Fender Announces Dee Dee Ramone Precision Bass Guitar

Dee Dee Ramone - photo by Ed PerlsteinPunk bass icon Dee Dee Ramone will have his legacy honored with a new signature Precision bass from Fender. The new model, which is based on the bass he used with Ramones, will debut at the “Dee Dee Ramone Exhibition” in New York City’s Chelsea Hotel from December 10th to January 1st.

“Punk bass starts with Douglas ‘Dee Dee Ramone’ Colvin,” Fender shared in a release. “As the pounding heart of the Ramones, he pioneered a no-frills sound and style that left a permanent mark on rock music. On a white Fender Precision Bass slung impossibly low, he defined punk bass with simple but breakneck bass lines delivered with such pulverizing sound, speed and conviction that he singlehandedly set the template for generations of punk bassists to come.”

True to his original, the Fender Dee Dee Ramone Precision Bass features an Olympic White gloss finish. It’s maple neck has a “C”-shaped profile and vintage-style heel truss rod adjustment. Its 20 frets are also vintage style.

Fender Dee Dee Ramone Precision Bass

Unique features include Ramone’s signature on the back of the headstock, a special “Dee Dee Ramone One Two Three Four” inscribed neck plate, and a ’70s Fender logo decal.

The bass also comes with a 40-page scrapbook with never before seen photos of the bassist, his personal artwork, a biography, and quotes from Ramone’s personal friends. Finally, the collectible package is rounded out with a sticker and 18″ x 24″ color poster of Dee Dee playing his P Bass live with the Ramones.

Fender’s Dee Dee Ramone Precision Bass will start shipping on January 22nd with an expected street price of $899.99.

Fender Dee Dee Ramone Precision Bass Specs:

Scale Length:34″
Body:Alder
Finish:Olympic White Gloss Polyester
Neck:Maple
Neck Profile:“C” shape
Neck Finish:Gloss urethane
Fingerboard:Maple
Frets:20, vintage-style
Nut:Synthetic bone
Position Inlays:Black dot
Hardware:Chrome
Bridge:4-saddle standard vintage-style with single groove saddles
Pickguard:3-Ply black
Tuning Machines:Standard open-gear
Pickups:Standard split single-coil Precision Bass
Controls:Volume, Tone
Case:Gig bag
Other Features:Dee Dee Ramone Signature on back of headstock, special “Dee Dee Ramone One Two Three Four” neck plate, vintage-style heel truss-rod adjustment, ’70s Fender logo decal, single disk string tree, and exclusive booklet with poster

For more information:
Fender

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Share your thoughts

  1. Jack Pasquale

    Where is this bass made?

  2. SlopeRocker

    Meh…nothing special….

  3. Anon

    I like it when “no-frills” is used to describe a musician who lacks all creativity and virtuosity.

    • actionpig

      A “no frills” musician accomplished more than you. What does that say about you, loser?

      • KrisJW

        He wasn’t at the right place at the right time or befriended the right people. And how do you know that DD accomplished more than him? It’s an anonymous post, he could be Geddy Lee for all you know.

        • Some musicians, even virtuosos, choose to play simple lines and be “no frills”. Seems Dee Dee did what worked for Dee Dee, and if he instead played bass like the guy at the party that runs his mouth all night and doesn’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise, we wouldn’t be discussing his talent at all. Being a fret-board olympian isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. You do know you’re posting on a bass enthusiast’s website, don’t you Kris?

        • Mr Fun

          chances are he’s not though if he’s spending time dissing a dead musician on the internet.

        • Geddy Lee actually has class, so we can rule him out as the OP.

        • joey cadre

          Freddy lee is one of the most boring musicians ever.

      • Ducknumber1

        YES!!!!

    • RP

      He wrote most of the Ramones songs. We would all be lucky to lack creativity and talent the way he did.

    • Guess what dude – music isn’t about breaking boundaries and impossible speeds. It’s an art form. ART. A – R – T. I cannot stress this enough!!! Some of the GREATEST music ever is simple, cliched and requires little skill or effort to reproduce. But it freakin’ cooks.

      Or is all that impresses you insanely fast bedroom players with zero charisma, people playing their strings with drills and 18 string basses? If so, you’re welcome to that world. Doesn’t excite me at all.

      What makes a musician iconic is not their technical ability, or their look, or their genre-bending. It’s the soul they bare when they play or write something. Why is this so hard to get for so many people?

