I don't get it!

To me a real road worn bass has a history, mojo, its been played. A bass that's been around for 30 years and shows the scars can be a beautiful thing, I get that. But to buy a brand new bass, not even an artist signature model, that has been beat up at the factory? I don't get it! If I buy something new, I want it in new condition, let me road wear it.

Just out of curiosity, does anybody here like the Fender Road Worn series? If so, is there something I'm missing?

Forgive me if this has already been discussed. Must go to rehearsal now, looking forward to responses...

I played the guitars in the store and was very impressed.
I've also played a Nash bass and was also impressed.

How it sounds and feels is more important than what it looks like to me, and these instruments sounded and felt great.

That's also true of my '71 Jazz bass to which I myself have provided 38 years of road wear.

I've also given the steel wool treatment to instruments I have owned and been happy with the results.

Poser who play only at home in bedroom LIKEE "road-worn" bass - MAKEE look like poser has been on road, attracted groupies, other trappings of REEL musician life ???????

I've seen them in the stores. They look nice. But I have a hard time justifying the purchase of a deliberately weathered Mexican Fender that costs over $1100.

"Reliced", "Road Worn", whatever you want to call it. I've always thought it was stupid. I always will think it's stupid. I prefer to f*** up my gear on my own. I can't fathom paying extra for someone else to f*** it up for me.

Experts agree: it's goofy.

What, they're Mexican?! I was thinking they were distressed Highway 1 models at that price point.



This pretty much sums up my thinking.

It is a fake. It is not what it claims to be. That, to me, is disgusting. I also do not like 30 or 40year old originals that have been terribly abused over the years. Would you buy a car that had never been washed, never had the oil changed. What is it with musicians who want to look like something they are not. Sorry guys, I think Reliced, Road Worn, Closet Classtic or what ever you want to call it, is ridiculous marketing.
Rocky

I agree that sound and feel are more important than looks, I just have a problem paying the extra money for something that comes pre-distressed, even if I did think it looks cool. If they do sound and play that good I'd rather pay less money for a new looking non-distressed bass.

Now do it yourself distressing is another matter entirely.

I can't imagine why they would play or sound better than some of the other MIM basses. The distressed finish has no effect on tone. Personally, I think it is a masterful use for instruments that came off the line with a flaw in the finish. They just add more flaws and charge for it.

Yup. When you see one in person, check out the headstock. At which point you will see the Made in Mexico tag.

If I played one and was really inspired, I'd consider owning one. But the "road worn" look would definitely count against it; I'd have to be really inspired to be interested.

Well, considering the kind of finish that are on the not-worn guitars, all of them are going to look that way eventually.

It might actually be a relief to own an instrument when you didn't have to worry about that first ding you will get in it.

How about an Axl Badwater Bass?





Decent reviews (BP Oct. 08) for the price point (sub $230.00) and they look all beat to crap.
Or you could just get an S/X from Rondo and drag it behind the car for a few blocks.

My take on it is if you want to buy an already beat up bass hit a pawn shop or Craigs list, it'll be cheaper. Then again what do I know. There seems to be a market for them.

Pointless.

I bet that in 10 years time some idiots will try to sell them as being 1960's models.

Well, I have to disagree. Coating your bass in polyurethane inhibits the potential tone. The Nash basses sound fantastic and look like old Fenders. That doesn't seem silly to me at all. They are deliberately coated in the original coating, i.e. nitrocellulose and then most of the coating is taken off. IMHO this releases the full tone of the instrument. They end up rather matt and so you can tell it's not the real deal but it's not bad.

Besides, my basses are immaculate and I wouldn't be able to attack them with knives, hammers and sandpaper. I just couldn't. I'd much rather someone else did it!

Davo

The feel of a bass with worn-off finish on the neck is very different.

I played one the other day. I thought it was the best sounding jazz bass I ever played. I didn't care for the fatter neck, and I can take or leave the finish, but the sound was big, fat and loud. Better than the Geddy Lee jazz next to it, and I loved the sound of the Geddy - before I played the Road Worn.

I played a Road Worn P bass today. Light, easy to play and sounded great. As much as I want to be, I don't think I can be a P bass guy - road worn or otherwise.

What I'd like to see is a shoot-out that features
"relic/road worn/etc" instruments against real vintage instruments, to see how much difference there really is in the way they sound. That might settle a few arguments...

There is ample evidence that "relic-ing" an instrument will affect it's tone. Some may like how that sounds, other may not. With that in mind, it's really just a question of apples and oranges.

Hey, if you don't like 'em, don't agree with the philosophy behind them, think they are overpriced, etc, don't buy 'em. If you go the other way, go ahead.

