Jean-Luc Pickguard

Denmark street isn't worth visiting for me these days. A bloke in Wunjo (when they were around the corner) once told me that I wrong and the Precision in the window was DEFINITELY a '79 as it has an S9 serial no. Of course any self respecting fender geek will know it it could be as late as an '81 and to be sure you'd have to take the neck off to check the date stamped on the body end. Later they wanted £1300 for a 70s mustang bass in trashed condition. It didn't look reliced in a cool way, but like it had been found in a dumpster. It was filthy and had nail varnish over paint chips. It was totally unplayable chunks out of frets & rusty strings. What a joke! Apart from that I find Wunjo the friendliest and best of the street though. Music Ground offered me £200 for a '80s MIJ tokai korina flying vee & flightcase a few years ago. It would have probably sold for at least £600 retail and they weren't interested in a commission sale. I sold it privately the next week for £550. I bought my 1990 MIJ '62 reissue Precision in Andys. I think I probably paid over the odds for the time, but it was exactly what I was looking then (about eight years ago). I later definitely got ripped off with a shoddy & overpriced setup & soldering job on another bass by the miserable cnut that used to have a workshop in Andys - which prompted me to learn how to to that stuff properly for myself.

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='566080' date='Aug 11 2009, 05:58 PM']I've got one a millenium bxp 5 string and it is indeed pretty good. It plays well, sounds good with the active pickups and it's proven to be reliable. The string spacing is a bit narrow but for £200 really it's not a big problem at all.[/quote] If thats what you're playing in your avatar Edward, I have one exactly the same down to the colour. Excellent value for £200. I used to have an irrational dislike of Peaveys, but this one won me over when toured all the Music shops in central London one Saturday & played every 5 string bass under £600 originally intending to buy a G&L tribute.

crapcore more like

[quote name='grumble' post='561629' date='Aug 6 2009, 12:16 AM']are they 'fun' to play ?[/quote] Oh Yes! Great rubbery fun with a deep fundamental tone. Great fun for turning up with to jam nights. Often people that have never seen one before take the piss a bit and then come back to ask all about it once they've heard the massive rich bass tone flowing from the speakers. The most important thing to remember though is that although it has lines, it plays in tune if you treat it like an unlined fretless and play on the dots between the lines.

If you're plugging it in and putting it through fx that might make it feed back, you could try reducing the feedback by sticking a CD over the soundhole woth blu-tak. Also might get a better sound by fitting a magnetic pickup.

The rick-shaped one is cool, but a dano longhorn one would be even better. I enjoy playing my stock ashborys, but whenever I turn up somewhere and someone has not seen one before I always get the same 'fisher price' comments followed by astonished looks when they actually hear it.

The Wizard thumpers are well regarded around these parts for replacing a stock precision pickup.

[quote]very similar to the one Sting used when he was with the police[/quote] Wot? Similar in that it has four strings and is made of wood? My first bass had tuners like that. It was a jazz copy and was badged as 'yamato'. it wasn't a very nice bass.

I replaced all my grolsch ones with shower hose washers.

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='559780' date='Aug 3 2009, 10:56 PM']the non-export Fender jap stuff.[/quote] +1 Particularly the many colour choices for MIJ Mustang basses.

[quote name='Lew-Bass' post='559493' date='Aug 3 2009, 06:30 PM']I'm planning on getting an Ibanez SR500L in the near future, tried a righty in dolphinmusic today and it was great. I've had a quick scour and I can't find any second hand ones on the net in the UK, so I'm going to end up getting it new from an online store (unless one crops up on the bay or here!) Both nevadamusic and GAK have it for sale at a very similar price, £439 and £442 respectively. So which one should I buy it from? Does anyone have any past experience with either? And if so did the bass come set-up? If somethings wrong are they easy to deal with? Opinions.. past personal dealings.. fire away! Thanks [/quote] Why not buy it from Dolphin seeing as you've already tried one there? If they don't have the exact one you have perhaps they can get one in & if their price is higher than you've seen elsewhere perhaps there's some haggling room.

I should be able to make it. Probably bring a couple of Ashborys, an NS-design CR5M & danelectro longhorn.

