Spear Bass Gets a Little Love

I've got to admit that until the day it came into the shop, I'd never seen nor heard of a "Spear" bass. But here it was, all rusty and grimy; and begging for some TLC. A little research on the web revealed that "Spear" refers to "SPEAR Gitarren Händler Deutschland." Yes, that means it's a German company. This bass was not manufactured in Germany, though; as it says "Made in Indonesia" on the back of the headstock. 

Let's take a quick look at this four-string bass' features, then. The body seems to be solid wood, and sports a Fender-style bridge and P/J pickup configuration. Electronics are pretty straightforward, two volumes and a master tone; and a barrel output jack. All three pots are full-sized (24mm), kudos to Spear. There appears to conductive shielding paint in the pickup and control cavities. 

The maple neck is bolted to the body via four recessed screws, so there's no need for a neck plate. Truss rod access is at the headstock end. The fretboard is rosewood with a 34" scale, 14" radius, 24 frets; and whitish dot markers. Meanwhile, the headstock is angled and fitted with four proprietary "Spear" sealed tuners in a 2+2 configuration.

As received, the bass was dusty, grimy, and totally unplayable (corroded strings being the main culprit). The electronics didn't work either, and the cause was traced to shorted wiring. The fretboard and frets? Well, let's just say that not wiping down your strings and fretboard after playing has its disadvantages.

Everything was taken apart and serviced. The electronics worked fine after lots of contact cleaner and a full rewire. The fretboard was scrubbed clean and conditioned with lemon oil, and the dull frets introduced to good old Autosol. After reassembling the bass and setting it up with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, I put it through its paces using my little Joyo MA-10B practice amp. The fonky tones that emanated from the Joyo's 5" speaker had me grinning from ear to ear. Don't believe me? Well, do hop over to SoundCloud and judge for yourself.