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Jon sent me a few pictures.

Finally it's back! I traded this beast away several years ago and always considered it to be 'one of those that got away'... I think we've all been there, trading a bass and then suffering instant regret! However... finally after 3 years of failed attempts to get this bass back, the right sequence of trades has now landed this monster back in my hands. It's a Warwick Thumb Single Cut 6, a horrendously expensive thing if you wanted to buy it new (price tag is a shade under €8000). Warwick only made 120 of these and now only make them to order. These are heavy, but they are exceptionally good basses. The tone is outstanding and slices through any mix, the construction is immaculate. Pommele Bubinga top with USA ash body, flame maple neck and thick ebony board. Solid brass 'invisible' frets, MEC active/passive pickups and preamp. This one is near mint, with the flight case and Warwick folder. Very glad to have it back!

Well I don’t know about anyone else but all I have ever really wanted from Fender is decent build quality and some interesting colours, not just black and sh*t-burst.....so on that note, well done Fender and yes please to this....

As part of my ongoing search for a decent Overdrive pedal (ie a warm, slightly overdriven sound rather than a dentist’s drill), I decided to pick up one of the new Fender Downtown Express Bass pedals incorporating and Overdrive, Eq and Compressor. Build-wise this thing is high quality and a really substantial bit of kit both size and weight wise. It was apparently designed in conjunction with Mr Aguilar and I can well believe it. At just under £150 the quality of the Compressor (analog) and the really meaty Overdrive (all the way from thick warm valvey sounds through some serious dirt) as well as a decent eq and a DI, it really seems to be very good value indeed. Granted I’m not a massive user of effects, but it really is a good (in essence) multi-effect pedal as one that is very intuitive and easy to set up. The LEDs are something else too!

The Q\Strip is very capable as an analog speaker sim if set correctly. I'm not familiar with the other pedals you mentioned. For a speaker sim, it's best to use after any distortion producing pedals. You should obviously have the LPF engaged. You need to make sure everything is gain staged correctly as you could be getting fizz from overloading the interface. If you're running a number of pedals in series you want to set the gain structures so you have unity gain. Here is a video showing the Q\Strip as a speaker sim in action.

I'm asking Rocco to fund my holiday to Crete

A new Fender range. "Vintage style for the modern modern era" 60s Jazz 70s Jazz 50s Precision 60s Mustang

A fellow Scot here, with a Sterling Sub Ray 4 in my arsenal. (No cheap shots, please, about tight Scotsmen, or I will hunt you down like a dog.) Like the OP, I wanted to test the MM waters, but I find the wide nut on EBMM basses to be too wide for my delicate little paws, being a Jazz Bass player by temperament. The Sub Ray 4 I nabbed may be cheap, but it really packs a punch, and sounds close enough to the real thing to me to be well worth considering, to get a sense of these things, which are very different to the Jazz. I got mine for 200 quid, and there are plenty around, so give one a whirl, I say. I will now duck into my previously prepared bunker, so as to avoid the inevitable incoming from those rightfully enraged by my maundering.. Carry on.

Always looking for a bargain...one day somebody will post an ad for something I want but missed. Hope that I'm doing the same for somebody else... That or I'm fuelling everybody's GAS...

I'd like to take some of the credit but I think at least 95% must go to @Andyjr1515..... As you say "amazing skills"..

...Handbox looks great, but sadly only 200W at 8ohms, otherwise I would have been very tempted myself! Mesa M6: definitely a bit of fan noise with this one (not noticeable at all as soon as you start playing). But does it just deliver the best tone of any amp I've come across to date? Yup

Thunderfunk all the way.

The Portamento basses has 30 “fret” boards

Every time you buy a cd with tracks you haven’t heard in the radio. Every film you’ve gone to see at the cinema, or bought as a preorder.

The basses are ‘no great shakes’, but some of the telecasters look quite tasty...

I've actually always wanted one of these. When you think about it they are ridiculous, having only 15 frets and the same range as a 4 string but I still want one but I like the odd balls from the 60s & 70s like these:

Brilliant, thank you

@cetera Oh Spector King - knowest thee what this is?

