Reviewed in March 97 issue of Bass Player Magazine 
Mike Lull Vintage 4
By Scott Malandrone
Does the bass world need another J-Bass copy? It does if it’s the Mike Lull Vintage Jazz. Lull’s take on the classic axe incorporates such smart upgrades as a heavyweight ABM bridge, hum-free Bartolini pickups, and Hipshot Ultra-Lite tuners. These features are combined with Mike’s eagle eye for construction details, which make the Vintage Jazz one of the few custom basses that deserves the title of "modern classic."
The Lull’s body is made from two pieces of lightweight alder. It’s very body- and hand-friendly; take, for example the angled neck heel, which lets your hand hug the pocket perfectly. The body looks cool, too: its ripple-free, translucent-blue finish is adorned with a pearloid pickguard and a chrome control plate. The headstock is also painted to match the body, a la the Fender custom-color beauties of the ‘60s.
The profile of the rock-maple neck is yesteryear inspired as well. Its meaty slightly flattened U shape feels solid (and hefty) in your hand, and its satin-polyurethane finish makes for fast fingering. (Lull offers many different neck shapes.) A Brazilian-rosewood fingerboard is also featured; it sports 21 pressed-in frets that are secured in their kerfs with super glue. Lull’s a fretmaster, and the frets on our test bass boasted perfect crowns with chatter-free ends. It also passed our fret-height test, which checks for high spots with ease.
The neck joint on our tester was also gap-free. We didn’t dig the single-action truss rod’s flat-tipped adjustment nut, though; turning the nut can be difficult because of the steep angle into the truss-rod-access cutout. A philips head nut and longer truss-rod-cavity body rout would solve the problem. (Since this review, Mike Lull informs us that he’s moved the truss-rod adjustment end to the headstock, and the truss rod now has a philips head adjustment screw.)
In classic spirit the Vintage sports two J-style pickups in typical J-Bass positions, each with individual volume knobs and a master tone control. The Bartolini 9J models are passive, but they’re not standard single coils; looking at their magnet structure with magnetic viewing paper reveals two coils, one for the E and A strings and one for the D and G strings. The magnets are also slightly offset, as in a P-Bass pickup, which allows for buzz-free performance in a single coil size housing. A fanatical shielding job inside the control and pickup cavities also keeps out RF interference. And because the pickups are actually humbuckers, Jacoesque bridge tones are dead quiet. Its J city when you plug in this instrument: the bass has booming lows, silky mids, and snappy highs. And the growly bite and sustain of the ABM bridge screams "slap me." We also did an A/B comparison of the Vintage Jazz to out 1965 Fender Jazz Bass; The Lull had more overall attack than the Fender, although the bottom and top end wasn’t as organic. (Comparing a new bass to a vintage one isn’t always a fair test, thought.) A minor complaint about the pickups concerns their output level. Our ’65 with passive single coils was louder, although a tweak of our amp’s INPUT GAIN control compensated for this. (Lull says, "medium-output pickups have a wider dynamic range then higher output models; we chose them because they work better with today’s amps and preamps.")
Overall, the Vintage Jazz is hard to beat. We loved the instrument’s pro setup, happening tone, and wicked looks. And at $1,695 list, the Lull is one axe we’d happily recommend for any gig.
