G&L L2000 Tribute Bass Guitar

 Many manufacturers when they make cheaper versions of their production models in the Far East try to make them noticeably inferior so you feel some pressure to move from a student style instrument to the professional model. G&L are much more generous. Their Indonesian models are superbly built and finished (at least in my limited experience of them) and come with exactly the same hardware as their more customisable siblings from the US. This, as they claim, puts high quality instruments into the hands of every working musician.

I really can’t understand why G&L aren’t more popular. They are, after all, Leo Fender’s final word and innovation, but they’ve never hit the public imagination in the same way as Musicman managed to do.

The L2000 bass I have I has a carved top flame maple over swamp ash body. This is quite unusual as most are flat slabs like a traditional fender bass. I really like the solidity of the G&L bridge, another of Leo’s little masterpieces. The same can be said for the pickups which are of really high quality and deliver in a range of tones. The MFD pickups are the same as in the US models which is a real bonus. Leo really understood what he was doing with this advance in pickup technology. Together with the carefully thought out active electronics and switching, this bass has a huge variety of sounds and takes some time to learn how to get the best out of it. 

My bass came with a maple neck in a vintage style finish. If I’m being picky I’d say that the poly finish is a bit thick on these basses, but nothing really to lose sleep over. The tuners are excellent, and the bass is extremely stable.  The swamp ash makes it relatively light.

The bass plays extremely well. I work in a very fluid band of musicians and switch between instruments, so others often play this bass as well and it is widely loved by my fellow bassists, matching well to a wide range of musical genres.

I’d say Leo got it about right with this bass. It is an evolution of the jazz bass and Musicman.  Shame it isn’t more understood and popular than it is.