As an artist I think it is somewhat presumptuous and disrespectful to your (potential) audience to expect them to crowd fund your recording. It is my experience as a artist that if your music is worth releasing you will find a way to do it without resorting to begging. It is also my experience as a fan of bands who have used crowd funding to release their music that the incentives being offered aren't really that special. What I am primarily interested in is the music. I'll be able to buy that for £10 when the album comes out. Nearly all of the other stuff is irrelevant to me. And in this particular case $50,000 just seems to be far to much money to ask for with no explanation of exactly how it will be spent. Is it just for recording costs? Getting your music on-line with all the major download and streaming sites only costs $50 for an album, so unless he's going for a large volume physical release that seems like an awful lot of money. For that kind of money just for recording plus mixing and mastering I'd be looking at a couple of weeks lock in with a name producer and mixing engineer with the aim of producing a fantastic sounding album and turning at least one of my band's songs into a potential hit single. Getting your music recorded and released has never been cheaper. My last studio recording (made earlier this year) was charged at the same hourly rate (£6/h) as my first back in 1980 and while both were made in similar locations (converted garages) the quality and range of the equipment (as well as the acoustic treatment in the studio and control room) used for this year's session was vastly superior to 1980's semi-professional 4-track tape machine fed from a modified 12 channel PA desk and the sole effect available being reverb and echo from a spare 2-track tape machine. Maybe the way forward for crowd funding recordings would be instead of offering useless "special" incentives would be to give everyone funding the album a cut of the sales? I might be tempted to throw a couple of hundred pounds at my favourite bands in return for 1% of the sales of their next album.

Yes, I've forgotten to thank Luke for his work on the badges - looking good.

What a negative thread! Give them some credit - they've made up a word!

As mentioned, lots of cheaper basses get very close to the sound but not the feel. 'Real' Rays feel somehow solid. Confident. Keep an eye out for one on here, there's nothing spoiling so wait for a good deal. I sold my black one for not much over your £800 and it was pristine. My red one would be way under your budget if I listed it here. If you're ever in Newcastle...

Sssssh

One on here too 😉Inexpensive bargain yammy that is...

...that cost an arm and a leg and a kidney and a liver and... with detuners the price is over 10 k$. A used Ashula has a price tag that is less than 10 % of the Hyperbass. http://www.zonguitars.com/zonguitars/bassbuilder/index_hyp.htm https://reverb.com/marketplace?query=ibanez ashula If you are really lucky, you may find a fretless tune Bass Maniac with 3 octave fretboard. But it is really rare! I think that Ibanez has recently had a fretless with over 2 octave fretboard in their catalogue.

Yep, I have an active 5'er J/J and a passive 4 P/J. The 5 is great to play, has a lovely neck and the stock active electronics are quite bright and lively. The passive 4 fills a gap in my Weapons of Bass Destruction. Equally lovely neck and possibly the easiest-playing bass that I've ever had. I'm struggling to make a direct comparison with the original stock pickups as I can't remember their exact tonal qualities; I can only say that found them a bit "polite", and definitely not bright, so I had Entwhistle Neos installed. Those are neither dull nor particularly polite. Given that I have recently acquired my Spector 5's, I guess that I shall be looking to let the 5'er go anyway in the near future. Too many basses, according to Mrs. Mango….mind you, she did encourage me to acquire the Spectors, so I can have no complaints.

Sunstroke? Had it, and not nice feeling at all.

Traded basses (not places :)...) with Jon, absolute gem of a BC member. Thanks for the trade, the company and the coffee! Enjoy the new thumb anchor point 😂 .... you’ll suss it in no time.

So many people think the most expensive basses in a range are the best. For some they are, for others they are not. There is a reason many pro players use a MIM Fender over a US one. Don't get caught in the hype, some basses work for people, some don't. Try them yourself, and you'll know if the CV, VM or any other brand or range best suits your tastes.

Dodgy deal done in a motorway service area today with Harry. It was a transcontinental epic trade of basses with Harry travelling about a million miles and myself settling for a lowly 100! Fabulous comms all the way through. Great guy and a total gent to boot - one for the Carlsberg Basschatters group :-) Enjoy the Stingray Harry!

Thanks for that skidder, I'll check it out now.

Leeds is cool. I'm happy with this move. NORTH.

That was pre-Basschat and well before I knew what an efficient cab was. To be fair I was playing alongside a huge Ritchie Blackmore fan who had about 5 of his signature Strats and about 8 Marshall 4x12"s on stage.

If it was faulty why didnt you get it swapped over or just get new springs? Never had any issues with my Gen1 V7 and ive had it since they first came out. Never spent a penny on it other than strings.

