REVIEW: Yamaha BB234 bass guitar

We reviewed Yamaha’s BB234 bass guitar.

Check out the review here! 

Check out the Yamaha BB234 in our store! 

Here’s a transcript of the review: 

 Hey what’s up everyone, this is Shane from Fret Zealot and right now I’m rocking a Yamaha bas.  This is the Yamaha BB234. 

The BB stands for “broad bass” and this is the 234, which is the classic rendition of the BB Yamaha bass. It’s stripped down and versatile is what I would say. It’s got two pickup selections to choose from – the J pickup on the bridge position and then the P pick up in the middle position, giving you a variety of really nice tonal options. Each pickup is individually controlled by a volume knob, so you can dial back the volume on both of these and run them at the same time, one or the other as well and then the tone knob back here, which when you when you roll that down it pulls back a little bit of the low frequencies and sort of just tightens up the sound of the bass a little bit. It gets a little a little cleaner sounding a little less extra bass I usually like to leave it wide open. 

You definitely get the most brightness when you leave the tone knob up all the way. When you turn it down, it sort of it sounds like outside the club, like a little bit more softer sounding. I think it would be nice for a bit more of a mellow sound. Moving on to the to the features of the guitar itself, the pick guard on the body with the black gloss finish just looks classy and I find it very comfortable feeling as well. This cutaway body the cut on the back of the body which just rests up against you and very ergonomic. Again, the cutaway up here, as well easy fret access up to the 21st fret. There are 21 frets on this guitar but just gives you a nice comfortable scale length to work with. If this is your first bass, I think it’s a really good choice because it’s very very comfortable. And if it’s not your first bass,  you might be interested in the different pickup options that you’re going to get when you try the BB234.

The body wood material is alder, the neck maple, and then on the top of the neck the fretboard itself rosewood. It has a  matching black headstock painted black with the four Yamaha tuners, strap pegs, bolt-on neck construction, and a surface mount bridge back here. Other than that, you get a really nice variety of tones from these ceramic Yamaha pickups.  Again, with the P pickup you get a really sweet sort of heavier sound.  I think it sounds a little darker.

Turn that knob all the way down and then we’ll turn up the J pickup. It definitely gives me a bit more treble. It kind of sounds both of them sound like like a nice woody, sort of clean bass sound, which I really like.  All passive hardware, there’s no battery compartment to run these pickups, so it’s not very temperamental.  It’ll give you an easy playing time, very comfortable and and fun to play with.

 Bass is not really my main instrument so I was picking out some of the options at our shop on frontzealot.com for what I wanted to pick out and review first. This one sort of jumped out at me as approachable, but also kind of versatile, and a fun way for me to sort of learn the ins and outs of bass.  Getting to play with both the J pickup back here and the P pickup, learning about the differences. It’s got a nice pick guard too. I know that I would probably as a guitar player, use a pick to play bass. I  think the combination with the p pickup, the pickguard works really great for rock. If you want to dial it back and play some more mellower tones, you have all the options of doing that.  This bass will really do a good job from anything – hard rock, classic rock, all the way down to jazz and blues.  I believe I can tell from playing the time that I spent with this bass that is very versatile.  I’m definitely a fan of the BB234. It comes in a couple different color options.  We have black and red at fretzealot.com and when you buy an instrument at fretzealot.com, it comes pre-installed with the LED system, so you can get access to our learning tools which show you how to play and light up the way to learning.  You can learn how to play any song you want on bass. 

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