BigRedX

As nice as that idea might sound, it doesn't have much basis in fact. The original Fender headstock on the Telecaster and first version of the Precision bass didn't feature the "scroll" design at all, and it appears to be fairly well documented that Leo Fender got the idea for the Stratocaster headstock (which was the first Fender instrument with that design) from Paul Bigsby, who had "borrowed it from Martin Guitars, who in turn got it from any number of 19th century German luthiers.

YouTube's compression algorithms will have removed most of the low frequencies anyway.

Bass into any device capable of emulating the Ampeg pre-amp, then straight into the PA.

Unfortunately already sold in my last big clear out when I got rid of everything I wasn't playing often enough to justify still owning it (which also included most of my guitars and synthesisers).

I don't think any band I've been in has got a gig on the strength of its website (or any on-line presence THB). IME websites for bands of any stature are primarily for their fans. Most the "business" is done the old fashioned way with phone calls and occasionally on-line messaging.

@lidl e Sorry I missed this back when you asked. Pics are requested: The Gus basses -the fretless 4-string has been sold to another Basschat member since this group shot was taken. Squier Bass VI which will almost definitely be up for sale soon: Burn Barracuda, which will probably slap be up for sale shortly: I don't have any photos of the Eastwood Hooky except for some of me playing it at gigs. This one is from Hurtsfall's recent Carpe Noctum gig in Leeds supporting Skeletal Family:

Definitely DHL doing the delivery? Last time bought anything large from BD they were still using APC, whose Nottingham Depot appears to staffed by useless layabouts. They wouldn't even answer the phone when their head office tried calling for me them to find out where my missing delivery was. As Mark was happy with the service he getting at his end, he showed little inclination to want to change at the time. Consequently I've not bought anything big from them since.

I've said similar on the SOS forum about limited edition and pre-release announcements of synthesisers (Behringer I'm looking at you). IMO if I can't go into a shop a buy the instrument there and then and take it home with me, or order it on line for next day delivery (or the soonest they can get it to the UK for something from abroad) then I'm really not interested any more, and the instruments in question might as well not exist. Most of the time there will be something available for immediate use that will do the job. I've had 2 guitars and 2 basses custom made for me. The two guitars (both ordered in the late 90s) took less than 3 months each to make. The first bass (a Gus) took a year but a lot of that time was taken up with Simon trying to source suitable suppliers for the finishing of bass and the hardware I had specified. My Sei bass took almost 2 years and herein lies a cautionary tale: In the early 2000s I joined a new band and it soon became obvious to me that fretless bass would be ideal for many of their songs. After spending over a year trying every fretless I came across in shops and at musical instrument shows, I came to the conclusion that the only way I'd get the instrument that I really wanted was to have it custom made. I then spent almost another year researching luthiers before settling on Sei, and placing my order. The bass when it was finished was everything I was looking for. Unfortunately the band folded six months later and my requirements for fretless bass have been minimal since then (I've used on the recorded versions of two songs and that's it). I'd really like Gus to make me a Bass VI based on the Eastwood Hooky neck dimensions (which while being the most suitable out of all the Bass VIs for my needs as at best only an adequate instrument), but price aside, the current waiting time for a new instrument is a minimum of 18 months, and I can't guarantee that I'll still need a bass VI of any description that far into the future.

I've owned one chambered and one semi-hollow bass. The chambered bass was so completely different in both concept and execution from a typical bass guitar it would be impossible to tell what effect the chambering on it own had to the sound (if anything). The semi hollow bass sounded like a bass guitar.

It's all to do with what we are used to. Had the first popular bass guitar been headless, we be wondering why there's any need to have excess material beyond the nut.

IME the more interesting musical instrument ideas and designs come from those whose main training is not in the making of musical instruments, as they have less pre-conceived ideas about how things should be done. After all how many Jazz Bass copies do we need?

The order book is currently closed due to the fact that the current backlog is in excess of 4 years. It says so on their contact page. You can ask to be informed when Wal will be taking orders again, but I suspect that if you aren't ready to put down your deposit on the day that it does re-open you are going to be out of luck. Therefore you want a Wal right now you have no alternative but to negotiate a price on one of those 9 up for sale. The fact that they are all still available to buy means that they are currently priced on the high side, but I'm sure there would be some wiggle room on price for anyone with actual cash to spend. Also bear in mind that those 9 Wal basses available for sale are a mixture of fretted, fretless, left hand, right hand, 5 string, 4 string etc. So while there are 9 to choose from if you need a particular set of features that cuts down the choice by at least half straight away.

The easiest way to avoid this is to make the swap when you don't have any urgent and/or important gigs coming up so you can spend some time getting to know it. When I got mine I spent several days auditioning the various modules and making a note of the ones I liked. Remember that you don't have to stick to "bass" sims especially with the amps and cabs, as unlike their real world counterparts you can't cause any damage by sticking a bass guitar through them, and the worst that can happen is that you won't like the sound of the results, in which case you can move on to find one that you do like. Also bear in mind that a lot of "vintage" bass amps were simply guitar amps with a different badge and maybe the EQ frequencies moved down an octave. I don't even use an amp or cab sim on a lot of my patches and just have an EQ and distortion module instead, and a lot of the patches that do use an amp/cab it's the Roland Jazz Chorus Combo sim - something you'd never use with a bass guitar in real life - because the sound suits one of the bands I play with. Having done that I made up a few patches of core sounds with all the effects I might want to use already in place in the order I'd most likely want them and with usable settings but turned off. That way I can quickly make up a new patch whenever I need one and only have to dive deeper if I want something out of the ordinary. I currently play in bands where I have a separate patch (even if the differences are just a slight EQ and volume tweak to sit in the correct place in the mix of the other instruments) and up to 4 snap shots for every song, but I'd still be using it even if I stuck to a single patch for the whole set, because I know that I'd have the perfect sound for my bass in the context of the band at the press of a button.

