like the review title suggest strange design elements. All of that aside, I truly love the bass. It is fun to play, it is light and sounds great. Has a lot of personality. Hopefully someone makes a bridge alternative for the future and for the price they should shield the instrument.

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Not as good as the recent MIM version

This is an ok bass. I own MANY basses, most American made. That being said, I also own the recent MIM Mustang and the blows this one out of the water which is why I scored this one so low. The Bad: The neck split pickup is weak, the Jazz bridge pickup is not properly centered under the strings. The neck needs to be shimmed if you want super low action (unlike the MIM). The included… read more gif bag is for a standard 34inch length, this one flops around inside. Those who score this bass high do not mind higher action and sub par tone. The Good: looks great, made in America, very light weight. Verdict: I was hoping for more from Fender as I have wanted an American made Mustang bass for quite some time since selling my 1970"s Mustang. Unfortunately, the tone, playability and overall value fall short. Especially considering the Mexican made Mustang plays and sounds so much better for less than half the price.

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Awesome Bass

I got what I'm assuming was one of the first of these from Sweetwater last November or December. My opinion is that Fender hit it out of the park with this American Performer Mustang bass. They have addressed all the little gripes I've had with various incarnations of the Mustang bass over the years. Since many of you may be deciding between this bass and the PJ, I'll compare two… read more below (I have both), but first some general comments: The build quality is very good. The hardware is great. And as far as I'm concerned the pickup combination is the best that has appeared on any Mustang bass at any time. Also, the neck profile, although it is the slightly wider 1.625 inch, is the best feeling neck that I have felt on ANY bass. It is very thin front to back and beats most J-bass necks for comfort even though it is a little wider. The finish is nice, I love the Surf Green, although I would prefer a high-gloss finish. That's really my only gripe with the whole bass and it's no big deal. And this pickup combination REALLY allows this Mustang to be a "do everything bass" (more on that below). Although the JMJ Mustang is a fine bass (I have that one too), this one runs circles around it as far as getting tons of usable tones. Okay... let's compare this bass to the PJ. The PJ is a great bass priced reasonably, but this one really is a step up all the way around. Here's why (beyond the obvious step up in build quality)... * Although the neck is narrower on the PJ, the American Performer (I'll call it the AP from now on) neck really is much sleeker feeling. In fact that neck is, as I said, about the best I've felt on ANY bass, including 4000 plus dollar basses I've had. * Although the PJ sounds great, there has always been a little voice in the back of my head telling me of some of its shortcomings. The AP has addressed them, in my opinion. First, the neck pickup in the PJ can be a bit boomy/muddy/undefined. The AP is not at all muddy/boomy/undefined. It has a full sound without being to bottom-heavy. That's not to say it can't put out a lot of bottom end, it just does it in a more refined/defined manner. Second, I think the PJ bridge pickup is nearly useless on its own. It's volume level is way lower than the neck pickup and it is very thin sounding with not a lot of beef. It works fine in combination with the neck pickup, but not so much on it's own. And there really isn't much you can do about it other than swapping pickups--it's not horrible, but it is what it is. The AP has addressed this issue. The pickups are beautifully balanced. Both sound great on their own. And they sound wonderful together as well. The soloed bridge pickup with the tone rolled back is KILLER sounding. In fact, the bridge pickup is just a bit hotter than the neck. Just the way it should be to make all combinations of pickups useful. Also, the AP sound A LOT like a Jazz bass with both pickups on full. Close your eyes and you'd almost think it was. The PJ simply does not get a convincing Jazz bass tone. Also, the two volume controls open up tons of variation on the sound that you can't get with the PJ 3-way switch. * The tone control on the AP is superior to the PJ. You can roll back the tone all the way without getting muddiness. Just punchy tones with less high end. Whether this bass is worth it to you over the PJ is really dependent on what sound you are looking for, your wallet, and whether the refinements of the AP is worth the extra money. I have both basses, but if I were forced to choose one, it would be the American Performer Mustang Bass. It really is the perfect Mustang bass in my opinion and the first that can truly handle any musical situation I throw at it. That's pretty rare in a short scale bass. The PJ comes close, but this bass really does do it all. The only thing I wish Fender would do is offer it with a gloss maple fretboard. Maybe in the future....

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