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This little beauty arrived today!

Cute!

I would lower your budget and buy a Squier Precision or Jazz. You will be getting a gig worthy instrument without investing too much cash. If you decide you like playing bass and want to continue, then you can either a) keep the bass and buy a 'better' one or b) sell the Squier and purchase something else. Over £1k for a first instrument is crazy IMO. Hold on for the supercar when you know the way around the racetrack.

Tidy. I haven't given it a good run at volume yet, but it doesn't lack for anything at modest volumes. Even the low B sounds full. Two would be most excellent. 🤘

Hope it does work, loving the look of the grain.

Here's my two... ...both gone now, sadly. Blimey I miss the single cut more than any other bass I’ve owned. That was dumb move.

Mark Philips Music? Was that the place? 🙄

Pub gigs can sometimes be a right pain in the arris. But I would give anything to play one tonight. 😞

The subject says it all really, there's a ZZ Top doc on Netflix, "ZZ Top: That Little 'Ol Band From Texas". Nothing very controversial, nice easy watch but a lot of it is Frank, Dusty and Billy and it starts right at, or really before, the beginning. I really liked it, but then I've always liked the band.

Man blows things out of proportion on internet. Who’d have thought it?

I couldn't watch this for more than about 5 minutes due to the unbelievably high levels of smugness and self-righteousness on display. Yes they cocked up but sounds like they will remedy in full.

COME AT ME! Now the infinite job of setting it up, it's sharp at the 12th fret, the arc over the fretboard is lousy, the drop from the B to the E is 100 feet and I've never done a neck relief in my life ever. BUT that it's nominally together and makes a sound out of the sound holes is the biggest squee I've done in a long time. it really is the look I was thinking of as well. super clean, really sharp.

Cardiacs? Yep, we know, they were like Marmite, love 'em or hate 'em. Ludicrously complex music, and very few covers done of their material for this very reason. And the few that are about are generally well meant but pretty poor. But here's Joey Frevola and a few mates doing an excellent cover of 'It's a Lovely Day' I bet they didn't learn this in a couple of hours. Enjoy.

Status basses are amongst the best in the World. I remember way back when we were starting to get busier gigging, I wanted a new bass. My mate said that young guy that plays with Pink Floyd (Guy Pratt) plays Status basses and I thought that's what I need to get. I paid £1100, which was a lot at the time, for a Status Eclipse in black burst. What a guitar! It gigged with me for years and bears the scars of many an adventure. I still have it.

I once saw an obvious 'Chibson' Les Paul in the window of Cash Converters labelled & priced as a Gibson. I didn't feel the need to make a documentary about it though.

Absolutely this.... ^^^^^^^^^ Trying the basses out would help, you’ll know what weight suits or even if it’s a factor, what neck type suit you best (p and J necks vary quite a lot, you may want an even slimmer neck) Your tone will depend on your pickups, whether you want active or passive and your amp and cab aswell, if you are trying a bass out in a shop on £2ks worth of amp and cab it isn’t going to sound quite the same as your home rig, so, if you can, try the bass on a rig the same or similar.

No, not heard of it.

Thanks all, It is a Zebrano top with Swamp Ash back and weighs in at only 8lbs I cannot believe just how good it is to play, I also have an older Energy Matrix bass and there is simply no comparison between the two, if ever the corny description of "it plays itself" could apply then this is the case. It is the most I have ever spent on a bass but, so far, it looks, feels and sounds to be worth every penny!

At this stage, something with a comfortable neck, and something that is both comfortable standing and seated. As @lownote12 says, there is plenty available at a fraction of your budget. A passive bass with PJ (Precision and Jazz) pickup configuration at around £3/400 would serve you well for a long time (or at least until GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome - takes over)!

