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NBD ! A 1970 Precision in very nice original condition. I mentioned earlier in this thread that I was sniffing around for another early 70's P bass, and someone on here got in touch. A very very smooth deal, lots of honesty and trust involved. It's more or less all original apart from a single pickguard screw and the pots are changed, but you wouldn't know unless you were told, as they are CTS pots from 1970. I spent some time yesterday with it, tweaking it to my liking. Now sporting La Bella Low Tension Flats with a very nice low action. It has more definition and a bit more top end than my '73 (which is the most mellow P I've ever heard), and they complement each other perfectly. The rosewood board on this one is particularly dark, smooth and tight grained compared with the '73 too. I'm a happy chappie. The upshot of this, is that I'll be selling my super lightweight '78 P bass soon if anyone is interested. Cheers, Rob

Well, there's an update: I went back to the hospital today and the clinic staff removed the dressing (eventually; it was caked in dried blood inside!) and cleaned it up so that a good look could be taken. One side of it is reattaching nicely; the other side less so. However, the consultant had a look and said that hopefully the good side will encourage the less-good side to behave and that I should come back in a week's time for another look. He hasn't ruled out me losing a big chunk of it but it does sound as if things are reasonably positive at the moment. I was advised to move the fingertip within the confines of the dressing (which was changed for a much smaller and less bulky version). I tried to take a picture of the wound but somehow just got the floor of the clinic, so you lot have escaped the gorefest this time. Cheers, JRK

Not a build but a heavy mod so I hope I'm posting in the right forum, apologies if not and a call to the mods to move it to it's correct home if necessary. I'm new so apologies. So, I'd been a bit curious about fanned fret basses for some time now but there is no way I could afford a Dingwall or such and most fanned frets were commanding prices of £600+ even at secondhand values. Then I read about the Red Sub Coliseum which were being knocked out by G4M for around £270. When I went on the G4M they'd dropped Red Sub but carried an almost identical bass called the 972 https://g4m.com/product/g4m-972-fanned-fret-5-string-blue-burl-burst/ Which I thought I'd take a punt on. TBH when it arrived I loved it, OK the hardware and electronics were a bit flakey but the neck was sublime and a lovely player. However, I do really think that it's more of a 'metal' or 'prog' guitar than a good all rounder due to the pickups positioning. I rather like dub and reggae and was wondering how it would sound with a third pickup added close to the neck. I did some research but concluded that trying to wire a third pickup and find a switch which would allow me to adjust all 3 pickups individually or permutations of the three was well above my level of experience. Plan 'B' was called for which was moving the 'neck' pickup closer to the neck. I build a little pickup mule to find the sweetspot that worked for me; Having spent ages trying to decide I finally stumbled across this configuration which had the pickup at a different angle to the angle it was originally set at; Visually, I was not over enamoured with all the bumpy and pointy bits on the body so I decided to 'phone a friend' namely one of my old band mates from 40 years ago who was building guitars in his retirement. Armed with a set of French Curves we went to work... We subtly rounded the upper horn, and took the pointy bit off the lower horn then took quite a bit of material from the bottom end of the body. Now you will notice that this picture shows an undercoat. The original blue burl is actually a very thin real wood veneer, unfortunately because we were going to relocate the pickup then there was no way of either getting some veneer or even applying it to the original pickup position, so the plan was to respray. With the old pickup cavity blocked with a bit of wood and the new cavity cut out it was time to prep for the respray. Now in case you're confused the photo above was taken before he finished rounding off the bottom of the body he'd forgot about that, so he actually cut those bits off when he'd prepped the undercoat. Colour. What are we going to have? Well I wanted something a bit different to all of the natural or black guitars I already have. So was thinking back to my youth when in the early 70's everything was orange, Space Hoppers, Chopper bikes, Habitat wall paper and also a groundbreaking film 'A Clockwork Orange' was doing the rounds. Picked out RAL2011 and since it matched my little Orange Crush Bass 50 thought 'that'll do' and was at one stage going to call the bass 'The Clockwork Orange' even printed out the decals along with Alex Delarge's stylised eye. Nitro painting; Shielding Headstock - dropped the lettering and just went with the eye flakey machine heads replaced with Wawicks and a Glockenklang 3 eq pre added; Final assembly Neck pickup sounds lovely dialled fully on and the Glockenklang just adds a lot more richness so really happy now with the guitar which didn't start life as a bad instrument to be fair, but it's where I want it now, has no resale value at all but I love it. Cheers.

