Yamaha Motion MB-II bass

[ack1961]

Anyone here have any experience with the Yamaha Motion MB-II bass?

I was looking for a little something for my son, and ran into one of these in a Pawn Shop for $250 out the door (with its HSC)

A couple interesting things about it:
- Medium Scale 32"
- nice Pearl White finish, but it has "Motion B" printed in huge letters across the body.
- gold plated HW
- micro adjustable bridge, which is really interesting
- 2 Passive Humbuckers
- very light
- pretty easy to play.

The only amp that they had setup for me to play on was a real POS. The bass sounded OK, but it was very nice to play.
I just have never seen one of these MB-II's, and I only found 1 mention of them through the TB search. I found a few very old thread of reviews on Harmony-Central that list the buying price from $0-$850.

Anyone here have one, or ever try one?

[luve2fli]

I owned one back around '89 or '90. Fun little bass, I gigged it for awhile but was ultimately underwhelmed. As a starter bass for your son, it's a great choice but like many basses at this price point, it will be a stepping stone to something else in the future. Construction is fine as you'd expect from Yamaha - nothing spectacular but solidly built. Bridge and machine-heads left something to be desired as I recall. Pickups were a bit sterile but through a good amp, you could definitely coax some good tones out of it. I will say though that for $250 used, you can probably find something better ..... YMMV

[ack1961]

Thanks for the reply..that's exactly what I was thinking: there's probably better use for $250 out there.
I'd actually like to upgrade my son's amp situation, so this money will go into that pool.

There was one MB-II review that piqued my interest where the author stated that he paid $850 for one of these.
Oh well.

Thanks.