"Hey, pssst! Hey! Remember that one bass you said you were GASsing for? I have one of them right here. Fancy a trade?"
And then he sent me a pic of this little beauty:
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It's an Atelier Z Baby Z-4J. It was delivered to me last Thursday, and it is AWESOME!
Atelier Z is based in Tokyo, Japan and was founded by the guy who would later build the Japanese Sadowsky Metroline basses. As you may know, these are very highly regarded. Atelier Z is not very well-known outside Japan. I first heard of them when I saw the Baby Z 4-PJ on the website of Taniguchi Gakki years ago (who now stock a lefty 5-string version of the above bass BTW!) but have never seen one in the wild before. Until now
The Baby Z-4J has roughly the looks and dimensions of a Fender Mustang / Musicmaster, and it shares the 30" scale and 16,5 mm string spacing at the bridge, but that's where the similarities end: This thing is a scaled down active Jazz Bass with modern features like active electronics, a titanium reinforced neck and high-mass bridge, and therefore it sounds very modern too! It will also do thumpy tones, but because of the lack of a treble rolloff the zingy roundwound sound is always there. Controls are neck volume, bridge volume (push/pull for passive), stacked bass and treble (boost only). Tuners are Gotoh, bridge is a custom aluminium Hipshot style B with extra narrow string spacing. Frets appear to be stainless steel and are very narrow and low and I love the feel! The neck is reinforced with titanium rods, and has a very smooth satin finish that feels great. It's just a breeze to play, and so much fun! Paulo strung it with a medium scale set of DR Sunbeams 045-105, and I was amazed by how tight they feel and sound and how well they appear to suit this bass.
There are a few minor things that annoy me and need to be taken care of: pickup height adjustment doesn't work (in either direction. They're completely stuck at their current height, and I almost stripped a screw hole while trying), and I hate the looks and feel of the control knobs and the pots themselves. The neck volume and bass control feel solid and stay in place, but especially the treble knob turns at the slightest touch. I still have a set of Fender Jazz Bass knobs and two Fender Am Dlx stacked Jazz knobs that I hope I can get to fit. I saw on Reverb that new models come with Sadowsky-like aluminium knobs that also look great. Otherwise I'm very happy with it, and it's incredibly fun to play!