Put a new grille on my home built 4x3" combo. Needs a bit more velcro on the 3d printed support.

Had a little play. My word. It does everything the Ashdown Little Bastard does and SO much more. So versatile. And all useable, musical tones. It sounds superb with all my basses, my favourite being the ACG TKO. Can’t wait to get it to a band situation!

Just got my B-stock from Germany. It’s a 2nd gen I believe - still has the RSD logo on (couldn’t care less really). Worked out at about £470 with postage, import tax and handling. Build quality is very good - nothing to write home about but very consistent with latest decent production coming out of Asia. Has a high 3rd fret on the treble side and that’s about it. It’s light, neck is very comfortable and I managed to get the action lower than any Fender I’ve ever played. Sound… I did drop a VTC preamp (one with MEC pots so I assume it’s from a Warwick one, bought it off here). Sado Marcus.wav Please excuse the sloppy playing - it’s all I was expecting (and hoping) to be. Taking it out on a gig tonight Quite happy with it.

Finished! OK, it's not there's still fret levelling, etc etc, but here's a poor quality mobile phone pic...

This is mine, bought the 6th of December 2023. I put an old original epoxied American Sadowsky VTC preamp that I had in the drawer as well as some brand new real deal original Sadowsky pickups. That said, it was already excellent sounding with the Chinese pickups and preamp. I also put a Sadowsky decal, but let everything else. The Sadowsky Portabag is also pictured @King Tut

I've managed to get first fit done on the parts. This checks that cables sit properly, that potentiometers fit, that the bridge and neck are OK. This check found the earth cable from the bridge to an earth point was awkward so I've resigned the bridge and one of the pillars that hold the pickups so the cable run is different. Thats the hole in the blue support. These are being reprinted now but its a few hours away. The rest seems OK, though the control knobs are a little too close together so I may drop the output down so that the knobs are more widely spaced. Nothing is actually wired up. The pickup looks like a Dickensian street urchin has wiped his snotty fingers on the pickguard so I will look at how to keep that clean and better looking. The back of the guitar is very clean with only the neck screws now. Everything else is hidden away. This was one of thh goals of the redesign. I may end up putting a gloss lacquer on this to make it shine. Might also call it "Hotblack" Sadly thats it for a week or so as I'm away on holiday. I wanted to have it finished but not enough time Rob

I'm quite partial to SRs in general, but especially the old SR800LE, something I lusted after as a young lad, particularly the Jewel Blue one. The Regulated Lo-Z pickups, the Omni-Adjust bridge, the lesser-sculpted body, the chunkier neck (like a svelte Jazz neck, not the super skinny SR neck they made after this), they just make for an instrument of which the sound and the feel are very pleasing to me. Blue ones in this spec were only made in early 1990 and almost impossible to find. That year, they changed to the SR800 with AFR pickups and Accucast bridge and, well, it just wasn't the same bass. There was a shop over here which had a blue SR800 in the early 90's and I really loved with the colour, but always preferred the LE spec. Over the years, I've had a few SRs, starting with the SR1300PM, a great bass but not quite right for me. I managed to pick up an 89 SR1000, which was lovely but, again, not quite right. I even found an 89 SR800LE in good condition but in black. Loved it, but it wasn't the blue I craved. I couldn't justify having two, so eventually sold it on the basis that if I ever found the correct spec in blue, I would have no excuse not to. I did find myself regretting that sale from time to time. Last week, I finally saw what I was looking for in sunny Italy and, since the Doctress is Italian, took it to mean all lights were green. It arrived yesterday and finally ends a very long search. It's a lot of trouble to go to for a different colour of paint 🤣

It’s here! Can I take the afternoon off work please?

The post on p6 (just a few posts above) was obviously just a screenshot but I've now added a link to the PDF. I put the link to the PDF on p1 because that is where most people are likely to find it first of all unless they have been following this thread for a while. I'm not doing the drawings but so long as you can make out the dimensions that's what I'll use for the prototypes and I think it's as well to wait until all the gremlins have been discovered before making too many changes. Poor @Bassybert will be doing this as a full time job otherwise Changing that dimension crossed my mind when I drew up a cutting list, I might do it when I actually get the table saw fired up. All our other designs have been built measured and tested before publishing but I''ve made a lot of people wait too long for this so I decided to publish a 'beta' version so you could get on with a build if you want to.

