Fender Player Mustang Bass PJ - Aged Natural Reviews

My first short scale bass in a 30+ year career and I love it. One of the finest instruments I've ever owned and the guys at Sweetwater are the best in the business. Thanks to Dave and the whole crew!

I love this bass. The short scale neck is easier to navigate with my smaller hands. The excellent sound and workmanship are what I have come to expect from Fender. As always , James Masterson does a superb job with customer support and advice.

This bass absolutely nails it, it's all there. Tone, workmanship, easy to play and out of the box I had no adjustments to make ( I have been doing repairs and setups for years). The only thing I did to it was to add a thumb rest, but that's just me. If you're looking for a short scale bass with versatility this one delivers and it's at a great price. Leo would be proud of this one!

Absolutely epic Bass guitar ... Love and play it all the time ..

Debunking percieved problems with this bass. Yes the pickup selector is slanted. It was designed that way so get over it already and why does that matter unless you're unable to slightly move your hand? Problems with the switch. I have had NO problems with the switch but then I don't use it like Jimi Hendrix. Usually you find your sound in one position and leave it alone. Problem solved.
Yes the freetboard may be a bit dry. You really don't know when these were assembled and for the price I seriously doubt Fender takes the time to treat their fretboards. Most people change strings after getting a new bass anyway. Take 20 minutes and use the fretboard conditioner of you choice and you're done. Do that every time you change your strings from then on if it needs more. If you can't take the time then buy one with a maple fretboard but stop whining!
The pickups are anemic? Compared to what? This set of pickups sound perfectly big and full to me. If you cannot get that with these then I suggest you have no idea how to set your tones and don't know how to make your amp do the work. The bridge isn't high mass. This bridge will outlive me. It is fully functional and a better bridge than Fender used to put on their American's. All I know is that my Mustang came perfectly set up. Everything works. Fit and finish are flawless and I had NO trouble dialing in the sound I wanted. I am not saying that there are never any lemons when you buy a bass but the things I've read in reviews about this bass are downright picky and some just very silly. It's a $... bass not a $... Alembic but for that $... it doesn't get any better. I have one complaint however. Fender needs to step up their game on making cases for this bass available. In case you hadn't noticed Fender short scale basses are having a moment. You might want to capitalize on that like you do everything else.

Picked out my fender mustang bass, online. It arrived quickly and ready to go. I am a guitar player, and drummer, and due to my short fingers, a 34" scale bass was difficult for me to play and to adjust back and forth with my guitars. The workmanship on this bass is better than my previous experience with MIM guitars. The tone is easily adjustable and the bass plays well. I look forward to a lot of fun with this instrument.

It's funny how quickly you know. I mean whether you like to play an instrument. I'm an open-ended player, meaning preconceptions are to be questioned, and therefore i appreciate the accessibility, playing-wise, of the short-scale 30" neck, and also the sound diversity available through the cool toggle control for the pickups. But most of all i know this will be the bass that i use because it sounds good.

Very happy with this purchase and feel it was money well spent. I really like the neck, including the slightly narrower nut width. Mine came set up well and perfectly playable right out of the box. I suspect Sweetwater's care gets all the credit for that, The several I had picked up at stores all needed attention. The fret work on mine is good, but I will invest a little time smoothing the ends out a bit more when I get the time. The PJ pickups in this model are very versatile. This configuration also affords tons of drop in replacement options for those who like to explore different tones. I love the aged natural finish, but I will offer a word of caution regarding the multi-piece bodies - the see through nature of this finish means you may want to pay attention to where the joints are and how well the grain pattern conceals them. Sweetwater's guitar gallery was indispensable in making my selection. Also need to express appreciation to Stewart Hisey for his extra effort in making sure I received the one I really wanted.

