Yamaha BB614 bass guitar review

I have been playing the bass guitar for about 5 years now, and have used a wide array of different guitars. All the way from a passive Fender Precision J-Bass to my trusty Yamaha BB614. I personally believe the Yamaha BB614 is one mean bass that any keen bass player should have in their inventory.

The Yamaha BB614 has a standard bolt on neck that allows you to have complete control over the action in the neck (how far the strings are from the fretboard). The next itself is an impressive 864mm long containing 21 large frets, instead of the standard 22 most basses have, these produces a cleaner sound with less buzzing. The fretboard is made of Rosewood, which is generally a soft wood, which absorbs the vibrations from the strings giving next to no prolonged buzz. The neck of the guitar is pure Canadian maple, which is considered the best wood for the neck of the guitar, as it generally is very clean and light in terms of weight. This basically eliminates any unnecessary weight; again the body is made of Alder, which is a heavy wood, hard but extremely durable which basically prevents the action of the guitar from breaking if the guitar is dropped.

The bridge is a typical vintage, found on many early Fenders, as guitar players have always said simplicity is the best option. The pickups contain 2 split single coils, which basically help create any sound whether this is distortion, clean or deep this is all based on the preamp, which I will cover shortly. On the bridge there is a single soapbar coil that acts as mid cut frequency, this mechanism basically controls exactly what sort of tone you're looking for.

The controls consist of 5 knobs, a master volume, balancer, treble, bass mid cut frequency and a bridge selector. A standard passive guitar usually contains only 2 knobs, but a preamp guitar such as this has 5 knobs which allow you to create a specific tone without even having to touch your amplifier, this makes the guitar extremely desirable but equally confusing for new players as it will take some playing around for you to find the exact sound you're looking for. One of the main benefits of the preamp is you can substitute them with buying pedals which can potentially save you a lot of money!

Lastly the guitar can be bought in 5 different colours, ranging from sunburn to uncoloured.