You Can Teach An Old Rocher New Tricks!

The Company Line

The Yamaha Corporation in Japan (though originally known as “Nippon Gakki Co. Ltd.”) was founded in 1887 by Torakusu Yamaha, and was in the reed organ business. Since then, the company has diversified into a very large number of wide-ranging markets, from semiconductors to home appliances, but the only one we’re interested in here is their musical instruments, so we’ll stick to that. The company set out to lead the market in product and service quality, and has built a reputation for making instruments that are at the “best of breed” level. I’ve personally spoken to people who play their horns, pianos, guitars, etc, and the common thread in all those conversations is quality and attention to detail. This is a trend firmly entrenched in the company and remains strong even today, nearly 125 years later. That’s something to brag about.

Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA) was established in 1960,though it was known as “Yamaha International Corporation” at the time.It is the largest of all the subsidiaries currently owned by Yamaha Corporation in Japan, and is what their musical instrument business calls home.

Now fast forward to the late 1970’s, when the original BB series came out.Early models, such as the BB1200 (a four-string bass with a single Precision-style pickup), and BB2000 (a four-string bass with a Precisionstyle neck pickup and a Jazz-style bridge pickup) came out and became very popular very quickly. They were affordable, very high quality, and looked great. These days, those are vintage instruments, but they’re still very popular with working bassists even today... even sought-after.

Yamaha recognized the endurance of this popular model, and decided to do something very special. The goal was to make a brand new instrument, benefitting from modern technology, but also benefitting from the pleasant characteristics typically associated with an instrument that’s been around a long time, where the wood has changed in some favorable ways from a tonal standpoint. This is what they did with the BB2000 “x” line (2024x/2025x). How? Read on. It’s very interesting, and I don’t know of anybody else doing what they are.

How Did They Do That?

As I mentioned before, this bass was the culmination of a special effort by many experts at Yamaha Artist Services Hollywood (YASH). It was made by Yamaha Music Craft (YMC), a special facility in the Hamamatsu Japan headquarters location, but it was researched, designed, and prototyped at YASH.YASH is where artist relations are handled of course, but it’s also a sophisticated research and development center which they use as their custom shop, since the two naturally go together. What you get back from the pros in the field should trickle back to production, if you want to pursue a constant endeavor to make the best instruments available.

First, let’s talk about the tech. Yamaha wanted this bass to sound as if the wood was old... very old. To emulate the passage of time, Yamaha employs a technology called Acoustic Resonance Enhancement (A.R.E.). Basically, it’s a carefully controlled environmentally friendly (chemical free) curing process using temperature and humidity. They claim this process literally manipulates the molecular characteristics of the wood to be similar to the wood of an instrument that’s been played for years. They’re very proud of the results of this process, and even include acoustic spectral graphs in the product literature to show “with” and “without” shots to prove results. Going by those graphs, the results don’t seem like night and day, but they appear to be real, and at least somewhat significant.

So if they’re using A.R.E for resonance, what are they using for attack? They use Initial Response Acceleration (I.R.A.). This is a process where they apply specific vibrations to the finished instruments. The idea is again to emulate years of playing.Their theory is, guitars literally adapt to a style of playing, based on the vibrations associated with that style.They feel there is literally stress between all the woods, nut, bridge,and even the finish, and that stress must be released to make an instrument respond more accurately and even “adapt” to different playing styles more rapidly. They also include graphs to show “with” and “without” cases, and they appear to show visible results.

I have to admit, when I first read about these technologies, I was seeing pictures of snake oil jars in the back of my mind. But at least from a theoretical standpoint, I think what they’re trying to achieve – and why – seems to make some sense. I guess the proof will just have to be in the pudding when people play these basses and see if they notice significant improvements in these two areas.

These basses feature some other interesting general construction features. The body is mostly alder, and looks as if it’s three pieces (if you have a finish where you can see the grain, at least), but it’s really five pieces. There are two hard maple splines joining the wings to the center block. Ironically, the goal of this approach is to improve resonance, which they say is more characteristic of a one-piece body.Otherwise, it’s a classically shaped BB body, with an offset double cutaway, and some nice body contouring to be comfortable against your body and forearm.

They use four bolts to secure the fivepiece neck, which is mostly maple, but with two thick mahogany stringers.One thing that’s new here vs. the older BB’s is the neck pocket is 5mm deeper than it used to be. This is also to improve tone. The fingerboard is rosewood, with mother of pearl oval inlays (with a modified oval at the 12th fret), classic to the BB heritage and very attractive. The fingerboard radius is huge at 23 5/8”, which pretty much feels flat to me. The nut is somewhat unique in that it’s made of nickel and silver. This is the same material the frets are made of. Similar to an instrument employing a “zero fret,” this is to improve tonal consistency between a fretted note and an open note. I have to also comment on how tight the neck pocket is on this bass. It’s a superb fit, and I’m a firm believer this also improves tone. The truss rod is also easily accessible at the base of the neck from the front of the instrument via front route.

They employ a string tree for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings, to improve downforce on the nut and keep the break angle pretty much the same as the 1st and 5th strings. Their “Vintage Plus” bridge is a dual-path model, where you can anchor the strings right at the bridge, or you can string through the bridge and use their “diagonal body thru stringing” feature. This feature is new for this model. They cite that through-body stringing is good in that it increases down-force at the saddles, but most through-body methods pass through the body perpendicular to the surface, which is too sharp of a turn for the strings. They feel that by reducing this angle, you still get all the benefits of better vibration transmission, but without as much stress on the string windings. Just note that if you do string through the body, you will need to get extra long strings. The bridge plate is steel, but the saddles are brass.The bridge saddles also have an angle cut to them, which is intended to provide a more specific fulcrum point for the string as compared to a typical full round barrel shape. The machines are pretty classically designed, and work well. Similarly, the strap buttons aren’t locks, but they’re oversized and hold the strap firmly and safely.

What about the “electronics?” The pickups are where they put a lot of stock in the sound of the instrument, both being designed by YASH and based on a lot of feedback from working pros. The neck pickup is a series-wired P-style pickup, using Alnico-V magnets. This is supposed to enhance the deep tones. The bridge pickup is sort of a J-style pickup and employs a ceramic magnet, which is supposed to deliver better punch. Each pickup has its own chrome bezel, and adjusts very freely and easily. Both pickups are wired to a three-position pickup selector, then on to a master volume and master tone control. All three of the controls are mounted on a metal control plate that joins the plastic pickguard surrounding the neck pickup and extending into the lower horn. Pretty straightforward... that’s rock and roll for ya.

At the Gig

This thing is alive, and it’s angry.Notes just jump off this bass and out of your amp. Even though the pickups are generally kind of like a P and J pickup, they’re really quite different than a typical Fender would sound with their flavors of those pickups.These aren’t quite as bright and crisp at the high end, but are particularly big and full in the lows and mids, and have a lot of mid grunt. Especially for blues and rock, this bass rules the roost. It has a particularly smooth high end.Even playing with a pick, I didn’t find myself hitting the tone control as hard as other basses. The BB2025x sounds just like all the BB basses you’ve heard before and loved on SO many tracks, but it’s been perfected to add extra life and tonal consistency to every note over the originals. I have no scientific way to specifically lock what I’m hearing to their A.R.E and I.R.A.technologies, but I’m compelled to say I believe they work. This bass feels and sounds significantly better to me than any other BB I’ve ever played, and at least from an attack and resonance standpoint, on par with the best stuff on the market. This is only a subjective review, but I’m going to call “success.”

