BigRedX

Some nice looking basses there. Can you give us some idea of the prices?

BTW I would have a word with whoever built your site as it doesn't appear to render properly in Safari, Opera or Firefox. In the latter it looks particularly bad.

I'd go for a [url="http://www.spider-engineering.co.uk/music/typeproducts2.asp?id=3680-4677"]Boschma 4U case[/url]

[quote name='AM1' post='463379' date='Apr 15 2009, 08:46 PM']Yeah - as the question goes, is the music scene at an all time low??

Online downloading just seems to have killed off bands making money and even touring bands are not exactly rolling in it.

Why are there no new decent bands appearing??

The music scene is SO commercialised now, it's depressing.

Any thoughts...am I alone in feeling like this?[/quote]

The music scene is probably better than it's ever been for diversity and the ability to find new and exciting bands. Whatever your taste in music no matter how mainstream or obscure there will be someone out there making wonderful music that is pretty much exactly what you want to hear. The only problem is finding it. That generally means actually doing some work and maybe listening to some crap along the way but if you make the effort the rewards are there for the listening.

There's always been lowest common denominator commercial music around and it's nearly always been brainless rubbish don't worry about that go and find something you think is exciting instead.

BTW what bands do you like?

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='463367' date='Apr 15 2009, 08:32 PM']did you check to see whether the bendwell idea was patented by Rob Green? He could potentially make a claim against you and/or Jon if it is.[/quote]

Doesn't look like it from the Status website. Normally it would say if a feature was patented. In fact it doesn't appear as though the term BendWell has been trademarked either (although KingBass™ has.)

TBH though, it's a fairly obvious solution to the problem of doing behind the nut string bends on a headless design.

No sleeve and shallow refer to two different things that are not mutually exclusive.

Shallow is an approximate description of the depth of the rack from front to back, whereas sleeve refers to extra padding around the top, bottom and sides of the rack.

Unless the equipment you are intending to rack is not overly robust then you probably don't need the extra expense of a sleeved or shock mounted rack case.

It might be useful if you posted back with a list of all the equipment you indent to fit in this rack case and I'll recommended you a couple of suitable models for you to look at.

[quote name='Zoe_BillySheehan' post='462908' date='Apr 15 2009, 12:31 PM']lol...

if someone can afford to spend that much, n just watch it sit gathering dust, then well done to them !

Z
x[/quote]

No one said anything about the instruments gathering dust. We play them - just not all that well.

The ultimate Ibanez bass to have would be the single-cut prototype made by Martin Petersen of Sei Bass a couple of years ago. There's a TB thread about it which I was going to link to but it's currently unavailable while TalkBass move to their new servers.

You seem to be asking two different things here which aren't necessarily related which is why you've probably had no replies.

Anyway here goes with an explanation...

Sleeved cases are basically a case within a case with 20-30mm of foam filling the gap. This gives some degree of shock absorbance and can be useful for less robust amps with valves in them. However the extra thickness of the case can make cooling an issue so if it is for a valve amp I would leave at least 1U free for ventilation and if possible 1U top and bottom to be safe. [url="http://www.spider-engineering.co.uk/music/typeproducts2.asp?id=3260-3379"]Here's a typical less expensive 3U sleeved rack[/url]. The sleeving will add about 1-2 to the overall size of the rack so this 3U sleeved rack will be almost as big as a 5U non-sleeved rack, which may be important if size is going to be an issue.

Shallow cases refer to the depth of the case from front to back. It should be measured from rack mounting to rack mounting, but some manufacturers measure the whole case minus the lids which normally gives an extra 20mm on the measurement. 'Shallow' is not a definitive measurement as it will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but for the purposes of musical equipment rack cases it's 300-400mm with standard being 400-500 (compared to server racks all musical equipment racks would be considered shallow!). When measuring up your gear to determine what depth you need don't forget to allow for the extra depth of connectors on the back of your amp, and check how much available extra depth is in the lids (some may be foam filled with n o available depth).

By proper racks I suppose you mean ones like in the link above. TBH unless you're spending a lot of money (more than in the example above) the only difference between on or these and a good ABS plastic case is the look. The less expensive will generally be 1/4 to 3/8 ply maybe with a thin metal outer skin. The metal ones in particular look rugged but a good ABS case is just as strong and will be lighter for the same size. Also if you are considering a sleeved case, ABS ones like the [url="http://www.spider-engineering.co.uk/music/typeproducts.asp?groupID=2621"]Gator shockmount cases[/url] are far superior in terms of airflow cooling than the traditional plywood and metal sleeved case.

Hope that has cleared up your questions.

Now that is nice.

But I can't in any way justify spending £5k on an instrument that hadn't been made especially for me and to my spec.

If it wasn't so battered (or white) I might have been interested. I like the way there are no clear photos of the front of the headstock and the 'art' and reflected flash on the photos of the back disguise what the state of the breaks and repairs really are.

I'm a very average bass player. However having some decent gear allows me to be that little bit less average.

Mark, thanks for taking the time to reply. Two things about your Moon basses that no-one seems to be interested in.

1. They don't show up on the GAK web site unless you specifically type "Moon" into the search box or do a view all in the second hand section they're not in the bass guitar section under second hand, so unless you know to look for them on-line you wouldn't find them just by browsing.

