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Well, I had one of these a while ago in Pillar Box Red with a beautiful maple neck. It was stunning and played superbly but weighed about 10 and a half pounds which was too much for me. I loved it though and the sound from the 2eq preamp was just so right. Anyway, this one came up a short while ago for a very good price and weighed in at just a shade over 9lbs but even from the photos I could tell it was absolutely filthy. I spoke to the buyer though and negotiated a good price for it and thought I'd take a chance. It arrived yesterday, scarily, by Hermes, so I wasn't entirely sure it would ever arrive. Anyway, it did and after renewing my tetanus shot, I went about taking it apart for a good inspection and a clean. It's all-original but the previous owner must have sweated like a horse (think Barry White wearing a Cagoule while doing star jumps in a sauna and you have the right idea). I replaced as many screws as I could as they were rusted through and gave the pickup a good clean with a toothbrush and a bit of WD40 as the pole pieces were black. The neck is good and the frets are fine, but the body has take a bit of a bash over the years but it looks like good honest gigging marks to me. The back however looks like to was played by C3PO with his shirt off. Buckle rash? It looks more like woodworm. Nonetheless, it's going to be played, not displayed. I restrung it and then went about intonating it and setting up the action. It was a nightmare: everything was okay apart from the A string which kept choking out around the 9th fret. I tried everything from adjusting the relief, saddles, adding a shim and even tapped the frets with my wife's crafting hammer but it was no good. It was only then that I noticed the brand new A string from Ernie Ball had dents all the way along it. I replaced it with another string and well, problem solved. After all that faff, it plays great and sounds really, really good. I'm very pleased with my afternoon's work.

I have had the privilege to work on a couple of Wals since I started this crazy hobby and, without any hesitation, they are my favourite basses. Everything is SO well engineered and the instruments just feel and sound - great! It's one of the absolute delights of the regional Basschat Bass-bashes because the kind folks round here let maniacs like me actually pick them up and play them. So, anything that I can do that can keep a Wal working or get playing again is always of interest. So you can imagine how excited I was to be contacted by our very own @Fishman who explained that he had some Pro 1e components and could I get it all playable again. 'Sure! Send them to me." Gosh - a Pro 1e! Happy Days The box was smaller and lighter than perhaps I might have expected. Well - maybe it's a particularly lightweight version...even MORE exciting because sometimes they can, indeed be on the heavy side Oh...that's odd... Well - definitely a Wal! That is the best pickup in the industry in my opinion: Well, OK - I'll admit that @Fishman did mention that it needed a new body. And the fretboard is coming off and being replaced with an ebony fretted one with a couple of AJR swifts at the 12th, requested by @Fishman so that there can be no ambiguity that this isn't a full genuine Wal (oh...and because they DO look pretty cool ) This is the kind of job I can slot in while the relevant machines are out for @Jus Lukin 's build (my cellar isn't big enough to leave the bigger stuff in situ) so it won't be a super fast affair but I am looking forward to it. Oh - and I've got a lovely piece of lightweight swamp ash for it (ignore the outline - don't worry, it won't look like a Fender I'll keep you guys and gals posted

I haven't had a chance to plug it in yet... but acoustically it sounds amazing.. I had a quick strum of Joy divisions 24 hours...this thing sings!!!

Used to love it when Weekend World used to come on the telly on a Sunday 'afters back in the late '70's 80's

Congratulations on the new job 👍 They're both excellent basses but they're actually quite different from one another but here goes:- Stingray Classic Pretty much like a combination of a pre EB Ray and a very early 90s one 6 bolt neck joint Original style large bridge with through stringing, large holding down bolts, mute assembly - serial number on bridge Slab body almost always ash Some special colours not available on other models Original style 2 band EQ Highly figured maple neck (birds eye or flame) 80s style headstock logo and neck plate Chrome plated truss rod adjusting spoke wheel Weight around 9.5 lbs Neck radius 7.5" - lacquer finish Were available in 4 or 5 string versions Alnico 5 pick up poles, which follow the contour of the neck - 9 volt electronics Fretboard either rosewood or maple Standard nut Black or white pick up cover and pg (some pgs in tort) dependent on body colour Stingray Special 5 bolt neck joint and contoured neck heel Lightweight aluminium hardware Small bridge held down by screws (no large holding down bolts) Originally lightweight swamp ash body - now changed to other woods owing to ash shortage Revised body contours Neodimium pick ups with revised pole piece spacing enable strings to centre over them (most notable on HH neck pick up). Pole pieces flat to pick up cover 18 volt electronics with revoiced 3 band pre amp 11" radius neck; roasted maple neck; oil and wax finish Compensated nut Fretboard in roasted maple, ebony or rosewood dependent on body colour Black or chrome hardware dependent on body colour Weight around 8.5 lbs or less 4 or 5 string (original SR5 shape and pg) Large range of colours Broader range of sounds; more headroom on pre amp before compression.

