SlapbassSteve

Beautiful bass though by the way!

Depends on who's looking to buy it. I like Duff's tone and playing, but personally I'd never pay extra for a signed instrument. If anything I'd sooner have an unmarked one. A massive Duff fan with a bit of spare cash might have other ideas however... On the subject of adding things such as pickup upgrades, in my experience they never add value to a bass. I've seen a few s/h Squier VM Jazzes with expensive pickups and posh bridges etc up for sale at the cost of bass+parts(usually for 150% of the rrp!) and none have ended up selling for more then the price of a new one, no matter what has been done to them. I'd recommend reverting it to stock and selling the spares separately any day!

Just had a Les Paul copy through from jokolono, all as described, well packaged, and again a nice BC'er- buy with confidence!

Mine is the Squier in my profile picture, cost me my entire life savings when I bought it in 2008... It's since had a set of MIM pickups, chrome pickup cover, USA control plate/vintage USA wiring loom, Wilkinson vintage tuners and BBOT bridge, extra screw in the middle of the pickguard, thumbrest and one of those useless strap buttons on the back of the headstock... I did have a 'real' Fender jazz for a while, and a nice one at that, but ended up selling it because I preferred this. Recently though I've found my Precision sits/cuts through the mix better in my covers band(having two guitarists can really mess with a Jazz's tone live...) and my Westone Quantum has a much better sound for use with my Ukulele orchestra... would still call Ruby my main bass though after 5 years or so!

I had a bargain guitar once that the seller refused to sell me because he'd confused a buy-it-now with a reserve. Refused point blank to let me have it, again it's one of those you just put down to experience...

I think a lot of the problem is the way the two remaining record labels these days have no option but to play it safe and only release what they know will sell. There was a time where smaller labels would be willing to give bands a decent chance(hence all the bands that only made it with their 3rd of 4th albums) but nowadays the majority of bands these days have a great debut and are promptly forgotten. There are exceptions of course, look at the Kings Of Leon...

Sounds like great fun! Be nice and easy to play with strings that thin [size=4] [/size]

What gauge are the strings? They look that thin the bass just looks like a big Jazzmaster... especially with that whammy bar!

I'm looking to take my ukulele band busking... I've sorted the ukes themselves with some little Orange Micro Crush 3W battery amps but now need to find a way of making my Westone Quantum keep up with them for under the £50 mark. I'm tempted to try using one of the Oranges as well, but I suspect they may be a little underpowered... I only need to keep up with vocals but headroom is pretty important. I saw Vox do a battery bass amp for around £49 but it's only 1W so presumably will be nowhere near loud enough... anyone have any suggestions?

I wonder if the pickup itself and not the preamp could be the problem then..? Overall the guitar sounds very tinny when plugged in with little low end or mids. Best sound I managed to get out of it was with both the treble EQ sliders turned all the way down and the bass and mids boosted... I've got a Harley Benton guitar somewhere that I prefer the sound of, tempted to swap the pickups over as both just plug into the preamp via the same size mini jack, with any luck they're the same thickness so it won't mess up the actions... be interesting to compare! [size=4] [/size]

As far as my playing when given a bit of freedom and not just required to play stuff note-for-note-ish for my covers band, these two have been my biggest influences... RHCP -Live At Hyde Park (Flea. The bass version of I Feel Love is brilliant. Lots of overplaying and unnecessary fills throughout the album. Love it.) Sun -Force of Nature (bit obscure, had to order the LP from the States, but easily some of the filthiest 80's slap-funk basslines and overall grooves I've ever heard)

Thanks! It's an absolutely beautiful guitar, a mate of mine has a 45 too and it's lovely, but you do notice the bigger body on the 55! [size=4] [/size] I think I might replace the preamp anyway though, apparently they only made them with P4's for a year before swapping to B-Band because the P4's didn't sound great plugged in, tried it at an open mic last night and it sounded pretty tinny for what would have been a £600 guitar.

