Fender BG29 Acoustic-Electric Bass

[Zarathustra]

What? An acoustic bass guitar?!

Yeah, they apparently only began making acoustic bass guitars in the 70's, and they didn't become popular to any extent until MTV's Unplugged, when the bassists needed something acoustic... besides, say, a double bass. According to Wikipedia. No, it's not as classy sounding as a double bass, but bass guitars have almost never had that kind of tone.

The BG-29 is an acoustic electric cutaway, essentially my favorite style of guitar. If you can get one of these cheap, I'd really suggest buying it. I got mine for $150 at a pawnshop where I bought my bass amp (I also use the amp for my acoustic-electric classical guitar, but that's another story).

I had actually seen it when I bought my bass amp, but I was sure it would be gone in a couple of days, being a Fender and all. However, it was there a few weeks later, and I actually got to play it a bit. I instantly fell in love with it.

I'm not much for the jargon of guitar players, but the guitar has nice action, no buzzing strings or frets, the frets seem to be true up to about the twelfth, afterwhich they're slightly out of tune, but there's not enough frets on this guitat to make 12+ playing really worth it. It's a BASS anyways, for the LOW END. The electronics sound fine, I've only really used it with my Ibanez IBZ10B bass amp.

Now, the only thing I'm miffed about is that the Fender strings sound metally and cold. Unless you're in a heavy metal band, that really sucks ass. It, obviously, had strings on it from the previous owner, and they weren't the ones made by Fender. I had to replace the low E a little after getting it, and the Fender string just doesn't have much warmth to it. I can get away with it by muting the strings and amplifying them (which produces a very nice tone), or just... not playing open low E much (it doesn't sound as bad on the frets or if you don't sustain for too long).

I've only seen one other set of acoustic bass guitar strings, so chances are I could find some strings that sound just as good as the A D and G currently on it. If I do, if anyone actually cares, I'll tell you what brand and set.

Anyways, sorry for the raving and rambling nature of this post, I added in alot of stuff after realizing I'd forgotten it. Anyways, this is a nice guitar, but I've never seen acoustic basses in catalogs or online for cheaper than about $350. I'd still buy it for that, but it's not as great a deal.