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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.

Scroll through for another 5-minute lockdown read... I was dripping with sweat, my throat was parched, my legs were trembling and I wanted to go to the toilet. I had hot and cold flushes, blurred vision, and pins and needles in my extremities, which I presumed were the initial symptoms of a heart attack. I was petrified and I wasn’t alone. Mike and Geoff were in the same state. We were ‘Lucifer and the Corncrackers’ and this was our first gig. We sat on a row of chairs at the side of the stage, eyes cast down, like condemned men waiting for the hangman to arrive. I racked my addled brain for an excuse to run. I prayed that somebody would rush in and inform me of a death in the family – unlikely, since I come from a line of long-livers; I longed for a power cut – next to impossible, I would have thought, given that we were playing in a power station; and I yearned for an earthquake – the thought of the earth opening up and swallowing me was curiously comforting but the San Dafydd Fault had been depressingly inert for some years. But nobody rushed in, the lights didn’t flicker, and bloody terra remained bloody firma. There was no escape. Suddenly I understood how Custer must have felt. It was Saturday, the 17th of March 1962, and we were at the Car Bay Club, the social club of the Carmarthen Bay Power Station in Burry Port, just down the coast from Llanelly. The place was packed and the average age of the audience was about sixty. In the run-up to the gig, ignorance about what was to come had made us somewhat cocky but that cockiness disappeared completely in the face of the public. We took one look at them and had a small, collective nervous breakdown. It was billed as a talent contest. There were six acts and we were the third on. We were told that there was a big agent in the audience. He was easy to spot. He sat at a table directly in front of the stage. He was a lumpy, balding man in a crumpled suit and he shared the table with his wife, who looked just as you’d expect an agent’s wife to look – like a down-market bookie’s wife. She sat in morose silence while he talked loudly to her about show business, name-dropping furiously. He mentioned Shirley Bassey at least four times. The first act was a Cliff Richard look-alike who sang ‘The Young Ones’ in a key far too high for him. ‘He’ll never make the middle-eight,’ I said to Mike. As expected, he broke down halfway through the song and, red-faced with embarrassment, returned to his seat on a wave of sympathy from his mates. We, who thought Cliff Richard was a disgrace to civilisation, were rather pleased. Much to our delight the agent ignored him and continued talking loudly to his wife, who’d obviously heard it all before. The second act was a genial, semi-famous, ex-rugby player who sang ‘Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling’ in a tremulous baritone voice. It was excruciating because he was a little sharp all the way through, but it was obvious that the audience had heard him sing it a million times before because he received warm, indulgent applause. He failed, however, to make any impression on the agent, although he clearly affected his wife, who was knocking back gin & tonics at an alarming rate. Then the compère, an elderly committee-man holding a sheet of paper, shuffled on to the stage. He stood in front of the microphone and blew into it. It whistled derisively. He cleared his throat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it’s their first booking so give them a big hand…’ He rummaged around in his pockets until he found his glasses. Then, holding the sheet of paper at arm’s length, he began to read, ‘…Loose Ivor and the Prawn Crackers.’ My bowels went into spasm. There was no backing out now. We walked on to the stage like pall-bearers. We passed the committee-man coming off. ‘You got our name wrong,’ I hissed. ‘It’s not the Prawn Crackers. It’s the Corncrackers. We’re a group, not a Chinese aperitif. And who the flip is Loose Ivor?’ ‘There’s no need for that kind of language.’ he said, ‘and, anyway, I didn’t say that.’ ‘Yes, you did,’ I said. ‘No, I bloody didn’t,’ he said. ‘Yes, you bloody did,’ I insisted, with white-knuckled nonchalance. ‘Well, it’s a stupid name for a group, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You want to get yourself a proper name, boy.’ ‘It is a proper name,’ I said. ‘Just because…’ I was about to give him a lecture on the lack of imagination exhibited by the musical community in the choosing of band names, when I noticed the audience. Any applause we might have received had long-since died away and they were sitting in deathly silence, waiting for us to start. ‘Get on with it,’ shouted a voice from the back. So we got on with it. We’d had no rehearsals as such. We’d just played through a few songs in each others’ front rooms. There was no plugging in because we had acoustic guitars – our first mistake, because once we started all you could hear were Geoff’s drums. We opened up with Eddie Cochran’s ‘20 Flight Rock’, which Mike sang. I counted it in. I was rigid with fear. I dared not look at the audience so I looked at my feet and waited for the first bottle to be thrown. I abandoned all hope and gritted my teeth, swearing that I’d never put myself through this kind of ordeal again. I just wasn’t cut out to be a musician. I would have to resign myself to a tedious and unremarkable life in the building trade. