Price: £800 upwards
Purchased from: not from anywhere in the US or uk
Features: The sad thing about the Mark Hoppus Jazz Bass is that it is only made in Mexico. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. It means that you can get it relatively cheap but will have to bear the fact that its not made in the USA. The Mark Hoppus Bass is the usual Fender, 20 frets, jazz body. Its also strung through the body.
The cool thing I like about the bass is that it comes in a jazz body with Precision pickups so it looks quite good. The pickguard also looks quite good on the body.
Sound: Its is a pretty decent bass. The tone is great (more on that later), it has enough treble to cut through and still enough bass to support a band. The pickups are powerful and have a huge punch. One of the things I like about it is that the bass has a nice light sound on the high strings(meaning that it doesn't make people cringe when playing high notes)and a hefty low sound on the low strings. Its comfortable to play and very satisfactory to play with in a band because of its punch. The cool thing I like about the bass is that it comes in a jazz body with Precision pickups so it looks quite good. The pickguard also looks quite good on the body.
The Mark Hoppus Jazz Bass is very genre specific. Its pretty much a punk rock bass, good for punk rock(duh)/pop punk, rock and metal, but don't expect anything towards the blues and jazz side, its pickups just don't deliver the right sound for that. Also this bass is terrible for slapping but i don't like to use the slap method anyway.
The main problem with this bass is its lack of tone variety, this bass can only produce one sound, so you must be happy with it before you buy it. The lack of a tone knob puts serious limitations on this bass, and the only thing you can control is volume. However, if you use an amp with an equaliser, you can get amazing tones out of this bass.
I prefer playing with fingers rather than a pick and but I use both methods on this bass. Its comfortable to play with using both methods and you can get the two different ends of the sound spectrum by using the different methods (low and punchy with fingers, high treble with pick)
Overall the sound is great if you plan to use it for the correct genre of music, i use this bass mainly for rock and punk pop and I feel it's amazing at that. I also have a Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass, so I use that for other genres.
Action, Fit & Finish: The guitar was set up pretty well, except for some fret buzz and string height problems. The fret buzz wasn't significant so I left it. The string height only took 5 minutes to fix so I'm happy. The guitar was in great condition when I got it so there's nothing much to complain about.
The Fender website gives the impression that the black Mark Hoppus jazz bass is actually met black but its not (or at least im quite sure it isnt). I wanted a white one but i could only get a black one.
Reliability & Durability: I've used this guitar Live 2 times already and its great. Its comfortable, light, very playable and generally fun to play with. The fact that the bass is passive makes it even more reliable cause you know that it wont conk out on you during a gig cause of batteries.
All the hardware looks well setup and the volume knob is tight and accurate to the volume (0= 0 output, 5= 5 output, 10= 10 output)The strap buttons are securely fastened and i haven't got any problems yet.I guess I would use it without backup but i usually bring my American Deluxe along anyway to any gig cause of the tone problem.
The finish is great and will remain that way if its owner takes care of it.
Impression: A great bass but very very genre specific. This is a good bass to add to a collection of basses to fully complete a range of sounds. The only drawback is the lack of tone, but that can be overcome by using an equaliser or a pre amp. I've been playing for two years and I've heard my friends play it while I play drums or guitar so I know it sounds good from different perspectives.
If I had a choice to trade it with another bass, however I would trade it with a simple Fender Precision or better yet a Squier P-Bass Special. This is because the same sound can probably be gotten from a Fender Precision installed with Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder Bass Lines pickups( The same pickups as the Mark Hoppus Jazz Bass). A Squier would be even better, cause I can replace both the split Precision pickups and J bass pickups with seymour duncans and with some tweaking, make it sound even better than the Mark Hoppus Jazz Bass.
One thing you should not do is buy it just because it's Mark Hoppus's signature. Buy it because of its powerful tone, playability and stylish looks. Before you decide to buy it, you should watch live videos of Blink 182 and Plus 44 to see if thats the tone your looking for.