      I’ve played with gifted and not so gifted musicians. Some of the gifted ones are so blinded by their gift that they become parodies, incapable of exploring simplicity and that’s more frustrating than someone who can’t shred the crap out of it. BY FAR. I’d take a great human with an idea of a great player with no idea any day.

      • I totally get the whole minimalism thing and trying to milk emotion out of simplicity, but you gotta break at least a couple boundaries. It also helps beginning players to see something that seems accessible/imitable, but the too constant 8th notes in 4/4 doesn’t excite me at all. Remember that really slow, different sounding Ramones tune? Me either.

        • Yeah, it was called “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” (among others.). You must not have been around to hear the Ramones in 1976, or you would know how many boundaries they broke.

        • Mr Fun

          there are actually quite a few. Truth in what you’re saying though – this is why none of the Ramones soundalikes of today ever get off the toilet circuit with their comic-con fanboy-ism.

        • Yep

          I think creating punk rock and changing the face of music forever can be considered “breaking a few boundaries”.

        • joey cadre

          I wanna be your boyfriend. Slow Ramon’s song. Suck it hippy!

          • kevin

            Same one I thought of. You can argue this bass is just another Fender, but you can’t argue that the Ramones didn’t break barriers and influence thousands. “Hey little girl, I wanna be your boyfriend” made girls swoon and they didn’t even have to be cute. One two three four!

        • joey cadre

          Ditching boring arena rock and showing the world anyone can play music if you got heart is a huge boundary they broke.

      • the Plow.

        Dee Dee was a great bass player!!! And a terrific artist. Check out his exhibit currently at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC. The new bass is there as well. It’s no easy feat to have Fender make an artist bass in your name. He deserves it.

    • Low

      Dee Dee Ramona was the bands main songwriter. And his speed picking and impeccable time could be considered a virtuosity all on its own. And while you may not appreciate the Ramones music yourself the fact is more than a few of the best bassists in the world today began their careers coping Ramones licks.

    • johann

      Putting too many frills with bass in music is like putting ketchup in everything you eat. Don’t need to explain, you have a brain.

    • Russ Wars

      Sorry, Dee Dee was a genius. One if the greatest practitioners of pop songwriting, able to conjur more imagery out of a single verse than most do in an entire album. Moreover the Ramones revolutionized and forever altered the course of popar music – no small feat on any measure. Your shortsighted arrogance does nothing to change that fact.

    • Michael

      I like it when elitist snobs think technical brilliance is all you need to be a good musician, instead of feel.

    • Anon

      Oh wow, this blew up. I really just meant the phrase. I don’t know anything about Ramone.

    • Alex Barrett

      Just because some choose’s to play simple songs, doesn’t mean that’s their limit. They usually just want the focus to be on something else. For example, Billy Joe Armstrong is a great guitarist, but its rare you will see him playing anything other than power chords. You could have all the creativity in the world but who cant play for his life. Music isn’t about being a speed demon and neither is bass playing.

      • I love Green Day, but Billie Joe isn’t that great of a guitarist, that’s why they had to hire Jason White and wouldn’t officially make him a member of the band until he’d been playing with them for 13 years. And while we’re on the subject, I used to really admire Mike Dirnt, but he hasn’t done anything remarkable on their albums since Dookie. If you compare “When I Come Around” to anything they’ve done since, you may as well just give Billie an octave pedal and pay Jason the difference.

  4. This is an unnecessary signature model. Surely there’s already a stock P bass in the line that has these specs…

  5. Nothing special here just another Fender P bass.

  6. mockbass

    Mexico

  7. Will it be available on Iphone 6 ? (see what I mean…)

  8. johnny

    will they release a left handed model?

  9. pontier

    the worst finish polyester aaarghh !

  10. What a shame you turds that are bashing Dee Dee. The Ramones where very ground breaking. True not every songs where full to the brim with needless bass licks but if you take the time to listen to song other then blitzkrieg bop and i wanna be sedated you would find that the man played tasteful and in the pocket and had very good skill. Dee Dee was a rock star wrote the songs, sang great back up and lead had great harmonizing with Joey and had image. The Ramones you get it or you dont.

    • 1-2-3-4!

      ^^^ DING DING DING – This about sums it up.

      If you don’t think the Ramones were groundbreaking or interesting musically, you probably have very little real knowledge about popular music or rock & roll or the music of the 1970’s. And you certainly don’t know a thing about punk rock if you don’t respect the Ramones. You should get some context for all of this ASAP if that’s the case.