A couple of months ago I was out having a pint and ended up talking to a lass who was a bass player, she was back in England visiting her family. After a while she mentioned that the tip of her middle finger was mostly missing. She had been bitten by a dog. I’ve forgotten the exact details of the story now but when she was learning bass she went to see Marcus Miller somewhere. She ended up meeting him and asked him if he could give her any advice. She gave him her email address never expecting a reply. Much to her surprise he did get back on numerous occasions with tailored videos and advice on how she could improvise her playing technique. She couldn’t sing his praises enough. What a good lad!

Yup. Good luck figuring that one out. 😆 New acoustic bass and gator case day. I picked up this Takamine electro acoustic with a Gator Case included for an absolute bargain £250 a couple of weeks ago on the bay of fleas. Since then I've been biting my nails waiting for it to turn up and hoping it would still be in one piece. Turns out I didn't need to worry. 3 couriers. Over 2500km from London to Bulgaria and not only was it still in one piece, but it was still in tune! The bass is superb. But I have to give props to the Gator Case. It's the first one I've owned and what a superb piece of kit it is. I've heard people sing their praises many times and now I understand why. Looking forward to playing this at the weekend in my new acoustic jam project. 😁

I will just drop this here for your viewing pleasure, decided to build a 5 string 35” scale neck-thru Flea M inspired bass, with 19mm spacing. Walnut, Bubinga, Wenge, Maple, Ash Harry Haeussel M5 Stingray 76 preamp clone Gotoh GB350 Hipshot Vintage bridge Zero fret Oil finish

Yeah that's also a thing for me: my 71 has an A neck which I really like. I have a De Gier Soulmate which has a '62 width neck (I guess a C?) that is maybe a liiiittle bit to wide for me. Ideally I'd go for a 66 or 67 as they're my favourite Fender years But...well...she is a stunner. And John Stirratt said she's amazing. So there's that.

This is the one I’m thinking of

Hi all, quick update. I was still interested in the bass and tried to renegotiate the price down using this thread as a basis for it. Unfortunately it seems it wasn't something they were prepared to do and they will be sending my deposit back. I've since found a numbers matching '73 Bass in original case for £1000 less so "every cloud." Thanks for everyone's advice. I'll be putting my NS-2 up for sale soon. Thanks Lee

I should think the afternoon off is fully warranted. If i was your boss i would have offered you a fully paid afternoon off with bonuses. This is like the birth of a child. (well maybe not but it is important) Dave

An excellent freebie from Sonuscore. An Orchestral library that works in the free Kontakt player. A smallish download of around 4 gigs and personally, I think the library is worth checking out. Link: The Orchestra Elements I've linked a couple of walkthroughs below:

The new neck fixing holes are only 5mm or so away from the originals and so, to ensure that the surrounding wood to the new holes has no unnecessary weakness, I have plugged those and, after measuring and checking and measuring and checking the requisite number of times, drilled the new pilot holes on my small pillar drill. It fits! I haven't checked yet, but in the stuff that @Happy Jack sent, I reckon there's a set of compatible tuners and so later today I should be able to get some strings on and see if/how the geometry works.

'94 StingRay, natural, maple neck, 'flea' bridge, 3 band EQ, Hipshot extender, Bartolini pickup. Had him nearly 30 years(!) and I still smile every time I open the case.

Hopefully he's jamming with JB somewhere.

I'll do a proper write-up once it really is finished, but some initial thoughts are: - it looks amazing! At some point I'll get some proper photos done. My phone and workshop lighting do not make for a David Bailey experience.... - the geometry has mostly come out well. The metal bridge looks nice, but is sh_te. I may replace the string retainer with a handmade ebony thing. - The acoustic sound is very nice. It's slightly louder and much more complex than the last prototype I built. More overtones, more focussed, less 'flabby' sounding. - the traditionalists will crucify me, but I used Tru-oil for the spruce top and the walnut back. On the spruce top it looks completely amazing. Better than the french-polished shellac I used on the previous guitar. - The piezo pickup isn't installed yet. I'll do fret levelling, set-up and finish everything else before installing. I'll need to drill a hole in the top for the wire, so I want to make sure the bridge is in the right place first....

