neepheid

If you have an original, get it copied. Brian Pillans (he's on ebay - username/store name earlpilanz) or TinyTone are the two places that spring to mind for this service.

It's "forever", isn't it?

TGI Ultimate gig bag for £110-130 TGI Extreme gig bag (less padding but still substantial) for £60ish

Also would avoid ebay sellers - I heard that many of these are people putting things up that they don't actually own, they're in shops, they tack on a "finder's fee" and then go buy it on your behalf. That's why you often see the same thing with the same photos up on ebay from different sellers for completely different prices and postage methods (some charge postage, some lump it into the cost and offer "free" postage etc.). Feels a bit grubby to me although I guess it's no different to a "personal shopper" thing in practice.

Another +1 for Ishibashi - smooth transaction, sent in a nice sturdy box, and even with the VAT etc. it still worked out cheaper than local market prices for what I was buying (a Yamaha BB1200, for reference)

Strings deffo consumables, I presume the skins are too? Don't really know anything about banjos. Are you replacing a broken/malfunctioning bridge, or are they consumables also? Anyway, it's not a bass, so at worst - tier 2?

I should point out that my BQC was before all this solderless stuff. Honestly I don't know how you do it these days - surely you don't have to hack one end off the cables if you're not hooking it up to EMG stuff?

I had a BQC control in my Epiphone Les Paul. BQC control is just a preamp, it will accept whatever you feed it, so you do all the trickery you require (volume, passive tone, pickup selection, coil selection) first in whichever way you see fit, then feed the results of that to the BQC instead of it going to the output jack. In the case of the Epi LP, it was a pair of EMG-HB pickups, going to plain 25K pots (EMGs need that low value), then onto the usual Les Paul pickup selector switch, then the output of that fed to the BQC.

As a long-ish term owner of a 4 string Triad (almost 3 years now), let me put your mind at ease on a few points: The fretboard overhang beyond the heel of the neck is not vulnerable - mine's still attached fine. The overhang is probably so they can make 20 and 21 fret necks using the same neck dimensions and therefore have them be interchangeable depending upon what they need. I've seen this done on some necks intended for Fender Shaped Objects to give them 21 frets also. I've not noticed any weakness in my bridge pickup (in fact I remember remarking that it's one of the few bridge pickups I've actually enjoyed the sound of), hopefully you can adjust it out. If you feel like you're missing options (like the ability to use all three pickups simultaneously or neck and bridge minus the middle pickup) then you're going to have to mod the bass. I believe you can replace one of the pots with a push/pull which switches one of the pickups into the circuit independently of the 5 way switch, but I fitted a Freeway 10 way switch to mine. This practically invisible mod replaces the stock 5 way switch and gives you the missing options l alluded to above (as well as a few of them in series in addition to parallel). Dunno if you saw my NBD thread about the Triad, but in case you missed it, here it is (documenting how I got on with it in the beginning and showing me part way through fitting the Freeway switch) - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/467579-nbd-reverend-triad Enjoy your new bass, it looks lovely in that silverburst!

Well, I appreciate that clarification, but my point still stands. I don't think it's worthless information - it's true, isn't it? There have been many a disappointed noob get one of these thinking they can just join in on an acoustic night armed with nothing but an acoustic bass guitar and dreams. People tangential to this conversation read this stuff after all. There's no need to get personal about it, and calling people "completely clueless" just because you don't like what they have to say is a bit rum, old chap.

You hold the iron by the handle - that's the fatter part of it, not the thin, pointy, extremely hot part...

Aw no, that's sad news, and very unexpected. RIP Sam.

Are winking smileys placed at the end of text to denote that they are meant amusingly or not to be taken 100% seriously a thing any more? Did I miss a memo? Stop the world, I want to get off!

And? Tell me you didn't wake me up just to condescend to me about how choices work, is there something else?

I was having a laugh (as indicated by the winking smiley after my text), and I didn't make it personal. You can stick your "clueless" comment somewhere else - I've owned two, and it was two too many for me, that's my clue, it is derived from personal experience. If you like 'em, you're not wrong - I'm not going to call you names for liking them, so how's about a bit of respect for those whose opinions you disagree with?

I strongly disagree that they're similar. I am not going to filter everything I say online lest it be interpreted as some sort of call to action or intended prompt for someone to do me a solid. You make out like it would be my fault if someone noised me up and offered to gift me an example of the Fazley bass I had ordered back in September last year and now will not receive due to the collapse of Bax Music, just because I've been documenting the saga on here. Nuh-huh, I'm not having it. I don't control what other people do as a consequence of what I write online (unless I've got the begging bowl out - which I don't). I didn't ask anyone to help me out, and as such I would consider myself blameless and having had no involvement in them choosing to do it. It's not even remotely similar to me trying out basses in the physical presence of my surprise benefactor, save for the most mean spirited of argumentativeness, which I'm concerned that's the route it's starting to go down. I think it's been mentioned before, but this thread is ultimately supposed to be a bit of fun, so I'm going to stop the discount Asda SmartPrice Perry Mason routine now and return you to your scheduled programmes.

