All Activity

Practical common sense has prevailed... Firstly, thanks for all your input, guys. Some very interesting options there, and having done some research and pondering, I've decided not to update the pretty bitsa Jazz. You see, I traded my highly useful Cort Space Bass 5 headless which previously lived in the boot of the car and was used as a backup/teaching bass and I genuinely miss having it around. I got the bitsa and £100 in a trade a couple of weeks ago, and all I've invested in is a decent set of strings and some setup time on the Jazz. A friend of mine loves fast necked active Jazzes and has a brand new Space Bass 4, so that puts me back to where I was without the 5th string which I didn't really need. As much as I was keen to improve the Jazz, I've got two lovely Jazz basses already which are part of the permanent money-earning working collection, so throwing another £200 at pickups on a bass I don't really need isn't good sense. Thanks again for all your input and knowledge.

This 1995 Stingray had many mods since I first got it in 1996; it's not the best Ray I've ever had, but we have history and it feels like nothing else in my hand. It sounded great with ceramic pickups earlier in the year, but I think I've finally cracked the right mod for me this time (see Sabre comment below) - 2 x Nordstrand MM4.2 pickups and an Aguilar OBP-1 preamp. Each pickup has a 3-way series/single/parallel switch, and there's a 3-way pickup selector switch. I may add an active/passive push/pull volume switch at some point, but the cavity is pretty tight with wires so not too sure yet. 2 x 9v batteries are under the pickguard, in between the pickups. The neck pickup in single coil mode is real oid school, and almost like an old P Bass, so that was a nice surprise. Each pickup has the rear coil engaged when in single mode, which I prefer to the regular Stingray HH single settings of either both outer or inner coils; it just sounds better and makes more sense for me. I'm haunted by a '78 Sabre I sold in 2007, and keep hearing it on old recordings, but this bass now finally gets into that territory with the neck pickup in series with the bridge pickup in parallel - such a great tone So it's now wearing a new 90s style matt black pickguard and a fresh set of Tis. Happy days.

Charlie 1010 1100100 1010

I'm doomed - Skoda Superb estate with 1950 cubic litres of cargo space.

Sugar mice, off Clutching at Straws. Very tasty fretless.

In for a penny... I'm sure there's an upper limit to how many basses one can fit in a 2011 Mitsubishi Colt, but I've yet to find it.

Fun stuff last night - we in the house band did a favourite piece of mine in the opening set. No other pianists turned up but a bass guitarist did, so I was asked to comp on guitar for a piece so the pianist could take a break. Fun, but when it came to soloing the audience feedback was that the guitar was hard to hear next to the bass. The bassist's volume seemed OK to me so I wonder how much of was that he was plucking close to the bridge, playing in a high register and using roundwound strings.

Visually, it looks like a £400 bitsa. Sorry, but it does. Questions: Did they clear all the Woodworms out of their delicious home? (I've seen the resultant damage on plenty of 2-300 year old Cellos.) Why is Lee Anderton trying to hawk a £7k bass when he knows most professional musician's cars aren't worth that much?

You can't help but suspect that the luthier had an otherwise nice batch of timber that had got ruined by woodworm, and decided to make the best of the situation...

Yes, they sort of missed a trick here 'organic micro-chambering' It could be a fabulous bass (I'd love to find out) and League is no slouch... but...

Shaggy dog stories are what make these instruments interesting. Where they came from, why we love them (albeit for a short period sometimes!), and why we covert them. Reminds me of a new Tribute LB-100 I had Andertons get out of the warehouse for me a couple of years ago when G&L did that gorgeous aqua-marine blue. Best sounding P-alike I ever played, but for some reason I bought a Sire gen 2 70's jazz clone instead. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The new SB-2 looks lovely, Neephid. Hope you enjoy it and play the bejesus out of it!

| Each hole is meticulously cleaned and cleared for maximum acoustic impact. 🤯

Agree with Beedster. The thing is if he wants to do a huge guitar w@nkathon he can do it at home and stick it on YouTube. That is not what you are paid to be performing at Weddings and the like for. We all have to compromise on our ideal to get paying gigs, so the sound should be balanced and clean so that it's enjoyable for the audience who have booked and paid for a function band. As others have said, I have no idea why a lot of bands can't have this grown up conversation.

Without wishing to open the can, I particularly enjoyed the marketing copy in this at Andertons: https://www.andertons.co.uk/bacci-guitars-amrita-woodworm-michael-league-signature-maple/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=surfaces&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADujoUqVDRQwkN1bWBZcEzip5ciCn&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzrzABhD8ARIsANlSWNOy6ZK_8WuK66VSG5h7Z3UTqmDDDEChjBNvC49jOeUAn4kUKGS7GKkaApxEEALw_wcB

This is very nice. As a G&L aficionado in training I approve 😀 Entirely unselfishly I ask, will this be coming along to the NW + Scotland bass bash?

DABhead

They have fixed the bridge and machine heads issue, that @BassApprentice refers to, in the latest Sonic version. I’m not saying you won’t want to replace them with higher quality items but it will be a lot easier to do the swap with a 5 hole Fender style bridge mount, etc. The pickup is still a Strat 6 string thing under the plastic cover. Most people want to replace it eventually and there are various options ranging from purpose made (expensive) replacements and cheaper Strat rail pickups. I had one of the previous models with the two saddle bridge and toy machine heads. After wrestling with the bridge and tuner replacements, I fitted a Tone Rider split P bass pickup with a custom scratch plate (off eBay). After these mods it was a very nice little bass. I imagine the Sonic versions will be just as much fun, with less hassle involved in the upgrades.