Matt P

done, hope it's useful, good luck with the dissertation Matt

I'm watching this with interest as i have a VM fretless jazz body sitting here that I'd like to re-finish, i actually like sunburst but this body has some knots in the wood that would normally mean a solid finish and i have GAS for a sonic blue jazz, I'd want to finish over the original sunburst so it would naturally wear away a little at the edges over the years (I'm not a fan of relics but i do like a little natural wear and tear) and i seem to remember hearing that Fender would refinish any sunbursts that went wrong in a solid colour or if they has an order for a solid colour they didn't have in stock they would just grab a sunburst and re-finish it so many solid colour basses have a sunburst finish underneath that comes through when they get a bit worn. Matt

I'd certainly look at a 32" 5-er corvette or fortress, It would need a great low-b and a slim neck profile though, (oh and i prefer a natural finish too!) Matt

Thanks for posting this, a great watch, i also watched one of the videos suggested afterwards which was of a factory in the USA making a certain brand of instruments the name of which i won't write, but it was a tour of the factory by their CEO (who has the initials JH, was surprised to hear him state that he was a bassist near the end too.) Matt

the yamaha's are very good at the budget end but if you can find an Aria i've always found then just a little nicer to play "out of the box" (my first acoustic was a mid-range Yamaha and i still use it and love it,) i'd look at second hand too, i bought a very nice solid top yamaha acoustic with a hiscox case a few years ago for 170 quid off the uni noiticeboard ,swapped it for my first bass guitar. i've found a couple of nice yamaha's in cash converters too for around 60 quid Matt

+100 for the freshman guitars, i have the pleasure of being the go-to man when my friends (and their friends) are looking for guitars and last year i had the pleasure of helping my best friend pick out his 30th birthday guitar, we had a budget of about 400 quid and we tried every guitar under that price, the brands that stood out were, (in no particular order) Freshman, Tanglewood, Yamaha, Aria, Recording King, Art+lutherie, Simon and patrick, Vintage the freshman was a remarkable instrument, picked it off the stand and gave it a go, couldn't believe how nice it was, then we asked the price, under 200 quid! we had it pegged as out of our budget. that was just day one as well, on day 2 we headed to a little shop that we thought would be full of cheap rubbish, how wrong we were, they had a Blueridge, last one in stock, it was absolutely mindblowing, sounded, looked and played like a Martin OM-21, but at a shade over our budget, we played it for an hour, swapping between ourselves so we could both hear it from a players and an audience position. We haggled our best and walked out with it in a hard case (the best freebie ever) the best advice has already been given, get the cash in your pocket and take a (guitar playing) friend, then play as many guitars as possible and haggle as much as you can, never assume you have to pay the ticket price, and if you do, make sure you get some freebies thrown in, at least some free strings and maybe a gigbag. are you thinking of an acoustic or an electro-acoustic? i always advise to pick an acoustic according to how it sounds unplugged, my friend was looking for an elctro but the blueridge was a straight acoustic, i bought him a secondhand pickup from t'bay and had it fitted properly, sounds a million dollars. also personally i avoid cutaway acoustics, they never seem to sound as nice as the non-cutaway models. I must also state that i've yet to find either a Taylor or a Takemine that i've liked, (at any price) i've played plenty over the years, from the most humble budget models right up to the limited edition ones, not one of them made me want to take it home. i spent the best part of 5 years looking at and playing top-end acoustics before i bought mine and even the top end Taylors didn't make me want to part with my money, i was all set to buy a Martin OM-21 when my local shop started stocking McIlroy guitars [url="http://www.mcilroyguitars.co.uk/"]http://www.mcilroyguitars.co.uk/[/url] and that was it, have been the proud owner of an AS25 for a little over 4 years now and it's still the finest guitar i've ever owned (although probably not your definition of a decent Budget) and it cost a little less than the Martin Matt

another vote for a few trips to some big stores from me. if it was me with 2k burning a hole in my pocket i think i'd be looking at gordon smith (and maybe a strat or a tele too) and heritage, there are also the makers like suhr and tyler from the states and trussart maybe? if you can work out what you want though i'd be talking to some of the excellent custom builders working on this fair island, their work is some of the best around. local to me (and not a million miles from you) is PR guitars, based in sunderland i believe, making some excellent guitars which would leave you with plenty of change. [url="http://www.prguitars.co.uk/index.html"]http://www.prguitars.co.uk/index.html[/url] i have one of his early guitars (when he was building as A+P Richardson) and it's a stunner, the guitars he has on his website are more subdued than the one i have but they are excellent value IMHO. i can post pictures later if anyone cares (been meaning to add it to the Guitar porn page anyway) it's a superstrat with an original floyd Rose and a burr walnut top, plays like a dream. I must state though that i bought mine secondhand and have had very little contact with the man himself but my guitar was built when he was a teenager (i believe) and the fit and finish is as good as any guitar i've ever seen, i actually played a PRS not long after i bought it and it was nice but not nice enough to make me want to swap. Matt

for me it comes down to the individual case, if it was from the classifieds here then i'd be fairly happy to buy most things but on ebay or similar i would set myself a sensible limit of maybe 300 quid, any more than that and i'd want to play it before parting with cash and it would have to be either a jap Fender/Squier one of the many copies (ibanez etc) or a sandberg/lakland or similar to make me part with a reasonable amount of money, if it was MIM or USA fender i'd want to play it before buying as the ones i've tried have been a little variable in quality and feel. Have you been up to Newcastle to try P-Basses? there was a lovely black MIJ P-bass in The Guitar Shop when i was in there on Saturday, mid nineties and as light as i've ever held, i had to put it down and hurry from the shop to save my wallet! Matt Edit - just noticed your username, i'm afraid the bass i was playing was a righty, sorry!

