Kiwi

A good list! I'd add a drum sander and belt sander for dressing and sizing lumber before it's glued up. It's a significant expense but saves a whole load of ball ache if planing skills aren't up to snuff. Also an oscillating sander if you want to make smooth curves on body and neck templates, as well as prepping bodies and necks for finishing. Also radiussed sanding blocks for fingerboard and fret dressing and a sanding beam for evening narrow surfaces like the edge of fingerboards. Finally, a bench drill makes drilling control knob holes square to the face of a slab body a lot easier than a hand drill. But a hand drill is still hard to beat for putting in that channel from the pickups to the control cavity on rear routed instruments. A cheaper option might be to get friendly with a luthier and reach an arrangement where you can borrow their machinery for maybe a morning or two every weekend in exchange for free labour (especially hand sanding or rough shaping). There are also companies that will custom make necks complete with frets installed so that could save a load of ball ache, unless you happen to like the challenge of overcoming ballache that is...

I had a Trace V8, a Mesa 400+ and a Strategy 400 power amp (which I ran with a Trace MP11) as well as the Burmans. The V8 was swapped for the Hexavalve. Ped had a V4 combo.

I don't follow the logic.

At 34kg loved by chiropractors and at between 1400-1700 quid, hated by bank managers and spouses

Ironically, the gig I did with the Burman was for that Northholt/Ruislip London motown band we were both in! I had a Mesa 400+ too at one point and it remains my favourite valve amp of all time - they're built like tanks as well. It must have been pretty cold that night. The satisfaction from an ability to shift such huge volumes of air. It inspires a sense of power.

I don't gig with them but have a Trace Hexavalve and a couple of 130w Burman Pro4000HD heads. I did a gig once with one of the Burmans and I didn't need to put the car heater on during the drive home. That sucker was still glowing. Haven't gigged with the hexavalve yet but it's probably going to replace my Shuttles once I get the last piece of the signal chain in place.

Position is part of the recipe but not all of it, pickup design can play a big part as well. I went through a stage where I was A/B testing all sorts of basses from Alembic to Warwick with single pickups in the stingray position. Very few were convincing because they didn't have a parallel wired humbucker for those fat lows and coarse highs and the baxendall eq helps dial in the right amount of oomph when the bass is boosted. It all works together.

According to Rob G, it's a through neck Series 1. I have one identical but in FPPR.

I want one of these sooooo badly. They sound gorgeous and I'm a big Gunnarsson fan.

The alternative brand they run, Mensinger offers set and through neck. The Pike Monolith for example https://www.mensingerguitars.com/en/mensinger/basses/pike-monolith

Marusczyk do custom work for very reasonable outlay. Their frog model could probably be done in a single pickup configuration - even headless if you wanted. https://www.public-peace.de/maruszczyk-instruments/mi-bass/frog

Am waiting for a copy of a well known Yamaha 5 string bass to be delivered in the next week or so. Was about 300 quid. Also have purchased a Line 6 M5 pedal instead of an Eventide H9 and saved quite a bit of dosh. Wanting to splash out on another Joyo JF14 American Sound or a California Sound perhaps for less than twenty quid. I'll get a Morningstar MC6 at some point and then that'll be it for the forseeable unless I luck into enough dosh that I can splurge on a PRS. But my guitar playing sucks so much that I'm struggling to justify it beyond the Yammie MSG I already have (which is a fine guitar BTW). I have a few pedals to sell BTW but getting shot of them in China is a PITA due to the language barrier and that everything is so regulated in regards to signing up - almost like a bank account application even for minor things.

Aaron Armstrong could probably help with a replacement set of pickups not too far away from the Smith spec.

I read the title and hate you already. Just joking. Welcome. It's been near non stop monsooning where I am, complete with thunderstorms and the mosquitoes have been extremely aggressive. Normally we'd be hitting 38 degrees C by now and melting.

There is also the small matter of the pickup pole pieces and the sensing field - particularly for the bridge pickup.

Nice, am looking forward to finally playing through mine...one day.

Yeah I got my Pentabuzz back in 2005 from vmaxblues and it's been with me ever since. Sounds lush on stage, especially if you can turn the amps up enough to get a little feedback happening on the strings. Then it swells forever, like the middle of the Bering Strait in winter.

Have just taken possession of a jazz archtop made by a nameless manufacturer here in China and it sounds warmer and sweeter through my bass amp than through the 5E3 combos I normally use.

The EBS Session 60 combo I used to have was great - amazing low end for such a small size.

Alan Parson's Project live in Colombia, wardrobe clearly borrowed from an ageing, 1990's Italian beauty pageant host.

Dreams are free...lol