BigRedX

Peter Hook and Mick Karn. At the time both combined originality with their approach to the bass while still remaining sympathetic to the song as a complete piece.

Not sure about the advice re fitting a Sadowsky pre. Having tried a nice selection of the NYC basses on my recent visit to the Sadowsky workshop my favourite tone was in passive mode with the tone control backed off a touch. Maybe for a lesser bass it could help, but my experience has not left me with any Sadowsky pre GAS...

Glad you like it.

Good luck with finding a second hand one, this is the only bass I've seen come up, and I only got it for a decent price because of the rather sorry state it was in. The guitars come up slightly more often (I've seen 2 or 3), usually with a starting price of at least £2000 and consequently go unsold. Like most esoteric high end instruments the second hand one's tend to priced too highly in comparison to what a new one would cost. A fair second price for a standard bass in good condition - solid colour, single coil pickups, passive controls, no extras would be around £1600-1700. Bear in mind also that most owners have ordered highly customised instruments, just have a look at the [url="http://www.gusguitars.com/gallery.php"]Gus Gallery[/url] and therefore are unlikely to be selling and if they did would be looking for a price in proportion to what the instrument originally cost.

When Simon used to have a stand at the UK trade shows he had a number of 'demonstrator' models which would be available at a reduced price (this bass and my fretless were both originally demonstrator models). However these days AFAIK if he goes to any shows any more it's just Frankfurt, so I don't know what the situation is with these.

My advice would be to start saving and order one customised to your specification. Pricey but well worth it.

That's very nice.If you're able a couple more photos wouldn't be amiss. Hope you manage to get it sorted.

None So Blind and a whole heap of other local bands at the Maze on Monday, and then Fleet Foxes at Trent Uni next Sunday

I had a parcel from the US who's tracking was set in motion on 24th September deliver today...

The longest time between trackings is normally from when it leaves the US to when it enters the UK this can be up to 10 days. I've also had one parcel that failed to leave the US - it got returned to the sender before even leaving the US. Do you know which USPS parcel service the sender used?

If they've done the rechargable battery right and the wireless isn't too much of a drain then this shouldn't be a problem. The LightWave basses use rechargables and I get easily 12 hours out of a single charge (less than 2 hours), plus it holds the charge really well when not in use - well over a month and still enough to get me through a rehearsal.

That's a really good price at the moment...

No car, a nice range of basses instead.

I could do with a car maybe 1 or 2 times a month maximum (although I've managed to do without for the last 31 years). I play my basses every day.

Have you not read his sig? ;-)

Thanks for the comments guys!

I'm dead pleased with how it came out. The red looks stunning and was definitely better result than having it refinish in the original colour.
In the end the cost of the bass and the refinish worked out at slightly more than half the price of having a new one built to that spec.

Here's two more photos - taken by Simon with a decent camera and a light tent...





and finally a group shot of my three Gus Basses

Scale length doesn't affect the number of frets. They'd just be a long way apart - unless yo were into mirco-micro-tonal music?

Lets face it, it's not a Shergold so unfortunately it doesn't really have the Mike Rutherford vibe.

On Thursday I received the refinished bass:







The colour is Simon's version of the Fender Candy Apple Red (Gold base coats and then a mix of 50% Candy Apple and 50% Tangerine Candy - both House of Kolor tints). The gold gives a very fine metallic sparkle to the colour (which of course doesn't really show on the photos) and the mixing in of the Tangerine Candy makes the red a bit more vibrant than the standard Fender colour which can look a little dark sometimes.







As you can see the result is stunning!

The Candy Apple Red and the bright chrome go so well together and it looks like a brand new bass. The fret levelling has made an improvement to the playability, and now I've got proper straplocks back on there I don't have to worry about the bass falling off the strap mid-song anymore.

