'96 Hamer Cruise 2Tek NBD

dadagoboi · June 25, 2012, 05:05:14 AM

I'd been interested in these since they were introduced. This one showed up on Ebay last week with a reasonable B.I.N.

Seymour Duncan passive pickups, 3 piece 22 fret neck, aluminum control cavity cover. Hefty Schaller tuners. I really like the 2Tek bridge, visually and tonewise. Build quality is excellent, super tight neck pocket. Color is sort of blonde/TV yellow transparent. Haven't touched the setup, it plays and sounds great.

About the only thing I don't like is the chrome dome knobs, going to switch them out for nickel flat tops to match the 2Tek.

Gibson style truss rod and nut. The tuner paddles are thicker and feel better than Gotohs.

Fit and finish are top notch.

The 2Tek is a nice hunk of metal. Bass weighs 8.9 lbs.

gweimer · June 25, 2012, 06:02:35 AM

I've had two of them. Very close to my favorite bass over the years. A very easy bass to play. I used to love hitting an open A and letting it ring out for 8 bars. Amazing sustain.

dadagoboi · June 25, 2012, 06:23:03 AM

The sustain thing is definitely there but more important to me is the initial note definition. The 2Tek nails that. This is the newest USA made bass I own and it matches the quality of my MIJ Fenders and Ibanezes. I've always been a fan of SD Fender based pups so for me this is a great modern "Jazz" bass.

The truss rod doesn't appear to have been touched and the neck is dead straight. The center neck stringer is quartersawn and the outer ones are flat sawn. If this was standard practice with Hamer it's obvious someone gave a s**t in the 90s.

gweimer · June 25, 2012, 06:46:09 AM

Both my Hamers had great necks. Very slim and fast. The 2Tek, imo, gives a very pure and authentic sound to each note. It's been debated here that a 2Tek will erase some of the tone characteristics of the wood, but I always loved the tone of my Cruise bass. If I were playing again, I'd be very tempted to look for another.

mc2NY · June 25, 2012, 08:03:46 AM

These Hamer 2TEK Cruise Basses are my favorite modern Jazzes by any maker. An absolute steal on the used market. I've got a couple of green and blue ones w/matchng headstocks. One is actually one of Jeff Ament's spare custom ones that he had Hamer make slightly larger headstocks on (supposedly even more tone/sustain.)

If you want to lighten the weight a bit, I believe the revived 2TEK company's bridge routes out a bit of the bridge mass on the new ones. On most of the 4-string Hamers it's not much of an issue, unless you get one with a heavy wood body but the 5-string Cruise Basses, IMO, are all a little weighty.

Hamer really nailed it on designing these. Odd that more players are not hip to them. First bass that ever got a perfect 5-star review in Bass Player Magazine back when they were first released BTW.

Great bass...cool color. Congrats.

Dave W · June 25, 2012, 05:05:05 PM

Nice one. Hamer had a TV Blonde in its (US) mahogany Special guitar line at that time that looked similar to this. The Cruise may have used the same color name.

Rob · June 25, 2012, 05:28:44 PM

Nice bass but I'm with you on the dome knobs looking out of place.

Chris P. · June 26, 2012, 03:11:35 AM

Nice bass! New for me!

The bridge remind me a bit of the one on the reissue Burns Shadows I used to have. It was a modern version of the Rez-o-tube Burns used back in the years. Instead of going over a bar, the strings on the modern one had saddles which look like oversized Tele (or hardtail Strat) saddles. And the strings are going through the body through resonating tubes, which are tuned per string, according to Burns (So the name rez-o-tube). I have to say it just sounded like a very good Fender Jazz with an exyta neck pickup and a push pull for zeven pickup configurations.

luve2fli · June 26, 2012, 10:42:44 AM

I played one of these in Watertown, NY back in the 90's and regret to this day not buying it. By far, the best Jazz bass I've ever had in my hands.