It might come in useful as doorstop.

I've bought some nice japanese-made necks (& bodies) from [url="http://www.brandoniguitars.co.uk"]Brandoni[/url] in Wembley. I would definitely see if they had what I wanted next time I need a neck. The quality of the these is very good. They were about £100 each & are very similar to Fender MIJ parts.

Any strings would snap if they pass over a knarled-up bridge - is that where they're snapping? The first set of TIs I bought must be over six years old and are still going strong, as are all the other sets on my other basses.

I'm playing my danelectro longhorn a lot these days and have an old set of short scale rotosound jazz flats on it. I'm not a big fan of rotosounds and only use these as they were the only I could find that would fit on a 30" scale bass. I've just seen that stringbusters have a set of Danelectro strings 760FD listed on their LaBella [url="http://www.stringbusters.com/frameset.asp?MAIN=http://www.stringbusters.com/ko-kat/BASS%20STRINGS/LA%20BELLA/"]deep talkin' page[/url]. These are meant to be the same as the original strings LaBella made for the original danelectro/silvertones in the 60s. Anyone tried 'em? LaBella flats are my 2nd favourite flatounds after thomastiks (unfortunately TI JF324s would be much too long for the dano). I'm tempted to order a set of the 760FDs as it looks like the longhorn will be my weapon of choice for [url="http://www.skunkeye.co.uk"]skunkeye[/url], my blues band.

Does this mean that my Boss HM2 heavy metal pedal from the 80s could now be considered cool rather than tatty.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='545312' date='Jul 20 2009, 02:06 PM']I'd have a set of Thomastik Jazz Flats (JF324) on it ...[/quote] Indeed! I have a set of TI JF324 on my mustang. Absolutely wonderful combination. Shame they don't fit my musicmasters or dano longhorn as well

[quote name='YouMa' post='553028' date='Jul 27 2009, 06:44 PM']...i never realised dave was on the other bus though.Quite a shock.[/quote] Can't see how that would make any difference to anything. Anyway wasn't he always on both buses?

Perhaps your uniform didn't go down well at bar-mitzva gigs.

George Porter jnr used a single coil tele bass with the meters

The story he spins doesn't quite add up when you consider thats not the only one he's selling.

I'm really into Willie Dixon at the moment. He was a great songwriter and his basslines work perfectly without being flashy. I love James Jamerson's upright on the Four Tops Jazz album as well you can tell he really enjoyed playing on those tracks.

One of the blokes in my blues band uses Hohner mouth organs. I have a 1986 Hohner B2A steiney that I bought new in Denmark street for £249 - its a bit chunky on the neck and the active circuit is f'ked, but apart from that and & looking very 80s its not bad. I even managed to track down some nice double ball flatwounds for it. No idea about the model you have though. Might be a unique design or may be a generic model made by sammick or cort in Korea or indonesia with a Hohner logo slapped on. Post a pic when you get one.

I ha my car broken into whilst playing a charity freebie gig. i'd left the faceplate of the 8 year old sony cd player on and the scroat had tried to get the stereo out leaving screwdriver marks around it. he'd never have got is as it was fitted properly with the security bolt at the back. Stangely the ashdown Mag cab & head on the back seat were completely ignored. Also in a previous life as a student radiographer I provided the music for an end of year party which was open to all hospital staff. I wasn't a proper DJ so I was using a (fairly expensive) portable stereo into my bass amp. Someone set off a fire alarm and as everyone evacuated down the main stairs a scroats made off down the back fire escape with my stereo, walkman, tapes etc. I recognised him by sight and knew which department he worked in and shouted after him that I'd be speaking to his manager in sterile supplies in the morning. He sheepishly returned 20mins later denying all knowlege of the theft and saying he left his jacket behind (which he hadn't) the police turned up soon after and my version was verified by people who hadn't seen him making off with the gear but said they had and he eventually admitted that he had taken it all and tossed it over a fence. When he retrieved all the now damaged gear to give it all back I told him to keep it and I'd take the price of new replacements if he wanted to keep his job. I got the money within a few days. And I still told his manager the full story.