peteb

I don't doubt that pickups make a bigger difference than wood, and to be honest, I can't really tell the difference between alder and ash (but I can with maple). Everything in your signal has an effect, either big or small. It all starts with your fingers and how you strike / fret the strings. Obviously that is the main factor, but everything else has an effect as well - wood, pickups, strings, amp, speakers, etc. Even the lead makes a tiny difference. Getting a bass to sound good is down to a decent technique and whatever marginal gains you get from each component in your chain, from fingers to speaker.

I don't understand that at all. I've had a bass with a maple body that sounded completely different to my other basses made from alder / ash. The difference between rosewood and maple fingerboards is pretty clear as well. I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but there is a clear difference, even played unplugged.

I'm sure that Joe has one somewhere in the house...

Interesting take on the vintage market from Joe Bonamassa https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/gear/unlimited_money_and_ego_make_for_a_dangerous_combination_joe_bonamassa_on_how_perception_of_scarcity_drives_vintage_guitar_prices_up.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1DpB4xJVOw_3SXldFaLAYVPjO6K_pOavr29u99yuBRFkvYHgyJLHebXqU_aem_7cL5Vq-pC0VNnLaq8SflTw#Echobox=1719357522

Exactly what I thought when I saw the photo! All round, it's a very cool looking bass...

Another pretty nice looking 72 P bass at Bass Direct for £3,250 https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/fender-precision-bass-3-tone-sunburst-1972-pre-owned/

I've bought a Fender Am Std Jazz from Bass Bros and part-ex'd a 5 string Spector . Will was great, very helpful and did a reasonable deal. He used to work at Bass Direct down the road and they still seem to be mates.

It's a good job that I didn't buy that one from the Bass Centre then! It wouldn't have lasted half a dozen gigs with me...

Yes, you always put a higher price on Reverb, which makes it slower to sell stuff. What tends to happen, and I have seen this myself, is that people put something on Reverb at an inflated price to cover the fees, then advertise it for a lower price on Facebook marketplace groups. If you see something that you fancy on Reverb, you then search through the various FB groups until you find it and then contact the seller through there. I would only use use retailers that I trust for commission sales. These days I tend to use Bass Direct, although I have used others successfully in the past. BD are completely upfront about the 20% they charge, then advertise at the agreed price on their website. To be fair, they will generally get a higher price than I would and I don't have to bother about postage & packing, etc with the bonus that I don't have gear that I need to get rid of taking up room in the house! It seems a reasonable deal for the commission charge...

I once got the train down to London, fully intending to buy an Alembic from the Bass Centre. It was one of the lower priced models (maybe an Epic??), up at £995 in the mid 90s. I picked it up and played it, but didn't like the neck. I didn't even plug it in! It would have been nice to own an Alembic for a bit, but that bass just didn't feel right for me. I ended up buying a red Warwick Streamer LX from a shop in Leeds a couple of weeks later, which I gigged for many years!

I must admit, I haven't been keen on Reverb - fees make it too expensive to buy from and too much of a hassle / takes a long time to sell. Also, too many idiotic low-ball bids from chancers! I suppose that it does depend on what you're selling. These days, I end to use commission sales by Bass Direct - less hassle, things move quickly and you tend to get a reasonable price (even after the 20% commission).

I'm not sure that a number of musical instruments would be seen as personal effects by HMRC. If you take musical gear into the EU from the UK, you have to declare each item on a carnet and pay VAT on the value of each one if you sell them. I'm not sure about paying duty, but would be interested to find out. Something the OP would definitely need to confirm if he was actually going to go ahead with this idea!

Indeed - I thought that Denmark was supposed to be one of the best places in the world to live...!

I'm not sure that's a great idea. You will have to pay VAT and import duty on every instrument and the UK market isn't great at the moment. Have you thought about selling them throughout the rest of the EU, especially Germany? There must be a German (or French, or Italian) equivalent of the Bass Gallery or Bass Direct that could sell your gear on commission.

I played a Harley Benton at a party on holiday a couple of years ago. No, it wasn't as good as a US Fender, it was rather heavy and a few things on it were a bit rough & ready, but it sounded OK and played great! It was owned by a rather bizarre Belgium chap with an even stranger wife, who also owns a WAL 5 string and seems to gig them pretty much in turn! I'm not looking to get one myself right now, but if I needed a cheap bass for some reason then I could do worse. It certainly wasn't bad at all...

Sorry, please ignore - I re-read my post and realised that I had missed the point of the post I was replying to...!

I'm hoping so! I'm going for tests on Friday to see if there is any sign of gout. I've not had an attack since, but I have started to get pins & needles in my fingers when I wake up in the morning. I used to get that before, but it stopped when I gave up smoking 20 years ago.

I had an attack of gout in my big toe last year - never had one before, it may have been triggered by resting a cab on my toe whilst chatting to someone after a gig (no idea why I did that). I was given some tablets and was recommended to drink lots of cherry juice. I haven't had an attack since, so maybe it helped! I've got to go for some tests this week to see if it is likely to be an ongoing issue.

I would have been interested to see how that played out. Rocky was apparently a martial arts teacher and by all accounts could seriously handle himself! I played a gig supporting him once in a packed big club in Brum about that tie (87 or 88 or so). We stormed it, great reception, and were changing in a room behind the bar when Wrathchild took the stage with a pretty impressive percussive boom as their first salvo of pyro went off. Ten minutes later, our sound engineer came backstage to say you've got to come and see this! The bass player had a cut below his eye, where someone had thrown a bottle at him and the dancefloor in front of the stage had cleared. At some point in a song, the guitarist took what we shall charitably call a 'guitar solo', when Rocky hopped off the stage and went up to some guy who had been yelling insults at them, dropped him with one punch, then jumped back onstage to continue singing and throwing shapes, etc! Good times...

Dude, I've got some stories about the mighty Wrathchild...!

Double post

I believe that Girlschool were originally called Painted Lady!

I use the same type of D'addario nickel roundwounds as Dood (although not the Balanced Tension set). I have used DR DDT strings in the past when I've had to detune below Eb in the past, which work pretty well .