Aria Pro II RSB Deluxe I 1985 Black Cliff Burton John Taylor MIJ Matsumoku

Here is a 1985 Aria Pro II RSB Deluxe I bass in good condition. These are excellent basses, a nice lower cost alternative to their more famous cousins in the Aria SB series.

John Taylor did endorse these RSB models in a catalog as well but I don’t know if he actually performed or recorded with one. But you can definitely get Aria SB type tones! For example you can get tones similar to the live sound Cliff Burton got with his Aria SB black n gold (check YouTube for live Metallica soundboard shows from 1986!). This bass gets those live Cliff tones! I’d say this a really great “poor man’s SB”.

More details about the RSB: The neck is maple with a rosewood fretboard, 24 frets (standard 34” scale), and alder body. The pickup is an MB-III and has a series/parallel switch along with volume and tone controls. It’s all original from what I can tell. One thing to note is that the gold hardware is in really good condition for its age and compared to other RSB basses I’ve had.

Overall it’s in good condition but there are of course dents, scratches, and the occasional chip. I tried to show most of the blemishes. There is some swirling which I tied to show in the last picture. There is some fret wear but not too bad. The pickup, electronics, truss rod and neck are all in good shape!

This bass was setup at Rivercity Rockstar Academy with some no name nickels I had lying around. However, I noticed the output was very low so I threw those strings away and put on some very slightly used steel Rotosound 66 strings and it sounds so much better! It plays great but you may need to make adjustments to intonation or string height due to the aforementioned string change.

Shipping will be UPS ground with insurance and a signature will be required upon delivery. I will ship in the pleather gig bag I got this bass in.