TheGreek

Spear Flextool Bass Details: Construction: Bolt-On Body: Alder Neck: Canadian Hard Maple Fretboard: Indian Rosewood Pickups: Spear Jazz, Precision And MM Pickups Tuners: Spear Vintage Hardware Color: Chrome Bridge: Spear Vintage Controls: Volume x3, Tone Colors: Jamaica Green, Black, Lake Placid Blue

Hole in my shoe - Neil from the Young Ones

The Jackson 5's "I want you back" gets a lot of credit for the great bassline but I think that this is equally catchy https://youtu.be/BIZWIJwHiaU?si=fZETcRT0BmirYJVC

Summer the first time - Bobby Goldsborough A secret favourite of mine.

Ah, obviously...goes without saying. 🤪🤪

News to follow about donations from big companies.

I have a Mahalo solid body short scale. As mentioned the really short scale does take some getting used to but the phat sounds are to die for. They sound amazingly like a double bass - my neighbours thought that anyway. I'm surprised that anybody uses one live - with mine tuning is a nightmare, pretty much just stretching the string between the nut and tuner.

A custom bitza!! Looks like it was put together from bits they had lying about - reverse 5er neck, Jag body.... Not for me.

Too late... Back in the USSR - The Beatles

BC member @Lukasz Chyla builds and finishes his own basses. It might be worth sending him a PM.

Lightest roundwound strings that you can find too.

I've recently bought a Spear Flextool which has HPJ pickups - each has its own control knob which may be the way to go - must be the easiest way to understand what you are doing.

Ram Goat Liver - Pluto Shervington

One of my mates, Chris ( @bassface2k10) is imo a great player - never known him to miss a beat, always in time and had an excellent practice regime. Despite this he would never play at Bass Bashes - he held everybody else in high esteem while doubting his own ability. I think that this is a typical bassist characteristic - if we were shouty, "look at me" people we'd probably have been guitards.

Some photos. Note the "kill switch " on the lower front horn and some of the many "character" marks.

@Rayman I don't think that the humbucker splits but I could be wrong having only played with it for about half an hour. @Lfalex v1.1 each pickup has its own volume control so you can feed in as much of each pickup as you want. You can isolate a pickup using the same process. Makes it so that even an idiot like me can figure it out.

I agree...waiting for daylight before taking getting some done.

I posted details of this Spear Flextool HPJ (3 pickup model) on this forum before jumping in and buying it since it was local-ish. TBH I was partly motivated by curiosity - what tones can you get from a bass with a combination of HPJ pickups? Think of this as a standard Jazz body/ neck which has been played with by someone with OCD who has access to a variety of pickups. Following my manic journey through scenic (sic) Harrow and dealing with local drivers using The Force to navigate the suburban roads I picked up the bass, which, TBH must have seen better days, no shortage of nicks, dings and dents on this baby! Also one of the pots was wobbly (easily solved) and the tone knob a bit scratchy so this bass has lived a life. Home, walk the dogs before plugging the bass in and checking out the tonal range. The pickup set up is H in the classic Ray bridge position, where you would expect it, P in it's usual sweet spot (or there abouts) and the J in the neck position. Each pickup has its own volume with the last of the 4 knobs for the bass/ treble. So VVVT. Individually each pickup gives an acceptable though not exceptional in any way, tone - remember this isn't a premium instrument - retail price was in the £500 range - but the pickups certainly don't let it down, especially in combination. My expectation is that the H will be the punchy pickup - not so - on its own there's your standard humbucker tones with a nod to your classic Ray but adding the P incrementally provides you with a deeper, throatier tone, the J adding cleaner mid tones. Lots of combinations, adding and subtracting each gives you plenty of range to play with and I'm pretty sure that there's something in there for most people. Obviously there are far more tones available than I extracted in the half an hour I played it but it certainly shows that there is a fair bit of versatility and range in these pickups. It's actually surprising that you don't see more basses with this set up. Needless to say I still have more experimenting with this - I'm going to suggest that there's much more to get from this. Stay tuned for further updates. 😉 😉

Sell everything and take up playing golf... Just kidding. Enjoy the lull while you can...won't be long before your services are in demand again.

Viewing for later. Thanks

Samba Pa Ti - Santana

What's new pússy cat - Tom Jones

Fast car - Tracey Chapman

A nod towards the Ritter Princess Isabella