Re: Deal Alert - Fernandes Basses
400 on amazon, so real discount not eternal gazillion%-off-fictional "msrp"... Alder & maple are serious wood specs, too. If legit, is it a closeout on discontinueds or auctioning off a bankrupt dealer or importer's stocks, I wonder? (with ebay, always some chance of fake or misrepresented "starter bundle" starcaster level model listed under its respectable parents' model name)
Going by that 400 new price, if thats the regular - that tends to get disappointingly little in the new market these days... Hardware electronics or assembly could be pretty dodgy, though, for 150, some might jump on it just as a wood donor
Still...150 just happens to be the magic number at GC and CL...the price towards which all unpopular-looking, unidentifiable, or "broken electronics" respectable basses gravitate to. And since for passive, long as no battery powered stuff is inside, no signal = just a single loose contact/broken wire somewhere 95% of the time (needs $5 pot or jack in the rare 5% of "difficult cases"), while unidentifiable often means a missing "japan" sticker + looks too good for sellers to consider checking 30-40 year old model lines... Hmmm
Verdict:
4 string:
Recommend above deal for Gifts,Kids, Newbies... Do NOT recommend it (or any other sub-$1k new four string bass offering, period) to any Duncan Forum Member. Anyone into something as technical, diy-ey, and corksniffey as pickup swapping should not only already have the knowledge and ability to score semipro offering for the same money - but actually enjoy the whole process, even moresoif its a work-needed excuse to do some upgrading.
5 string:
Recommended for everyone, except younger/smaller kids. Doesnt get much cheaper for fives, especially with real and proper wood specs... its that very price barrier to getting any fiver plus the perception that "serious" basses gotta have 5+ strings today that's driving down the price on used fours. get it if thats what you needed... Use savings over any other fiver to drop one neck-spec Duncan active, preferably into the neck position but also get neck only for a single-pup bass (duncan active sets tend to have far nicer neck pups, with the bridge quite decent but fairly similar tonally, just weaker and blander, so save a hundred and buy the neck pup alone first) and its almost guaranteed to sound like 800-1200 bucks spent at GC.
