BigRedX

Of my main basses, 6 were made in the UK (Gus, Overwater and Sei) and the other three were made in the US (Born To Rock, Lightwave and Pedulla).

The Wal site is just a holding page at the moment, but once production is up and running again it will be [url="http://www.walbass.co.uk/"]here[/url].

You're also missing the following luthiers/manufacturers (all from my bass collection)
[url="http://borntorock.com/index.html"]Born To Rock[/url]
[url="http://www.gusguitars.com/"]Gus[/url]
[url="http://www.lacemusic.com/index.php"]Lace[/url]
[url="http://www.lightwave-systems.com/"]Lightwave[/url]
[url="http://www.seibass.com/"]Sei[/url]
[url="http://www.tokaijapan.com/"]Tokai[/url]

Also it would be nice to see [url="http://www.mickkarn.net/"]Mick Karn[/url] on the players page.

I've tried both and bought the Squier VMJ. I preferred the feel of the ebanol fingerboard and the look of the glossy finish. To me even leaving the relic'ing aside the finish on the Vintage looked nasty much too matt and the colours looked like a faded photocopy. Also the neck didn't feel quite as good to me. (I also tried the Fender Jaco sig which was a nice bass but nowhere near £1k nicer than either the Squire or the Vintage.)

Of course that's just my opinion and what suits me for feel and looks might not be right for someone else. However neither were bad.

In the end though I sold the Squier on as I really don't find Fender-style basses comfortable to play - the basses I ended up replacing it with each cost over 10 times what the Squier did though - so not too bad for a starter fretless.

You'll be after a [url="http://www.knuckleguitarworks.com/what/quake.html"]Knuckle Quake[/url] then?

Personally I think that a lot of the time people over-spec custom basses and this can lead to disappointment.

I don't care what wood is used provided that it looks the way I want it to look and it results in a bass that feels and sounds how I want it to. Matching these too things up isn't my job, it's the task of the luthier building the bass.

As a player pick the things that are important to you: Sound, feel, shape and finish and then let the luthier get on with what they do best.

Less horrible than the "German One" though.

Thanks for that pic.

Might have to give this a go some time with a suitable instrument.

According to their website there's a second hand 5-string Fly at the Bass Gallery. Maybe a trip to London is in order?

Bear in mind that there's two different version of the bass with the 'Fly' shape, but only the Fly basses have the wood/carbon fibre laminate neck construction, the P series basses have a wood-only construction. For me the feel of the laminate neck was the major attraction (it was at the time the best bass neck I'd played - back in 2003) and I couldn't say if the all-wood neck would be as good.

The body shape however simply doesn't work as a bass. Which is strange considering that the first Parker instruments were basses made for Steve Swallow, and that the production guitars came later. However looking at the photos of the Swallow prototypes and the production bass it doesn't seem quite so elegant - maybe the prototypes had features that made making them in quantities of more than one-offs too complicated. Whatever the reason the body on the Fly bass is really uncomfortable. No matter how you sit or arrange it on the strap some part digs into you.

As for the sound, I couldn't comment. I tried mine at a trade show where I was doing battle for sound space with 100s of shredding guitarists and anyway I spent most of the time trying trying to get the body in a comfortable position so I could really appreciate the wonderful neck.

Is it everything that you want in a bass except for the damaged finish? If so get a pro refin done. Someone like [url="http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/finish.html"]Steve Robinson[/url] or [url="http://www.simscustom.com/html/sprayshop.htm"]Sims Custom[/url].

If not sell it to someone who's after an all original Fender and buy something that is exactly what you want.

I wanted the ramp on my Sei to give me a uniform playing surface all the way from the neck to the bridge pickup.

I like the look of that too.

The Mudbucker looks excellent on that - remember it's just a casing you could have pretty much any pickup you wanted underneath that!

Unfortunately despite being pretty crap as a bridge there's something right about the looks of the Gibson 3-point that the alternatives don't seem to have, and for all it's excellence as a piece of engineering IMO the Hipshot replacement is downright ugly. The only possible alternative would be the bass version of the Tunematic that some Thunderbirds have (and that Mike Lull is using on his new Thunderbird-inspired bass).

Korean maker Dillion used to produce a bass with a similar shape body and three Tri-Sonic pickups. There's someone on TB with one, and there was another for sale on eBay a couple of weeks back that went for just a little bit more than I was prepared to pay...

Sorry, but that's completely wrong. The only difference between shimming at one end of the neck pocket and shimming the whole neck pocket is the thickness of material needed to get the same change in action and the position of the headstock in relation to the body. It's all simple geometry - look at the diagrams I posted.

Last time this question came up I did a couple of diagrams showing how various neck adjustments affected the action:





IMO this topic should really be added to the Wiki rather than stickying it.

+1 For Peterson tuners.

[url="http://www.lado-guitars.com/"]Lado Guitars[/url]

Made in Canada, Excellent reputation, although I've never tried one myself. The web site's pretty crap, but have a look around and you'll see some nice instruments.

In that case you should have a good look at the Tune 8-stings.

A new [url="http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~tune/tune/twx-custom/twx-custom,series.htm"]TWX-8C PD[/url] will set you back about £1500 plus shipping and import taxes, but if you can wait for one to turn up second hand on the [url="http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/u_box/ubox.cgi?T=gazo&word=2&or8=32&key=&equal1=&value5=&select5=down&print=40"]Ishibashi U-Box[/url] you should be able to get it for about half that. Ishibashi are great to deal with but you need to act fast if you see one you like because these tend to go pretty quickly.

[quote name='OutToPlayJazz' post='494050' date='May 21 2009, 11:11 AM']Electro Music in Doncaster recently had a lovely custom made Warwick Corvette/Streamer (don't recall which!) 8-string recently. They may still have it. 01302 369999[/quote]

Is it [url="http://www.warwickbass.com/modules/custom_shop/NewsCustomShop.php?newsID=1869&modell=Streamer&page=3&cl=EN"]this one[/url]? If so it's been around all the trade shows for the last year or so. I've played it and it's OK, but the asking price (at the show) was around the £3k mark and you have to be a Warwick fan (I'm not) in order to love this bass...

Except it appears to have been created completely in Flash so you can't link directly to any of the instruments as I discovered the other day when I wanted to point someone in the direction of the 8-string bass.

Actually Stig Pedersen is the Bassist with D.A.D.

Some more of his basses [url="http://www.leftybass.com/spbasses.htm"]here[/url] and [url="http://www.dad.dk/photos/20090502/1/"]here[/url].

All his basses are two string left-handed. My favourite is the rocket bass!

[quote name='nick' post='494478' date='May 21 2009, 05:07 PM']Quite a few years ago, I used to borrow a friend's Washburn B20-8. Lovely bass, but did like to neck-dive. Great tone.
They're pretty rare, found a photo here [url="http://www.davedemarco.com/8string.html"]Washburn B20-8[/url][/quote]

I have a very battered one of those (natural finish rather than sunburst) that is an on-going restoration project...


[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='494485' date='May 21 2009, 05:19 PM']JoeGarcia has one of these, its 32" scale, still takes detuning to A with standard strings apparently (too slack for my liking still)[/quote]

I think you'll find it's 30" scale. Kramer only did one aluminium neck length and then put in either 20 frets for 34" scale or 24 frets for 30" scale.

Looking good!

And that's an excellent solution for making sure there's a good bridge earth contact.

Blimey they're not cheap are they? Plus neither the Shine or the Kramer have individual saddles for each string in the pair which is bound to lead to intonation problems. The Ibanez looks the most promising out of that lot and would probably be a sensible price, if it wasn't for who owned it previously.

The more I see stuff like that the more attractive a used Tune from Ishibashi looks. (Or alternatively a custom from one of our wonderful UK luthiers.)

[quote name='Sean.Robinson' post='493869' date='May 21 2009, 12:37 AM']Hi, i had a similar problem earlier on in the year. I tried the dean but thought it was pathetic and wasnt too impressed with many of the other 8 string offerings for around the 300 mark. In the end i ended up buying a cheap japanese fender precision from ebay and having jon shuker mod it to an 8 string. Its something i would really recomend, you get a bass for the same price as the deans and schecters that is far superior in tone and playability, plus theres something quite nice about having an 8 string fender [/quote]

Is that a brand new neck? I've just looked at my Carlo Robelli and the width is closer to a 5-string than a Precision 4-string or do you like really tight string spacing?

Which shop?

I fancy getting the 5-string to use in my Rock Covers band, although it'll need a refin straight away to get rid of that horrible stripy neck and pale body wood.