They're as useless as any other acoustic bass, I guess

Ach, not too bad. Gotta fit things around people taking holidays so July and August are quieter. Covers band (Nine Lives) is gigging reasonably frequently: May 3rd - North Bar, Peterhead May 4th (yay, Star Wars Day gig!) - Pittendrum Bar, Sandhaven (near Fraserburgh) May 24th - Wilsons, Aberdeen May 30th - O'Donoghues, Aberdeen June 7th - Balaclava Bar, Fraserburgh June 14th - Wilsons, Aberdeen June 21st - Harbour Lights, Peterhead June 28th - Maud Football Club July 5th - Gray's Inn, Aberdeen August 9th - Wilsons, Aberdeen August 16th - Balaclava Bar, Fraserburgh Originals band (The Inevitable Teaspoons) will be recording their second album (and also trying to mix it ourselves, so gawd only knows how long that's going to take) - if we pick up any gigs, so be it but they'll likely be local jobs at either Krakatoa or Drummonds in Aberdeen. On a personal note - looking forward to attending the NW England Bass Bash in May, be good to catch up with bassy friends and get my mitts on some tasty basses!

Everyone's on their honour here. I may be the reason the gift rules got tightened up now that I think about it - a couple of years back Mrs. Neepheid treated me to a Reverend Triad. At the time the rule was more vague, merely stating that unsolicited gifts are exempt. Now this wasn't a pre-arranged thing, we were in Glasgow and I was doing what I always do when we're down there, have a browse of the guitar shops. I tried the Reverend, really liked it and popped it back down. But she asked me if I liked it, I said yes, so she said that she'd buy me it as a treat. This came as a complete surprise to me, there was no pre-discussion, I wasn't trawling the guitar shops looking for something for my wife to buy me. In the end, my circumstance was deemed to have not contravened the rules as they were written at that time as I had not asked my wife to buy the bass for me, she offered. Since then, this very scenario has been nixed with the addition of the text "Genuinely unsolicited presents, which you had no involvement in choosing." Regarding msb's situation, I don't know what (if any) discussions were had between the parties regarding this bass. My reading of the scenario as presented to us is that the third party saw something online that msb had written about having tried and failed to obtain a bass, then decided independently to do something about it ie. offer their bass to msb out of some feeling of sympathy and/or wanting to do a nice thing. I'm confident that msb didn't write the online material which triggered this offer of donation with the express purpose of coercing or convincing someone (in)to gift(ing) them a bass. "Involvement in choosing"? Seems like a stretch to me. Yes, the online text may have influenced the nature of the gift, but I don't believe it was an active involvement. I've written about "the one that got away" before. That doesn't mean I'm expecting a fairy godmother to appear with said bass or a copy of one, and I will argue until I'm blue in the face that I'd be exempt if such a thing ever happened. Ergo, I consider this approach to be influenced, but not directly by msb, as there was no intent, and therefore is unsolicited. Defence rests.

Incorrect, in the context of this contest's rules at least. If this is a completely out of the blue, unsolicited gift, it's not a fail. Otherwise, I could find a bass in a skip and gift it to someone participating in the thread to knock them out of the running! Offering to pay the for shipping ain't cheating either, it's merely polite.

Well, the current Thunderbird 64 model (previously known as Vintage Pro then 60s) will knock your socks off - full 9 ply neck thru (7 ply on the Vintage Pro/60s), chrome pickup covers (and excellent pickups underneath), separate bridge and tailpiece. It's probably the best Thunderbird Gibson never made. Slightly biased because I own one, of course... Yes, @NancyJohnson the body/neck shape's on the wonk - but I can sympathise; I haven't been around for quite as long as the T-bird but my body is definitely wonky after all this time too

That is a Classic Pro T-bird - proper neck thru with Gibson USA TB+ pickups. No longer in production. It's top book price but I'd hardly call it "a bit perverse".

The G&L in Treble Boost mode will give you more top end sizzle than you need - honestly I never used it because it sounded rather obnoxious to me, but I guess you can always use the treble knob to tame it to taste.

I'm thinking similar - first the rolled edges, now the preamp, it smacks of playing catchup to me.

I have not, that I recall. In that rarefied air, I have played a Ritter before - when I say "played" I mean "gingerly wore, scared to breathe on it wrong"