molan

New high end basses depreciate just as fast, if not faster, than many cheaper ones. There's no way anyone in their right mind would buy one as an investment. Buying vintage Fenders could definitely be a potential investment but it doesn't always pay off. I know someone who paid £8K for a lovely Vintage Jazz when the market hit an absolute peak, it's worth something like £5K now. It'll rise again but not for a good few years. I love the fact that whenever the topic of expensive instruments comes up there's always someone that says the buyers of these don't actually play them or ever take them out to gigs. It simply isn't true. Why would anyone buy a guitar if they didn't intend to play it? It's a big old lump of cash to 'invest, in a plank of wood and some metal if it's just going to sit in the corner of the room. Especially if it's a new one and will have lost 30% of its value with the first year or so. I've met pub gig players with stunning high end instruments, off the top of my head I've seen Fodera, Ritter, Alembic, Wood & Tronics, Sadowsky, F Bass, Brubaker, GB, pre CBS Fender, Spector, Wal etc all being played regularly by people - quite a few of these are regular contributors here on BC as well. Of course they are in the minority of the total number of bass players out there on the pub circuit but they are definitely playing them on a regular basis. In fact in the past week or so I've seen Wal, F Bass, Wood & Tronics, Ritter, Brubaker and a pair of Foderas (plus others) being bought by regular players. Ages ranged from 15-50 and they were from all sorts of backgrounds including everything from still being at school to full time pro musicians. Not a single one came the mythical middle class, more money than sense bracket. I only help out 1-2 days a week in a bass retailer but I never see these people that others seem to think are quietly mopping up the entire stock of high end basses in the country. We have had a whole one customer who owned a Porsche but he's worked his socks off his entire working life and is bloody good at what he does. I don't begrudge him his success in any way and don't understand the attitude we so often see in this country that belittles people who've been successful in their career. He also just happens to be in a regular gigging pub band and loves playing his, expensive, basses. He knows they all lose him money but he most certainly isn't buying them as an investment!

I think the US P5 is definitely a 'try before you buy' bass. I can't quite understand why but Fender 5's, especially P's seem to have a bit more tonal variation than their 4's. I've tried a couple of nice Fender US 5's but also heard quite a few that were very bland sounding I quite like some of the 5 string PJ options out there. The J can add some nice bite to a meaty P pickup I've played this one a few times and the configuration works really well: http://www.bassgear.co.uk/product/5-string-bass-guitars-po/shuker-custom-p5/

Weren't they called Wesley Crunge for a while? Mostly fairly typical Chinese clones of various Fenders. Might benefit from a pickup and pots upgrade but you could end up spending more than it's worth unless you buy used decent pickups and are comfortable fitting them yourself.

Nick at iBass is the Warwick Artist liaison now. He can usually be contacted through the iBass site fairly easily. Really nice guy and always very helpful

I must admit that pick guard is really not doing it for me I've played one though and thought it was nice. Didn't blow me away with the character of the US custom models but there's a lot of nice instruments coming out of Korea (i think that's where these are made) these days.

[quote name='pierreganseman' timestamp='1376666038' post='2177715'] 4th deal in the works with bassgear.... barrie put away the TH 350 for me... BEFORE i asked! not on deposit.... that's what i call service... [/quote] And posted before finally paid for - we trust you Pierre

The Godin Shifter is a fine bass and you can pick them up for £750 new if you go for trans black: http://www.bassgear.co.uk/product/clearance/godin-classic-shifter-5-trans-black-ma/ I've seen a few people try these out and they always get good reviews. Made in Canada and the final fit and finish is really good.

[quote name='barneyg42' timestamp='1377380952' post='2187003'] Ah ok, be interested to know how long ago he was booked? [/quote] January apparently

I've fooled around with effects over the years but never really needed a pedalboard. However It looks like I may need a few pedals in a new project so I'm going to put a little board together. Core components will be: Compressor Octaver Envelope Filter Synth (might not need this one so could just be the other three & a tuner) My loose plan would be to keep the compressor always on but the other three will probably only be used in isolation. The use of compression would be fairly mild. I have an option on a Diamond which sounds very musical to me or an Aguilar which which seems a bit more 'traditional' in the way it compresses the signal. The core reason for using a compressor is to even out the overall sound, not as an 'effect' in itself. I've read a few theories about putting the compressor first to send a nice even signal to the effects and, conversely, to stick it at the end of a chain like this to iron out any inconsistencies in the signal that have been generated by the effects. I've got plenty of time to experiment with each of the pedals to try and make my mind up but I just wondered what our resident gurus here thought (not only about the chain but whether I might be better off with either pedal)?