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1338571080' post='1676665'] Don't sweat it man. If there's one thing I've learned from doing this it's that out of the 20 enquiries you get a week maybe only 1 of them comes to anything - I think it just goes with the territory. And someone is going to want a Pingray rout done at some point - [url="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d67/ou7shined/Osprey%20Guitars/workshop-wall.jpg"]here's[/url] the proof that you nearly had one. [/quote] ooh if i had some cash i'd commission a pingray right now, in sonic blue, but i'm skint! i'd be tempted to make it a 5-string though, mmm 5 string pingray.

nearest bass Bash from us would be Moffat, i was tempted to go this year but chickened out at the last minute, maybe we should have a Newcastle mini-bash so that Jaydentaku can try out a load of amps, anyone got a big living room or access to a hall in Newcastle? Matt

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1338556966' post='1676320'] I'm not sure why people think it's so expensive. I mean, compared to having a second bass! I[/quote] for me it's more that the bass in question seems to be such a nice example of a fretless P-bass, and CIJ seems to be a byword for quality, seems a shame to take a router to such a nice example of a (relatively) rare bass, have you considered having the j-pup added to the other fretless and not sending it to live with your brother? i don't think anyone will get too upset at you taking a router to a sue ryder. and i'll have to remember to pack the '77 next time i head up, the frets are so worn it's virtually fretless anyway! Matt

i keep thinking about a replacement tube but 99.9% of the time it's being used in a brightly lit room so it would be wasted, i have no idea if the circuit for it works either, it didn't work when i first used it so i removed the tube to get a replacement and never got round to it, the tube got broken in a house move so i don't even know what i need to get! Matt

i'm a fan of P/J basses and my main bass is a '77 p-bass with an added j, (what you're considering building is a fretless clone of my bass!) but i wouldn't have the guts to have the mods done myself, i'd be going for the p-retro as it can be reversed easily. my bass came ready modded and if it hadn't been modified i wouldn't have been able to afford it. maybe next time i'm up at the in-laws i'll bring my bass for you to have a noodle on! Matt

later ones were backlit, the early ones have the tube in front of the panel, anyway the tube's missing on our one so i'm deprived of the uv fun. (Recently i've been using the headlite so have super bright led's instead) i think the smx is backlit so you still get groovy green glow. Matt

i'm afraid i haven't got anywere we could try it out, the church is constantly in use, i can borrow it any time though so if yo want to wait till you hit toon that would be fine, i noticed there was a nice trace ah300smx for sale in teeside in the market place, should be perfect for your needs. Matt

if you fancy a go with a trace head i can lay my hands on an early AH250 gp11, it belongs to my church but i could borrow it and bring it round for you to have a bit of a go, it's a lovely thing. i've also got my swr headlite that you can have a go on too, a totally different animal. if it wasn't for my bad back ant the total lack of room in my house i think i'd be using a trace gp11 as my main amp, they're cheap as chips too. Matt

Thanks for the heads up, i need some more of the newtone acoustic strings and this helps bring the cost down greatly, with the bulk discount for 10 sets i save a pound a set.

hercules on the wooden plate for me, i trust them with both expensive and heavy instruments, they're nice and safe as they 'grab' the neck and there's virtually zero chance of the instrument escaping. might be worth having a word with your local music shop, if you want 12 they might cut you a good deal. Matt

mmm pretty, you can't go wrong with that store either, they're our drummers prefered seller, we're lucky that they're just up the road from us although we haven't been to their new store, we only ever knew the tiny shoebox-sized store they used to operate from (i've never seen so much drum kit in such a small space.) we've got a band outing planned for next month as our guitarist is also a drummer. Matt

Dad3353 speaks the truth, a resistor would have to be [i]very[/i] big to handle even the wimpiest of practice amps let alone a gigging head, we do need to know what 1x12 it is you're trying to modify, i have a feeling that the best course of action would be to sell it and get an 8 ohm cab instead. Matt

how about one of these? has an aux input for your i-device and virtual surround, [url="http://www.froogle.richersounds.com/product/soundbars/philips/css2123/phil-css2123"]http://www.froogle.richersounds.com/product/soundbars/philips/css2123/phil-css2123[/url] there are more expensive options, i know that the yamaha ones are very well respected for their sound. Matt

duracell procells for me too, i buy them in packs of 10 online, they seem to last the same as the duracells from the supermarkets but are around a pound each against the 3 quid each that they are on the high street. just make sure it's a reliable seller as there are some fakes out there. Matt

i think ishould have read the question a little better, it's semi acoustic that i voted (335 copy) but that was because i thoiught you were asking what i would reccomend (i love mine and with a coil tap and a piezo bridge it would cover most bases) but if it was a house on fire moment or that nightmare (for me) situation of having to sell all but one of my guitars then my McIlroy acoustic would be the one i'd keep, nothing i've ever played comes close to how good it sounds and how well it plays, i still can't quite believe that it's mine and i've had it for just over 4 years. [url="http://www.mcilroyguitars.co.uk/"]http://www.mcilroyguitars.co.uk/[/url] (mines an AS25, walnut and cedar with pearwood bindings)

i once bought a car with fag paper round a fuse (never drove it very far though!) as another Newcastle based Bassist, which shop did you use for the fuse? just for future reference.

TC polytune for me, i've used a tu-2 before and it was ok but it was a loan from a friend, went for the polytune on reccomendations from here (actually just asked for it as a christmas present from my darling wife), it's nice and solid and can be used for powering other pedals the same as the boss ones, i like the poly function where you simply strum all the strings to check them all at once, very handy as a quick check between songs that nothings slippped and it tracks the low B on my yamaha perfectly, it switches automatically between poly and single string as well which make life very easy. Matt