Yamaha Review: BB405 4-knob

History:

Purchase: $325 used, minor fret wear, etc no case, from the Guitar Center, Colonie NY USA. It caught my eye because of the very wide full 19mm 5-string spacing and reasonable price, so I played it. It was sounding very weird, sort of way too huge on the attack, overwhelming the rest of the note. So I figured it was a great candidate for a conversion to fretless. Also, the set-up was exceedingly low with the neck very flat yet it played with no undue buzzing, so I knew the neck & frets were in real good shape.

What I Like About This Yamaha BB405 4-knob: Maybe it was just those 2 amps at the GC that made it sound weird. I've plyed it out a 4 times now and although the attack is very pronounced, it has some wonderful humming fundamentals and OK sustain. It's one of the only basses that I won't want to convert to flatwounds. It has a very aggressive sound in all its tones and has a huge palette of tones [from just 2 EQ knobs, B&T]. I think the strings on it are Ken Smith. Anyway, it's not "biting" like a Stingray, even though the attack is even more strongly boosted. All EQ settings sound musical, and it's free of the excess twang [dial it up only if you really want it]. It's got a great deep end when needed, but it's well defined, not all muddy or boomy. B-string sound very clear, right down to C, and is even OK on the B. It has a PU balance knob instead of the [undesirable] 2 seperate gain knobs, and has no neck dive even with a smooth nylon web strap, despite its extra wide neck.

What I Do NOT Like About The Yamaha BB405 4-knob: Came with gold hardware. Slight sizzle at the less bass-heavy EQ settings when the the PU balance is far off-center. Tuner peg for B-string should have been further from the nut [only 1.75"] but putting a tubular spacer on the ball-end of the B- string solves most of that.

Yamaha BB405 4-knob Quality Rating: Medium weight body, 1-piece maple neck with 24 frets on rosewood board. Full "P-bass" string-to-string spacing, wide as the widest 5-strings. Typical Gotoh style cast bridge and tuners. Plastic nut, flat peghead with 2 string trees. Rod access at neck-body joint. 4-bolt neck joint, with plate. Scale is 34", profile slightly flattened but meaty. New BB405's have a 3-knob setup [and no gold on the hardware] but this one has a 4-knob deal with bass, treble, master gain, and PU balancer. Also newer 405s have narrow PU covers looking like jazz PUI's. Mine are wider, as on the TRBs. Minor sizzle when strongly favoring one one PU is much less than is typically heard from a jazz-bass.

Review Summary: Yamaha never ceases to amaze me, and always at a reasonable cost. This ax has a million personalities and very simple controls to access them. Has clear low-end groove, humming mids, and the highs are clear but not pingy or all twanged out. Weight/balance and playability are very friendly.

Rating of this Yamaha product: 4

This Yamaha BB405 4-knob Bass Guitars Review Submitted By: Golem

Review Date: 2004-12-20