Kiwi

I have fairly narrow tastes in music which include Abba, Chic, Freemasons, Stonebridge, The Sunburst Band, Incognito, Roykksop, Ulrich Schnauss, Planet Funk ...etc. These bands don't define my tastes and the later stuff is definitely not notable for bass playing but they generally suit most of my emotional states in some form or another.

I have one of those... the III. It really is a Swiss Army knife.

It's a little difficult to test and confirm the problem from my own account. It all seems to be working as expected. Is it possible that an inadvertent brush of the finger might have unfollowed you?

There's a few points to address here. 1) Ply generally uses lots more glue and can be relatively heavy 2) Laminated necks are a different construction to ply but both use the process of lamination. Hence potential for confusion. If someone were to make their own ply from, say luthier quality 3mm veneer and laminate using epoxy resin rather than PVA and a vacuum bag to cure...they might end up with something that sounded closer to a carbon composite. But it would probably be quite heavy compared to a piece of alder.

Some people on the internet don't let ignorance get in the way of expressing an opinion. Carbon composite generally has a flatter frequency response which means it's possible to use softer materials in other parts of the instrument to provide some selective dampening of frequencies. That sculpting of timbre provides character but what I think those commenters might really mean is that carbon necks don't hide their sloppy left hand technique. Besides which, we're talking bodies rather than necks and they have a slightly different structural role depending on how the instrument is constructed.

A star?

Maple veneer, they have a rep for the veneer peeling off after a time. Yeah but marine ply is constructed differently to a maple laminated neck.

My first two basses had plywood bodies and maple necks. They had poor sustain and an unmusical, lifeless timbre. I replaced the second one with a Jaydee MK and it was a world of difference. I'm sure it's possible to make an acceptable instrument from ply, if the construction and build quality is up to scratch. But it's also possible to make a bass with too many laminations, whether it's the neck or body, and it kind of sucks the character out of the instrument. They all start to sound fairly similar. Someone's opinion of whether a ply bass is decent or not depends very much on what their baseline references are.

V, the wife of @nationofzeros PM'd me yesterday. "Dear Kiwi I am V, the wife/widow of the owner of the missing TB. I am incredibly grateful for the resource which is Basschat, and your attempts to get hold of Chris which has meant I have been reunited with his misssing TB - even if only virtually. He died on the 23rd August 2022. The hospital put him in a side room on the 10th August which had pseudomonas aureginosa in the shower water, which the hospital knew about. As he was totally immunocompromised following 5 days of the most aggressive of chemos - he caught the bacteria and died of pneumonia, sepsis 10 days after admission to hospital. He was totally fit and well upon admission, with no symptoms. The guy that sold Chris the bass, Henry Betz Brown, Bonfires Vintage has offered to refund me the money that Chris paid for the bass - ironically virtually a year ago. Life is strange. I have borrowed money from my mother to pay for Chris's funeral - the refund on the bass almost exactly covers these costs. Kiwi, I would be grateful if you could let those member that commented on his story know that I am so grateful for their support and action. With very best wishes V" Props to Henry at Bonfires Vintage of Portland, Oregon. He probably deserves a big thank you for being a beacon of honesty and integrity in these increasingly crazy times.

@nationofzeros Passed away tragically on Aug 23rd. While Chris was a relatively new member and based in the US, he also called upon the support of the BC community in trying to trace the whereabouts of a Travis Bean bass that had been lost in transit. The really tragic thing was that it was recovered by a shop in Oregon a matter of weeks after he had passed on, thanks specifically to the appeal he posted on here. His widow dropped us the following message last night: "Dear Kiwi I am V, the wife/widow of the owner of the missing TB. I am incredibly grateful for the resource which is Basschat, and your attempts to get hold of Chris which has meant I have been reunited with his missing TB - even if only virtually. He died on the 23rd August 2022. The hospital put him in a side room on the 10th August which had pseudomonas aureginosa in the shower water, which the hospital knew about. As he was totally immunocompromised following 5 days of the most aggressive of chemos - he caught the bacteria and died of pneumonia, sepsis 10 days after admission to hospital. He was totally fit and well upon admission, with no symptoms. The guy that sold Chris the bass, Henry Betz Brown, Bonfires Vintage has offered to refund me the money that Chris paid for the bass - ironically virtually a year ago. Life is strange. I have borrowed money from my mother to pay for Chris's funeral - the refund on the bass almost exactly covers these costs. Kiwi, I would be grateful if you could let those member that commented on his story know that I am so grateful for their support and action. With very best wishes V" @Fluid Druid at Bonfires Vintage of Portland, Oregon probably deserves a big thank you for being a beacon of honesty and integrity in these increasingly crazy times.

A polite reminder that we do have a guitar forum. www.guitarchat.co.uk It could do with some love from guitar loving members on here.

I remember seeing that for sale on EBay about 10 or 15 years ago. IIRC the asking price was something like US$32,000 to help pay for the uni tuition fees for one of his kids.

Unfortunately it's less good when you compare against the prices of used Smiths 6 years ago. Inflation doesn't account for all the rise, as it doesn't with Wal's either. Alembics have been chronically undervalued for decades, if you believe their new price is any basis for their used price. In 2008 I could afford three BSRGN Smiths. Three! Such decadence would be the stuff of bucketlist fantasy now. Just imagine if salaries had gone up by the same rate as boutique bass guitars.

If it ownership can be proven, it might be best to sell it through the pawn shop, on Reverb or have it sent somewhere to sell on consignment. Beans are fetching respectable money these days.

Can you put it aside until the OP gets back to you? Salem?

Gnnnnnn...binary solo!!!!!

MM Stingray : Mesa Boogie Bass 400+/Warwick Pro Tube with EBS Neo212 (even though the Warwick amps are coloured for Warwick basses, they suit stingrays too) Fender Jazz: SWR400 and SWR Goliath 4x10 (slappy stuff)/Mark Bass Little Mark + MB 104HF(fingerstyle) Fender Precision: Ampeg SVT Classic +8x10 (sounds horrible with any other bass apart from a jazz with flats) Status Empathy or Modulus Quantum or Zon Legacy :SWR400 and SWR Goliath 4x10/Hughes & Kettner Bassbase 600 + EBS Neo212 (these amps do a great job of making graphite necked basses sound thicker and fuller) Jaydee Supernatural / Status Series 2000: Trace Elliot MkIV or V + 1048 cab (probably needs no explanation but...that eighties burp). Warwick Thumb or any kind or Warwick Bass really) : Warwick ProFet plus 2x12 or 4x10.

I hope it's a fun day out. Wish I was there.

You're describing what nearly 20 years of playing experience has led me to discover for myself. I'm also a great believe in matching basses to amps (and speakers) for this reason. Ultimately all three components (bass, amp and speakers) are part of the recipe and we choose flavours that compliment and enhance. You described the amps in your OP in exactly the terms I expected after playing through them which was affirming.

Yes, someone on here admitted to having one in their collection a few years back. They were basically black, Jaydee-made jazz basses, nothing special.

And we bumped it up just this week...

Not in a blog format, I'm sorry. But you can set up a thread along fairly similar lines. Oldman has done this.

I'm going to remind everyone on this thread about our policy to take action if the tone starts getting too personal or antagonistic. Feel free to disagree but please keep the exchanges civilised. Thanks in advance.