Harley Benton Enhanced vs Fender Precision vs Sandberg California vs Tokai Jazz – Studio Comparison

Four very different basses on four different tracks. Do they sound different in the mix? Which one is the best?

This is an independent test I did with my friends using the basses we had available at that very moment. The strings on these basses are of varying age and that has some effect on the Tokai’s sound.

(The video above was initially released on August 5th, 2021)

What are the basses we’re using?

The four basses we had were MIJ (Made in Japan) Tokai Jazz bass, Fender MIJ Precision ’62 reissue, Sandberg California VS-5, and Harley Benton Enhanced MJ-5MN Natural.

How we conducted the test

Each of us played all four basses on one of the tracks in varying music styles. We recorded the basses by splitting the signal and recorded both DI sounds and through the NUX Melvin Lee Davis Preamp for driven sounds.

All the settings on the NUX pedal and all the post-processing are exactly the same on all bass tracks per song.

We also level-matched the bass tracks to remove the loudness factor from the test. (Louder sounds better to our ears) In the video above, you can hear three different comparisons starting with basses’ DI sounds, then NUX Preamp, and then a 50/50 blend between the two.

Do the basses sound different?

The answer is yes, but not as much as you might initially think. Some basses accentuate certain frequencies that work better for a particular song, but the differences are minor. The more gain we kept adding, the less difference there was tonally, and a lot of that could be matched with some EQ.

Obviously, the basses feel very different to play and with a lot of drive in the tone, having a humbucker becomes more and more desirable (less noisy). But all three of us were certain we would have been able to dial in great tones with all of the four basses.

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