I borrowed a Hofner violin bass to do a Beatles tribute set and became enamored with the idea of playing a short scale bass. I've primarily been a P-bass player for years, so the Mustang line intrigued me. I loved the Aged Natural finish when Fender introduced them and waited for one to pop up. I was a bit surprised how much power this one has in a small package. Lots of range in the tone, good thump with enough flexibility to give you want you want depending on the style. Plus it's fun to sling it over on your hip like a guitar. It's very light compared to a full-scale P-bass - ideal for folks who may not have the stamina to lug a heavy bass for long periods of time. Plus the short-scale neck is ideal for players with smaller hands (like me). All in all it was a good add to the collection and I imagine it will get a lot of play in the future.

Coming from guitar, I wanted a bass that would make the transition as easy as possible, especially as I am just learning how to play bass. I have a 34 scale acoustic bass that I rarely play because my hands are on the small size. So I was looking for a good quality, solid body short scale bass that would offer a range of tones and would be playable. In that regard, the Mustang PJ bass did not disappoint. It arrived nearly perfectly set up. I just needed to adjust one string's height to get rid of minor fret buzz. Frets were reasonable smooth and the neck is beefy feeling but fast. My thumb works well on it. The thing stays in tune despite having a new pair of strings on it. So I wouldn't be tempted to swap out the tuners for something lighter since they are doing a good job.

Now for the caveats. This bass is neck heavy. I tried different straps to counteract the neck dive and finally resorted to putting a 1-lb diving weight on the strap near where it connects to the bottom of the bass. That fixed the issue and now it's more comfortable to wear and play. Another annoyance is how quiet the bridge pickup is, which is a shame because at 100% it's a lovely tone. It's too quiet to play by itself except on tunes in which the drummer is using brushes. So I may eventually swap in a pickup with a little more oomph. The volume knob is also a little weird, as it's super quiet until you hit about 70% up and then it suddenly gets louder. When and if I get a new pickup I may ask a guitar tech if they can smooth out the volume transition for that knob.

I recommend the Gator soft case (for guitars). It's light and sturdy and has tons of storage for cables, accessories, etc. If you take out the bottom piece of padding the bass fits snuggly. Sometimes the D string gets a little thrown out of tune from being squished into the case, but you should be tuning before you play anyway, right?

This bass is feel and sounds great. It a lot of fun to play, it's light, compact and can get some really great sounds out of it. The only draw backs are the nose dive from the heavy neck/ headstock. And the pick up selector, not only does it limit the sounds you have available, but the P bass pick up is so so much louder then the J so if you accidentally bump that selector in the middle of a song, you're gonna have issues. The neck is a little thicker then I expected as well but i don't mind it much.

I looked at and played a lot of basses when I was searching for my new bass. I really like this bass, but it does have a couple of things that I consider short comings. First of all, I've been playing bass for years. This is my third bass. My last one I had for maybe 15-20 years. I've always had 34" scale basses. but have always thought I'd like a short scale bass. I'm not a big man, and like other people have already mentioned, for somebody without large hands it is a lot more comfortable to play. For the money, this is a good choice. I bought it, and I'm happy with it. There are a couple things about moving up to an American Performer that would be nice, but for me, it wasn't worth the difference in cost. I would like to have had separate volume controls for the neck, and bridge pickup. You could get a little more tonal control, but the tone control on this bass is good, so selecting different pickups and using the tone control works well. Probably not quite as well as separate volume controls, but I'm happy with what I'm getting. The biggest issue for me is a minor irritant with the volume control. If you rotate the knob about 80% of the rotation, there isn't a big change in the volume, but the last 20% of the rotation is where the most volume change occurs. I don't play wide open all of the time. it seems that the control will either take a large movement to change, or be touch at the other end. I wish the control sounded more linear. I say sounded, because I know sound is not linear. It's my understanding that for the volume to sound linear, the potentiometer actually needs to be logarithmic. Somebody else mentioned in their review that the pickup selector switch is at an angle. Like him, I wish the switch moved horizontally. I guess its a minor thing. He said he tried to change it, but the body is routed for that position. I haven't verified that. Maybe I'll look into it sometime. I wish Fender would make all models available in all color choices. I would have liked another color, but I haven't seen the color I really like available for a mustang. Natural is not my first choice, but its better than most in my opinion.

