In the 40-odd years since its introduction, the Fender Jazz Bass has made an indelible mark on our low-end consciousness, providing the bottom for many of music’s finer moments. Given this rarefied heritage, it’s hard to fault the timeless design of the Jazz—but the folks at Fender felt there ought to be an even sleeker, lighter-weight alternative to the old favorite. With a curved top, cream binding, slick paint job, cool knobs and decals, and Precision- and Jazz-style pickups, the Aerodyne is a New School muscle bass with Old School roots.
I love the Aerodyne’s sleek look. From the super-glossy finish to the skirted smoked-chrome knobs, all the little details combine to give the Fender a just-right mixture of in-your-face toughness and downtown cool. It’s like a tattooed Hell’s Angel delicately sipping cocktails in a SoHo loft. I like the clean look of the matching headstock and the elegant, inlay-free fingerboard. Keep that polishing cloth handy, though: The Aerodyne’s body collects fingerprints like Sherlock Holmes.
There’s a reason why chops-masters like Jaco Pastorius and Marcus Miller favored the Fender Jazz. Its thin, offset body is comfortable—but more important, it’s easy to get around on its low-profile, narrow neck. The Aerodyne, which features the same neck profile as Fender’s Standard Jazz, is a good bass for fingerboard flyers. The Aerodyne isn’t all about the fiddly, fast stuff, though. The neck has enough meat that players who like to dig into tall action won’t be disappointed.
It doesn’t just look solid; the Aerodyne is also well built. The medium-size frets on our test bass were well seated and dressed, the four-bolt neck joint was un-budgeable, and the knobs turned smoothly and felt good. Staffers unanimously praised the well-installed hardware and skillfully executed body binding. With a volume control for each pickup and a high-rolloff tone knob, the Aerodyne’s electronics couldn’t be much simpler. A peek inside the diminutive control cavity revealed basic, well-assembled components with one exception: The top-mounted jack continuously came loose throughout testing. The tiny cavity is fine for what’s there, but electronics upgraders will find its confines cramped. Conductive shielding paint helps protect the electronics from radio-frequency (RF) interference, but the soloed bridge pickup hums. That comes with single-coil territory.
Dynamite It’d be disappointing if such a handsome bass sounded bad. Fortunately, the Aerodyne didn’t disappoint, proving its mettle on the gig and in the Soundroom. The always-popular PJ pickup configuration is clever; I dig the midrange burp of a J-Bass’s bridge pickup, and the bottom-heavy thump of a good P-Bass pickup is undeniable. Why not have both? Pumped through our Demeter/Crest/ Eden rig, each knob setting yielded excellent tones—that is, after we swapped the stock Fender strings for a set of D’Addario XLs. Our tester’s stock E string was downright weird, with unpleasant overtones that sounded almost like a slowly opening envelope filter. With the new set tuned up and stretched out, the Aerodyne’s familiar tone palette was like a Fender-tone greatest hits record—it’s all there. Soloing the bridge pickup with the tone knob full on results in a cutting, midrange-heavy sound. It’s not crushingly “honky,” but it’s just enough to get a good, punchy tone. As you’d expect, dialing in the P pickup pumps up the bottom. The tone knob ably adds upper-mid grind to the P-pickup sound. When I rolled the tone all the way off, the Aerodyne’s dark, brooding sound was bootylicious. Through an Ampeg SVT-5PRO and SVT Classic 8x10 cab, the Fender’s big, ballsy sound was hard to fault. This big rig screamed for in-your-face pickstyle playing. The verdict? Rockers will love the Fender’s grinding, flatpicked sound, especially with a splash of overdrive.
With a four-piece funk band, through an Ampeg PortaBass 250 head and PB-210H 2x10 cab, the Aerodyne took care of business. The live environment revealed the Fender’s compelling sensitivity to inflection. With both pickups on, the Aerodyne’s sonic personality morphed as I tried different techniques, like playing with the edge of my thumb for super-round bottom or choking out the
D and
G strings for busy fingerstyle funk. Hardcore slappers will dig the Fender’s ample dig-in depth, but its slap sound definitely leans in the vintage direction.
Amazingly, the Aerodyne would be just right for everything from a tuxedoed casual to a pierced punk gig. Noting the Aerodyne’s dress-it-up or dress-it-down looks, one staffer dubbed the Aerodyne “the perfect working player’s bass.” If you do use the Aerodyne for a ritzy gig, remember, it’s like a fingerprint magnet. No worries—you’ll finally have a use for that cummerbund!