Just listened to Tubeway Army's "Replicas" album. It was featured in full in a 6music show. I bought it when it came out, but not listened to it much since really. I usually think of Gary as a great innovator with a few great singles.... but actually was pleased t osee the album stills folds up really well.

My Hooky Yamaha has turned up... it is a thing of beauty 😍

Thank you for sharing this. It would be better if people would stop trivialising this disease based on their own lack of experience. Another musician friend of mine caught it at the same time as you and was in ICU for three months. He has suffered long-term damage. Before I read your article, I read another account of someone who lost their mother. A lot of people have died and are dying (>3000 a week in the UK, currently), but his account was particularly sobering because he described how his mother suffered in her last week and it was utterly horrific. Hard to imagine a worse torture. My view is that we should, as much as we possibly can, be observing first principles of transmission of respiratory viruses. The first one of these is 'stay away from other people'. When that's impossible, limit the time and make sure that there is a fresh air supply. It doesn't matter if you're ten metres away, if you're in a room for three hours together and there is no new air. Everyone should be wearing face coverings at all times when they are anywhere near other people. Singers and horn players? Rehearsal conditions break all the basic 'rules'. It may seem like a low risk, but when assessing risk, it's not just the likelihood that should be taken into account, but also the severity. For Covid, that's potentially death or possibly worse. So my bands have not rehearsed since March, apart from those of us who are on Jamulus online. I have told my fellow band members that I will not rehearse in person nor play a gig until new infections are below 100 a day.

An advent(?) star sort of commissioned by MDW. She sees things, and then drops hints about how easy it would be to make. In this case, she wasn't wrong. It's got process imperfections, but it's all a learning curve. It's also the first thing I've put my makers mark on, thanks again @Fishman. The decal paper didn't have enough varnish on so it's a bit fuzzy on one edge.

This is my '68 P. Also a link to a great address: http://vintagebassworld.com/description.php?manufacturer=Fender&product=Precision&year=0

🙄😂

I never found out the name of the colour so you're probably spot on. I always hoped it was called something like "smacked derrière red" or "whore red" or "50 year old senior executive after running for a train red"

BBunt?

My fire engine red from 1988. Originally had a white guard, and is actually 2 band again. The 3rd tone control is a dummy as I drilled a hole for the jack through the bottom of the body. It's been refretted with stainless steel frets about 20 years ago. I've owned this for about 27 years now, will never sell it. Would love one like the op's to go with it someday.

Should’ve been this one...

Hi There's a bit of confusion of terminologies and assumptions here so, just so we're starting in the same place: - Relief is about the straightness of the neck - Action is about the height of the strings above the neck - The relief can affect the action, but it must never be used as the primary way of adjusting the action. You set the neck relief so that the neck is relatively straight under string tension and then adjust the saddle heights to get the action height you want. - Ibanez basses can be fitted with single-action or dual action trussrods - You do indeed feel a resistance to the trussrod nut turning as it starts bending the neck - Generally when folks refer to loosening and tightening the trussrod nut, they are referring to the 'Lefty Loosey (anticlockwise looking at the nut); Righty Tighty (clockwise looking at the nut)' direction, and not necessarily the actual feel. - Easiest way of checking the relief is: With the strings tuned to pitch, hold down at the 1st fret and 17th fret; tap down the string at the mid point 8th fret. There should be just perceptible movement. A gap (relief) more than a business card means the neck bow from the string tension is too great and the neck needs straightening (slacken the strings, turn trussrod nut 1/4 turn clockwise, retune, check and repeat if necessary). If, however, there is no gap and the string at the 8th is hard against the fret, then the neck is 'back bowed' (slacken the strings, turn trussrod nut 1/4 turn anti-clockwise, retune, check and repeat if necessary) So, @alyctes from what I understand - the relief, measured as above, is too great and you have been turning the nut clockwise and you have reached a point where the nut seems surprisingly easy to turn? I agree with @Chiliwailer It tells me that you have a two-way truss rod fitted and, as he says, you should keep turning (possibibly up to a full turn) and then you should start feeling the tension start building on the nut, but in the opposite direction. Basically, a two-way trussrod sits loose in a narrow slot, held in place by the neck wood at the bottom of the slot and by the fretboard at the top of the slot. And, depending which way you turn the knob, the rod will bend either way. So if has been tightened the 'wrong' way - where the truss rod is actually increasing the relief and not reducing it - and you now turn it clockwise to correct that then you will reach a point where the rod is straight. At this point it isn't trying to bend the neck at all and so the nut feels very loose. As you keep turning it, then the rod now starts bending the opposite 'correct' way, trying to bend the neck into a backbow to counteract the bow effect of the string tension. And because the rod is now bending the neck again, albeit in the opposite direction, the tension on the nut increases too. So once you are bending the neck the 'correct' way, follow the above tips and you should be able to safely achieve the 'just perceptible' relief gap and then be able to adjust your action. And the golden rule - just like you have done with this post - if you're not sure and it doesn't seem to be doing what you expect, stop and ask again here

Sorry for being so juvenile....

I have to point out that finding a loophole in the rules to do something you enjoy may be possible, but it isn't really what you should be doing. If everyone takes as much effort find ways around the rules as some people on this thread are suggesting the tier system is pointless and we'll go back to another lockdown very soon. I'm personally not a fan of the rules and think a lot of them are nonsense, but if we all break the spirit of the ones we think are stupid then we know what will happen.

Like the title says, I'm installing a John East preamp in my Ibby SR605. At some point I'd like to put some Nordstrand pickups in as well but for now, I have the amp to hand courtesy of @rk7. He kindly gave me the old East pre from his Overwater bass after he had it upgraded whilst having the bass chambered. The build thread is here. I have been happy enough with the Ibanez from a playability aspect but the output is a bit bland with its current pre and licenced Bartolinis. I'm exited to see if the East brings out anything interesting. It is a five knob J-Retro (I think). I'm winging it as far as resistance values and such are concerned. Maybe it won't like the humbuckers that I'm going to couple up to it... we'll see. It's already looking like a tight squeeze unless I remove some body wood. There is scope for that within the existing control cavity. The John East Preamp with its long PCB The Ibanez Preamp in its tiny cavity The first important thing was to label the wires and photograph where necessary for reference for if I want to reinstall it. Labelling Pickup wire positions I removed the control knobs and spindle nuts Then with a few dabs of a hot iron to de-solder, the old preamp comes out (on the left). After applying copper tape to the cavity to ground the control spindles as recommended by the East pdf, the new one goes in for a rough fit. The board is too long to fit as is. There is sufficient meat in the body adjacent to the output socket for me to carve out a niche for it (I think). There should be no need for a larger cavity cover. I put the East Knobs on to get a feel for it. It's nice. Beautiful action on the detents, the stacked knobs and the push pull knob for passive tone. I only hope I can get some sound out of it too. There is an empty hole where the mid frequency select switch went that I might fill with a dummy switch like Lee Sklar does. He says that flicking it makes recording engineers think he's tweaked something too subtle for their ears to hear but like with the Emperor's new clothes they daren't admit it. I'll leave off for now. It's far too late to start carving wood.

Didn't quite get to actual cutting of the neck laminates, but I have done all of the calcs to be able to do that first thing in the morning With all of the info I verified yesterday with bridge heights, etc, I was able to draw full scale the whole of the neck and bridge geometry including: fretboard depth; fret height; nut rise with the string tension and a couple of 'from (bitter) experience' tweaks to come up with the : - neck angle (2.5 degrees) which gives me the - neck blank minimum depth and shape I double checked this against the Sims routing depth requirement for the SuperQuads and that means that I can make the template to cut the neck blanks in the morning and start the process of laminating the 9 sections together. I doesn't look much but spending the time to do this drawing saves days of remedial work further down the line

I seriously need to thin my herd if I like this BB. I got a real bad case of GAS with this and a Serek on the way. That’s it. I’m officially skint!

Ordered an hour ago, and shipping tomorrow. 😃 Chuffed!

Absolutely flippin' lovely! I have a 1988 and had a 1979 (bought new). Really great basses.

We could all play in medieval plague protection... The chewing of the garlic might produce some great ‘bass face’

Ernest Ranglin

As a rule I don’t like white basses - but that is rather nice looking on on the left!

That site is ridiculous! Between that and old episodes of Columbo that’s my Sunday sorted!

Beautiful bass, a great era for Stingrays. Used to have an identical (bought new in 87) and the recording sound was sublime. Great purchase, I wish you health to play it!

I can’t really add anything to what has been said already. I would be hard pushed to choose which one to give up first. I do love my Classic - it’s a proper weighty funk machine. I’m not sure what it means, but all three of us opted for the HH Special, probably because they are a bit of a Swiss Army knife. Loved my 2006 HH, but it was unbelievably heavy, so had to go. Good luck in your new job 👍. Enjoy your new bass, whichever one you go for.

I think the first thing you’ll notice is a massive difference in ergonomics, the Special has been cleverly designed that way as its lighter and contoured beautifully for feel (even better than pre-2018 Rays IMO) but the Classic is a no frills weighty slab body. The gloss neck on the Classic is the next difference, and the profile is different. They both sound great, just different. The EQ on the Special is super flexible and sounds great through the range.The Classic EQ is simpler and not as well engineered IMO, but still sounds great for doing what it says on the tin. The Special is a more modern tone, but the EQ can get into the old school territory-ish. I prefer that the G string aligns to the poles better on the Special too. I almost have both, a versatile HH Special with rounds and an Old Smoothie with flats. If I had to just have one then it’d be the Special. Get both 😂 Congrats 👍

On the font the Gig bag it has a small pocket at the top. And a large pocket at the bottom inside it’s black fur it also has a Velcro neck strap.

Indeed. Fire Engine Red (stamp REDFE) was a (short-lived) production colour in the late eighties. It's listed in the 1988 catalogue and also in the spring 1989 edition but by the summer 1989 edition it's gone. Pretty rare. (And beautiful!)

Looks great - as with many EBMM basses from the late 80s/90s a nicely figured neck as well. Btw I'm pretty sure your previous Stingray was fire engine red (I think the stamp is RED FE or something similar - a colour used when EB first bought Musicman and started to produce Stingray basses.

Paisley :

I'm loving my MB-4. Its just great fun to play. So much so, I'm thinking of starting a new religion - the Church of Harley Benton, anyone? Even when it's been a poor day with the collection plate the priest can still afford a decent bass.

With interest rates low I haven't bought an ISA this year. I managed to persuade Mrs Tut that a vintage bass would be a great investment and to my amazement she agreed. I'm not really a precision man but I reckon they're always going to be pretty good for resale. I've got little hands, so when this one came up reasonably local on here, with a 'B' width neck I decided to make further enquiries. Having asked the seller (from this site) the relevant questions, I put a lockdown deposit down a couple of weeks ago and drove over to Berkhamsted yesterday for a socially distanced collection. She's a 1974 model. All original with the only issues being some battle scars and a broken tip to the scratchplate. I got it home and gave it a thorough check over and I was immediately struck by how resonant it was. It was supplied with flats and had a bit more relief and a slightly higher action than I'd have preferred. I've already got a P with flats on so I set this one up with rounds. I've adjusted the relief, finding the truss rod to be working perfectly and pulled the action down to a more than acceptable 2mm at the 12th fret on the E string. A couple of the tuners are a bit stiff, which I can live with. There was a pretty serious crackle on the input jack but this soon disappeared with some switch cleaner. Pushed through my Peavey VB-2 and Big Baby 2 it gives a lovely classic rock tone. Although bought as an investment, it's inevitable that I'll gig it sooner or later, so I've equipped it with some Dunlop straplocks. Happy Tut! Some pics below - enjoy!

Another work in progress. Just feel something is missing but I can't decide what... I call it Fat Larry.

Some of you may remember how close I came to dying from it back in March. Close enough to have to make the calls to my parents, wife and kids. It wasn’t nice. Now we’re in November and I’m still suffering badly with long COVID. Only working 3 hours a day four mornings, and that’s when I can manage it. I wrote this blog a few months back and haven’t progressed since. In fact I have more symptoms now than I did and am in more pain. Please have a read and factor getting long COVID into your decisions. I took the picture from my critical bed. https://gafranksauthor.home.blog/2020/09/21/living-with-long-covid-19/

Im simply not risking it. As much as I would like to play with the boys again I'm not endagering my health to do so. I can't see how rehearsals would be considered "work" unless you're being paid to rehearse.

That is sort of my fear. I don't want to die, obvs, and if I do die I don't want the extended tube down my throat drawn out dying thing, but much more than that, I don't want to get it and live with the long tail version. If I can't concentrate and I can't move around without trouble, then I am not going to be able to be working. Its a small risk, but my markov decision process tells me that it really isn't worth the effort of playing mustang sally in a room with a bunch of people

Julia from Thomann is great.