neepheid

Are we still taking about musical instruments?

You could just point out the amount of human time put into the build. Everyone knows time is money, and that's a cold hard fact you can take to the bank instead of all this florid prose and subjective points of view being paraded as fact.

Feck it, I ordered a Lace Aluma-P

This has to be the bass equivalent of swirling the wine round your mouth, spitting it out then spouting some florid prose about what the sensation meant to you in an ill-advised attempt to sound authoritative? Less cork sniffing, more playing and we all become better bass players.

Thank you for the suggestions, but there is no pickguard to hide behind, so it's going to remain in the traditional Leo orientation. Besides, I've got my Yamaha BB1200 for getting my reverse P yucks, so I can scratch that itch already. Cheers for the thought about the Split P in parallel, I did worry hearing some soundclips that the Split P might be a bit moody sounding.

Hi folks As some of you may know, I recently picked up a £150 "POS" P bass and found that after an evening's fettling the bones were surprisingly good and worth keeping. Of course, at this price, the pickup is ... uninspring, so I want to replace it. I don't want a cookie cutter, regular construction, 2 coil, 2 pole piece per string, "this is my interpretation of an <insert year> Fender" pickup. I already have a very nice alnico split P like that in my Tribute LB-100. What I want is something out there, something genuinely different, in terms of packaging, coils, magnets, poles. So far (probably in order of "weirdness") I'm looking at Lace Aluma-P (just completely out there compared to regular pickups) Herrick 4 coil split P (a separate coil per string) DiMarzio Split P (two coils per pair of strings and blades) Lollar Precision 90 (each half is like a mini P90) Then the usual suspects when it comes to changing up the pole pieces - Delano big pole pieces, Norstrand pole piece variations (big blade, NP4A) - but at this point I start to fall asleep, as it's just a regular P bass pickup with different pole pieces. So apart from the top four, and bearing in mind what I said about looking for something a bit more out there than simply changing the pole pieces), has anyone got any other things I should look at?

I use a Neotech Mega Strap, I've used them for years and it made wearing 12lbs+ Gibsons tolerable for gigs. I'm 5' 9" and while I prefer not to know an accurate weight for myself, I don't think I'm huge. I still fit into 34" jeans, put it that way.

I took my G4M P bass to a band rehearsal last night. It played pretty well - in that the neck, post fettling, was very nice and I was quite happily whizzing around it. But I did uncover another entry in the "Amusing" fun facts - the pickup is comically badly made. It's not that it doesn't make bassy sounds, it does. But one half of the pickup is microphonic, and the other half isn't! Never encountered this in my life. Doesn't matter as I intend to replace the pickup, but it made me chuckle! I think it'll be a fine bass once I change the pickup.

Tonewood == firewood

Song: "What if You're Not Special" by The Inevitable Teaspoons Band: The Inevitable Teaspoons Location: Our rehearsal room Equipment: G4M P bass into Markbass Mini CMD 121P !V

I'm impressed they went to such trouble for you. Nice (potential) customer service there.

Mine arrived yesterday. Me (mostly) likey - enough to keep it at least. Good: For the most part, well enough screwed together (but see bad/amusing points below) I like how it looks (even though I didn't win the flamed maple lottery, mine is more about wood grain than flame) Neck is well proportioned, and the satin finish is nice (couple of rough spots but acceptable for the price) The roast on the neck is light but appreciable I've always fancied a bound P bass so box ticked there It sounds like a P bass (is it possible to get that wrong these days?) Bad: Tuners are garbage (the D tuner in mine in particular is probably faulty - it gets really stiff and difficult to turn when the string gets up to tuned tension regardless of how backed off the screw in the button is) The pickup has a comically low output (when I first plugged it into my headphone amp set flat (half input gain, half volume) I thought the bass was dead, had to crank the input gain and volume up for it to be heard) A couple of quite nasty fret ends String tree wasn't fully screwed down Amusing: One of the bridge saddles was installed the wrong way round The binding is a tad "wobbly" in places But for all that, it's pretty good - certainly commensurate with its price tag of £150. Last night I addressed most of the shortcomings: Stock strings off (and in the bin) Stock tuners off (and in the bin) and replaced with a set of black Grover minis I had hoarded for years (yay for hoarding!) Bridge saddle removed and flipped round the right way Swarf removed from the nut slots Nasty fret ends ground back (tbf there were only 3 that needed attention) New strings on, full setup (needed a the truss rod slackened off a quarter turn - for a horrible moment I thought I had a high fret but it was that the neck was dead flat) It's playing really well now, I'm pretty pleased with it. The plan is to put an "interesting" pickup in there, currently eyeing up a Lace Aluma-P or a Herrick multicoil. Some pics from last night's fettling session:

"on average" - which means there will be lighter examples out there and heavier ones. So back to the retailers (when they have them available) and ask the ones who care about customer service that deeply to get the scales out for you.

Was the Dimension that much different to their regular output? They couldn't even keep that going for more than a few years. Pathetic.

I don't think a bit of paper is gear, s'all good. If that piece of paper magically becomes gear, oh well, it was for a good cause. I reckon this is reasonable.

Is this more scab picking?

I doubt you'll get anything better than an estimate if anything - wood be woody. If you look at a site such as Sweetwater in the States which publishes the weight of the actual basses they're selling (and have multiples to instantly flick betweeen), you'll find wild differences (sometimes +/- 1lb) in weight between supposedly identical basses. It's really a question for the retailer, who can weigh the one(s) which are right there in front of them, not the manufacturer. And of course, for that to happen, you're going to have to wait for them to become available.

Grolschlocks - each one comes with a free beer! EDIT - glib comment aside - the washers are strong enough for straplock purposes - they're designed to keep beer in a bottle after all.

Time for the June roundup... What a well behaved bunch you have been - only two folk dropped out last month, leaving 24 still on the righteous path of abstinence. Now that this has bumped the thread to the top, let's get the start of month confessionals out of the way... As for me, well, I know it doesn't work that way and I'm out because pedals and wirelessness but I'm currently -1 basses for the year - sold 2, bought 1. There's some sort of moral, "well, that's better than being a Nazi" thing going on there...

Why not, we invented damn near everything else

But you get people "just starting out" on 6 string, and are there many inexpensive FAAFO options?

The new Sire Z7 has stainless frets according to the specs. 5 string is £569 at Andertons. It's not out until August though, so couldn't tell you about weight etc.

I get the feeling it would be easier and quicker to list the headstocks you do like...

Not sold on FB, sold here. Only marked as sold on FB.

Song: Living After Midnight Band: Nine Lives Venue: Balaclava Bar, Fraserburgh Bass: Yamaha BB1200 > Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV + New York 121