Fender’s Time Machine to the ’60s
Capture the prolific sound of the 1960s with this Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Jazz Bass Relic. This beauty packs a duo of Custom Shop hand-wound vintage Jazz Bass pickups to bestow upon you the power of ‘60s punch and growl. Its two-piece alder body, with classic comfort curves, serves as an excellent tonal basis while the quarter-sawn maple neck, with ‘60s Style Jazz Bass “U” shape, feels like an old friend. Other appointments create an original of-the-era look, including vintage-style tuners, pickup and tailpiece covers, and relic finish. Sweetwater has found that if you want to get that vintage look and tone from a modern performing instrument, there’s no better stop than at the Fender Custom Shop.
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Custom Shop magic: it’s in the details
The Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Jazz Bass Relic plays just as great as it looks. Taking cues from its namesake, the 1960s, this Jazz Bass struts vintage-styled appointments that look just like those first models. The quarter-sawn maple neck keeps up with fast-paced gigs thanks to its incredible durability, and a flat-lam AAA rosewood fingerboard harkens back to the early Jazz Basses. The fingerboard sports 20 frets and a 7.25-inch radius for getting in the groove. The Custom Shop also packed this bass with Vintage-style tuning machines, a bone nut, and a disc string tree for period-correct retro charm and playability that can keep up with any song. Take it from us: what you see in this remarkable axe is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a highly playable, eminently musical-sounding re-creation of an iconic instrument.
Voracious ’60s single-coils
When you want to groove with authentic ’60s sound, pick up the Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60 Jazz Bass Relic. The Custom Shop crafted this low-end axe with hand-wound vintage J Bass pickups, so you have all the original-era tone and power you could ask for. Assembled from Formvar magnet wire and Alnico V magnets, you can plug right in and hear tones like those that made the J Bass so formidable back in the ’60s. Thanks to their overwound coils, these pickups spit out notes with a slightly hotter output, and you’ll find plenty of unmistakable punch and glorious midrange growl. Complementing these two pickups is a set of stacked concentric knobs — an additional touch that will transport back to 1961.
The Relic treatment
Though a relic’d guitar finish is almost as common these days as a flawless factory finish, it was the Fender Custom Shop that pioneered the process. Fender offers different levels of finish distressing these days, but one of the original techniques is the Relic, found on this Limited-edition ’60 Jazz Bass. This authentic nitrocellulose lacquer finish is thinner than today’s polyurethane finishes, allowing the wood to breathe and the tone to bloom. You get a look and feel that’s definitely used but not abused. Imagine a beloved, decades-old bass that’s seen its fair share of front-line action, with a played-in feel — but perfect fretwork. And like every fine instrument in our Guitar Gallery, it’s been through Sweetwater’s 55-point Inspection and plays splendidly right out of the box.
Fender Custom Shop Limited-edition ’60s Jazz Bass Relic Features:
- 2-piece alder body with classic comfort curves
- Quarter-sawn maple neck with ’60s Style Jazz Bass “U” shape offers incredible durability over its lifetime
- Flat-lam AAA rosewood fingerboard with 20 frets and a 7.25-inch radius
- Classic ’60s touches like pickup and tailpiece covers, vintage-style tuners, and disc string tree
- Hand-wound vintage J Bass single-coils for original-era power and tone
- Stacked concentric knobs with volume and tone for each pickup
- Handcrafted in Fender’s Corona, Calif.-based Custom Shop
- Includes hardshell case and Custom Shop certificate of authenticity