Those timings seem about right to me, regardless of whether or not everything is going through the PA. For a 9pm start I would want to be playing one song as a soundcheck at 8:30, no later than 8:45. To be ready to soundcheck at 8:30 I would start loading in to the venue at 7:30. Do bear in mind that allowing an hour for a set-up is NOT the same as needing an hour. I always want some 'spare' in case of accident or breakdown. If that means that I'm ready half an hour early, well that's fine ... time to have a quiet chat with the band / punters / landlord / pub cat / whatever. As to finishing packing down 45 minutes after you've finished playing, I'm really not sure how you could shave any significant amount of time off that, or in fact why it would bother you. Say you managed to slash a third off that time through utterly frantic work; you now get to load out at 11:30 instead of 11:45. Wow. What a result. Is that how long it actually took, or the elapsed time between the load-in and the gig starting?

To be fair, the guy who posted the video was/is also known as The China Guitar Sceptic and has a long history on You Tube buying Chibsons, Chickenbakers etc. and explaining every reason why you should just buy original product. The whole headstock decal issue is a major bugbear of mine (along with sellers quoting their precious bass is a 'lawsuit' model). I can understand why people do it, the allusion that an ugly-duckling cheaper/unbranded bass/guitar becomes a beautiful swan, but the traffic is almost exclusively one way; you never see anyone reshaping the headstock of their Lakland 44-64 and putting a Fender decal on it do you?

I don`t know whats all the fuss is about. They sold me a cracker of a Funder P bass last year!

Difficult one - and seems like the boss will sort. I think I’ve interacted with the guy in this video on Facebook over a bass I had with a limelight neck on it. He went round and round, I blocked him and sold the bass. I completely get his point. I’m just not sure what he gets from policing the world of second hand sales on Facebook and eBay. Anyhow. A big retailer should know better - but if sorted I see it of a “hey did you spot this, it’s wrong” ‘no I didn’t and I’ll sort it’ Bit of a non story in the end.

23” and 27” scale. The headed one is my new favourite toy!! So much so, I’m making another.

Meant to put these details up before - final weight of this was 3.2kg / 7lb and overall length 92cm / 3ft. Can't put it down...….

I've managed to get plenty of info from this thread... just sorry I opened such a can of worms! All the comments in this thread are truly appreciated though, and I'll be sure to discuss with the band the way they do things. They're guys in their 40s playing rock covers so I'd imagine it's a more old school approach but no harm in hearing different ways of doing things.

Dear @Berserker, as much as little spats like this occasionally break out on BC they often contain very good information, albeit a bit fizzy with static so to speak.

Ah I didn't know the name... The guy who ran, and for all I know still runs, this shop didn't "customise" his instruments, you'd need to look quite carefully to see what they were. He didn't scrawl a shoddy signature on the headstock with a felt tip!

I am quite partial to Ultrasound’s version of Big Ship

Almost 5 years on from when I first got this (4 months off the full 5 years) and this is still my number one bass. I've not bought another one since either. Still love it. I only thought of how long it's been as I saw a Sire U5 online today and thought hmm, I've not bought a bass in years, I wonder why...

Bit the bullet, mine should arrive tomorrow, unsure whether to get this or the future shock, but this seems a better unit and easier for just using on the fly. The future shock has some very good presets but reckon only about 12-20 would ever rally get used. Plus its like £100 more.

Oh heck, I wonder how stable this will actually turn out to be.

I saw this on Youtube and i think it was slightly over the top,saying a Gibson dealer was selling fake Gibsons when in reality they were never advertising them as Gibson guitars,i suspect they get alot of guitars traded in Its the people who try to pass them off as the real deal that need to brought to task.

And expensive (relatively) and complicated and time consuming to set up, and as for the ability to change monitor mixes "on the fly" - while your playing? How on earth? Or between songs? Constantly fiddling with your mix while the rest of your band hangs around? Fine if you have a dedicated sound person like Bluejay who knows what they're doing, that would be great but most of us don't have that luxury. We run with just backline and vocal PA, total PA cost (second hand, Yamaha and EV, not rubbish) about £500 get told we sound great and play 30 -40 gigs a year. We must be doing something right. If the drummer needs to hit harder to hear himself, the answer is that the rest of you are too loud. The volume of an un-mic'd kit in a small venue is perfectly sufficient even when played "gently", the rest of you adjust your levels to suit. Simple, effective and quick - we expect to be set up, checked and ready in 30 mins. The last time I played with a band who had all the fluffy stuff they told me "we need to be there about 7.15 to be ready by 8.45". and we didn't finish packing down until 11.45 after an 11.00 finish That didn't last long. YMMV.