And folks, anybody who judges a player of any sort on the basis of owning a "professionally pre-aged" instrument is unfair at best, an idiot at worst, and doesn't need to be listened to in any case. Class it up, guys.

So I went to this Fender day at my favorite MI store yesterday. And one of the things that the Fender people were really enthusiastic about was the Road Worn instruments. And they were cool enough to give me some background on the instruments.

I was really skeptical when I saw that they were made in Mexico. But if anyone has been following the improvements in the Mexican instruments, they really have come a long way. And apparently the workers in the Mexican plants? Guess who trained them to weather the road worn instrument? The guys from the Fender custom shop. And the Fender reps also told me that the finish on these instruments are a thinner lacquer that allows the body to "breathe" more.

I tried out one of the Jazz basses. And I've got to say. It was really impressive. It played beautifully. It had a great tone. And the weathering on the back of the neck made it feel incredible. But I really do not dig an instrument that's Fiesta red. Olympic white or three tone sunburst? Maybe.

Am I totally sold? There I'm not sure. I still have a plan for what I want to do with my instruments. Certainly, Fender bringing their prices back down helps things. But if you make it to one of these Fender in-store events, the prices are discounted by an additional 10% off.

Here's the way I look at it- You see a '69 Mustang that the owner's had for 20 years, maybe bought it in high school or something. It's faded paint, cracked dash, rusty rear quarters and peeling top came from years of fun times, sad times and memories in the making. That car has mojo. It has personality. It has history. It earned it's stripes so to speak.

If Ford built the 2009 Mustang in the same condition and called it 'road worn' and charged a premium, it would scream 'poser'.

The 'Road Worn' series may sound great and play great, but the mojo comes from the history that either you or someone has put the instrument through. I couldn't see myself buying one of these, no matter how cool it looked or how great it sounds.

My $.02

I think the weathering is up to your individual aesthetic. Personally I like a clean finish on the body of my instruments. And I tend to keep mine really clean. When one of my instruments got a substantial ding in it, it drove me crazy! But when it came to how the neck was weathered on the Road Worn bass, that made a difference to me.

I think the whole thing boils down to whether or not you think these basses play well enough for something that sells for $900 - $1000. In this regard I think these basses play really well, and they offer a really good value for the price.

From what I read, the "Road Worn" look was inspired by custom guitars Fender made for Eric Clapton and others. Clapton, for example, is known for his cigarette burneed and genuinely well-worn "Blackie" Strat. Well the original Blackie is now full of sentimental value if nothing else, EC doesn't want to take it on the road, so he had a copy made. I think Sting has done the same thing.

Clapton sold Blackie a couple of years ago, and gave the proceeds to the rehab facility he started in Antigua. He hasn't taken Blackie or a copy of it on the road for a very long time, relying instead on his signature Strats. They do make the Clapton Strat in black w/white pickguard now,which wasn't a color option on them for a long time.
Guitar Center ended up buying Blackie, and had a limited number of replicas of it made, which sold for a ridiculously high amount, like $50k or something. Now, THAT'S a ripoff to me.

The RW Jazz that I played three weeks ago was almost 5 times as expensive as the Yamaha BB I just bought. Personally, I liked the way the BB sounds more than that particular Jazz bass.
Then again there's another MIM Jazz in town that I like enough to buy if I could swing it. It's half the price of the Roadworn, so IMO it just depends more on how an instrument sounds in your own hands.

I was wondering if the P bass that Sting is playing these days on tour is the original or a copy of such.

I guess that now on Ebay and Craiglist a bass with dings and scratches will be more expensive than a mint one.

What bugs me is when a player in a famous group starts playing vintage instruments which are older than he is because they look so cool.

I don't think that buying a bass that someone else imparted with the mojo automatically transfers said mojo.

Meanwhile I'd rather buy a brand new Mustang than one that someone else beat up.

And if I like the roadworn bass or guitar better than the other instruments I try out, I'll probably buy it.

After all, I bought my first blue bass, not because it was blue, but in spite of that. It sounded and felt great.
After a while, I began to appreciate the blueness of it and that brought me to the current day.

I was wondering if the Stevie Ray Vaughan copy was one of the first "Road Worn" products that Fender offered????

There's a young local kid who is building knockoffs of Stevie Ray's SRV Strat, using cheap parts and selling them for over a grand each.
One especially morbid one is made to look like it survived the fire from the helicopter crash.

Don't think for one minute that Fender are doing this because of demand for replicas by famous guitarists. They have spotted that several niche companies (e.g. Nash) are making a very nice living producing vintaged instruments, based on Fender designs.

