Fender Musicmaster 1981

Fender Musicmaster 1981 in translucent cherry finish.

The bass is in full working order and in very good condition for its age - no damage, main aesthetic issue is a patch of wear on the belly-cut/top of the body along with numerous chips, dings and markings about the body and neck.  The neck is straight, the truss rod works, the frets are all good, tuners are fine and the electronics are new. It comes with the original pickup and original leather case, which is in very poor condition. The bass will be well-packaged for shipping.

The bass has an S8 serial on the headstock (with matching serial on the sticker in the neck pocket) and another sticker in the neck pocket, indicating that the bass was put together in March 1981 (the Musicmaster was still in production until later that year), so it's likely the body and neck are from 1978.

The original pickup was a Fender 016730 plastic-bobbin single coil Stratocaster pickup (consistent with the era) and the wiring was non-original, replaced with what looks like a Home of Tone kit.

As the output from the original pickup is really low (being a guitar pickup), a new Toltec handwound 4-pole alnico bass pickup was fitted to a high-quality new Home of Tone Musicmaster wiring loom, which really opens up what the bass is capable of.   The original pickup and the loom that come with the bass are included in the sale, should you wish to swap back.

The Fender Musicmaster Bass is a short scale (30") passive bass guitar with an alder body in a translucent red finish, maple neck and a 17-fret rosewood fretboard.  The pickup, as mentioned, is a Toltec handwound 4-pole alnico pickup which has the same footprint as the original (and is fitted in the original pickup cover), 

The bass is set up with a low action of 5/64" on the E & A and 4/64" on the D & G at the 17th fret and intonated at the 12th fret.  It's fitted with a set of Ernie Ball Regular Slinky roundwound 105-85-65-45 gauge strings.

Soundwise, with the new pickup, it sounds like a cross between a Mustang and a 51-Precision bass and sounds fantastic with a bit of drive. Rolling off the tone control provides a more vintage tone.

Comes with a gig bag.