Jean-Luc Pickguard

What are the minor annoyances you have with gear? I'll start: 1 - Hipshot only selling nickel plated extenders which look out of place on a headstock with chrome plated tuners. Also the nickel plated stuff used to be described as chrome plated, but the website has since been updated. 2 - Hipshot again - the lever on detuners look like they're probably unplated stainless steel, so it doesn't match the rest of the thing. 3 - Epiphone - fitting generic wilkinson tuners to the thunderbird vintage pro - I've upgraded both of mine to gotoh GB640s which have match the vintage aesthetic much better. 4 - Reverse tuners - why not fit tuners which look like the period correct vintage ones but turn the same way as all other tuners? Only Gotoh GB640s get this right. 5 - crappy output jacks - I always fit switchcraft jacks when I find one of the flimsy lookalikes in one of my basses which will eventually fail at the least convenient time. I can forgive a Squier for this but not a japanese fender. Cheapo jacks are often accompanied by cheapo mini pots also which need to be replaced with CTS or similar. 6 - Cheapo Jazz bass knobs - the proper US spec jazz bass knobs look great. The cheapo push-on ones that came on my CIJ Mustang looked nasty until I upgraded them to US vintage ones (after upgrading the loom to include solid shaft CTS pots) 7 - Silks on strings. Surely there must be a way to colour code the silks to make the strings immediately identifiable. eg: EB Cobalt flats come in different coloured packaging depending on the guage - why not make the silks the same colour as the packaging? Maybe a combination of colours to give a striped effect could be used to make each set unique? 8 - Straps. Most straps don't have enough adjustment to go long enough which limits the choice of suitable straps. You can't rock out with a thunderbird at nipple level. 9 - Not much can be done about this one, but its always struck me as odd that pedalboards have to be set up with the pedals right to left instead of the more logical left to right due top the placement of the input & output sockets on pedals. 10 - EMG don't make much noise about how their active bass pickups really need at least 18v to sound great. I'm sure people are put off using them when they don't sound particularly special with a single 9v battery. I use 24v from a pair of 12v A23 car plipper batteries in mine - which take up less room than a standard 9v.

Can't beat a bit of Captain Bee-fart

The Mooer bass sweeper does the bassballs thing better and costs a lot less less than £300.

Get the guitarist to play that note

Surprisingly I got all four right - probably more down to luck than judgement.

I clicked here expecting a thread slagging off a sub-par telecoms company.

The bass was listed just as an epiphone thunderbird, not specifically as a vintage pro, so it may have been priced as one of the standard bolt-on models. Even though the case costs around £100 new, they probably didn't factor in more than a few quid for it if anything at all. Like most things in Cash Converters it was a bit grubby, but it didn't take long to get it cleaned up. There was a shallow dent on the back of the neck and a scrape on the lower back edge of the headstock, both of which I've filled & levelled with white milliput and elbow grease. The strings were as dead as Bojo the clown's capability for empathy and the setup was terrible with high action and zero relief on the neck. I've set it up to play a lot better with the current strings and will take it apart for a deeper clean/polish and further tweakage once I have some some cobalt flats to put on it.

I originally wanted a white one when these were first launched, so extremely chuffed to get this one for £249 (plus a tenner p&p!). It was indeed a bargain - especially with the latest version of the epiphone fitted hardcase thrown in. I absolutely love these basses - the pickups are amazing. The wilkinson tuners work well, but Gotoh GB640 reso-lites are an essential upgrade for me as they complete the vintage look, reduce the weight of the headstock, and unlike similarly vintage styled large plate tuners they turn the right way. I think this bass still has the stock roundwounds which are now totally dead, but I’ll be putting on a set of EB cobalt flats asap.

I now have a third Epiphone Thunderbird Vintage Pro - this was a bit of a bargain when I first noticed it before xmas on the Cash Converters website at just £299 with the matching hardcase included. I managed to stop myself from buying it then and expected someone else to snap it up, but when they knocked off another £50 I really couldn't resist.

According to one reviewer on Thomann's site, these are best when played without trousers.

as they say: "beauty is in the eye of the beerholder"

Congrats! These are fantastic basses. The pickups sound excellent and the necks feel like a really good jazz bass. I have a matching pair of sunburst ones and have a white one incoming - due to be delivered tomorrow. I'll probably end up getting a black one to complete the set at some point as well.

Who'd pay £80 for a setup on a new instrument? Seems a bit high when the Gallery charges £35 when you bring your own instrument in for a setup. Surely a bass should always have a 'one size fits all' set up if its on the shop floor for people to try out. A beginner probably won't be able to tell the difference between a decent bass that badly needs a setup and a crappy bass.

I used to use Thomastic JF-324 32" medium scale flats on my CIJ mustang & they fitted fine. I initially thought it odd that Fender's stock strings on the JMJ are 9050L which are long scale stainless steel flats, but the aditional length doesn't seem to have any adverse effects & liked them so much on the JMJ that I also use them on the CIJ now.

According to wikipedia Roget Rosmeisl worked at Fender from 1962 to 1973 where he designed the Coronado range which I'd always assumed had been designed by a committee.

I've upgraded both and they're as good as each other but the first one is a defintite keeper so if the second one gets its marching orders I'll have to put the original tuners back on and move the reso-lites & cobalt flats onto the white one.

I have all the basses I need so the plan was to not buy any this year, or at least hold off from buying any for as long as possible. However I saw a deal on a white epi thunderbird vintage pro which I managed to resist before xmas that had been further reduced to a price where it would have been rude not to. I have two vintage pros already, both sunburst so I don't really have a tbird-shaped gap in my collection although I've really wanted a white one since they were first launched. Not sure how I'm going to explain the appearance of a white one, I guess its better to ask for forgiveness than permission. I'm a little ashamed that my gear abstinence resolution only lasted three days though.

I have a played-in set of LaBella white nylon tapewounds on mine currently - lots of lovely mwahh, the TI JF-344s I had on it previously were good as well.

I put together a bitzer Precision about 17 years ago using a brandoni sunburst body & neck with an unlined ebony fingerboard. I whittled the nut from an imitation ivory chopstick from Wing Yip. Its a lovely bass and I've swapped out various bits & pieces over the years. It currently has hipshot lollipop tuners, a 1986 EMG active pickup powered with 2xA23 batteries (24v), a badass II bridge, rosewood thumbrest and a cheapo (£8) Chinese 4 ply torty pickguard which I think looks a lot nicer than it should. I don't find it particularly hard to play compared to a fretted bass and it sounds great - the EMG pickup suits it really well giving it a beautiful growl.

I can’t offer any input regarding the solid bodied ubasses, but I have recently put a set of the kala/gallo flatwounds on my ubass & this has tightened up the attack without losing the tone. Martin at the Gallery filed the nut slots, and the strings just feel right now. Although I have only used them on my ubass-1, if I was to ever get a solid uke bass I’d definitely fit a set of these strings as they sound so good and actually stay in tune unlike the stock kala Pahoehoes, or the popular but awful aquila thunderguts.

The Epiphone Bass Probucker #760s as fitted to the Vintage Pro Thunderbirds & Embassy Pro basses are excellent, so if you can track down a set I doubt you would be disappointed.

Listed as Jamerson at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floy_Joy_(album)

I have one of those Fender curly cables in daphne blue - it looks great with my JMJ mustang & matching levy’s suede strap

Give Aaron Armstrong a shout. I expect he would be able to make something to fit your exact requirements. http://www.armstrongpickups.co.uk/