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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!

I agree with Billy Corgan, the colour of the instrument changes the sound of the instrument. Well played stew -- it looks and sounds fab !! 💟

Check out the money back guarantee offered by Thomann who have great customer service and are happy for you to try things out and return with no questions asked. You would obviously need to be careful to ensure that the item is returned in pristine condition but it's well worth considering IMHO. https://www.thomann.de/gb/helpdesk_moneyback.html

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

OK, I see where I'm going wrong - I assumed that getting a harmonic at the 12 fret by damping the string there meant that the node was at the 12th fret. From what you have said, the node is not there, but is close enough that damping the string at that point will produce the harmonic. The rest of it now makes more sense. Thanks David

@akabane the bands that I like are still releasing music on physical formats and their fans are still buying them, so for the music that I would be interested in supporting there is a good chance that I would see a return on my investment. However these bands are selling their product off the back of gigging, and it has been my experience that unless your band is very well established (to the point where you shouldn't need crowd funding) the only way to continue generating sales for physical formats is to gig and sell copies to people who come to the gigs. Maybe as an alternative strategy in this age of streaming would not be to record albums at all, but to release a single song/piece of music every 3-4 months as a promotional item, and the only way people are able to hear the rest of your material they have to come and see you play live. Also, if as an artist you are serious business venture (as I suspect Rocco Prestia is), rather than just doing it for your own enjoyment then your business model needs to be one where income from each previous release funds the production of the next release. You might need to put in some of your own money in the first instance, but from then on it should be self-funding. That was certainly the way one of my previous bands operated. I put up the money to record and release our first EP, but the recording and production of subsequent releases were funded from sales of the back catalogue and other merchandise. If you can't do this then either your "product" isn't appealing enough or your business model is wrong. Start small and work your way up to an album that is going cost $50k to produce when your income from your back catalogue and royalties support it.

If fans of his want to hear new music from him enough to put some money up-front for it then fine - I hope they get something they enjoy. Non-fans are, as far as I'm aware, not obliged to pay anything.

Hi JJ

Top advice there. Find a therapy that works for you (osteopathy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, massage, etc) and keep it in as good a nick as you can manage with exercises (I use a foam roller for gentle stretching at home myself and visit an osteopath if it gets completely out of whack).

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.

Friend of mine has this and got some lotion to help the symptoms. Later on he found out that he was allergic to some ingredient of the lotion... so beware. By the way, you might try that newer Ibanez Ashula 7-string to play with both fretted and fretless in one neck. Lots of tuning possibilities included!

The tops of most 'flat top' acoustic guitars are dished at around 25' radius. The backs vary, but are also dished usually to around 15' radius. So all of the braces have to be curved to suit, and then the back and top forced into shape while gluing those braces and thus hold the dish-shape. For this, you need a couple of radius dishes and - most of us use - a simple go-bar rig The radius dish I use is just a 20mm thick piece of MDF suitably scooped out. This is the 15' radius one for the back. The four maple back braces have been shaped to suit their relative positions on the disc and also shaped roughly parabolic, leaving the tops flat: The go-bar deck is just two stiff boards separated by threaded rods and wink nuts: Basically, a combination of dowel rods and fibreglass rods will be used to force everything into the dish. First I use the pretty stiff dowels to press the back fully into the dish: And now, progressively glue the braces into position, again using them to force the back sheet into the dish and therefore help it hold the curve when it's all dry: This is why I left the tops of the braces flat!

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.

a) barely anyone likes or cares about reverse P’s, it’s niche at best. b) maybe 1 masochistic person out of a thousand wants this. c) every fender clone maker already does the humbucker pj, it’s been done to death. Fender did p/p in the 80s, didn’t sell well and didn’t sound that useful, it was a novelty. If you want lots of small interesting changes, look at the Mustangs, Fender are doing exactly that with this range. The result is that half of the people who like Fenders love it, the other half thinks it’s an abomination. They also have a custom shop btw. The prices are a joke but they will make you whatever you want. Honestly, the main thing everyone moaned about with Fender pre-2012 was that they varied in quality and the general feedback from their customers was that they should focus on their classics and make them as good as they can. Given that even a sub£200 Squier is giggable these days, they’ve done ok. People are p!ssed about the prices - not much you can do about that, as the main customer base (boomers) dies off, USA stuff is going to keep decreasing in demand and increasing in price. Plus the value of the pound is going to keep falling endlessly as long as we have idiot voters putting idiots in charge, but that’s another conversation.

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.

That's pretty good. Youtubed and good live too.

He did a great job and was singing a semi-tone higher than usual since GnR tune down.

Time for me to come clean. It was me who bought the "Black strat." Bit of a stretch at just under 4 million bucks but hey, gotta do something with all that cash form the Class A. Can`t really put it in the bank now can I? But everything is good, Big Dave is well happy and so is the climate. And I don`t need to worry as I had a text form DPD at 11 am this morning saying Fred their driver will drop the guitar off between 3.42 pm and 4.42 pm at my addresss. 👌

I love Fender but honestly, what's new here? Zzzzz . . . .

I was genuinely expecting it to be a new model, like the Dimension, but yeah - someone's hit the random configuration generator a few times and this is what you get, with another sneaky £100+ on the price tag.

The best ‘legacy’ GK could do is restarting manufacture of the original 800RB exactly as it was.

