Jean-Luc Pickguard

I have stuck it onto the area where it is needed. The adhesive seems to be very good, on a par with carpet tape and the rubbery dots are nice & grippy. Just tried the bass briefly and there is no longer any trace of neck dive. I'll have to see how it works long-term - it it comes unstuck or starts to peel, but initial impressions are good. If I redo it I might try sticking a load of one inch strips about an eighth of an inch apart instead of a single long piece to try to minimise any wrinkling that occurs when the strap is flexed.

I recently bought a daphne blue Fender logo strap like this one: It looks great with my '72 Daphne blue musicmaster, however I'm used to using Suede straps or ones with a similar grippy reverse side. Due to the webbing on the back of this one, my feather-light musicmaster does exhibit some minor neck dive which is not apparent when using a suede strap - My seafoam Levys Suede one previously used with this bass has been promoted to my JMJ Mustang and looks great with it as it is very close to the same colour. I figured that something grippy stuck to the inside of the new strap might help, and today while browsing the popular high-street emporium, 'the land of pound', I found this stuff - 'Stick 'em up non-slip rug gripper'. I don't remember how much it cost though. 😝 It looks to be about a gnats wotsit narrower than the strap and the grippy dots are a pretty close match to daphne blue, so I am hopeful that it should work well and not look out of place. I will be trying it later and I will report back here with my findings. There's 1.5m on the roll, but I think I will only need to use about 50cm on the strap.

The pics weren't available last time I looked, but they are back up now. I keep telling myself that I don't *need* another mustang, but the sunburst one looks rather tasty

Milli Vanilli

I dunno - if it was good enough for Jamerson...

I already have a CIJ olympic white mustang and a daphne blue JMJ mustang, plus a '72 daphne blue musicmaster, so I really don't need one of the vintera mustangs, but that doesn't prevent me wanting one. It looks like they use the same hipshot lollypop tuners as the JMJ which apart from working perfectly look great (yep - I'm that shallow).

I've tried a lot of compressors. My favourite is the TC spectracomp, which along with my tech 21 VTbass and thumpinator is an 'always on' pedal on my board.

PM'd!

No correction necessary Twigman Definitely not a PB62 as the truss rod adjusts from the wrong end of the neck. I used to own a 1990 PB62 and can confirm that the neck on that did not have a skunk stripe. Also the decal is wrong for a PB62.

If Epiphone discontinues the Thunderbird vintage pro, I can see those becoming sought after in the future. Also the JMJ Mustang once it is no longer part of Fender's range. Both are excellent basses and I very much doubt I would ever part with either of mine.

Kala ubass, Mahalo STN2031B or similar mini-bass?

Do fender sell unfinished bodies? I though they only sold finished replacement bodies.

I'm loving the La Bella white nylons on my vintage pro thunderbird. Not tried them on a precison yet as the TI jazz flats on my Precisions are only about 10 years old so have plenty of life left.

I added one in that position on my CIJ mustang bass to add to the 60s vibe. I doubt it affects the resale value, but that is not something I am worried about as the bass is a keeper. If you like the look of a tug bar, I’d say go for it.

I believe there was a manufacturing fault with the first run of Pro V thunderbirds where the wrong pickups were fitted (I think the same pickups as the 4 string version were mistakenly fitted) which resulted in low volume on the B strings. There was a program to replace the pickups under warrantly at the time, and the issue was corrected on subseqent manufacturing runs. I have a later one (which has the front strap button at the heel of the neck rather than the top 'horn') and the B string works well. The neck is rather wide though.

I seem to recall that Lodestone was a sister company to Ashdown so I'd suggest contacting them.

A modification I saw a few times on basses of the 80s was a balanced XLR fitted in addition to the jack - like the one my original Hohner B2A has as stock. Maybe its an XLR on the side of Bruce's bass?

The chap who did the Jazz bass repair is local to me & makes his own brand of guitars called "Flame". He seems like a nice affable bloke. I've only taken a banjo to him for some minor work so far.

I have an CIJ mustang & a JMJ - Both with fender flats as fitted to the JMJ as stock. Both are excellent basses & the JMJ is my main rehearsal/gigging bass. The biggest differences for me are the finish - I prefer the thin nitro on the neck of the JMJ compared to the gloss of the CIJ and the neck profile. The CIJ has a very skinny neck like a jazz whereas the JMJ’s is a little chunkier & more comfortable for me. I’ve wanted a daphne blue mustang with 'lollypop' tuners since i bought the (white) CIJ & I was initially put off by the ‘roadworn’ finish of the JMJ, but it looks a lot better in person than a lot of Fender’s stock images which I think were of an early prototype where they went a bit overboard with the aging & made it look really grubby. Sound-wise there’s not a massive amount of difference between the two & I’m happy to gig with either using the same fx/amp settings but in a side by side comparison I'd say that the pickup in the JMJ has the edge with a slightly chunkier tone.

No way is it a highway one and not even a real Fender. its probably fairly safe to assume that the signatures are fake also.

I had no idea that Jack Whitehall was a drummer

Mediahuman audioconverter works well for me & is free to use. I use the MacOS version, but a windows version is also available. https://www.mediahuman.com/audio-converter/

£600! It looks like a toy that would cost a few tenners from Wilko at xmas

I have an Epiphone thunderbird pro five string but don't play it much. The B string does work as a nice thumbrest though.

I used to have an HB Kahuna - I used the 1/2 size guitar case (case 2) which fitted it perfectly. The bass is a bit bigger than the Kala u-bass I have now so I doubt it'd fit in the baritone uke bag.