neepheid

If it's hurting you it's time to change, after you've done whatever mitigations you can - wide, cushioned strap is the #1 mitigation. I've owned 12lb+ basses (Gibson RD Artist, Gibson Victory Artist) and the wide neoprene strap (Neotech Mega strap) made them tolerable. I do enjoy the "grounded" feel of a heavy bass. I am the centre of my own personal bass black hole.

Yes, he did one for my G&L Tribute LB-100. Perfect replica, went straight on the bass with no fuss.

Get your current one cloned.

Sorry, I'm a copper pervert. There's something I find very satisfying about a shiny, copper lined cavity. Mmm, shiny.

No, Fender binned them before anyone could buy one

Why, when EBMM are charging so much for these basses can't they make two different pickups with different pole piece spacing to factor in the difference in string spacing? What in the F are people paying for?

Someone on the internet will be along shortly to tell you how wrong you are...

Those ones don't look reversible to me. The key is not designed to be removable. Believe me, I've had such a tuning machine fail on me and the key did not want to go back on after it was removed to find out WTF was going on.

Is your friend waiting for the tree to grow that the bass will be made from? If it was ordered last year then it's fair enough - it was intended to be last year's intake and through no fault of their own it has been delayed into this year. I believe it's order date that counts, and it's ok if it's been paid already or is pending payment. No new business though this year.

There's no problem with you helping out with future adjudications, crack on!

I don't make the rules either, they're by consensus. Re: straps - pretty generic accessories, I don't think I'd fail someone at Tier 1 for buying a strap - Tier 2, more likely, unless you're replacing a broken strap.

Keep making the 60's/Vintage Pro Thunderbird please, Epiphone, and please give us some more finish choices, instead of removing them (white, grr).

I don't think any bass is worth two grand more than any other bass, to be completely honest.

I've used wood veneer as a shim before. It's about 0.6mm thick IIRC. Also toneshim! Lovely bit of walnut in there, will totally change the tone of the bass, can't you hear it?

If only ears worked like tongues, where at least you have 4/5 distinct basic tastes which everyone can broadly agree on and embellish from there. Basses, amps and cabs be bassy. Where it goes from there is entirely subjective. Which is why I usually tell people asking for gear recommendations to just go and get/try the gear they're talking about and make their own minds up. Sounds unhelpful, but it's more helpful than an inaccurate description of what my inaccurate ears are telling my inaccurate, prejudice and preference addled brain about what I'm hearing. If you like it, you're not wrong. You don't need your hand held to decide what your favourite colour is, do you? I found out what I like and don't like by the tried and tested method of FAAFO. It is perhaps inefficient, but it is a lot of fun.

Well, I'm up in Aberdeen, 3 hours away from the nearest "big" shops, and even then sometimes they can suck. So I know exactly where you're coming from, including the overinflated local second hand market (which only seems to be overinflated when I'm buying stuff, never when I'm selling). All I can tell you is that I have rolled the dice many times - out of the 58 basses I have owned, the vast majority of them have been bought unseen, at distance, from a variety of vendors, both shops and individuals. I've never returned a bass just because I didn't quite like it, only ever because it was faulty in some way (which is different). What I tend to do is keep a hold of a bass for a while then sell it on. Any losses I write off as "bass rent". You do you, but I have no qualms about buying anything at distance, because where I live, I don't have many palatable other choices. Order with confidence, you'll be (mostly) fine. If you're looking for cast iron guarantees that everything's going to go great, you'll never buy anything!

So that's why everyone on here hates me! I had no idea I was so successful

There's stiltons of research to be done regarding this phenomonon.

So, are you in then?

When did "hate" get redefined to "opinion I disagree with"? Am I just being a confused X-genner again? I'M NOT A BOOMER, DAMNIT.

This is starting to turn into one of those "are you paying attention?" type clicky quizzes - click on the colour, not the word type thing.

The official line from Fender is that this is fake news, never happened, no-one has ever returned a bass to them, ever.

Quite why they changed absolutely nothing about themselves other than the name continues to boggle the mind.

You really ought to get one in your hands and make your own mind up. I can't help you having either never played a Sandberg, or not recalling a time when I had a brief go on one. And even if I did, that would just be one data point - not really worth much, coupled with the vagaries of instruments in general - any factory can issue a Friday afternoon special... Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's going to blow your socks off either. I've drank disappointing 30 year old whiskies... Well, that was just a total downer, so let's pick it back up - if you get hold of a BBP34 (either by trying it in a shop or simply buying it at distance knowing that you can send it back if it doesn't work out) and it does blow your hair back then you're right!

Make your own out of some 1mm thick metal?