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[Bass of the week] Roscoe Custom Classic 4JJ

The feature bass this week is from an owner who by his own admission bugged the builder for years until he finally got the J-Bass he wanted (and it’s pretty darned good).

Owner Clint Owens writes:

My bass was built by Keith Roscoe and the team at Roscoe Guitars. I have known Keith around 15 years and own a couple of his basses. I have been bugging him for years to build a J Bass. I am not sure if I wore him down or he realized there were many other bassist asking for an affordable Custom J Bass? My inspiration for this bass was my 74 Fender Jazz Bass which was my first bass I bought used when I was 13.

A little bit about my Custom Roscoe:

Serial # 0000C

Alder Body in Olympic White (upgraded from the standard Poplar)

Maple Neck Bound with Matching Olympic White Headstock

Pau Ferro Fingerboard with Pearloid Blocks

Pickups – Don’t let the Aguilar logo fool you, under the hood is a set of Honey Badger Vintage Split Coil Pickups (I just like the Aguilar covers better)

Hipshot Classic Bridge and Tuners

Tortoise Shell Pick Guard

Electronics – John East J-Tone (I bought this from Best Bass Gear and had it put in place of the passive tone. The J-Tone Controls V-V, B-T Stack, Passive Tone)

Well done!

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13 thoughts on “[Bass of the week] Roscoe Custom Classic 4JJ”

    • This bass has an Alder body, it weighs 8 pounds and 14 ounces. If you went with an Ash body you could easily drop about a pound off the weight. Gard, the production manager at Roscoe is a really cool guy and has been known to weigh a few pieces of wood for a customer to find out which one is the lightest. Roscoe has really great customer service.

      Reply
    • Unfortunately I do not have recording gear and the live recording doesn’t do justice to the bass. I will say I have had sound guys and other musicians tell me the bass sounds amazing. The J-Tone preamp is pretty sweet. I mostly run active with the treble set flat and the bass around 2 o’clock. The passive tone control works in both passive and active so that is the knob I use the most.

      Reply
  1. If anyone in the Raleigh, NC area would like to play it, I can meet you at Sam Ash on Capital Blvd so you can take it for a test drive but please don’t ask to buy it as the answer will be, NO. Otherwise you can check the Roscoe Guitars Dealer Page of their website to find one closer.

    Reply
  2. very nice bass. apparently, it does pay to bug the builder! was curious about the Honey Badger Vintage Split Coil Pickups, as i`ve not heard of them. if they are an upgrade from Aguilar, they must sound real good

    Reply
    • The Honey Badger Split Coils are pretty hot pickups so you have to set the height lower than the Aguilar pickups. Too me, I think the Honey Badger sound more open, closer to a single coil than the Aguilar. Normally I would have gone with Delano or Nordstrand split coils but unfortunately both were out of stock at BBG. A friend, Greg Bump did a video with the P pickup comparison on his Lull P bass. He recorded it with the factory installed Fralin P pickup, then switched the Fralin for the Honey Badger P pickup and I noticed more punch and less of the harsh mids so I decided to try the Honey Badger JJ split coil.

      I am not trying to knock Aguilar but this is the second time I tried their Jazz pickups, I just don’t care for the tone. I do have a set of Aguilar DCB-D4 pickups in my Roscoe LG3005 and love the way the pickups sound in that bass which is paired with an East Uni-Pre (I bought both the DCBs and Uni-Pre from BBG).

      Reply
  3. Hi, I’m not arguing, but trying to verify the wood weights. I was under the impression that alder was used in the lighter Fender basses (60’s & 70’s) and ash in the heavier ones. My ’72 P-bass was quite light and said to be alder. My ’65 Jazz bass was said to be ash and it weighed a ton. I’m not talking about swamp ash; I only learned about that in the 90’s and I liked the sound and lightness my Warwicks — bodies made with that. At this point, I could look up the specs according to the serial numbers to be sure what was declared by the manufacturer.

    Can someone give me some insight on my alder/ash confusion?

    Reply
    • I’m not Clint but I’ll try to answer that question. Keith uses swamp ash which is much lighter that northern ash (that Fender primo used back in the day).

      Reply
    • I’m not Clint but I’ll try to answer that question. Keith uses swamp ash which is much lighter that northern ash (that Fender primarily used back in the day).

      Reply

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