So rather than miss an opportunity they have created RW series, boasted interestingly that uncoated basses sound better, and given a boost to the Mexican Fender name in the process.

Very clever.

If they sound great and play great then it's just down to looks.

That is where it's at folks.

Davo

I first thought that any manufacturer has "2nds or Blems" during production. Why not take those "Blems" and blem them more and call them Road Worn.
Rocky

Maybe they do.

While the relics and Roadworn due have a certain "coolness" about them, I 'd rather plop the Thousand dollars or so on a Brand new bass and play it for 10 yrs or so th get the same effect.

How about plopping down $300 and playing it for 38 years?
It worked for me.

(ducks and runs)

Hmm, my 70's basses are still immaculate. I do wonder how some of the 60's basses actually get in such a state!

Davo

38 years ago, $300 would buy a lot more guitar than it will now. You could buy a brand new P-Bass for around that, and there was no such thing as a foreign made Fender...

38 years ago, that $300 that I paid for my Jazz bass (brand new) was what six months of rent cost me.

The cost of basses is very reasonable these days and even the cheapest ones are playable instruments which was not the case back in the day.

If you like a bass, buy it. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

But please use your ears and fingers to decide, not your eyes.

Can't beat that for advice.

I feel the same way. Somebody in another forum summed it up this way: Why pay today's dollars for yesterday's ergonomics and sound? There's too many deals out there (i.e. eBay) to fork over $1500 for an "old" guitar. If somebody I knew wanted a vintage look on their bass, I'll be more than happy to take a cigarette lighter to it after I drag it around the neighborhood behind my car, and I'll charge a lot less than Fender.

I don't know if this is true but I was told that not only did they have the worn look but the electronics were to mimic the year the bass is copied from.

To this, I have to say take a look at Nash Guitars. They were doing the "road worn" thing across their line when Fender was only doing that as a Fender Custom Shop offering.



This Nash weathered P-Bass copy sells for $1895.




And this Fender Custom Shop weathered Jazz bass is a fine example of craftsmanship combined with weathering. All for the low, low price of $3400+.

Now if there's a market for Nash's weathered basses which sell for between $1500 - $2K, and Fender's Custom Shop instrument which sells for over $3K, then there's probably a market for a weathered bass in the $1000 neighborhood.

I've heard great things about Nash. And every Fender Custom Shop bass I've played has sounded great and played amazingly well. But then there are the hurdles of the price and whether or not the weathered look fits with your own aesthetic. I think the Road Worn series makes this style more accessible. But then it's got to feel good in your hands, otherwise what's the point?

Here I am playing a Nash bass belonging to 57pbass (and using an amp belonging to Tom Capasso) (Thanks, guys!)
It was a very nice bass and I enjoyed playing it.
The other people are my brother, Stephen Cohen, upright bassist Ritt Henn , and a guest performer from the audience.

I hope you played well. That's one harsh looking critic in the polka dots.

After playing it some more, maybe I could be. It plays and sounds really nice.

Looks like Pino's bass...

Ah, the ever so noticeable fiesta red. Can't say that I'm a fan of that particular color. I played a Pino bass. It was fantastic. But that color just kills me...


...As did the $3K+ price tag!

Based on comments from some other Lowdowners, I'd like to try out a Nash at some point. Finding one seems to be a little bit of a challenge though.

Also not a fan of the Fiesta Red. If it made me play like Pino, I may reconsider.

Tonight I played a gig with a guitarist who owns a music store. He is a "tone whore", the kind of guy who can tell by the sound of his effects pedals what brand of battery is inside. (I found this out when he remarked that his pedals sounded different because he didn't bring his Voodoo power supply). He was playing a hand-wired Vox AC-30 amp (custom-classic model) and brought a Strat and a Tele with him. He had an awesome sound.

I asked him about the road-worn Fenders and he said he had not yet seen one that wasn't a good guitar. He thought they were an excellent instrument for the price. He also thought that they used better components than Nash guitars and cost half as much.

I think the value of these basses is remarkable. Like I said earlier in the thread, I was seriously tempted by the roadworn Jazz bass. If it weren't a god-awful color I would've had a hard time putting it down.

Funny thing, I actually got to tell a couple of guys from Fender what colors I thought it should be offered in. My choices? Three tone sunburst (I know it's offered like this already), olympic white or black. Those are just classic colors. But then I should've told them to do Lake Placid blue...just for JC!

Just hook-up with Ben Loy or 57pbass sometime. Both in Queens and both with Nash instruments. You'd be able to try both P and J configurations.

In the end, regardless of price, I want a bass to feel good in my hands and sound good to my ears.

Peace.
--s-uu