Yamaha BB414 Black Metallic Bass Guitar
April 21st, 2008 by Tim
The Yamaha BB414 What a chunky monkey!! this is a large bass by any standard. In todays bass market there are loads of fusion size basses out there, but when a friend came to me asking what bass I could recommend, his only prerequisite was ‘not one of those small ones’. All i could think of at the time was either a Music Man, to which he replied ‘I’m not as rich as the actual pope’ or Fender Precision or Jazz, to which he replied ‘but.. but I’m propper metal’.
What I should have said was, check this bad boy out! The bass isn’t specifically heavy metal, you could get away with pretty much any style of music, both sound wise and in looks. The first thing that grabbed my attention were the the pickups and when plugged in they didn’t disappoint. The split pickup delivered a very warm Precision bass sound, though more 
bottom end than a Fender. The bridge pickup could only be described as cold and calculating. It captures the very crisp high end with a lot of character and if you happen to try a bit of slap it’ll make your eyeballs pop out. Combine the two and you get a very full sound, great for single note backing.
Construction wise starting at the top, the headstock sports big elephant ear machine heads with open backs which reveal large well machined cogs.
The bolt-on neck is reasonably slim, though not as slim as a standard P-Bass. The fretboard is constructed from a fine piece of rosewood and features twenty one very highly polished well seated frets which are a joy to play on.
The body is quite large and contributes to a nicely rounded sound and the black metallic finish is refreshingly subtle. The pickup selector switch is interestingly placed at the bottom right of the bass near to the jack input. This is surprisingly easy to get to and in little danger of getting knocked whilst playing.
If I was to guess the price of this bass I would say around the £400 mark. However it retails for £299 though it is available for £239. Which is very reasonable considering that this bass is definitely not a bottom midrange bass as the price suggests. It is definitely a lot of bang for your buck!
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