BigRedX

Remember that "equal" tension and "balanced" tension are not by any means the same thing. Equal tension sets should be exactly what they say. When the strings are tuned to the required notes the tensions in all the strings are the same. However this is not always what you want as it does not take into account compliance (which is a factor in how stiff a string feels) and is dependant on (amongst other things) how the string is fitted to the bass and what happens to the string in the non-speaking lengths - between the nut and machine heads and between the bridge saddles and the ball end string anchor. This where "balanced" tension come into play. The string tensions rather than being equal take into account the compliance of each string to produce a set where the stiffness of each string feels the same even though the individual tensions may be different. Unfortunately since compliance is very much dependent upon things like the break angle over the nut and bridge as well as the length of non-speaking string, a set that feels balanced on one design of bass may feel completely wrong on another. And BTW I'm another happy Newtone customer, although IME they can sometimes take a day or so to reply to emails depending on how busy they are.

To the OP, you have got it mostly right, but there are a couple of variables you need to consider, plus you have under-estimated costs in one place and missed one potentially very important item. Variables: 1. Import duty and VAT are calculated on the DECLARED value of the item plus shipping and insurance. If the neck was reduced in price in a sale or otherwise discounted, the declared value may well be the original higher price. Some sellers will also inflate the price just in case they need to make an insurance claim. Insurance is usually worked out in value bands so it often possible to declare a higher value and still pay the same insurance. If you can prove that what you actually paid is less than the value declared on the customs form it is possible to claim back the excess duty and VAT from Customs, but it is a long and complicated process. 2. Import duty. Sometimes Customs simply get it wrong and put your item in the wrong duty category and consequently charge you too much (or too little). Again it is possible to claim any excess back if you can be bothered to go through the process. Under Estimated Costs: 1. USPS release charge. It might cost the equivalent of £10 for this in the US, but here in the UK as others have said the handling charge for doing the customs paperwork and paying your VAT and duty in advance is going to be somewhere between £15 and £25 depending on which company does the UK part of the delivery. My general rule of thumb is to add together the cost of the item, shipping and insurance and then add 25% and on top of that another £25. Unless the value of the item has wildly over-declared (as has happened to me once) you won't have any nasty surprises. My other general rule rule of thumb is that I must be saving at least 25% after all shipping, insurance, duty, VAT and handling charges have been added on what the item would cost me to buy in the UK to make it worthwhile. Finally the potentially important thing you have missed: CITES. If the neck has any CITES restricted materials in it, such as rosewood (fingerboard) or abalone (inlays) you will need licences for both export (arranged by the seller who will no doubt pass the cost on to you) and import (to be arranged by yourself) before the item can be sent. Without these licences the neck will be sized by customs and probably destroyed. IIRC the import licence for the UK is approximately £75 and although I can't find any prices for a US export licence, but I imagine it will be about the same. If you need CITES licences it will add another 50% to the cost of the neck. For this reason alone I would be extremely reluctant to buy any wooden item form the US right now.

If you haven't got the space to do some simple cutting of plastic with a Dremel then you certainly haven't got the space to be doing any spray painting. Also IME even if you clear coat over the top, the new paint wears off pretty quickly in any areas where your fingers and pick come in contact.

But most of the time they are only superficially like the instruments they are supposed to be copying. The Japanese in the 70s were more accurate. This is the problem I have with Eastwood. If you want a decently made modern instrument that looks vaguely like something out of the ordinary from the 60s and 70s they do a pretty good job. However since they are mostly made with standard Gibson and Fender style parts you end up with an instrument that is essentially a standard Gibson or Fender with a different body shape, and none of the features that gave the original instrument Eastwood are trying to copy its real character.

If you don't have the skills to make one up yourself, OBBM of this forum will make one for you at a very reasonable cost.

On the whole Eastwood are pretty poor with supplying information. Even on their web chat, when I was looking at their various Bass VIs much of what I was told contradicted what was on the site.