2. I'm sure that they're are really nice instruments, but essentially it's a Jazz bass in a posh frock, and not a particularly well known one at that. Looking for a Japanese-made super jazz? You're more likely to think of Bacchus or Sadowsky Metro before Moon.

What it boils down to is that the non-conservative bassist (like myself) is unlikely to come into GAK these days. We're simply not your customers unless it's for a last-minute set of strings or similar. That's not a criticism just a observation of the way things are now.

[quote name='ARGH' post='461052' date='Apr 13 2009, 10:18 AM']Bottom line,if you are happy

WELL DONE

If not......

THERES A WORLD OF STUFF TO TRY![/quote]

+1

As I said earlier GAK don't see the whole market for either guitarists or bassists. On the whole they only stock what they know will sell. Those looking for something different soon learn that they will need to look elsewhere, and because looking elsewhere is easier than ever they rarely come back.

There's plenty of weird and innovative guitar designs out there, you just have to know where to look.

Here's a few of my favourites:

[url="http://www.auerswald-instruments.com/"]Auerswald[/url]
[url="http://bergeronguitars.com/index.htm"]Bergeron[/url]
[url="http://borntorock.com/f4c.html"]Born To Rock[/url]
[url="http://www.burnsguitars.com/jetsonicburnsguitars.php"]Burns Jet-Sonic[/url] (designed by Pagelli)
[url="http://www.tdlguitars.com/"]De Lacugo[/url]
[url="http://www.electric-babes.net/"]Electric Babes[/url]
[url="http://www.ganderguitars.com/"]Gander[/url]
[url="http://www.gusguitars.com/"]Gus[/url]
[url="http://www.geocities.jp/jerseygirlhg/home.htm"]Jersey Girl[/url]
[url="http://www.garykramerguitar.com/R36Turbulence.html"]Gary Kramer Turbulence[/url]
[url="http://www.longfellowguitars.com/"]Longfellow[/url]
[url="http://www.nortonguitars.com/"]Norton[/url]
[url="http://rksguitars.com/main.php"]RKS[/url]
[url="http://www.spaltinstruments.com/apex1.html"]Spalt Apex[/url]
[url="http://www.teuffel.com/"]Teuffel[/url]
[url="http://www.tokaijapan.com/talbo.htmlTokai%20Talbo%5b/url%5d%5burl="http://www.internalcombustionguitar.com/"]Woody B[/url]
[url="http://www.xoxaudiotools.com/"]XOX[/url]

Some of these will be familiar to those who followed the Weird & Wonderful Basses thread and then went exploring further on the sites I linked to. However there's also a good number of instruments here that exist only in guitar format... I would love to see bass instruments from Bergeron, Teuffel or XOX.

[quote name='Bassassin' post='460693' date='Apr 12 2009, 06:41 PM']Probably a 2615B Artist:

[url="http://www.ibanez.co.jp/anniversary/313/4.jpg"]http://www.ibanez.co.jp/anniversary/313/4.jpg[/url]

Jon.[/quote]

That is just awesome. A totally original design made out of bits of copy basses. Have you ever seen one for real?

If it had to be a 4 string then there's only [url="http://www.ibanez.co.jp/world/news/show/namm2009/L/016.jpg"]one choice[/url]

Mmmm really like that Pentabuzz shockwave. 5-string with soapbars in red - for me the ultimate combination!

I know it's a bit uncool since you've just got it, but considering your recent turn over of gear, let me know if you ever decide to move it on. ;-)

Places like GAK simply don't see that side of the bass buying market. If you are interested in instruments that aren't simply Fenders or their clones then I learned a long, long time ago that shops like GAK simply didn't stock the things I wanted to try. It used to be worth popping in every month or so to see if they had picked up anything unusual in p/x but now eBay has killed that off.

Really don't like basses with angled pickups. To my ears you always end up with the D and G strings not sounding fat enough... Plus they're uncomfortable to rest your thumb on.

In your situation if the Ibanez Gary Willis doesn't float your boat and you don't want to splash out on a Pedulla Pentabuzz (although a second hand one might be cheaper than you think) I'd be asking Alan at ACG for a quote on a custom build.

Nice looking bass. What's the model number, and when and where did you buy it?

Also were you looking at the correct Tune website?

[url="http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~tune/index.html"]Tune Japan[/url]

[url="http://www.tuneguitars.com/main.php"]Tune Korea[/url]

In fact at the time the J-pup mods were done they may well have increased the re-sale value of the bass.

[quote name='Balcro' post='457271' date='Apr 8 2009, 12:27 PM']PS Dave Greenslade was the organist and I think on one occassion a Tony Kay played bass. Good times.

Balcro.[/quote]

Actually it was Tony Reeves who also went on to play bass in Greenslade. As well as being the bassist in the latest version of Greenslade he's managing director of MTR professional audio and IIRC was involved with one of the British amp companies in the 70s who's name current escapes me.

At the moment I wouldn't even think twice about going.

Depends entirely on the bass.

I think I have pretty much every common colour from natural through to multi-coloured solids (but no Fender-style sunbursts) in my bass collection. However I tend to favour solid metallic/sparkle finishes or transparent over figured wood to bring out the grain.