[b]7string[/b] Because of the construction of the Gus basses the differences in tone are mainly down to the pickup and electronics configurations. Construction-wise the basses are identical except my original black Gus has an unmarked ebony board and Hipshot Ultralight tuners, and this bass has a cocobolo board with resin inlays and rather massive Gotoh tuners. The black Gus with it's humbuckers and passive controls feels more 'organic' and definitely does the dark and deep sounds better, but occasionally struggles if I need a really bright sound without help from the amp. The single coils and active electronics of the red Gus give it a much more 'present' sound plenty of top when I need it, but never quite as fat, even when both pickups are on together in humbucking mode. For me this is an ideal situation as each has an individual sound but, with a bit of tweaking they can cover for each other which is exactly what you want with a main a backup bass. As to which is which that would depend on the kind of music I'm playing. In my previous band the black Gus would be the one (that's what it was built for), but in my current one, the presence of the red Gus is a bit more suitable.

After the clear-coat applications it's polishing time:



Simon realised that the two tube horns needed re-profiling after stripping off the old flaking chrome so that was done before they went off to be re-chromed. At the same time we decided to replace the original satin finish control knobs with bright chrome ones.



Time also for a fret-dress and polish:





Almost finished...

I was hoping someone would guess when I said they were the first colour coats.

Here's what it looked liked after spraying the second colour:









More to come...

To be honest I wasn't that big a fan of the original finish. The purple was OK, but to my eyes most of the time it looked green which I was less fond of. In the end I decided that since this could well become my main fretted bass, I'd prefer it in a colour I liked.

So, on goes the first colour coats:









Can you tell what it is yet?

Patience...

Once Simon got the bass back it was obvious that the original finish couldn't be saved. So the first thing was to strip the bass back to the primer coat.







Now was the time to decide whether to refinish in the original green/purple flip paint or go for a brand new look...

It turned out that not only was this bass the second Gus 5-string made, but it is the one featured on the [url="http://www.gusguitars.com/product.php?model_id=9"]G3 Five Active page on the Gus web site[/url] where you can see what it looked like when it was new.









Also until the previous owner bought it, the bass was one of the demonstration models, so it would have been the one I used to base the specification of my black G3 on.

Simon already knew about the current condition of the bass, as the original owner had been in touch regarding having the chipped paint areas retouched. However he thought that the damage to the finish may be too extensive for this to be feasible and that most likely a complete refinish would be required. With this in mind there was the possibility of having it refinished in a different colour. If that was the case I decided that although it would be nice to keep the bass in it's original colour, if it proved unfeasible to retouch, then I could go for a brand new colour finish.

Mid July I packed up the bass and sent it back to Gus Guitars...

Earlier this year I bought a Gus G3 5-string on eBay for a very good price. The seller mentioned that the finish was suffering and provided plenty of photographic evidence which is probably why it only attracted 2 bids. However I still wasn't quite prepared for the state it was in when it arrived...











The finish had chipped off down to the primer all over the bass, and even the chrome was flaking off the tubes and other parts. The straplock buttons that would have been originally fitted had been replaced by normal strap buttons, the one on the horn being too small to securely hold a typical strap in place and the cover for the back of the bridge was missing. The action was terrifyingly high and the strings deader than dead.

Once I'd got over my initial shock, it turned out that the damage although horrifying looking was cosmetic only (except where the missing finish on the back of the neck presented sharp edges to my fretting hand) and with a new set of strings and a quick set-up to lower the action and tweak the truss rod the bass turned out to be a really good player, and also quite a different sound to my other fretted Gus and in many ways more suitable in sound for my current band.

After a couple of rehearsals I decided that this bass deserved being restored to it's former glory, and therefore got in touch with Simon Farmer at Gus to see what could be done...

[quote name='Toasted' post='307937' date='Oct 16 2008, 03:22 PM']Lefties are custom order only [/quote]

As are fretless, otherwise I might well have come back from NYC with a new bass...

$425 was for the very last one. The list price on the [url="http://thesquarewaveparade.com/"]Squarewave Parade site[/url] was $149 which was the starting price for the eBay one. I'd happily pay that for one.

I prefer the hard-wired plug because it's more reliable than an adaptor it's one less connection to worry about, plus because your 4-way has UK sockets on it no-one else at the gig is likely to want to use it and disturb your gear set up.

Might be better to buy a UK 4-way socket strip and put a Euro plug on the lead.

Great!

More details [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=29648"]here[/url]

Sadowsky, if you can find them, are well worth the visit. Really nice people and relaxed. Let me play for ages with no pressure and ready to help. Also by far the best 'traditional' looking basses I've played although my tonal preference on these was for passive mode.