Greco LGB-700

With the Fender joint venture gradually being usurped by Ensenada, Fujigen were able to breathe again, and return to making great guitars on their own terms and to their own standards. Controversial perhaps, but Fender had interfered with the legendary Japanese belief in quality. We would soon see Fujigen producing their good stuff again with CoolZ and History brands, then a little Greco revival before FGN bedded in and Japan got their mainstream guitar maker back again.

This is an example of the revived Greco brand - a fascinating Les Paul Bass with 3 Thunderbird style humbucker pick-ups either doing solo work or working together seamlessly. No need for a tone control here - just 3 volumes. Nothing more needed.

If we can't see obvious and good value improvements, we leave guitars alone. We're leaving this one alone as it just works as it is. It sounds powerful yet with great definition. We have the JPJ range to go crazy with - this one gets the job as a work-horse - the colour scheme may challenge a few mindsets, but many bass players do that anyway and rightly so.

Sufficient power from these pick-ups to avoid the complexity of active pick-ups - not as muddy and compressed as a big-mag Musicman style unit, these Thunderbird units can thump, they can drive and growl, or they can clean up magnificently with a little balancing across the units.

It's a blue Gibbo style bass, highly likely to be the only one your audience has seen; sufficiently different to make you stand out but coming with no compromises for quality or sound delivery. Assuming blue can be tolerated, what's not to like here?

The last photo displays the original black metal knobs just in case the yellow ones are a step too far.