grayn

Little Bronco looks cool. I can imagine a Guild Bisonic pickup on there. Nice colour scheme, with those knobs.

I can't help you with flats, as I am not fond of them but I have owned a lot of short scale basses and have always used standard length strings on them, with no problems, especially if your bass has a separate bridge and tailpiece. As you say though, probably better off with the lighter gauge strings. Nice bass BTW.

I have mainly played JBs but have over the last year or two, been playing single, split-coil pickup basses, Sandberg and Guild and they get all the clarity and punch I need, with a good amp and finger technique.

I have played JB with fingers for rock for years and yes, it works. That mid focused tone you want is all down to where you pluck the strings and how much tone you roll off.

Yet another vid of this little beauty. No mention of awful action or nut but to my ears, it doesn't sound nice. Could be the player though.

It does seem that every one of these cool little basses comes with a very poorly cut nut.

I went to check the Manchester bass out, just now. Looks and feels very cool, especially with the Serek style pickguard. Very nice guy selling, who said it had been set up But unfortunately, it had been set up by a friend. The action was really high, yet the A and E strings really buzzed. String winding extended over the nut, on the D & G strings etc. Probably just needs a proper set up but I decided against, in the end. I'll probably get a new one some time, though.

About 10 or so years ago I had 2 Overwater Jazz basses. One with OW hand wound pickups, the other with Dimarzio Ultra Jazz. The OWs were very clear and pristine but the Dimarzios were lovely and vintage sounding, so that bass got all the useage. Old school maybe, but worth a thought.

Cheers. The best thing is it doesn't neck dive. Miraculous.

Good score, congrats.

My newbie.

I put some Elixir Nanoweb Nickel Roundwounds on the SG, this morning. So it's gone from La Bella Deep Talking Bass flats (39 to 96) to Elixir Nanoweb Rounds (45 to 105). They've been on just over 4 hours and been played for about 45 minutes. I'm impressed that the action has stayed put and the intonation is still very well set. It's very much a matter of taste but I think the new strings have brought the bass more to life. It's still a vintage tone but with these more contemporary pickups and roundwound strings, there seems to be more tones, that are very useable. Yeah, I think this newbie will be seeing some action, very soon. Here's my present trio:

Thanks guys and Clarky, it certainly was a great score. 3below, it's spooky how our SG/Gibson experiences have been so similar. I took this rather fuzzy mirror shot, to show how the bass stays put, hands free. I'm using a a Lekato memory foam strap with it, at the moment, that has a matching leather stripe on it. Cool. Yeah, that mirror really needs straightening.

Quite right and I am very pleased about that.

This is my first Gibson bass in 47 years. My first and only other Gibbo bass, was an EB2 semi. It was my first "name" bass. All I can remember was is was nice and easy to play, sounded great on it's own but didn't really cut it with the rock band I was in at the time. About 3 years before the EB2 , I had a Columbus EB3 copy, shown in the very dodgy pic below. Taken 50 years ago, so fair enough. One of my very early bass heroes, other than Macca, was Jimmy Lea, from Slade. This was before I had discovered what is now called, Classic Rock. He was a very decent player and I remember taking ages to work out the bass to Slade's version of Move Over. Anyway, now a lot older and not much wiser, I drove down to Birmingham, to do a trade for this SG Bass, with Dave808 from this forum. Dave is a very aimiable chap and we had a good chat as we checked each other's basses out. The SG was all it had been described as and to my delight, did not neck dive. Hooray! Why Gibson stopped calling them EB3s I do not know. Perhaps they thought it confused folk. The body is mahogany and as the name suggests, is SG shaped. It has a replacement Hipshot Supertine bridge, although I have the rather awful, original, Gibson 3-point bridge, as well. The neck pickup is a wopping humbucker, the bridge's is a mini humbucker. These are controlled by 2 volumes and a single tone knob, that are black tophat style with silver inserts. The mahogany neck has a corian nut, rosewood fingerboard and acrylic dot markers. It has a scale of 30.5 inches and 20 frets. This Bass has a satin, nitrocellulose finish. Starting it's life in 2011, this 12 year old bass is in very good order. I had tried a brand new Gibson Standard SG last year. The one with the gloss finish and block markers. It was a real looker and had some gorgeous tones but the killer was the neck dive. I play with the bass in a more diagonal position, standing. That new SG bass didn't just want to slide to a horizontal position, it slid very rapidly toward the floor. I know there are a million and one ways to try to sort this but I didn't feel inclined. Anyway, when I was talking with the Dave808, he said it did not neck dive, though he took the precaution of using a wide, suede strap. That was a big deal to me. TBH I do prefer the more glamourous look of the glossy SG Standard bass but that pales compared to a bass with little or no inclination to neck dive and has already had the god awful 3-point bridge replaced by a far more useable and better quality Hipshot. I also like the way the bass's finish has aged. With use, it is a lot glossier than it would have been new. The back of the neck and fretboard are nice and smooth and very pleasant to play. The action is low and solid, just how I like it. It came with LaBella flats on. Heaven to many but I'll be replacing them with Elixirs. On plugging in, I was very pleasantly surprised by the pickups. Yes, they are a bit edgy and growly when pushed but the tone character is really good, with enough focus and bite to cut through, yet plenty of vintage body and warmth. Like with many 2 pickup basses I have owned, that have individual volume controls, rather than volume and pan (my preferred controls), my favourite tones came by having one pickup on ten (full) and the other on nine. Changing around, depending on whether you are going for deep and full or want a bit more bite. Overall then, a classic bass, with plenty of vintage appeal, in looks, sound and feel. Quite different from Fenders or many contemporary basses, it never the less is very useable in a band situation. Especially as I intend to use it in my 60s band. I'll now be using my Guild Starfire in my R&B Soul band.

My 2nd fave colour on that one but it's hard to get a feel for the sound, from that guys playing. To my ears, he made everything sound horrible.

They look really cool, IMO.

Obviously the Epi is a million miles from the wonderful Serek but I reckon with a little fettling and possibly, new tuners, it'll be very useable and quite handsome.

Deffo fancy one of these.

The original Newport influenced the Serek Midwestern. Though I don't think Serek will feel too threatened by this re-issue.

Nice. Either Pacific Blue or Sunset Yellow for me. Tort scratchplates would look better though.