The Aria Diamond series bass guitar I bought together with my brother somewhere in 1988 for around 800 guilders (325 Euros, with inflation taken into consideration that would nowadays mean a 500 euro bass, so a decent mid-priced bass), because we wanted to make our own completely arranged recordings.
I had also bought a Yamaha MT-100 4-track cassette recorder and a second hand Roland TR-707 drumcomputer. My brother had got a Roland D-10 synthesizer and Cakewalk sequencing software on his IBM XT (or AT?) clone computer. It has been one of the episodes in my musical life when my playing improved dramatically, just by recording myself over and over.
Years later I bought the other half of this bass from my brother as well.
It’s quite a basic design when it comes to looks, but it does have quite an extensive electronic scheme making several kinds of sounds possible. It has volume knobs for the pair of neck pickups and then one for the bridge pickup. Also, it has a balance knob for mixing the pickups, and a tone knob (which I typically never use).
This enables you to get your own preferred balance of deep, heavy lows from the neck pickups and sounds that pack a bit more of an attack from the bridge pickup.
It’s not a high end bass, but typically for Japanese-built Arias of the 1980’s of very decent quality nevertheless.
iplayguitaronline 