It's been a long ride for me to arrive at this bass. I've been playing bass since I was in high school (nearly 30 years), but I've got smaller hands and have always struggled just a bit with the standard 34" scale. So I've been trying for a couple years now to get my hands on the right Mustang.

I ordered a Player Mustang a couple years ago and ended up sending it back over some frustrating manufacturing defects. I've had consistent bad luck with MIM Fenders and I figured maybe it was just not going to happen. Early this year I ordered a Squier Mustang and loved it! In fact I loved it so much that I sent it back to get a Fender American Performer Mustang in its place. But then I had to cancel that order because my car needed a new axle (!) and I thought that was the end of it.

But then I saw this model online and fell in love with it. And at about half the price of the American Performer, I decided to give it a chance!

I'm pleased to say that none of my past problems with MIM build quality were present here. This is a quality instrument, very well made. I only had a few complaints that are leading me to knock it down from 5 stars:

1. The pao ferro fretboard was bone-dry when it arrived. As a result there are a few rough fret edges. I took the strings off and applied five (!) coats of mineral oil, and now the fretboard looks fantastic and seems to have expanded a bit, so the fret roughness is not such an issue.

2. The pickup switch is "crooked." I would expect it to move directly side-to-side, but it's at an angle. So instead of the neck pickup setting being "east" and the bridge being "west," it's more like "NNE" and "SSW". I thought it would maybe just be a matter of loosening it, twisting it slightly, and re-tightening it, but I took off the pickguard and saw that the routing for it is kind of a "slot" and the way it's soldered together, there's just no way to make it go straight "east-west". Not a huge deal, and it doesn't affect the usability at all; it's just a bit annoying.

3. This one is the main reason I took a whole star off: the bridge "J" pickup is really noisy. The split "P" pickup is perfectly silent, of course, but the single coil is surprisingly buzzy, and what really surprised me is that the buzz is there when the switch is in the middle setting with both pickups on… they must be wired parallel and not in series like on a Jazz Bass. (Maybe that's how all P/J setups are; this is the first one I've played.) I'm planning to eventually swap these out for a set of DiMarzio noisless pickups anyway, so it's not the end of the world.

The setup was great when I received the bass, although I did immediately swap in a Fender Hi-Mass bridge I already owned, so I obviously needed to do make some adjustments for string height and intonation, but the neck was nice and straight and didn't need any truss rod adjustments.

The biggest thing for me… this bass is a delight to play! The 30-inch scale and the narrow neck make me feel like a giant. I can actually finger a major 9th all the way down to the first fret… something I couldn't imagine doing on a long-scale bass. It has a great versatile tone with the P/J pickup configuration, and the short scale gives it the characteristic Mustang thump.

If you're looking for a short-scale bass, check this out! (If I weren't so hung up on the Fender aesthetic, I probably would've tried a Schecter Banshee as well, but I think you're probably going to be happy with either one.)

I purchased this as my first bass in February of 2022, not long after the bass started having output issues. Originally the jazz pickup wouldn't send out any sound when selected but if you switched back and forth a couple of times it would eventually come through but at about half of the volume of the precision pickup. Eventually the jazz pickup stopped working all together which lead me to contacting Sweetwater. I sent back the defective bass and they sent me a replacement. I plugged it in when it first arrived and it sounded alright so I figured everything was alright. Every now an then I would take it off the wall and mess around with it unplugged but I hadn't really played it much since I had acquired a few full-sized basses which suited my playing style better so I preferred playing those through my amps. I decided to earlier today to try plugging the mustang bass into my amp and now the jazz pickup is not working at all just like my original purchase. This time around Sweetwater is not offering a replacement. Avoid buying this bass from Sweetwater as I am 0/2 on these things.