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I risked a glance. It was Mike. He was leaping all over the stage. He’d put down his guitar, grabbed the microphone, and assumed the mantle of front-man. The audience were on their feet, laughing and clapping, and the agent had stopped talking to his wife, which was just as well because she was lying back in her chair, head thrown back, eyes closed and mouth open. We were going down a storm. Mike got more outrageous as the set progressed. Teetering on the edge of the stage, he swivelled his hips suggestively at a couple of matrons in the front row and they dissolved into giggles. He rubbed the microphone against his groin and the matrons covered their eyes with shame. He finished the set by taking his jacket off and waving it above his head, just like we’d seen Joey Dee and the Starliters do in a recent film. The agent stared at the stage, mesmerised. Everybody stared at the stage. Except, of course, the agent’s wife. It was then I learnt my first lesson in stagecraft. It didn’t matter if the drums were too loud. It didn’t matter if you couldn’t hear the guitar. It didn’t even matter if you couldn’t hear the vocals. As long as somebody was jumping up and down in the middle of the stage then all was well with the world. We left the stage with rapturous applause ringing in our ears. The agent pulled out a notebook and started scribbling. We assumed he was working out how much money he was going to offer us for the forthcoming world tour he was arranging on our behalf. We gathered at the side of the stage and congratulated each other. We were on our way. Success was a foregone conclusion. Fame and fortune were just around the corner. Then the next act came on. She was a portly woman about sixty years-old dressed in a floral pinafore and carpet-slippers. She was carrying a metal drinks tray. She shuffled to the centre of the stage, took out her false teeth with a flourish and sang ‘She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain When She Comes’, accenting the off-beat by hitting herself over the head with the tray. And, as a bonus, every time the tray hit her head she went squint; I have no way of knowing whether this was intentional or a bi-product of cerebral pummelling but, by God, it was effective. As the song drew to a close she gave up all pretence of timing and beat herself randomly about the head, ending with a savage skull-crushing staccato. The tray was mangled beyond recognition and she was suffering from severe concussion but she had the audience in the palm of her hand. The agent was on his knees in front of her, begging her to sign a lifetime contract for a million pounds. Even the agent’s wife had woken up, jarred back to consciousness, no doubt, by the sound of unforgiving metal on splintering bone. The agent ignored the last two acts and spent the rest of the evening deep in conversation with his new find. He appeared to have forgotten about us. At the end of the evening we were paid ten bob each. I remember thinking I could make a living at this. There was a complaint from the committee that some of Mike’s bumping and grinding had been a little on the lewd side, but we brushed it aside. We forgot about being upstaged by a geriatric sado-masochist and remembered the sweet sound of applause.

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

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

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.

Hey nash I did this very thing and it’s a great option for a p bass. Here’s demo I made... What did I like and what didn’t I like... As you can tell from the demo I used a tone styler in mine and frankly I don’t think it would have been as good a mod without it. For me the only issue was it didn’t sound like a p bass but then again that was the point but the TS10 does some neat tricks to add back in some p bass like mids if you want or need them... The PBird stood out for the unique quality it has in its tone and while I wasn’t ripping things up in a metal trio the versatility of the pick up and the tone styler (it can do balls out and it can do dub with a mid setting which will just work for you once you find the right position) meant I used this bass on a host of gigs and could always find a sound which worked from country to rock. I’ve not tried to describe the sound as the demo will take care of that I hope.

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

Here's some Green (& Silver) Tracey goodness. Always loved the Trace tone since early 80s, when I could not afford one. I have now overcompensated these last couple of years as part if my mission (obsession?) To rescue and rehouse some classic heads. The AH300-12 and Silver Valve preamp are my joint favourites, followed closely by the GP12 SMX. On the lookout for a AH500-12!