I'd love a Kiesel Vadar ... Headless 5er in 30 inch scale. Sadly at nearly two grand I have resigned myself to a DIY version, which I've done before and I've got the bits ... I just need to find the energy (Sadly suffering from fatigue these past few months which has curtailed most non-work activities) Sam x

Coming soon to a lawyer's wall near you, never to make a sound in anger.

After a three week layoff, last Saturday my band reconvened to play at a 3-band mini-festival in yet another Dorset village. This was a strange venue insofar as the teas, games and kiddies stuff were in one field, whilst the tractors, vintage cars and music were in the next field up the hill; yes, there was pedestrian access between the two, but only a crazy treasure-hunt navigational challenge round the back lanes for vehicles. I parked on a 1-in-5 slope near the pole barn set aside for bands, but was very grateful later for the Jeep’s ultra-low 4WD to get out after the rain that pelted down - many others needed tractor assistance! So what about the music? We followed a competent rock band with a barely-competent set dictated by the absence of our kb player (on holiday), our still-learning dep guitarist (young guy doing his best) and a rather superfluous fiddle/harmonica playing lady who was there to make up the contracted line-up numbers. Frankly, I wasn’t happy with that line-up nor with the unforced errors littering the sets, nor with the need to play only stuff that I’d describe as cheese and cr*p, because that was all the scratch line-up could manage without falling apart completely but that still happened, of course – crikey, we’ve always played ‘Jolene’ in Fm, but due to wrongly placed capos, panic and fluster-clucking that resulted in three restarts in Db, Eb then Bb, which is what we ended up busking it in! Now here’s the paradox – the punters (local worthies mixed with working farming types) loved us, wanted more (although we didn’t have any more to give) and were very happy to pay us. Moral of the story? I just don’t think there is one... perhaps it's if you get out of the venue alive, the gig was a success!

Might not even be workable if you don't have enough spare height on your bridge saddles and pickups which would have to be adjusted every time, probably more effore to fit than just swapping necks. Plus it negates the excuse to buy a completely new bass which is against forum rules.

Spied this '78 with a A neck locally a couple of weeks ago. All the dates add up, cheeky offer of £300 off asking price was accepted. Nice example for well under £2k.

That’s a great looking amp, and it fits nicely on the two 10

Looks really good with the BF210 as well.

😎

As someone who used to be an avid rock climber, this particular comment tickled my sick sense of humour in this instance. Sorry if this was 'too soon', Jack. Mark

5Kg!!!! 😟😨😱 Oh well ... it'll never be around my neck for more than half a dozen short songs at a time. 🙄

20w and an 8" speaker will struggle to be heard over anything other than an unamplified solo acoustic guitar and voice. The laws of physics and all that, Jim. You definitely need a bigger amp.

I didn't think the pickups would be the same due to the much lauded neodymium pickups in the specials, but I was completely unaware that the lower priced ones often had jazz profile necks. I thought they would all be the chunky ones. I've been collecting parts to make a sort of Joe Dart tribute (his has a sterling neck profile) but I might just see if I can find a lightweight Sub Ray4 and then strip the paint, swap to lightweight tuners, go passive etc.

While we're on this tangent, I will say that contrabassoon is my primary instrument. Not the loudest of acoustic bass instruments, but quite a spectacular tone. Https://www.instagram.com/thomasstonemusic

When selecting a board material for a fretless bass, plastic is not my first choice..... Although of course according to many on here the material chosen makes no difference to sound

As far as I am aware, although both are indeed intended to emulate a Fender type amp, neither the Joyo American Sound, or the Tech 21 Blonde, that the American Sound is based on but not an identical clone of, features genuine Fender tone stacks, but rather active EQ controls. I believe you are right about the other preamps you mention though.

Our keys player is banned from using her left hand 😅

I now have a couple of basses I'd have considered "dream" basses, an ACG Krell 34" fretless and an early German-built Warwick Thumb NT5. I played an 87 Thumb NT5 for decades, sold it after a period of inactivity and now have a replacement, it's the bass that suits me best of any bass I've played. The Krell is a full custom-built spec and is a phenomenal bass as well as a minor work of art. I'd love a Wal Mk2 5 string fretless, but I'm just not going to pay the asking price, and the ACG is just as good.

My mini iby collection. Old, older and oldest!