All indian rosewood jazz bass

[hamerfan]

I am a guitarist by trade - so excuse my noobish Qs! I have the chance to purchase an all rosewood bass (onepiece rosewood neck and all rosewood body) in the style of a vintage Fender Jazzbass. The weight is over 10 lbs, but thats not too much of my concern when i play it in bedroom while seating. I have medium to small hands.

What can i expect from the playability and soundwise ?

[Snake Aces]

Re: All indian rosewood jazz bass

A lot of basses weigh in right around 10 pounds so even standing up it should be playable for most bass players.

Indian rosewood is a beautiful wood for instruments. I have an Indian rosewood neck attached to a chambered mahogany Les Paul double cutaway body and it is warm, smooth and just the right amount of clarity thanks to the stainless steel frets.

Now, as for bass, I would not suggest stainless steel frets unless you are an experienced bassist like Marcus Miller or Victor. They can be quite bright and with just a touch too much the click from the strings against the frets will be amplified quite a bit. Luckily for bass you should not need too much treble anyway so standard nickel frets would be great.

You should expect a warm and smooth bass with lots of sustain. That being said, all pieces of wood vary so you never know, you could end up with a neck that sounds closer to maple or inbetween like bubinga. I have a bubinga neck with a ziricote fretboard attached to a one piece swamp ash jazz bass that really growls with some natural gain when I really dig in which is something I expected from a swamp ash guitar but was not sure if it would do so on a bass. I imagine the Indian rosewood will remain consiitent and smooth without so much expression but plenty of soul.

Of course, that is assuming you will be using passive pickups. If you go active you can throw some or most of the wood's effect on tone out the window...

[synzzzer]

Re: All indian rosewood jazz bass

I built a Telecaster body out of a solid piece of rosewood. That guitar must have weighed about 12 pounds. If you can get away with a bass being only 10 pounds and made out of the stuff, you are doing well.

Rosewood is an awesome tone wood. I thought it would be brighter than it was. It's still a bright wood, but it is nicely balanced. I think you will be happy with yours.

And here are the pics of mine, since pics or it didn't happen.