Tuesday; I Love This Bass! G&L L2000

One of the primary tools I used for this blog over the past eight or nine weeks has been a G&L L2000 bass. It has been my go-to instrument for practice sessions and for playing with our worship band. Granted, I did play different basses on a few occasions, but primarily this has been my workhorse. 

Love at first sight-- via G&L's Facebook page

If you don't know about G&L, the initials stand for George Fullerton & Leo Fender. Yup-- that Fender, the guy who invented the production electric bass and pioneered guitar amplification. He sold his Fender guitar company to CBS in the 1960s then in the 1970s started a company called Music Man. After selling that to Ernie Ball, Leo enlisted his buddy George from the early days of the Fender company and together they created G&L guitars in the early 1980s. Those who know about G&L consider them to be the real Fender guitars and basses, despite the other company's marketing.

I first saw it on the G&L Facebook page in the spring. The post mentioned it was shipping to Bass Northwest in Seattle. The day is vivid in my memory; I was studying for my statistics course in our dining room-- the unofficial study area-- surfing the net during a lunch break. And there it was. I didn't have any money at the time, so actually being able to buy it didn't seem possible. So I figured I'd sell some excess gear to raise the funds. Surprisingly the gear sold quickly, but wasn't quite enough to think about bringing this blue-burst beauty home.

Bass Northwest, on the edge of historic Pioneer Square, Seattle WA. 

The last piece of gear that needed to sell in order to fund the bass came a day after our 10th wedding anniversary. This instrument became a marker of our anniversary, and is now referred to as my anniversary bass. I gave Bass NW a call to see it was still there... and it was! I made arrangements to visit that week and battled Seattle traffic to make my way to Pioneer Square-- home to Bass NW.

The owner happened to be there and took the instrument off the wall and handed it to me after plugging it into a 6-foot tall Ampeg amp. It felt great, sound incredible and the finish is a knock out-- a blue burst with deep-purple sides. After playing it for a few minutes the owner asked what I thought and after chatting a little bit made me an offer I couldn't refuse. "Pack it up!" I said with a huge smile. As I was leaving, we shook hands and he said, "go make some good music with this, eh~" That is exactly what I have done.

G&L bumper sticker declaring the truth

So aside from sounding great, what is it about this bass that has become my go-to instrument? 

First off, it weighs less than most basses I've tried-- a good medium weight instrument, which makes it more comfortable sitting on my leg during those long practice sessions, but still has enough weight to provide more than enough oomph to it's sound.

The controls are the best I've found on any other bass. G&L calls it the Tri-Tone System; the knobs are volume/treble/bass. The three switches include 3-way pickup selector/ series-*single coil*-Parallel/ treble boost- active mode- passive mode. The pre-amp is powered by a 9-Volt battery (opposed to 18-volts in many others). One of the things I like most about this system is that the player can choose passive or active mode. Lets say I'm playing on the active system and the battery dies. No worries, I just flip the switch to passive and keep on rockin.' The pickups are humbuckers, but with the attrition of the "K" wiring I can select single coils. This has got to be the most versatile bass on the planet! 

A much appreciated characteristic of this L2000 is that it's comfortable to play on stage. It is balanced just right on the strap, so there aren't any problems with the neck diving. The neck is shaped just right-- chunky and rounded, but not so much that it gets in the way. At 1.5" it is the basic width of a Fender Jazz Bass. The frets are medium-jumbos, but are not as tall as most of that size; I'd call them low-wide. The satin finish on the neck makes it smooth to play without any of the stickiness of lacquered necks.

Finally, the bass itself; heck-- you've seen the pictures,... its beautiful! G&L have the best painters in the business, and thats saying something because there are some fantastic finishers out there (PRS, Carvin, Tom Anderson, etc.). This particular one is a burst finish that starts at the edges as a very deep purple and transitions into a translucent blue. What's not to like?!