Model Year: 2003
Where Obtained: secondhand

This is a lefty Yamaha BB405 Nathan East-style satin body, 5-string bass. Two passive PU's.

This bass was purchased in order to have a back-up bass for my KSD Proto-J 5-er. However this bass will be used as much as the KSD. The bass feels rather light, but the tone is amazing and the B-string is really sounding marvellous.

Amps: Markbass Momark 600 + 4x10 Markbass cabinet, through the tuner out linked to a Markbass Little Mark combo 2x10. I also use a Line6 Bass floor pod.

Although the bass has a very light feel, it is very well constructed. I just restrung it with d'Addario 170 strings and sounds just great!

Model Year: 2003
Price: $240.00 uk 's (new)
Where Obtained: Sound Control, Dundee

Body: Alder Neck: Bolt-on maple Fingerboard: Rosewood, 250mm (10) radius Frets: 24 Scale length: 864mm (34) Pickups: Two humbuckers Controls: Two volumes, master tone Bridge: Diecast chrome with four individual saddles Finish: Cherry burst, matching headstock

Was set up just right for my liking

Play mainly 60's influenced music and it fits my playing style well. From Beatles, Small Faces, etc to The Jam, Paul McCartney and so on

Still remains unadjusted after almost 2 years.

Model Year: 2004
Price: $299.00 (new)
Where Obtained: Mom's Music Louisville KY

Yamaha's lowest-priced 4-string model in the BB Series, it features the Nathan East body silhouette that plays easily and offers great balance and shoulder comfort. Equipped with a solid alder body, maple neck, dual humbuckers, a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard, and die-cast chrome tuners and hardware. Nice instrument. Jazz style Bass 2 J humcanceling Pickups. Tuners are ok they do the job and hold there tune fairly well. These are not highend tuners but they don't suck. The bridge is nice and solid but does not feature the ability to change string spacing. Pick ups and pots are nice and have whats seems a reasonable amount of noise for humcanceling pick ups when unbalanced they are silent when balanced. All the stadard feture of a Passive J-Bass are present.

I am able to get the action nice and low how ever I still need to work out some fret buzz. I think this is mostly due to my own inexperience seting up mt Bass and not the instument itself. The neck is nice and thin easy to get around quick. This is a very good instrument for great quality for the price.

I use my Bassman 60 with it and it sounds great. It works well in any most any style. It sounds like a Jazz Bass. NIce and punchy. Sounds very similar to Fender Jazz but a little warmer with a bit less of the throaty bark of a Fender Jazz.

I play this live every sunday. Never any problems. One of the tone controls came lose but it was ealiy fixed and this kind of thing happens with even the most expensive Basses. Yamaha makes a solic instument. The wine burst finish is wonderful.

Model Year: 2003
Price: $260.00 GBPounds (new)
Where Obtained: GAK

This is all i know about my yamaha bb404. its basically a nicely put together jazz style bass. it has a 24 fret maple neck and is a 34" scale. 2 pick-up volume controls (neck and bridge) and a tone control. using the volumes you can have a precision bass with the neck pick up and a very jazz stlye bass with the bridge pickup... or a combination of the 2 the pickups are both standard yamaha fitted passive humbuckers. and mine has a very nice wine red shiny finish. oh and it was made in Taiwan but dont let that put you off

Excellent choice as a second bass... once your past that beginner stage and want to explore different styles with your playing. i learnt to play slap of this due to the positions of the pickups gives your hand something to rest on and lets you know where the strings are you are about to play without having to look at that hand. very easy to play.... quite light on the neck though which is a little odd if your used to a fender style bass.

I used a harkte 200watt head with a 4x10 and 1x15 cabs. not an expensive rig. but together they sound great, well at least i think so. i wouldnt recommend using this in a studio. iv used it and it gives a very flat dull sound for some reason. sounds great live tho..... i dont understand why. if you could explain it to me i would be grateful. oh, and because it has passive pickups dont stand alongside your amp with only one pickup volume on full..... its very noisey... again you you could explain it to me why it does this?

Its had beer, blood, glue and oil spilt on it and the finish it still perfect. its been dropped from the top of my stairs (drunken incident which i dont recomend) a strap boke on stage and it fell pickups down and it fell out of a broken carry case. after all this apart from a few bumps and bruises IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE NEW! nuff sed?

Model Year: 2003
Price: $250.00 GBP (new)
Where Obtained: Academy of Sound, Glasgow

Very nice alder body, made in the far east I would think. 2 J-type pickups, Volume controls for each pickup and a master tone, 24 frets on a rosewood board, passive electronics. Mine's finished in a really nice natural finish, lightly varnished but they come in some other really nice colours, all with matching painted headstocks I think. One of the features I liked most was the big chunky forged bridge, sounds a lot nicer than most other cheap bridges which are usually just a pressed plate.

Plays far better than anything else at this price point and even puts mexican Fenders to shame. It's a nice slim neck, similar to that of a Fender Jazz and all of the 24 frets are easily accessible. Adjusting the action is very easy with the truss rod adjustment being just below the 24th fret as opposed to on the headstock.

The sounds is fantastic, thanks to the placement of the two jazz pickups you can mess around and get any type of sound you like, from warm blues to bright slapping and big powerful rock. The sound is in my opinion similar to but slightly better than that of a mexican Jazz Bass due to the pickups being about a similar distance apart but roughly 20mm closer to the bridge. I've not managed to play it live yet but through both small practice amps and larger amps in rehearsal it sounds very sweet. It's also got a really nice sustain too thanks to having a good solid bridge, this is really unusual for the price point.

The one issue I have with the bass is the softness of the finish, within only a couple of weeks I've already managed to knock a couple of little dents into without giving it any real heavy abuse. It meant I had to fork out a little extra for a hard case but still. Other than that though, everything else is holding up very well, the bridge looks particularly meaty and could probably take a fair bit of hitting by the look of it!

Model Year: 2003
Price: $300.00 (new)
Where Obtained: Musician's Friend

Nathan East sculpted body design

Solid alder body

Maple neck w/Rosewood fingerboard

24 frets

Dual humbucking pickups

Die-cast chrome tuners/hardware

Had to do some minor adjusting out of the box but other than that, it is a charm to play.

WIth the twin pickups you can really get any sound you want out of this bass.

I use this bass live along with a P-Bass and would have no problem never taking the P-Bass along for the ride again if I had to.