Is that a Trussart? I think the shiny ones look much nicer:

To me modelling is a bit of a red herring. I don't care how accurate a particular amp/cab/fx sim is. All I care about is can I get a sound I like out of it. So the user interface and the connectivity is far more important than the realism of the sims.

For me the lack of foot switches is a major minus. Before I had my Helix I was a BassPod user. Initially I tried to get away with the cheaper 4 switch pedal, but it was simply too limiting, so I had admit I'd wasted my money and get the much bigger Shortboard.

That's the direct price from Fractal Audio. The list price (what you will pay from a shop) is $1400 So unless there is a way of buying direct in the UK without incurring extra import duty, we'll probably be paying the list price which works out at £1160 at today's exchange rate.

I outlined what I consider is wrong with assumptions about "tone woods" for solid instruments in this post.

The material(s) a solid stringed instrument is made out of will have some effect on the vibration characteristics of the string, but in the overall scheme of things this is fairly trivial compared with the other factors that have a more significant effect on tone.

I have to admit I quite like the Antigua finish. The only problem I have with it, is the inconsistency of the colours and size of the "blend" as shown all too well in the photo above.

I have one, unfortunately it had been extensively modified by a previous owner. However it looked as though the basic pickup circuit was relatively original. Because the body is so thin, it wasn't possible to use a guitar-style 3-way pickup selector switch so a standard DPDT switch with centre Off was used instead. This means that some lateral thinking was required to get the bridge/both/neck combinations required. The result is that the "both" combination wires the pickups in series rather than the more conventional parallel configuration. I'll be taking mine apart some time in the next couple of weeks, so if you don't get a diagram elsewhere, or are able to work it out from the description above, I'll draw one up for you then.

Just shabby. Not chic.

That’s because my iPad won’t let me say re-sprayed without putting in the hyphen

He should get that re-sprayed. He can afford it.

The second photo of the bass in use shows a big hole where the mud bucker used to be. BTW The Tea Set were an awesome band:

I'd have to have a grip of steel in order for the strings to touch the fingerboard when I fret them.

The last few Terrortones sets were 10-12 songs and last somewhere between 30 and 35 minutes, depending on which songs we'd picked and how much faster we played them compared to the recorded versions. Exactly this. I would always want to have the audience wanting more instead of thinking we had outstayed our welcome.

Unless you are playing popular covers, or as an originals band have at least an album's worth of well known material, or have a wildly entertain stage show, 45 minutes is too long.

Notably Off-Topic and eBay IIRC. From what you say most of your posts have been in Off-Topic threads so that's why you have no increase in your post count.

Unfortunately the methodology of the test is very poor. For a start the sample size is one of each body, so the bodies could have been hand picked to give the result Warmoth wanted. If they had tested at least 50 of each body type and got consistent similarities between bodies made of the same wood and constant differences between bodies made of different woods with no overlap in tone between any of the bodies of different woods then I might start taking this tone wood for solid electric instruments seriously. And while only changing the body each time is a step in the right direction, they really needed to rule out the possibility that simply disassembling and reassembling the guitar was not cause of the tonal changes. I would suggest doing this with each body 50 or more times and being able to get near identical tone from the instrument after each reassembly would be a start. And while it is all very well making sure that each body weighed the same, in order to do this either they had to hand pick examples of each wood with the same density or the the volume/shape of each body would have to be different. All they are doing there is swapping one variable for another. Ultimately while there were subtle difference in tone for each body wood type none of them were so significant that they would be noticeable when the guitar heard within a band mix.

According to Newtone you only need to do this with round core strings. Hex-core strings can be cut without needing to bend them first.

Exactly. Without knowing the other variables it is impossible to say what contribution the fingerboard wood is making. Also your sample size is still far too small. Also did Lozz196 know what fingerboard wood was on each bass he way playing? There may have been unconscious bias there to get the expected/desired result. Does any bass manufacturer make basses with maple necks and maple fingerboards where the fingerboard is a separate piece of wood to the neck? If so are there any comparisons of this to otherwise as close as possible identical basses with a maple neck and rosewood fingerboard, and with a neck and fingerboard made from a single piece of maple?