BigRedX

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.

Don't really get on with either P or J type basses...

You've also got to remember that back in the 70s there simply wasn't easy access to the kinds of power tools that we take for granted now. Doing that kind of job yourself meant using hand tools and that also meant the skill and know-how to use them properly. Unless you were a professional woodworker you simply wouldn't have that.

If you want someone to built you a bass from your ideas there are two ways to go.

You could find a luthier who says they'll build you exactly what you want what ever that may be. Great! but they may not have done all the things you want it that particular combination before and the the end result might not live up to your expectations.

A far better idea would be to find someone who's already building basses close to what you want, and have them make the modifications to that basic design that you require. There are so many custom bass makers out there and all accessible on the internet that someone somewhere will already be doing something close to your ideal. It's just a question of finding them.

Before you even start thinking about how to record the extra parts just consider is it really worth the hassle - especially for just one song?

There are two inter-related issues here; how to record the backing and then how to play it back. You're asking about the recording when in fact the back back element is probably more critical and will probably dictate how you produce the backing track.

So the first thing to consider is how you are going to play along in sync with your backing.

Is there a strong rhythmic element all the way through? If so you might simply get away with having the backing in your monitors and playing along to it. However unless the rhythm is particularly strong and has a tonality that is distinct from the live instruments it will tend to get lost in the monitor mix especially so when you're actually in time with it.

The more conventional way is to have a separate click track that only the drummer can hear and for the rest of the band to play to the live drums. So has your drummer ever played to a click track before? If not now is the time to find out. Also what sort of click does the drummer play best with? A simple one click per beat with an accent on the 1st beat of the bar or something with a bit more of a groove? Also unless your drummer currently uses in-ear monitoring then getting the click to them will introduce all sorts of extra equipment. I've done this a lot in the bands that I've been in and every drummer is different. Some want to use a rhythmic pattern in the drum monitors, others want anything from just the click in the headphones to a full individually controllable band mix!

Remember the aim here is to keep your drummer happy. If they aren't comfortable playing to the backing, the song is never going to feel right. Also if only the drummer can hear the guide rhythm you'll probably have to remind them to click the rest of the band through any rhythm free segments of the song otherwise no matter how good your time keeping is you'll get out of sync with the backing.

Having sorted out how your going to play along with the backing, you can now think about how you're going to play the backing. Personally I would not recommend using a computer when it's only for one song. It's fine if you use it for a good proportion of the set and you have a band member who knows what they are doing and how to cope with any potential problems. From the wording of your original post that does not seem to be the case. Also I couldn't recommend a Windows PC unless [b]YOU DON'T USE IT FOR ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL EVER[/b]. The last thing you want is for the backing to be unreliable because you've picked up some nasty from other activities on the computer.

I'd go for something pre-recorded on and played back either from CD on an MP3 player of some description. Because you'll probably need one channel for the drummer's guide that means you'll only have one channel for a mixed version of the backing the audience will hear. In any case unless you have your own FoH sound engineer being able to change the mix of the backing track isn't a priority. You need to keep it as simple as possible.

What you need to weigh up is how much better your set is going to be with this song included in all it's backing glory against all the extra equipment and sorting out it is going to take to achieve that. A simple mono mix for FoH with a guide track for the drummer played back from some reliable source (and have a back up source too) is the best. Least amount to go wrong and if for some reason you can't do the song you have brought and set up loads of gear with no end result. I've been in bands that have used real-time controllable/changeable backing and the end result was fantastic. But we needed our own FoH engineer, we took an extra two band member's worth of equipment on stage (without the extra 2 member to set it up). It took much longer to set up than a standard band, added about £7000 to the equipment budget, and while we never had any live equipment failures there were a couple of dodgy moments! Think carefully before embarking on that route.

As for recording, unless you already have the equipment, get someone else to do it for you. MIDI isn't an issue unless your going to use it for play back and hopefully you'll have seen from the last paragraph why that's probably not a good idea for you. Unless you think you may end up doing more songs like this, IMO for one song I don't think the investment in equipment and the time you'll need to learn it is worth the effort.

The glib answer would be "because they could".

The seller doesn't say when the extra pickup was added, but what you have to remember is that back in the 70s this was not a particularly special bass. The desirable Fenders were all pre-CBS so this was just another instrument with the same perceived value that mid-range modern Ibanez or Yamaha has now. There wasn't the same massive range of basses in every conceivable configuration that are available nowadays, so if you wanted something even slightly different from the norm you had to do it yourself. Also decent power tools were strictly for professionals only so I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a fairly crude hole for the pickup made with a hammer and chisel.

It's a product of it's age. Get over it.

Anything that sounds right.

I could probably make an argument for absolutely any note given the appropriate musical context.

[quote name='yorick' post='455386' date='Apr 6 2009, 01:18 PM']Have a look at www.nicksmithworld.com. I've seen some of his work, and it's phenomenal.[/quote]

Interesting site although the tiny, poor quality pictures don't do him any favours to people like me who aren't already familiar with his work. Has he done any guitars (if so links to examples please) and how much does he charge?

Cost will very much depend on who's building it and what options you want. However £1500 should get you something nice from one of the BassChat trio of favourites ACG, RIM & Shuker provided you don't go mad with the figured woods, custom finishes or toys (extra strings, LEDs, MIDI etc.)