The neck profile is super comfortable, and even though I generally prefer a fingerboard with a smaller radius, I found this bass to be particularly easy to play. The action could be set as low as anyone could stand it and still not “gank out” in any particular zone. In short, the fret level was great. I particularly loved the neck pickup solo’d with the tone wide open. The bridge pickup was nice and biting, but I found myself reaching for the tone control to warm it up and fatten it up.But when I did that, it bit very nicely without sounding too thin. However, this brings me to my first niggle with this bass. With a pickup selector switch, you have no blending abilities.I realize a switch eliminates pickup interaction (loading) present with dual volumes or even a blend control, but I still prefer that over a switch, for flexibility. I’m guessing they went with the switch for that tonal reason, but maybe also to simply be a very faithful reiteration of an original. But on a gig, I’d still prefer to have blending. In the case of fattening up the bridge pickup without blending, you can use a passive tone control for some of that, but if you do, you also lose the high end, which could be bothersome. I guess as long as I’m nitpicking, I’ll mention the buzz/hum.With the bridge pickup being a single coil, unless you’re soloing the neck pickup, you get hum. How loud it is of course depends on venue, so it won’t always be a bother, but in any “P/J” configuration, I prefer a humcanceling bridge pickup. Niggles aside, this bass is exactly what Yamaha intended it to be, and any BB fan out there would be in heaven. It’s very clear Yamaha took every component into consideration when they were looking for ways to perfect the original design.

The Bottom Line

For a “P/J” style bass, it’s hard to imagine anything playing, feeling, or sounding much better than this. It’s gutsy, growly, and the notes ring out pure and true. It’s simply a superb instrument in many ways, and the best example I can possibly imagine of a BB bass with this configuration. That said, I do wish it was either volumeblend or volume-volume, rather than having the pickup switch, and I do wish they could have designed a humcanceling J-style pickup to reduce noise. I understand both were tonal choices, but they do have practical drawbacks which I experienced. I also understand they’ve employed some expensive processes to achieve their ambitious tonal goals, which I feel they did achieve. Sitting at the top of the BB lineup, the BB2025x may not fit within every player’s budget.Fortunately, Yamaha offers a whole fleet of BB’s, covering multiple price ranges, and they are all worth checking out.

The Yamaha name shows up on all kinds of things, from motorcycles to musical instruments, including drums, brass, woodwinds, pianos and even bass guitars. With a broad spectrum like that, you might expect their products to be fairly generic, and in a way, this electric bass is. Its presentation looks like very “Fenderesque,” with cues from Fender, G&L, and Music Man, but without really being any of those.Yamaha has developed its own subtle style cues over the years, including thicker necks and pegheads, big distinctive inlays, and larger-looking body shapes than those they pay homage to. As such, they strive to set themselves apart from other manufacturers. Under the hood, they are more of the same.

This bass does lots of things right. It’s very light for as big as it looks. The sunburst finish is traditional and gorgeous. The passive electronics use Noble pots – a good and unusual choice. The “strings through body” drilling is on a bias from the bottom edge rear corner that slightly reduces the break angle across the saddles. Usually, we like as much break angle as possible over the bridge, but in some string-through basses, the angle is so tight it ends up in string breakage. Yamaha’s unique approach, here, is a nice idea.

This pickup configuration has been used in many basses, but the Precision/Jazz pickup combo is historically fraught with problems.They suffer from a mismatch in magnetism and polarity that creates phasing issues and noise through incomplete hum canceling. These issues are present in this system, but significantly reduced. In this bass, these pickups sound decent together, and very “Fender.” The instrument contains a passive electronic system with a selector switch, rather than a blend and master volume (or volume/volume) setup. Opting to forgo a preamp at this price range is a somewhat risky choice. The bridge pickup is very good sounding, although I kept wishing for a bass knob when I was playing with it. The P-bass pickup is average sounding by itself, but with both pickups on, it sounds better than I would expect for a P/J coil mismatch.

The nickel/silver nut is an unusual choice. Although it would in theory help make the open notes sound more similar to fretted notes, I have some concerns about its longevity. Bone is a longer-lasting alternative which also sounds quite good. On this bass, the nut was cut unusually low, so setting it up for an aggressive player would require a shim. That might be acceptable on an under $1,000 bass, but not so much at this price point.

The bass is well built overall, but might be priced optimistically for the level of manufacture. This is a very competitive price range, and Yamaha faces stiff competition from the likes of the Music Man 5-string, Lakland Skyline 5502, or the Sadowsky Metro.Still, for a company that makes so many different things, this is a pretty solid bass.