Yamaha RBX4 A2 lightweight bass

I've been hearing some decent reviews on these things. I've had an old RBX100 for years and it has stayed with me as my go-to bass while I cycled through more expensive instruments. Has anybody here any experience with this bass?

http://www.cantabilemusic.co.uk/cubecart/images/uploads/Yamaha_RBX4-A2_Bass_Guitar,_White,_Aircraft_Grey.jpg

Has anybody here any experience with this bass?

Quite a bit, yeah. I did a lot of benchtime on these and wrote up a lot of answers on them on TalkBass.

There were different runs for these. The final one was apparently a PT Indonesia contract. Inflated $999 MSRP is based on previous Korean production.

Painted-on binding and accents that rub off, silly lights on (only) two of the three controls, V/V/T syndrome...

Worst problem is that the last ones had some kind of paint or glue in the trussrod channel that caused the trussrod to stick solid inside the neck, so you had to backload the neck and back out the screw to break the trussrod loose every time you did a relief adjustment -- which you should always do anyway. If you didn't know what you were doing (and most owners did exactly the wrong thing when they encountered this problem), you could damage the neck or trussrod.

Ed Friedland has a bunch of factual misinformation on his Youtube review on this model. It looks like he cleaned up some of it in the current edited version, but there's still some inaccuracy.

All that said, it's not a bad bass for what it is, but it's not much -- just the usual Yamaha inoffensiveness. Used price? Not a penny more than $200, if the previous owner hasn't sheared something in the trussrod assembly. I paid ~$228 for mine new when they were closed out and would have passed if I'd known what I was getting.

Also, the entire point of these was that they were supposed to be light -- a ply skin over balsa (!). Some were light, some weren't. Light weight was the only reason I got one, and it turned out to be the heaviest example of the many reported on TalkBass at well over seven pounds, as heavy as a light example of a Precision. :sad:

Thanks for that info. I've read a few reports on TalkBass, positive and negative. I wish I could pick one up for $299 like buyers in the US can. That would make it pretty much a no-brainer to get one.

I've read a few reports on TalkBass, positive and negative.
When you read reviews on TB (or here, for that matter) they're of relatively little worth until the user has had the instrument for a year or so. Up to that point it's just honeymoon stuff. This bass hasn't really kept anyone's initial affection on TB, which was purely based on the artificially long discount.

I wish I could pick one up for $299 like buyers in the US can. That would make it pretty much a no-brainer to get one.
As far as I know, these have been extinct for several years, though I seem to remember one retailer having some old stock a year or so ago.

I wouldn't consider this bass any deal at $299, frankly, which I'd consider an appropriate everyday price in 2012. It's just a low-end RBX series instrument with some extra hype and odd ideas.

Contrary to Friedland's hardly-impartial review, this bass has neither "custom shop pickups" nor a cast bridge. The pickups are just cheapy Asian-made ones supposedly designed by the custom shop, which is hardly the same thing. The bridge is entirely cheap stampings (presumably, Ed's vision is failing him).

All that said, it's an OK cheap bass if you can live with rub-off painted binding and accents, which I find downright insulting and offensive on an Indonesian bass with a 2006 MSRP of a grand. :roll: