Fender American Professional II Precision Bass - 3-color Sunburst with Rosewood Fingerboard Review

Fender American Professional II Precision Bass

Waited 59 years for this bass. FYI: It had nothing to do with shipping delays. Although Santa does have a lot of ground to cover. My favorite bass in my favorite finish (sunburst). Waiting the recommended 24 hours for the bass to get acclimated felt almost as long as those 59 years. It plays great and through body stringing for a bass was new to me. Shipped with Fender Super… read more Bass .45-.105 round wound strings although I'll probably switch to flat wounds when I restring it. I thought about a Squier Classic Vibe '60s P Bass in sunburst as well since I've been playing a '76 Jazz Bass for 45 years. But I made the right choice. It's a phenomenal bass and I highly recommend it. Maybe one of these days I might actually take the plastic protective film off of the pick guard. Leaving it on gives new meaning to the term "Completely Original".

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Heaven

The best modern p-bass in a long time. Great feel and balance. The tone is outstanding. The case is just right for a gigging musician. I don't want to put it down.

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Fender American Professional II

The look, feel, and sound! Physically well balanced, sonically perfect! This is a superb instrument. You get what you pay for when you buy a guitar. Straight out of the box. Another purchase that I would ONLY trust to Sweetwater. If you buy it elsewhere you "take your chances"!

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Bass perfection

Been a bassist all my life. With few exceptions I've been a p guy. Currently own 4. Wanted the newest version for 5 bolt neck. Everything about this bass is top shelf. Put TI flats on it for tone out the ***!! I do session work and jams and couldn't be happier. Highly recommend this bass and Sweetwater.

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Why did I wait so long to get a P ? It is (P)erfection!

This is the 4th American Fender bass I've bought from Sweetwater, the Universal Epicenter of terrific customer service. It is however, my first P since switching to bass as my primary in 2012 - finding at the suggestion of a jam session curator that while I was a good guitarist "you might enjoy bass and get to play more." Was he ever right! I also found out in the process it pays… read more to have good curators and teachers steer you towards an instrument that fits your musical skill set better - I love playing guitar but always tended towards, um loving jazz improvisation but favoring a rock oriented approach... and I found that bass feels much more natural to me to play. Anyway, during this journey to bassist, all I've played and owned were various flavors of Fender Js - starting with a Squier Jaco copy, a Squier Vintage 70s 5, and an American Special J. I don't have those 3 anymore as I sold them as I decided to upgrade the quiver to include Fender American Js. For a while, I've been a J snob, and I've spent a lot of time playing various other kinds of basses to find a sound and a comfort level that I would like better than a J, thinking I'd like something other than a Fender in the arsenal. I keep playing with Ps, but thinking "hmmm. Limited. One pickup, blah blah blah, its a blues and country bass." The band I'm in is recording our next CD, and as the newest member I've learned a lot about recording the past year as we've grappled with practicing around the pandemic safely as well as recording in our home DAWs. It became more and more apparent that my Js just weren't cutting it in terms of the sound I was looking for. I'm not a slapper or a prog rock guy on bass, and the J always seems harsh and clanky and not punching through the band mix like what I hearing in my head. I'd played various humbucking basses - mostly G&Ls - off the rack as I was going through the process, but I just didn't like the way they felt in my hands, and the sound just wasn't... Fender enough. I toyed seriously with picking up a L-1000 as I have zero interest in an active bass, but I kept thinking about how I just don't feel like I'd ever bond with a G&L which did not nearly as comfortable as a MIM P in my hands. The L-2000 was also an option, but again - active - and just far too many controls for what I can see myself realistically using a bass for. So I'd been stalking the SW site several weeks waiting for P stock to become available, and jumped on this Pro II P in burst and rosewood about 12 hours it came on line. I was so anxious to get the fantastic plastic processed when two of these showed up in February online that I couldn't wait for my usual sales engineer Sam, who is Mr. Super De Dooper awesome, but got through and got 1 of the 2 at 11:00 AM PST after both had been onsite less than a day. I'm glad I did, because when I refreshed the listing at 11:30 both basses were gone! Right now, it has been extremely hard to get stock with demand at all time highs and the instrument makers a bit challenged with work force and supply issues. And I got a great call back from Sam about my purchase shortly after shipping. He's a stand-up dude! Other than.a day's delay because of the uber cold temps during that week in February, it arrived here somewhere in California's Central Valley just awesome out of the box and ready to rock after I waited the 24 hours to let the box warm up inside. This thing is a BEAST. The guys in our band love it, it fills up the sonic part of the band - with far less amp volume out of a Genz Benz Streamliner 600 head with two Focus 112T cabs. We'd already recorded our tracks for the first 6 of our 12; I'm going to do the 2nd half with the P - if the guys like the results, I'll go back and redo my parts on the first six which were recorded on the red J. There's nothing wrong with any of my Js, but I think I'd probably have bought a P much earlier and my quiver would likely be down a fretless J if I'd not been a J snob and plucked a P earlier. It plays differently than a J, of course, with the thicker neck, but I do find the P body and balance more to my liking than a J. They're just different instruments. It came set up fine; I've tweaked it a little bit by swapping out the stock Fender 7250Ms for the lighter and smoother D'Addario rounds I like - the regular light gauge, and I dropped the saddles. I'm getting my first covid shot this week, so the set-up will be fine until I feel comfortable taking it into the local set-up wizard for a super pro job where he adjusts and I provide feedback until it is perfect. Right now, I run it with all the knobs on the GB head (or my BA 210) basically at 12, with the tone rolled off. It sounds so thumpy, articulate, warm without being muddy like a J can get. The first name the bass gave for itself out of the box - which when I unboxed it and opened the case, my GF, who while not a musician has the most extensive music collection I've seen of any human being, and has a wry sense of humor, said "is that its coffin?" - was Big Boy (remember the Big Boy restaurant statue? Yes, I'm old)... but after I took it to rehearsal for the first time last week, it just sat in the band mix so absolutely perfectly that its moniker is now "The Zone". Because I felt totally in The Zone playing this instrument. I should've known I'd bond with a P... my first electric guitar was a Strat, but I never bonded with it - or the 335 - or a succession of Ibanez solid and one semi-hollow before I picked up a Tele in 2010 and screamed "This is *it*!" I'm so a Tele guy on guitars... it seems appropriate that Leo's first bass has bonded with me so hard. I'm smitten. I love the simplicity, I love humbucking without batteries or freaky coil taps or so many knobs my instrument is basically a new math problem. Volume, tone, your hands and your creativity without major brain drain. I love this P. You gotta get one! :)

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