Many thanks for the replies. Trying a few out at a shop seems essential. A lightly used Sandberg would definitely be on my rdar.

My 68 jazz bass

The Thumpinator IS a HPF. The only difference is you don't have control of the frequency with the Thumpinator like you do with the Broughton.

I think that looks fantastic, really really good. Oh and the electrics, pickups bridges strings and tuners on every HB I've ever had have been absolutely fine. I'm not sure how many of the folk who recommend binning them the moment you receive (or build) one have that much experience of Harley Bentons. I changed the pups in one just to see what difference it made. 🤷🏻‍♂️

This was unexpected indeed, but hey ho; it sort of gives me the full set now (one P Bass with flats, One with Rounds, a Stingray and a Jazz Bass). I don't think I'll need a fiver (I've managed so far for 30-odd years) and I have a fretless I can borrow as and when. A friend if mine bought this new thinking that it was a 70's Jazz as he wanted the 70's pickup spacing (don't hear much difference myself) and after carefully installing the bridge cover etc. realised he'd made a mistake. Coincidentally, I'd always fancied a CAR Jazz and so a deal was done, just to help him out you understand. Having sold an Alto Sax and a few Basses recently I was in a position to do so. I've fit it with a set of TI Flats, just to mellow it down a bit and go the action nice and low for me (took a while with the 9.5" radius, but nowhere near as painful a process as a 7.5" radius) and it plays beautifully. It's very well built and put together nicely, but you don't half notice the difference when compared to a Music Man which is on a whole other level of quality to my eyes at least. I'm usually a fan of tortoiseshell pickguards but I really fancy a white one on this. Strange times...

The PC2A is a bit of an unusual comp, and very expensive. I love how it makes my fretless sound though. The Diamond - I felt it just squeezed a lot of life out my sound and it plagued me with noise issues. Not a typical raised noise floor due to compression, but interference/grounding type buzzing. Weirdly it was fine on the floor but noisy when placed on the metal pedaltrain?! Tried a Keeley Bassist and just found it bland. Went to an RMI Basswitch Dual Band next. Loved what the dual band did, but it did change the tone quite drastically, needed isolated power due to a noisy internal 9v-18v converter, and in the end it died on me within 2 weeks so was returned. I got a Cali Compact Bass next, thought it was the bees knees. Missed the dual band but the HPF sidechain feature almost made up for it. Then got a TC Spectracomp. Assumed it would be cack as it cost £50 and Ovnilab refused to review it due to excessive noise issues and a bad customer service experience, but was curious because lots were raving about it. Holy moly! Best comp I've ever had, and sold the Cali. Dual band is the way to go, this has 3 bands, so even more so. Especially if you slap or play aggressively, you will benefit from having faster limiting on the top end and a slower milder compression on the lows. I considered getting a Hypergravity instead due to it being essentially the same pedal with more knobs. But I realised the thing I liked most was how the Spectracomp's stock preset was dialled in perfectly for me bar a slight volume boost that could be tweaked via the app, and there were tons of bass-specific presets that aren't available for the Hypergravity.

I would suggest you have a serious look at Sandberg basses. The build quality is excellent and they are very versatile. The California T or VM are great to play. There are also some really good secondhand deals to be had.

As long as the string reaches the nut before the silks start, you should be fine. I don’t consider string taper to be an issue personally. In my experience, the following strings are all fine for 35” scale basses: D’addario EXLs Dunlop Flats Maruszczyk Nickels Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats Dingwall Medium Scale strings (medium scale for Dingwall is long scale for everyone else) Thomastik Infeld Flats