      It’d be really easy to declare anything truly influential as totally derivative or boring or the same as the rest if you DON’T UNDERSTAND THE BASIC CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER IN WHICH THE MUSIC WAS CREATED AND RELEASED to the public … thereby establishing primacy, establishing who was responsible for what ideas, who had originality, and what had or had not been done previously, what sounds were innovated in RESPONSE to other artists output, and on and on.

      The Ramones have great song writing. They played tight as hell. Come on, these guys most or all of them, were on heroin a good deal of the time and they managed to play that sharply and on point? I’m not condoning drug use, but round of applause for these gentlemen, I can barely keep up if I have more than 3 beers. Dee Dee was an addict unfortunately, but he wrote about it with his own style of honesty and some dark humor, listen to Chinese Rocks. a song he wrote about heroin too dark for the Ramones to record, so he played it with Johnny Thunders. You will find yourself merrily singing along to very dire lyrics, it’s genius and it shows that Dee Dee was about a thousand times better song writer than Geddy Lee ever could hope to be, even if he couldn’t beat him in a race up the fretboard.

      I mean, seriously … Chinese Rocks on repeat or that Tom Sawyer shit? If you can’t hear the intelligence in the former and the boorish self-indulgence of the latter, then you also probably choose your favorite authors according to which of them type the fastest and with the least number of mistakes without bothering to absorb any of the actual content they are producing. It’s like awarding the Pulitzer to a typing instructor because they got the highest WPM with the fewest errors, as if that were the point.

      • Mr Fun

        have another ‘DING DING!’, sir.

        “they managed to play that sharply and on point? I’m not condoning drug use, but round of applause for these gentlemen, I can barely keep up if I have more than 3 beers”

        I hear ya. Haha.

  11. Sean

    I’m a vocal advocate of signature models. More often than not, signature models bring SOMETHING unique or original to the table. Be it a different switching technique, different woods – or, more radically – a completely new design. There has to be something unique about it in order to warrant a “signature” designation.
    This… I just don’t get. 20 frets, split pickup, alder body, vintage style bridge and tuners. Oh, and don’t forget that 70’s logo!
    If this were finished in Nitro, I might almost understand it. Instead, the body is finished in “Gloss Polyester,” whilst the neck is finished with “Gloss urethane.”
    It’s just… a P-bass, with someone elses name etched on it. Instead, we’re left with the most copied bass design on the planet.
    I understand how this would collectible for die-hard Ramones fans, but for the average bass player, what’s the point? And I’m genuine in asking this. Why should we buy this over a boutique copy that’s 1,000 times better and virtually the same price? For the limited-edition aspect? The quality? I just don’t see anything remarkable about this.

  12. Gizmeister

    Fender milking the cow…

  13. I want one! “Gabba, gabba hey!”

  14. OregonExpress

    Lots of really good Basses being made today and you are not paying for the name as you do with Fender………….

    • Justin

      Exactly! If it didn’t have the signature or the etched neck plate, it would just be an overpriced ’70’s reissue. I’m more impressed (and have been for the past couple years) with Squier’s guitars and basses (I have 2 Squier Strats and a Squirt P-Bass, all modified; I have 3 Fender ‘s also, 2 Strats and a Tele, also modded). In my opinion, Squier’s are just as good, if not better, than some Fender’s and at a fraction of the cost, even with modifications.

  15. Bob Cotter

    Miles Davis. All Blues. Even the solo is simply minimal and simply beautiful. Say it with one note, say it with ten. Just play your music with feeling and soul.

  16. The beauty of this is that it can double as a Paul Simonon Signature bass!

  17. List price: 12 bags of China White, or a blow job on 53rd and 3rd.

  18. Own it, Love it, don’t really care if you don’t get it. Dee Dee and the rest of the Ramones = pure fucking genius.

  19. Louis

    The Dee Dee Ramone Signature Model is Not purely aesthetic. It has vintage (smaller) frets than the medium jumbos on the MIM and American Standards and has a heel truss rod access, which I suppose can be considered aesthetically different, but mechanically the same. There aren’t many other current Fender P’s with a 9.5 radius and vintage size frets. Maybe not a big deal to some, but definitely a feature that I would take into consideration and I think sets it apart considerably, IMO.
    Also, there were only 889 ever made, not 1000 ( info from Fender USA customer relations).