Product Description
Vintage AV4 +1S 5 string bass guitar. A Retro design but with a reworked top horn allowing greater access to the top notes and a superior playing balance.
The bass features an alder body with a bolt on maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard. The pickups are jazz style Wilkinson Alnico WBJ's that create a warm and punchy sound and bags of tone and power for all styles of music.
The nickel finished harware is a Wilkinson retro style bridge and open gear tuners.
Specification(review as printed in the performing Musician.com)
Although at first glance the AV4 looks like a Fender Jazz take-off, there are a number of differences setting it apart from being a copy, allowing it to become a stand-alone instrument, instead of just another clone.
The headstock is larger than a Jazz, although similar in shape, and carries four large, traditional-style, open-gear WJBL200 tuners, manufactured by Wilkinson. The top two strings are held firmly in place by a retainer and all four strings are angled well across the ivory graphite nut, which, rather than being at the end of the fingerboard, is set into it, 5mm from its termination. This is also where truss rod adjustment is made with the usual hex nut, accessed via a small black-lined hole. The front face is glossed, while the rear has a natural matte finish that carries on to the playing area of the neck.
The one-piece, hard maple neck measures 44mm at the nut, widening to 66mm, and is topped by an Indian rosewood fingerboard that sports dot inlays along both its front and side, into which the 22 medium-jumbo frets are precision fitted. String spacing is ideal, with a Precision feel for the left hand and Jazz gaps for tight, funky fingerpicking. The strings are also set slightly in from the neck edge — another nice touch that stops the G-string from being pulled over the edge of the frets, as often happens on numerous cheap basses I review.
Five bolts with recessed washers hold the neck firmly to the body in a very accurate joint, which appears surprisingly small from the front. This is accomplished by scalloping away the neck after the fingerboard and hiding the remainder of the joint underneath the pickguard — a really clever touch that makes the neck appear to be sitting right on the edge of the body.
The two-piece, 40mm-thick, American alder body is conventionally shaped, with offset waist and lower bouts, and contours for both rib and forearm. A generous radius adorns both front and back edges. Setting the AV4 apart from its US counterparts are the deep cutaways to both extended horns, allowing superb access right up to the top fret. This review sample is finished in very attractive Sunset Sunburst, while other options available are Boulevard Black and Vintage White, with the first two having white scratchplates and the latter having black. This feature has been completely restyled away from the J-bass look — coming to a sharp point on the lower horn, the scratchplate then sweeps around in a semicircle, encompassing the neck pickup and joining up with the front-mounted nickel plate carrying the controls and jack socket.
Pickup choices on the AV4 are two Trevor Wilkinson single-coils, a WJBF in the middle position and a WJBR near the bridge, both passively controlled by two volume knobs and a master tone. An authentic-looking, nickel-plated, Wilkinson WBB bent-steel bridge carries four barrel-style brass saddles, with individual adjustment for string height and intonation, and is attached securely to the body with five screws.
There is a five-string version available with all the same features (but only in black and sunburst) at a bargain price of £319.
Performance
As expected, there is an overall Jazz-like sound, but with just a bit more of everything. Turning the tone on full and engaging the bridge pickup produces a great tight, funky sound, but with a really nice, crisp top end. Switching to the neck unit opens the sound out and is, surprisingly, more middle-y, as well as bassier. Combining the two creates a very good workable tone that can be easily tweaked via the volume pots, while the tone control works well and rolls off the top end, still leaving the AV4 with a good sound when turned fully anticlockwise.
I found the best sounds were achieved with the bass and treble controls on the amp set at nominal and the mid cut slightly. With this setting, the instrument really sings, and has a very good range of tones suitable for different players and a variety of styles.
Conclusion
In my opinion, JHS are onto a real winner with the Vintage Advance series. The commissioning of Trevor Wilkinson for the project has produced a hybrid P-J bass that is truly the best of both worlds. The body and scratchplate re-styling offers a modern and attractive bass guitar, the neck width and string spacing make it a joy to play, and to top it all off, the Wilkinson pickups produce some great sounds. For a player just starting out or someone more accomplished, there should be no need to upgrade this bass once bought unless something far more exotic is required. 0