Some up to date photos

[u][b]Zoot Custom 4 string, 32"[/b][/u] I took delivery of this bass back in the Summer and have resisted the temptation to review it any sooner to try and ensure the 'New Toys' syndrome didn't exert too strong an influence. I've had four basses built for me in the past - three by Les Evans from Liverpool and a more recent ACG Finn. I think there's always a leap of faith element to every new commission but they've been more successful every time as I've become clearer and more confident about what works for me. The Finn, with its filter preamp, and single pickup moved slightly towards the bridge was the best of the bunch for my personal tastes. I'd owned a few Zoots over the years, and played a few more - mostly in Mike Walsh's shop, The Bass Merchant, a good few years back. I'd always promised myself a custom build but had never got round to it and, after having had quite a low profile in recent years, it was just coincidental that has name popped up on BC at exactly the time I was thinking about adding a passive bass to my Finn and Les Evans fretless. Mike lives quite close to my family down south, so we met up when I was down visiting them and eventually settled on the following specification: [list] [*]Splat Ash body with figured maple book matched top, finished in am Amber trans' tint. [*]Ebony veneer dividing line [*]5 piece laminated neck of Canadian rock maple and Blue Jarra [*]Satin finish to back of neck [*]Hi-gloss finish to face of headstock [*]Ebony finger board with side dots [*]Soft 'V' profile [*]38mm bone nut [*]16" radius to board. [*]24 frets [*]Bi-flex (two way) truss rod adjustable body end [*]ABM bridge [*]Hipshot 'Ultralite' machine heads and string retainer in black [*]Dual Aguilar DCB pickups [*]Passive with Vol/Vol/Tone/Master Volume and three position pickup selector [*]1 X mini switch for H/B soap bar [/list] A mere five months later this beauty was ready to pick up: [url="http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Myrtle2014/media/Zoot%20Custom/WP_20160722_09_23_39_Pro_zpseldsho1h.jpg.html"][/url] [u][b]Fit and Finish[/b][/u] As ACGs have a lot of love in these parts and there's a fair few owners in the BC parish, I'll use my Finn as a reference point. The Zoot is a more straightforward, traditional bass, I'd say. It's a bolt-on build like my Finn but Mike sticks to the tried and trusted Fender method of securing the neck to the body with wood screws rather than Alan's preference for captive nuts and machine bolts. I've no complaints about Mike's method at all but the ACG method does feel a bit more robust to me. In all respects though the workmanship is fantastic. The frets sit low and level and the fret ends are perfectly finished - I mean really perfectly - and the rounded over finger board edges make for an incredibly comfortable-playing bass. I asked Mike for a soft V profile neck to try and get close to a friend's Wal I played years back and he's absolutely nailed it. I had no complaints about the offset neck on the ACG but this profile fits like and glove - it's fast, effortless, and simply puts a huge smile on my face. [url="http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Myrtle2014/media/Zoot%20Custom/WP_20160722_09_25_15_Pro_zps66mprjtj.jpg.html"][/url] Having mostly played basses with satin or oiled finishes in recent years the high gloss took some getting used to from a playing point of view as it's more 'grabby' over the forearm cutaway area of the body, but that was a small price to pay for the stunning looks (I honestly stood there with my mouth open when I went to pick it up and saw for the first time, lying on the bench!). The high gloss is a preference of Mike's but I didn't take any convincing as I quite fancied a change anyway. The only slight reservations I have are so minor as to hardly merit a mention, but in the interests of balance I will: the nut and the string retainer. I'd have preferred a black or darker nut material. Nothing 'wrong' with the white one but it sort of draws attention to itself to my eye and grates slightly. Similarly with the string retainer a three string version was fitted because that's all that was needed, the break angle of the G string rendering it unnecessary to be retained; however, it makes things looks slightly unbalanced now and we'll be changing it for the 4 string version on a visit soon. [b][u]Sound and Playability[/u][/b] Okay, I freely admit all attempts at objectivity are now futile because, quite honestly, I think this is the best bass I have either owned or played in my nearly forty years of playing. I think with my Finn (as good a bass as it was) I began to feel it lacked a certain 'something'. Don't get me wrong, it cut through like a bastard in a band situation and the filter preamp offered a huge range of tones. But I think that maybe the huge variety of tones it had up its sleeve seemed to mitigate - for me - against a fundamental character or personality. It was a brilliant bass but it never really put a smile on my face. The Zoot has character. In spades. It has a fundamental warmth, breadth, weight and punch; it doesn't just put a smile on face, it actually makes me laugh out loud. It's one of those basses that encourages you to try new things. I have one bass 'pupil' who commented on it sounding like a fretless, and he's right. There's something about where the attack in the note occurs that is very fretless-like. I was worried about it cutting through in a band situation as passive basses often sound great at home but struggle in company. Played through my TC RH750 and Barefaced BB2 at last week's rehearsal there were no such issues though. I didn't back the tone off quite as much as I might do at home but that was the only concession I had to make. I also have to say that returning to a slightly more traditional neck after the ACG feels good. There's something about V profiles that is so comfortable; I really don't know why they're not more popular. Likewise the radius - 16" is a great compromise between the benefits of a flat board and something more pronounced or Fenderish to me. [url="http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Myrtle2014/media/Zoot%20Custom/WP_20160722_09_24_34_Pro_zps0efhjssp.jpg.html"][/url] [u][b]To Sum up[/b][/u]: I love this bass. And I say that after 4 months of ownership and playing. There is nothing about this bass I don't like. Even the finish - which turned out darker than I imagined - turned out to be a happy accident. It looks fantastic, it sounds fabulous and it fits like a glove. It feels like home. I wish I could find something negative to say about it beyond the rather lame nut and string retainer observations but I can't! Suffice it to say I have sold the Finn and commissioned a fretless from Mike too. Make of that what you will.

OK - here's where we began: ....and this is where we ended up: