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I've just picked up this bass today and it has more mojo than I know what to do with! It's an ESP stamped 3 piece ash body with an ESP stamped neck, ESP stamped neck plate, vintage BadAss II, vintage Fender stamped tuners and an equally vintage DiMarzio pickup. I'm guessing this was from back in the days when ESP were Electric Sound Products and just made parts, rather than whole instruments. I used to have an ESP parts catalogue (this would have been in about '87) but I don't know when it was from. Does anyone else have anything like this? I'd love to see it if you do because it doesn't seem very easy to find any info.

Just got one of these. Sterling by Musicman Short Scale Stingray. Awesome little bass.

This is a stupid challenge and I'm out, but I beat @AndyTravis so that's all that matters.

Couple more pics of progress!

I bought a set of flats in 2002, and I've since bought a villa in the Algarve with the money I saved on not buying rounds.

Found some Donner fans here. Cheers!🥂

I went out three days ago, to try out some short scale basses. This is my second proper foray into using the more diminutive scaled bass. After many years of long scaling, I got myself an American Performer Mustang and used it as my main gigging bass, for a year or so. Then I slipped back to the familiar and returned to the Jazz bass. More recently I fancied a lighter , smaller bass, for playing at home. I was toying with the idea of a Hofner Club or Violin, or some other kind of semi. Then I saw a lot of great solid bodied short scalers. Anyway, I decided to go out and try some, making my way over to Promenade Music, as they had 3 short scalers in stock. The one that really grabbed my attention was a Sandberg California II Lionel Short Scale. A kind of stylish, mini P-bass, in vintage white. But on close scrutiny I realised it was aged. Not heavy relicing, just clever pitting and small marks that genuinely made it look like an old bass. But as I really dislike any form of fake ageing or relicing, it put me right of this rather tasty bass. That left a Hagstrom Viking, which had overly high action, so was put down almost immediately and a bass I wasn't that keen on trying, a Sterling by Music Man Stingray S.S. The reason being, I've owned 4 full sized US EBMM Stingrays and although really loving them, always found the tone, rather too aggressive for the bands I have played in. Nevertheless, I did pick the little 'Ray up, for an unplugged play and it has to be said, it is so spot on. Diminutive and a little toy like, after Jazz bass playing but it was just so solid and vibrant. Damn it, I didn't want another Stingray. So I left that shop and headed to another, to try out a Gibson SG Standard Bass. Now I really loved the sound of this. That big old Mudbucker was awesome, with or without the bridge mini HB. Overall a rather great bass, with one enormous flaw. I expect you will know what I am talking about. Neck dive. OMG, let go of the neck, for a split second and it so wants to obey gravity, rapidly sliding toward the floor. I know there are a multitude of ways to try and combat this balance issue but I didn't have it in me to take the problem on. So I went home to think again and carry on trawling the 'net. Eventually I had to admit to myself, I really fancied that mini 'Ray. So today I returned to Prom, to have a really good go. I plugged the little darling into an Eich 1x12 combo and was soon away with the bass playing faeries. It sounded bloody good. Now this bass, unlike the other Stingrays, is passive. But it has a couple of clever tricks up it's sleeve. One being a push/push volume knob, that gives a nice little increase in output. The second being a 3-way, rotary knob, pickup selector. With one pickup? Yes, this gives the mighty, single pickup, three different wirings. Series, true single-coil and parallel. I know the middle position is true S/C and sounds awesome. I think the first position is parallel, which sounds equally as great, being a tad thicker. The 3rd, I think, is Series and is the traditional Stingray tone. This I preferred, with the tone control rolled back. Anyway, with it's ease of play, great feel and superb tones, this relatively low cost bass, is kicking up a storm at home and I'm thinking of taking it to the next rehearsal. I have to give a special mention the the Eich combo, I played through. What a cracking, smallish combo. Very high quality sound. Whilst there today, I asked the shop tech to lower the action on the Hagstrom Viking bass, so I could have another go. He did so. TBH, I didn't really like the way the bass played but I loved the pick ups. Thick and warm, with a ton of depth.

How's about my new fretless ABII? And the Z3 that it lives with...

My new to me Rickenbacker 4003 I've had about a month, been putting it through its paces.

I turned up. Managed 6 weeks and then set the world alight…did it in style.

So I now own this beauty!!! pics on the link much better than my crap shots! Hope that is allowable….🙏🏿 https://www.acguitars.co.uk/project/0422-retrob-fretless-5-35/ Alan’s touch is world class….she plays like butter and sounds even smoother…😎

I love PJ's. Turn down the superflous bridge pickup and they make excellent basses.

Seems a total misread of the cab market to me too. Amp looks like it ticked all the boxes moving along from Elf but 210's in the style of the 88's was all they needed to add to the cab line. I still can't get over the amp knobs. Backlit with green suns looks snazzy in good light but impossible to read the dot in dim stage light.

Sorry, but there is only one winner and that's me. Bought one bass and sold seven so far, which brings me to -6. Who can beat that? Exactly, no one, WINNING 😁

One is a whimsical eBay bargain which will very likely flip within a week, the other is a bucket lister.

Woohoo. Thanks guys. I was a little worried it would need repair. Batteries changed and she’s purring perfectly rookie error I guess thank you Dave

It's the jack plug that activates the switch to turn on the power to the pre-amp inside. This avoids the requirement of an on-off switch, but is often forgotten about, and that's why the battery gets used up too quickly. Just unplug when not in use, that's all. It's the same for battery-powered floor pedals; they, too, have a short battery life if left plugged in.

You and me both

There was a fairly famous case in 2011 where an algorithm designed to keep a book competitively priced ended up pushing the price eyewateringly high. https://www.wired.com/2011/04/amazon-flies-24-million/ While I was looking for that link I also found this https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/12/16/beware-of-this-amazon-scam-cds-selling-for-thousands-of-dollars/?sh=550eb8401cd5 For what it's worth I don't believe it's a scam or money laundering as suggested in the Forbes article, apart from anything else the affected CDs mentioned in the article are pretty niche and unlikely to sell that many copies even at a normal price. The algorithm thing seems the most likely culprit.

Now the drum show is loud. Was at one of the shows in the Olympic with my daughter, went to one of the masterclass events, it was friggin loud! We were standing just in front of the desk when we heard a crash behind us and my daughter felt something brush her back. Turned around and there was a ceiling tile with a rather large transformer attached (for the lighting?) buried in the desk! The desk was one of those with just a large screen and was totalled but still working. An inch the other way would have had a different outcome.

Rather that than a big hall of tippy tappy heros that you can't get away from.

Yes Cab sim was engaged. I would say the real difference is how the Origin feels rather than sounds when you change your playing dynamics compared to the VTDI. Certainly at higher gain settings there are more harmonic overtones. Good point regarding 'bottom end' - i was thinking more how it would sit in a recording rather than live as i was running out of DI into a DAW/Interface. Haven't tried through an amp yet either through effects return or front of the amp. The manual shows how to do both.

^^This. Still loving my VTDI - particularly having discovered the additional fuller low-end sound with the cab sim engaged. It can also deliver a whole range of tone shaping in particular both SVT and warm valve grit; must admit I've not heard anything on the Origin YT clips so far that would make me want to jump ship - particularly given the price jump from a readily available used VTDI to the new Origin alternative. Nice first impressions review, thanks! Wanted to pick up on one of your comments on your A/B - when making the comparison was the cab-sim engaged on the VTDI? Be quite interested in whether having a "lot more bottom end" will actually be a good thing or not in a band-mix?

Pickguard cut, just got to chamfer the edges now and stain it, Making sure everything is going to line up which it all looks good........ Next job start contouring the body and fill the existing tuner holes ready to re-drill them when the new nut arrives....👍🏻

Found I don't like bourns audio taper pots. First loom ive had with them in. Half way or just above is only slightly different to fully on. Where exactly same circuit with cts pots is way better. They don't feel as much like on/off pots. Looked it up. Found this. This is audio pots.

Sample assembly in progress. Other than being made in the UK. Changes are : * Maple Neck to Mahogany Neck * Satin Neck Finish * Satin finish on the back of the body * Considerably lighter weight

I did a deacon build on a vintage v4 years ago and used all Wilkinson gold hardware. Looked and played great. In retro spec if I'd have dropped a set of solder less geezer pick ups in, it would have been a killer bass for about £350.

I hear ya buddy! I’ve bought expensive cables to compliment an expensive bass. But my hearing is pretty shot now and I’m not sure I could tell the difference if it was a skipping rope. However, it makes me feel snuggly inside knowing I have a reassuringly expensive cable plugged in, so that everyone else can enjoy basking in the wonderfully clear tones. …*especially* on those infrequent occasions where I’m playing the right notes!

I played around with the pickguards today. Ended up reverting to the original ones. You’ve seen before the matt black… The copper with black pickguard really works, but I prefer it on the sparkle, even better than the black matt… may venture with a pearloid pickguard at some point for the dropped copper.

I bought a white cover for my bass recently just to try. It’s slightly whiter than the body (as I thought it would be) so probably won’t use it.

Who here can honestly say they've never taken a hammer to their bass ? Standard procedure surely

My fretless pair Wilkes and Fender jazz deluxe

To play ,Hit me with your rhythm stick , all the way through up to speed without making any mistakes 😁

f it's just for appearance, Stagg sell braided cables that are actually reasonable quality for not many £££. I have a couple for when I want a vintage vibe.

Which models were they? When we got our old 725 cabs the previous owner told us they'd been sent back to have a revised power amp installed as the original ones had a known issue causing some of them to blow.

That’s it installed! Very happy with the result and genuinely easy to fit, even for me and I’m crap at stuff like this 😂

You really should. Octave is essential imo - many threads on what’s the best but a second hand MXR is hard to argue with for the price and sounds great. Two voices and lovely mid bump button….

I’ve just shielded a recent build with that slug tape and can confirm that the glue is indeed conductive enough (resistance test with multimeter) to not need to solder each join. Mind I did solder leads to each pickup cavity and feed those back to the control cavity shield before connecting that and the bridge earth to the ground on the output jack. Result is the quietest passive bass I’ve ever owned.

Sadly the impacts of global reliance on China as the world’s manufacturer is really hitting home. Hopefully lessons will be learned as it has the potential to become a huge geo-political crisis.