Sandberg California JM5

This Sandberg California JM5 was made in 2008 and is in great condition considering its age.

Sandberg instruments are incredible quality - handmade in Germany, super resonant and tight. This one is the JM5, which is the predecessor to their TM5, and has a Sandberg Jazz Bass style pickup at the neck and a Sandberg Musicman style humbucker pickup in the bridge position. It can be played active or passive and the Musicman pickup can be switched to single coil to provide a huge range of tones. In active there are bass treble boost and cut, and in passive the treble control acts as a passive tone control.

The bass has one ding at the top edge of the body, which I’ve taken a close-up of with a Dunlop guitar pick to compare size, and some minor headstock scuffing. Otherwise, condition is really great for a 16-year old bass, and it plays really well – it was serviced last year at Edinburgh Guitar Repair. It has been recently strung with 45 – 130 Black Diamond nickel alloy strings and the action is nice and low, with no fret buzz.