mcnach

I think you're overthinking it.

I'm a fan of the CV series too... but I'm not sure that judging instruments based on their individual setup is a useful thing to do. That Matt Freeman (got one too :)) clearly has great frets, all levelled nice. A Fender MIM or USA can be made to have the same levelled smooth frets with relatively little effort. It's part of the set up, and to me that's not what makes an instrument inherently better or worse (although some think so, and that has allowed me to buy some great basses at great prices in the past ;))

These days I often go to the company directly (depending on who it is), and they often deal with you pretty efficiently... and if not, well, nothing lost, go to the established channels When my 2 month old TC RH450 head went up in smoke at a gig, a few polite questions on Talkbass let to TC contacting me directly and arranging a replacement: THEY contacted my local store, who had none in stock, and TC sent them one for me. My amp died on a Saturday night, on Sunday TC contacted me and on Monday afternoon they called me to say "pick up your new amp on Wednesday". When I had issued with a *second hand* Source Audio pedal, I contacted them for ideas... they had me sent the pedal and came back a week later with a fresh power supply, all free of charge. Nordstrand rewound a Jazz pickup for me. DiMarzio sent me a bunch of polepieces. Etc etc...

did someone call? Indeed... I love the Jazz sound but I much prefer a Precision: the size/weight, the way it balances, the wider neck... so your idea sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Not surprising that I say that, as I tried it myself So I've had two attempts at this. The first one was my Matt Freeman Squier Precision. I already had enough Precisions so this was a bit redundant but felt great, so it seemed like the perfect bass to modify. I added a J at the bridge and replaced the P for another J (I had to get a new pickguard). The wiring is Volume/Blend/Tone and it was certainly Jazzy. I was using a pair of Nordstrand NJ4SE pickups I already had, and later a pair of DiMarzio Area J. With the Area J it was a more "Jazz"... but these pickups are humbuckers and they never sound like a traditional Jazz. Then, I got a Maruszczyk Jake (their Precision model) made for me with a pair of Heussel Jazz 60 pickups. That sounded just like a Jazz should. I actually further modified the Matt Freeman: I got another pickguard made with a routing for a J pickup much closer to the bridge: it gives me a very different sound and it's pretty interesting how it blends with the bridge pickup. That bass can now be transformed into a PJ or a Jazz in 10 minutes by using one of the other pickguards. Unnecessary, but there you go. Here's what the Maruszczyk looked like:

... until the next issue?

I had to get a new handle for my CMD121P combo: the metal blade inside the rubber bit had cut through the rubber (easily) and was slowly but surely sawing away at the PLASTIC bit that screws into the cabinet and holds the handle together. I only noticed because I was looking into getting a replacement for the fraying handle. Nearly half of the post had already been sawn into. Not good!!! I contacted MarkBass about that and they sent me a new handle, free of charge. They were very fast too. Of course, it was the same plastic one... so I sourced a better one with metal parts on eBay. Silly place to cut costs.

+1 I also object to making it a *requirement*. From the 'pro' comments here it seems that indicating the location is something that might help the person who places the ad... so let them choose how they want to do it.

ah, next to Button Moon! I hear it doesn't rain much there.

oh the irony

Me, I'm working full time, and I have a girlfriend but no kids so it's pretty easy, especially when I can bring her with me the times we play at some fun festivals or at interesting locations (for instance, we had 3 gigs in Skye one weekend last year, so I drove myself with my gf rather than in the van, and we did a little tourism too). A total of 57 gigs in this past year may sound like every weekend is taken, however it's not unusual to have a few very busy weekends, multiple gigs on one day even (two of the bands I play in have often been at the same festivals, which makes summer quite busy that way)... so there's still lots of free time left. We book our own gigs. After spending time seeking them, now we get lots of gigs when they just contact us. If we get a gig somewhere beyond a certain distance, we can often arrange to have another gig nearby to help us return home with a positive balance... but it took years to know the right people. One of the bands, our gigs come mostly from one single member who just seems to know everybody all over the UK: again, he's been doing this for a long time. We got lucky with him.

I once bought from an eBay shop one of those mini Roland amps, the battery operated ones... they came in various colours and I specified the red one. I received a black one. I contacted the seller to return the black one and get the red one I asked for. They said they ran out of red ones. I said "I'll return this and have a refund please". I ended up paying the return out of my own pocket and never got refunded for that even if it was not my fault. EBay was not interested. I think shops will sometimes try it on, knowing that many will just give up, as I did.

I once sold a neck with a separate fake logo, but it was a real neck, I didn't dream it.

But it's a real logo, right?

Very nice! I'm not a big fan of the golden anodised pickguards, but I have to say that with the tinted maple neck and black body it looks GREAT

This. I don't think the Italy vs Indonesia production really has anything in it. I have a LM3 from 2009 as a backup (and home rig) and I'll probably get another if/when it fails. It's not the very best sounding amp, but it's an amp that never lets me down and always produces pleasant sounds.

G&L L2000. Probably the only bass that can do its own thing as well as a very passable P and Jazz bass sound.

sigh... we've moved fast from "this is illegal" to "however, here's a loophole". And all... for what? Is anybody here seriously suggesting changing anything in the way the FS subforum is run?

No worries... stuff in writing here often looks serious while the very same stuff spoken while having a friendly discussion and a couple of beers would cause no offence. It's all good. Yes, it actually turns out that Ferrari and Fiat seem to be going separate ways lately... but I just wanted to make the point about there being a larger company who decides what the subcompanies do etc as expanded earlier. However... and I add this simply as a curious bit of info it turns out there's a Fiat 500 "Tributo Ferrari"...

You're just bitter because you tried to the the 500th but got a little late

No, but the main point is: a company (large or small) chooses what to do with their products, and if they are a large company with smaller subcompanies and they label their products differently, then that's what they are. Whether the products look alike or not is entirely irrelevant, but used by some to 'pretend' they have a Brand X product despite its Brand Y label. Of course, nobody says their Ferrari is a Fiat. However, I have heard many times how a Skoda is just like a particular VW or Audi, and Minis referred to as BMWs... Again, the direction is always the same: associate a perceived lower tier product with a perceived higher tier one. But you knew that already.

Just because you do not understand the question it doesn't make it moronic. Fiat owns Ferrari just like Fender owns Squier.

Both. But mostly a Fender guitar is a Fender guitar if the company decides to stick a big juicy Fender logo on it. Because only they have the right to make a Fender guitar, and they reserve the right to source their materials wherever they see fit. When the company sticks a Squier label on it, with or without "by Fender", then it is a Squier guitar. It's pretty simple. It's funny that some people would call their Squier a Fender... but the genuine Fenders that came out in the 80s with the "Squier series" smaller logo are never referred to as a Squier. You know exactly why. Any reason people come up with to call a Squier a Fender is just clutching at straws to make an instrument somehow seem to belong to a higher tier.

So by that reasoning, is a Fiat 500 a Ferrari then?

Oh, maybe I misunderstood, you added a link to the buyer's ad and labelled it as "the crook's ad" so I assumed you agreed with that label:

Me too. I think there's even someone here with an amazing story of a blue Ric where the blue was leaching into the neck binding and he was blamed for it. And quite a few reports of bridges bending... etc. But as a reason, it stood out as a good one.