Fender Starcaster Bass Guitar Review

The Fender Starcaster bass guitar is a take on the 1970's Fender Starcaster electric guitar. The guitar originally gained popularity due to its unique shape and style, with only a few prototypical models available at the time. It was unlike any other guitar that Fender had produced, and it was unlike anything guitarists had played before.

The Starcaster bass has followed in the footsteps of the Starcaster guitar by embodying a unique style and decisive tone. The Modern Player model offers a high level of build quality, with a pleasing tone, and smooth playability. It is a semi-hollow bass guitar which enjoys few adversaries.

Key Features

The Fender Starcaster bass radiates mysterious undertones with its offset semi-hollow body with a bound maple top and back. The front of the body exhibits two multidirectional f-holes, displaying the inner workings of the body of the guitar. The maple neck has a 9.5 radius maple fingerboard and 22 medium-jumbo frets to play around with.

The headstock is another attenuate feature of the Starcaster bass guitars. The augmented curvaceousness stands out as a unique feature to this particular line of guitars and basses. You will notice that the pickups take up copious amounts of space on the body. The extra-large pickups are both wide range Humbucking pickups which produce a full, broad tone to back up the band.

It comes with a three-way toggle switch for the bridge pickup, the neck pickup, and a combination pickup. 4 silver skirted tonal knobs in amplifier style sit atop the font of the alder body to control volume and tone for both of the pickups and the combination position.

It has a synthetic bone nut and a 4-saddles bridge to keep things tightly in place. Chrome hardware and black dot inlays finish off the accent pieces of this bass guitar.

Pros

+ Unique style
+ Very rare design
+ Large Humbucker pickups
+ Unparalleled tone

Cons

- The headstock may stand out
- Not a super versatile tone

Who Is It Suitable For?

The Fender Starcaster bass is unlike any other bass guitar you may have ever come across. Although the sound is fantastic, and the playability is wonderful, the style of the guitar certainly allows it to stand out and turn some heads. Not only are semi-hollow body basses rare, but ones with massive pickups and an eccentric headstock are few and far between.

It is an excellent bass if you're looking for the tonality that can cover genres such as country, folk, rock, and acoustic music. It has a broad sound that can be both edgy and warm depending on the position of the pickups. It doesn't have the stable carry of sustain that solid body basses have, but you may get a little more character out of it than traditional basses.

This bass is perfect for people who want an esoteric bass guitar to add to the collection. If you're a bass player who wants to stand out, and who desires to have a varying tone that is hard to find elsewhere, then this is the bass for you. It is almost certain that you will not find another payer with the same bass as you, and if you do, it will be like meeting a long lost friend you can reminisce about old times with. New to bass? Fender has recently released its own online training platform Fender Play.

Why We Like It

The unique style and rarity of the Starcaster make it a covetable prize for musicians and bassists. The tone is wide and amusing, allowing players to really hone in on sounds that can make them stand out as artists.

As far as fitting into the collection, this is not like many other instruments you will have in your gallery. The history and intrigue of this bass style are sure to spark a conversation. The playability of this dark horse of an instrument is quite pleasing and smooth. You will be able to fit in with some of the more soft-listening styles of music quite nicely while adding a little bit of your own edge to the mix.

This bass guitar is not for the musicians who want to blend into the background. The design screams for attention and provides the backing tone you need to truly lift up the music in an engaging fashion.

Alternative Product

Fender Bronco Bass

Fender Bronco Bass

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