Update... just had a look at the underbridge pickup and it turns out a solder joint had broken. Five minutes with a soldering iron and it's good as new! [size=4] [/size]

I recently bought a Tanglewood TW55N-NS(roughly 8 year old Jumbo acoustic, slightly older version of this http://www.tanglewoodguitars.co.uk/products/acoustic/sundance/03_superjumbo/TW55NSE.html ) off Gumtree, and I think the electrics may have had it. I was wondering if anyone knew of anything that'd fit in the same preamp mount. Seen you can still buy P4's from Thomann but they're £80 so I'm leaving that as a last resort as that seems an awful lot of money compared to what I paid for the guitar. I've seen a few mentions of Shadow P4's online, and none of them seem favourable, so I figure if replacement is the plan I may as well get something decent. The fault itself is an intermittent crackling from the guitar when plugged in, and oddly only when I'm playing standing up which leads me to think a dodgy connection between battery and preamp may be to blame. This being the case I'm tempted to take it to KGB on the Wirral and see if they can sort it, should be cheaper then a new preamp if it is indeed just a connection issue. Anyone got any thoughts? [attachment=126860:S1050333.JPG]

Age is pretty meaningless. Nobody will judge... (unless it's a Steinberger...) I've had one or two comments about my Quantum lately, but they've always shut right up once I've actually started playing. End of day like others have said you're in this to please yourself! But thunderbirds look damn cool whoever's playing them.

I don't get why anyone would make a blag Mexican Fender, when you can easily pick most of the real ones up for under £300 it seems pretty pointless to bother. [size=4] My brother had a lovely '02 for £150 a couple of years back and my '09 was only £200 in spotless as new condition.[/size]

Yep been there...

Always strikes me as odd when folks sell off entire pedalboards in one go- chances of someone not already having any and not minding shelling out for loads at once are pretty slim. Seller must realise they'd get twice as much cash selling separately surely? [size=4] [/size]

[quote name='dave_bass5' timestamp='1359048091' post='1949042'] The secret with these boxes (BDI-21 and BDDI) is in the blend knob. Back it off a bit and you will get a bit more of the original tone coming though. You can also back both treble and bass knobs off together and this will allow the mids to come through a bit stronger. It took me at least a couple of years to finally find i could use my BD-21 with my MB heads. Then i progressed to a BDDI as it felt a bit more robust, plus i never used the presence knob. I think i actually prefer the tone from the BDI-21 over the real deal. I now have a Paradriver, as that does have the mid control, its more of an all round box rather than a SVT emulator, but i tend to keep it flat. The EQ on this thing is very powerful. Bobby, i too am very jealous. She has some very interesting songs and i'd love to have a reason to learn them. Hope it all goes well. [/quote] Cheers for the heads up about the blend, gigging in Manchester tonight so will try it out [size=4] [/size]

[quote name='Bobby K' timestamp='1359019951' post='1948447'] Hello chaps, interesting thread! I'm doing a theatre tour next month with the Kate Bush tribute and it's gonna be no amps on stage, with in ear monitoring only. so I'm gonna be looking at getting something like this. Not sure which one though... Gonna be running two passive basses, both fretted and fretless (with some chorus on the fretless stuff, via my old Boss chorus pedal) - I know some of these have a facility for two inputs. Any recommendations anyone? [/quote] Probably worth avoiding the Behringer as it'll give you no control over the mids on the fretless stuff. If it's in-ears only I'd be inclined to get the SansAmp. Extremely jealous of your tour btw, that sounds fantastic- some amazing basslines in KB's stuff, especially John Giblin's fretless playing on Never For Ever... gutted I'm gigging myself when you're playing the Liverpool Phil or I'd have booked tickets before writing this. [size=4] [/size]

I've had mine about 9 months now, really cannot complain! The difference compared to the 300W Ashdown MAG 15 it replaced is astonishing, so much louder and better sounding, yet less then half the weight. I've got a 121H(12" speaker with horn) cab and a mate of mine has the New York 121, both are great cabs and make a heck of a difference to the sound when added. The H is a bit fuller-sounding to my ears as the cab itself is a little bigger, but you'd never guess they were a 500W rig from the size or volume.

[quote name='cocco' timestamp='1358929042' post='1947072'] My new band had its first practice Monday night, we're only 3 piece ATM so myself and the guitard decided to share vocal duties. I can sing, I thought confidently. Oh how wrong I was. Ozzy would not have been proud of my rendition of Paranoid. Completely different ball game to singing along to the radio or in the shower. Ollie was in the same boat too. Anyone got any advice/tips apart from singing lessons or just don't bother?? [/quote] I think knowing that you've got work to do is half the battle, nothing worse then a bad singer that doesn't realise... the rest is practice and confidence, if I can (nearly)do it, anyone can!

It looks like a nightmare I had once, but that's a decent price for something that unusual...

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1358706225' post='1943730'] eh? this bass sounds pretty deep to me [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKyK1Mme9Sc[/media] [/quote] does indeed! I had the first album(particularly What You Know) in mind, very different tone, and very trebley compared to Sun and other recordings with a low-end-heavy tone, say Simonon on Guns Of Brixton.