AMJ Guitars 2024 Fretted Bass – No Treble

Eight years ago, we got the scoop on an awesome fretless bass made by AMJ Guitars. The sleek four-string is owned by Deryl Gallant, who wrote us again to share that it has a new fretted sibling. Once again, we’ll let Gallant give all the wonderful details of his new bass.

“This red beauty is the fretted sister to the fretless J-bass that Adam Marsh Johnston of AMJ Guitars designed and crafted for me in 2016. Immediately after receiving the fretless, I knew I needed a fretted version. I wanted it to be best-of-the-best features I loved in the fretless while drawing inspiration from a few other favorite pieces.

Like the fretless version, this body is made from PEI Elm. Yes the tree grew on Prince Edward Island, but is far from an island native tree. It is an American elm species that has been all but lost from some of its original ranges of eastern United States and into Ontario. The Dutch elm beetle attacks the soft living layer just under the bark, effectively cutting off the tree’s water/nutrient supply.

Both the 2016 fretless bass and the 2024 fretted model share wood from the same tree. A heritage tree which was cut down in late winter/early spring of 2014 in Charlottetown. This tree and approximately 300 other diseased trees were removed to help slow the spread to other healthy trees. The 2024 model has a one piece chambered body with maple top which shaved a pound off the final weight of 8.6 lbs.

I’ve always been intrigued with Lee Sklar’s use of the mandolin frets on his Dingwall so we went with acoustic guitar frets on a beautifully unique macassar ebony slab fingerboard. The neck is eastern Canadian red maple.

For the fretless we went pure passive, for the fretted I wanted a swiss army knife. Being a part of the Scott’s Bass Lesson’s community, there were two things I consistently read about: Overwater basses and John East preamps. The combination of the Overwater noiseless pickups with their dummy ghost coil and the J-Retro 01 is spectacular. It has a snappy J-Bass punch, but where some J basses lack meat in the mid to upper range this bass has a solid foundation behind the notes in all ranges with crisp definition. With the many features/abilities of the J-Retro 01, I can dial in anything from Geddy Lee to James Jamerson.

The color is a custom blended aniline dye finished with 10 coats of a pre catalyzed soft gloss lacquer, while the black on the headstock is a nitrocellulose lacquer.”

AMJ Guitars 2024 Fretted Bass Photos:

AMJ Guitars 2024 Fretted Bass Specs:

Body:	PEI Elm One-piece Chambered
Top:	Eastern Canadian Red Maple Top
Neck:	Eastern Canadian Red Maple Top
Fingerboard:	Macassar Ebony Slab
Frets:	20 Acoustic Guitar frets (medium/medium Stewmac 148)
Pickups:	Overwater Noiseless J-Bass with Ghost Coil
Preamp:	J-Retro 01 active preamp
Controls:	three stacked knobs and includes an active blend circuit plus a 3 band equalizer with bass, variable frequency mid, treble and bright function.
Tuners:	Hipshot USA Ultralite HB2 Lollipop
Bridge:	Hipshot A Style with 19mm Spacing
Other:	Custom Pickguard, Spoke wheel double expanding truss and graphite stiffeners, Jim Dunlop flush mounted strap locks