eude

No, I wasn't lucky enough to own that particular ACG. Ever since going down the custom route I've been going shorter and shorter, and I've settled on 31.5" now for all my basses bar one shorty which is 30.5". A full scale bass would've been too big... I've owned and sold a lot of ACGs on my journey, but I doubt the ones I have now will ever leave. Here's my main squeeze for reference... Eude

What an absolute peach, congratulations! This was one of a few of @skelf's early basses that absolutely set my world on fire, and set me on a path to owning more ACGs than I know what to do with! I can't believe how good the condition of the bass is, it looks as good as new! Enjoy it, then more pics and sound samples please Eude

Holy crap! Absolutely stunning! Eude

I've found that if Zilla are busy, they aren't bothered about bringing in little jobs like amps sleeves. I had contacted them about my sleeve before going with Mike Walsh, I got a ballpark figure after about 4 unanswered emails, chased it up by phone, which again took several attempts over several days before any one actually picked up, followed by another couple of unanswered emails. Mike swept in, beat the Zilla price and the end product is absolutely fantastic! Mike also makes very nice cabs too Eude

If he had, there wouldn't be Musicman or G&L, both of which play a big part in the bass and guitar landscape I do find all this Fender wheel reinvention tedious and frustrating, but I guess I'm just not their target market. If I was a guitar player, I would certainly be coveting a new Jazzmaster, but their basses are just meh to me these days, have been for a very long time now if I'm honest. Eude

Can we report Fender for "fake news" on this one? They regularly market their refreshes as ground breaking, brand new, better than ever before, and all they are ever really offering is a few new colours, and if you're lucky a pickup combination they haven't offered for 9 months. I am SO bored with this stuff, I appreciate that's just my opinion, but surely most of you find these announcements massively underwhelming? Eude

Here's a pic for reference...

Another vote for Mike Walsh from Zootbass, Mike made a sleeve for my Ashdown ABM RC and it's beyond what I expected, absolutely perfect with incredible attention to detail. Eude

Wow, looks like they already tried this a while back >> https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept/guitar-pedals/multi-fx-units/second-hand-fender-mustang-floor-pedal-inc-box-psu Wonder if they might look to revisit it at some point, even just for us bassists...

Exactly what I was thinking. The guitard stuff they do has been well received too. I wonder if they've already got something on the way. It seems a very logical thing to do... Eude

Zombie thread here... Just thinking out loud really, but why on earth don't Fender put their modelling software into a nice solid pedal housing, like their new range of effect pedals? I reckon they would be on to a bit of a winner there, they've already done all the hard work, there's specific guitar and bass versions, working at two levels too, basic and fully fledged. Surely they would fly off the shelves? Eude

Well guys this bass is incredible. Everything I hoped for, expected from an ACG and more. I honestly can't really argue that I "need" any more basses now. Should I be happy or sad about that... Pic for attention... Eude

I've met John on numerous occasions and he has no real reason to remember who I am, I'm not a pro, or a serious player on any level any more, and yet he always recognises me. He's an absolute gentleman and as stated above the designer of some of the, if not thee best preamps in the world. If only the world had more John Easts! Eude

Am I right in assuming that the Alpher boys weren't involved in the refinishing then?

One. Happy. Customer

There's something on its way from Moffat to sunny Croydon, should be arriving tomorrow... Eude

That's absolutely stunning!

That is laaavly!

Please report back if you do, promptly... 😉

Me too, what's happening?! Could he fix it? Can it be fixed? Has it been turned into a clarinet? Eude

I vote Newtone. I adore their strings, I've got their steels on one bass just now and I'm really liking those too, weird having only played nickels for years and years... Eude

That is gorgeous! Congratulations! Eude

I think they've probably had their moments, as have most manufacturers to be fair, but by and large their customer support has always been great. The ABM stuff has always been well made, I think it's some of the cheaper stuff that perhaps got a bad rep. I used to use a rehearsal space in Glasgow and I kept blowing up their stupid Ampeg SVTs, eventually they bought in an ABM, for us tricky bass players, and it never missed a beat. Real workhorse stuff. And as far as the Superfly being a bit crappy, I think it was the first commercially available class D bass amp on the market, which nobody ever seems to give them props for never mind all the extra crazy stuff it did too. Sadly, I think Ashdown are a brand that some folks like to bash, and I have no idea why. They did but after Gibson, who bought it from Kaman. I got my first TC amp just after the Gibson takeover, as far as I'm aware the original work done by the real Trace engineers was still in effect with Kaman, and then Gibson came in and ruined everything. For some mad reason though, folks were selling off pre Gibson stock cheap, even though it was far superior! It was a good time to buy... Personally, I'm a very big Ashdown fan. Eude

We're even closer... Eude

How did I miss this thread before now?! I own a fair few ACG basses and have played many many more, so hopefully I can give you some of my impressions of the bits you're asking about. Righto, pickups. The regular ACG pickups, the B Series ones are hand wound by Aaron Armstrong, and come in several flavours these days and in 3 casing sizes. There's the original FB which is a sidewinder humbucking pickup which gives a nice modern jazz bass vibe, with more midrange and a bit of natural compression to the notes. There's the RFB pickups, which are more like a Musicman pickups, with the magnets side by side, giving a more ballsy tone. These can both be augmented with the switches you mention, to give you access to series, single coil and parallel modes. I appreciate that the series mode always sounds better, as it's bigger, but there's subtleties and nuances to the other two modes which are worth exploring too. There's the SB, single coil pickups, which come in a '70s style' now too, which are very much Jazz Bass style pickups, and finally the PB, Precision Bass style pickups, which can also be reversed for a more modern take. All of the above can be tuned to a certain degree by using different magnet types and having things underwound or overwound too, as these are hand made to order it's no huge hardship. MC Series pickups are a very different animal! As @EMG456 stated, they are punchy and detailed, very detailed. My experience of them is that they pick up every single thing on the bass every subtlety come across in quite a hifi manner, you basically get EVERYTHING you play and every note regardless of position or string sounds even and balanced throughout the entirety of the bass. If you've got the budget I would go for the MC pups as it just gives you more to work with, unless you're looking for more of a vintage tone vibe. The preamps. The original EQ01, which you've had experience of, had a wider sweep than the DFM, but now the filter sweeps are the same on both preamps. The main differentiator now is that the DFM has a different stack for the treble control, which is basically a sweepable treble/mid boost which is easier to use than the high pass filter on the EQ01, but obviously less flexible. I've had, and still have some basses with Uni-pre's and ACG filter preamps, and if you're a set it and stick guy, and you really like to go for that burpy midrange on the back pickup, I would stick with the filter preamp, probably the DFM, dialling in that kind of tone is an absolute breeze with that set up, and technically, you could still have a different tone set up with the other filter on your 'spare' pickup to blend in or switch to entirely for a different sound on the fly, something you can only do when you have separate controls per pickup. I really like the spec you've come up with, but I'd be careful weight wise as a Sycamore body might be a little heavy. You thinking bolt-on or set neck? Hope that helps and that you made it to the end of my post! Cheers, Eude