Sorry, I'm a bit too late to this conversation, but as an ex-owner of a Hondo Alien, I wouldn't consider it to a be an adequate replacement in any way for the instruments listed in your signature. Firstly it's short scale which might be a problem if your are only used to playing 34" scale basses. Secondly the hardware - particular the bridge and machine heads - are poor quality. I had to replace the ones on mine with the proper Schaller equivalents as the original items were actually disintegrating! Finally if the version you are getting is one with a aluminium neck (there are supposedly some with wooden necks although I've never seen one) I would be very wary of taking the neck off, as the aluminium is rather soft and the threads for the bolts are prone to stripping. I never took the neck off mine, but the threads for both of the bolts holding the string retainer in place had stripped and they had to be epoxied into place to hold the strings in place. I wouldn't fancy doing the same with the neck bolts and expect the instrument to hold together under string tension. Be VERY careful! Personally I'd prefer to take my chances with whatever could be borrowed/hired once I got to the gig.

I had an illuminated push on/off switch on a (no-name) 100W amp I got in the early 80s. It was extremely temperamental and would often require a couple of presses to turn on or off. Eventually it failed in the off position and was replaced with the more typical rocker switch (like the one in your photo).

To the OP why do you want Fender to make a 6-string bass? As you can see from the AAF abomination (which looks as though it was made by someone who once saw a photo of a Carl Thompson bass) it's not exactly their strong point. Plus it's not exactly their core market of players who want P and J basses in a decent range of colours and occasionally with matching headstocks. Even their other 4-string models don't sell well enough for them to stay in production. Plus they struggle to make decent 5-string basses (IMO the standard Fender construction and production doesn't lend itself to consistently good 5-string basses) so how can you expect them to fare any better with a 6-string. 6-string players are happy enough to use something that doesn't say "Fender" on the headstock.

Is it a big something or a little something?

With Brian Eno on clarinet and production.

Bear in mind that the latency on any pitch MIDI device is dependant both upon the pitch of the note being played (the lower the note the greater the latency) and the accuracy of the device being used. The very best pitch detection systems (which this is not) require a MINIMUM of 1½ cycles of the waveform to successfully detect the pitch. For the E string on a bass this is 36ms and very noticeable. Even the G string is 15ms which is still noticeable. Expect the latency of this device to be close to double that! And that's before you figure in the additional latency due to producing the correct MIDI data from the detected pitch and you'll see/hear why these systems are no good for the bass guitar.

Wasn't the Alien Ant Farm custom shop model a 6 string?

In the past if a station was big enough to supplying a complete track sheet of everything they played to the PRS then there would be people doing this as their job. These days it's all done automatically through embedded IRSC codes in the CDs and audio files so there's very little additional work to do.

The problem I have found is that after about a month or so you are very familiar with 90% of the music they are playing. If I want to listen to stuff I know and like I have my iTunes library and Spotify. The whole point of radio for me is that it will introduce me to to new songs and bands and surprise me in the way that John Peel's programme did night after night in the late 70s and early 80s. Radio 6 is fine for a couple of weeks, but then I need to stop listening for a few months otherwise I get bored of hearing the same songs over and over.

BTW for those saying that the Helix is too expensive, bear in mind that in real terms what you get is considerably cheaper than what you would have paid just 15 years ago. My first multi-effects unit which did only a fraction of what I can do with the Helix cost almost as much when I bought it in the early 90s. Also the bass rig that the Helix and RCF cab replaced cost me considerable more even though most of it had been bought second-hand. When I sold this rig and the guitar one, because the Helix had made them superfluous, I came away with a small profit

Eastwood Hooky (for Hurtsfall) or Gus G3 (for In Isolation) > Line6 Helix Floor with Linn Adrenalinn in one of the effects loops > PA. I have an RCF745 powered cab but this only gets used for rehearsals with In Isolation and at gigs where we are asked to supply a bass amp (I have a few patches on the Helix with a selection of amps and cabs only for these situations). Hurtsfall now all go direct into the PA and this has massively improved our sound both on-stage (in terms of monitoring) and FoH, and I can see the whole band adopting IEMs before the end of the year. In Isolation still have a conventional backline for the guitars and take much longer to set up and sound check. I'm hoping that once Hurtsfall have gone the IEM route both bands can do a few gigs together where I can demonstrate the advantages of both ditching the backline and switching to IEMs.

IME adding a single inch to the length of the neck does little to improve the clarity of anything tuned down below D, and less so on any bolt-on necked instrument. You need the right strings along with a super-stiff neck and rock solid neck joint (or ideally neck-though construction).