There's been a lot of positive comment on this thread about the Fearless F112 which was very helpful in persuading me to give this cab a try. It's been a few months since putting in my order, but I was very pleased to take delivery of my F112 this weekend. I've had a bit of time to A/B the cab with my BF SC which has done me (and my back!) proud over the past 9 months. There's a link to a post from a TB'er in the OP where he compares a BF BB2 with a F112, in which he states that: "Under the exact same power amp output, the F112 consistently sounded a bit louder and hit with better LF extension, depth and authority." I would agree with that as being a very fair summary also when comparing with my BF SC. The F112 does the low end really well - by comparison my BF SC felt somewhat thinner. Low E down to a low B and the F112 has very considerable weight and authority. The 5" speaker on the F112 gives it an additional mid punch that had me thinking about cutting my mids a touch rather than boosting which has been my default approach with my BF SC; in a band mix this ability to cut through is likely to come into its own. There is a two-position mid-dip switch that modestly changes the mid-range speaker’s response voicing which I suspect I will be leaving "on" whilst I get used to having a fuller mid-punch than my BF cab has provided to date. The Fearless has a 1" tweeter to additionally cater for the high end. It is a more subtle tweeter than on my Berg CN212 (the BF SC does not have a tweeter) and although there is an ability to cut the tweeter volume to virtually nil on the F112, I didn't feel any particular need to do this, whereas on the Berg the tweeter is set at a relatively low 3/10. Overall first impressions are very positive and seem to completely bear out the compliments given by other BC'ers on this thread. If you're a 5 string bass player and want to get an extremely capable low end from a compact unit or someone who is looking for a cab with a mid punch that will cut through the mix then, budget permitting, the Fearless F112 is definitely worth having on your shortlist.

The thing is, when Gibson were going bust, everyone was saying “they need to go back to what they do best, Les Paul’s/SG’s/335’s!” And were criticised for all their “innovations” (which incidentally were poop...) Fender and Gibson do what they do, Imagine Levi’s making tracksuit bottoms or Dr Martens making tennis shoes. It just doesn’t work that way. Fender have a staple 5/10 models and have to work with that. They try stuff and it doesn’t always sell - there are 100’s of models which didn’t stay long. I sold Fenders for years as my Job, and all the weird and wonderful sat on the wall while black strats and white telecasters turned over in huge numbers. For years their best selling Telecaster was the butterscotch 52, their second biggest selling telecaster was the left handed version. After that it was a natural finish USA with a black pickguard and the Baja Tele in blackguard blonde...etc. Its about an “Icon” thing for players. Jaguars/Jazzmasters/Mustangs were sort of dead until Grunge - the artists bought them because they were reputable branded guitars but cheap. Then in the early 2000’s the 72 Custom Tele/Thinline Tele/Tele Deluxe were in vogue because of all the hip indie bands using them for that same reason - before that they couldn’t raise an eyebrow let alone a big ticket price. They have a legacy and they’re bound to it, damned if they do (by some) and damned if they don’t (by others). More stringent quality control and they’d be away - but that adds cost, and that’s why a Deluxe USA Jazz is £1800 or so and a USA Sadowsky is about £4500. Incidentally - I side by side compared a USA 2010 Deluxe, A USA sadowsky and an Alleva Coppolo (check spelling) and the Fender held its own, massively. I preferred it in sound to the other two and it felt as nice as the Sadowsky. It was just a bit heavier than the other 2. It was also about £1449 at the time. They should open up 12 month contracts to us all and see if we could do a better job. Anyhow, as someone said earlier - if you weren’t thinking of buying a Fender this year - these probably aren’t aimed at you...I’m off to play my yamaha 😂

The newer Dimension was a killer bass. Beautiful compound radius, oiled neck, great weight and balance, 18v active electronics, dual humbuckers. They tried. We didn't buy them because they weren't 'Fender enough'. We don't actually want Fender to do anything other than what they are currently doing, it seems.

Oh, and I've added tweeter protection to the crossover. Bass guitar is never going to stress the compression driver in this system, but better safe than sorry.

Well - other than I'm going to recommend to @TheGreek that I order a replacement barrel jack for it (it works - but it crackles when you really start rocking!), it's finished. Hatch fitted and magnets installed; frets polished; fretboard cleaned and oiled; bridge fitted; bass set up; sound check completed Here it is:

I take it when you but the 70`s Jazz you get a dodgy neck pocket, boat anchor weight and general shoddy QC? But not all 70`s Fenders are crap: so says everyone who tries to sell one I take it that knowing Fender these ones will be more expensive than the almost exactly the same models that these ones replace?

Thanks for the corrections, chaps - much appreciated. I've posted an updated parts list in response to your comments and to include an additional few items. Next week, I'll post the final drawings and cutting list (thanks RichardH) with the crossover circuit and layout for the Faital PR320/Celestion CDX-1425 system. Anyone wishing to cut their own wood and build their own crossover will then have all the information they need. All the quotes are now in for the CNC kit cab. I'll be choosing a supplier early next week and progressing the matter so that we can get moving on the kits again.

Just to tidy the thread up, all my v3 sound clips are available to listen to here. If you let it load through the google drive app you can then swipe right to move to the next clip and all patch numbers are given. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1u2-dJaWdaAbPDnDdWkipu-P7IH_GHLQ2 Current numbered list looks like this:

Excellent review and Mike does make some fantastic instruments. I am glad to see he is now concentrating on bass building again rather than spreading himself a bit thin with cabs and amps. That said I still have my Zoot cabs and plenty have been and gone, but they are with me for good.