[quote name='steve-bbb' timestamp='1377362070' post='2186761'] come to medway towns loads of students - plenty of young bands - some of them exceptionally good - none of them playing boutique gear Squier rules!! [/quote] I've always done my utmost to avoid students - even when I was one

A friend of mine is playing there right now. He's had no problems at all.

The topic of 'are expensive basses worth the money' comes up all the time and I always find some interesting things to read As someone who helps out from time to time in a bass shop I see all sorts of basses - probably starting around the £200 used Mex Fenders up to £10K Foderas and all points in between. I've seen examples of great instruments down at the lower end of the scale and not very nice ones at much higher prices. Some are simple build quality issues, others are just a combination of things that can make an instrument sound great or fabulous to play. In very broad terms I'd say that there's a decreasing economy of gain in terms of sheer build quality as you move up the scale. Simple stuff really, a £600 used Musicman is not twice as good as a £300 Mex Fender in terms of build or, probably, tonal quality. Will the owner like it twice as much or play it twice as much because it inspires him, that I really can't say, at this point it immediately becomes much more subjective. Some people spend a fortune on instruments they hardly play whilst others spend hours every day on their cheaper basses - the complete reverse is true as well of course. From what I've seen it feels like people get more 'involved' with their instruments when they've spent big money on them but that's just my observation based on people I've met personally. I've never really understood the whole snobbery argument. It tends to get raised by people with lower priced basses about people with ones that are more expensive than theirs. I've experienced this from the good old Mex Fender players about USA Fender owners who, in turn say things about USA Custom Shop owners etc. etc. Equally I've seen all these people look down their noses at each other as well. Seems a shame as they probably all own nice instruments that suit their needs / wallets and they all enjoy playing them. In terms of the OP's thoughts about the more mass market CNC type basses becoming more common and slowly removing the higher end instruments from the market I have to say that this hasn't been my experience working in the shop. In fact in the last week we've sold: Older Fodera to a high end gigging pro and session player Nearly new Fodera to another regular gigging player but not a pro Vintage Wal to a school aged player who's taking his future as a musician very seriously New F Bass to a touring pro Used Brubaker to someone who mostly plays at home New Wood & Tronics to a semi-pro Ritter Cora to regular gigger but not pro That's 6 basses in as many days with an average price of about £3K to people ranging from schoolboys to semi-retired and bedroom players to full on gigging pros. Doesnt feel like this signals the death knell of the high end business N.B. We also sold quite a few 'expensive' amps and cabs. Oh, And a set of strings to Old Horse Murphy

I like him as a drummer, one of the few I can usually pick out as having a fairly distinctive sound (rather than a style, if that makes any sense!). I saw him with his band during his major hit pop years and they were awesome. We sat really close to the front and just marvelled at the Earth Wind & Fire horns. Core rhythm section of Lee Sklar and Chester Thompson was pretty impressive too. Loved Collins' playing with John Martyn as well. I have to own up that 21 minutes of Pick Up The Pieces was a bit wearing though

I've shipped all over the world without any issues. Some countries have a worse rep than others. Russia is very expensive compared to Germany and South America is a bit of a no-go zone because many of the big shippers won't insure beyond arrival at the airport. Whatever you do make sure you get full insurance and use a major shipper. Interparcel a re good for pricing and ParcelFlight offer a very good service

It's a Jack & Danny bass: http://www.musicstore.de/en_EN/EUR/Jack-and-Danny-YC-PB-3Tone-SB-/art-BAS0000912-002 Only £75 but the rhyming slang definition might not help sales over here http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jack%20and%20danny

Stan went through a period of featuring at least one 'sloppy' love song on each album for a while. Often featuring Howard Hewett on vocals. I have to own up that I'm a sucker for Howard Hewett and have some of his solo albums. I used to look forward to each new Stan album to see what he was going to do on the cheese front Heaven Sent is probably the other best known one from this era. Here's a little acoustic version - I think the lack of over produced sound helps cut through the cheese a little, lol N.B. It's not as long as it first appears, there's some random chatting between Stanley, Howard & George Duke at the end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVbPlacOLM

[quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1377078213' post='2182959'] When I post recently about Stanley, and where to start with this records, nobody seemed to mention beginning with this.... .....can't think why! [/quote] I did, lol: [quote name='molan' timestamp='1375051190' post='2156259'] That's the great thing about music - we all like different stuff For me this is one of his greatest ever songs & there's sod all flashy bass playing on it: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT7ZM6HLfig[/media] [/quote]

My local luthier is excellent. Bigger jobs might take a few days but most stuff is done really quickly and something he even fixes on the spot when I see him so he doesn't have instruments cluttering up his workbench

Oh no - I really like this song. Stan the man and Howard Hewitt always sound great together for me Never seen the video before though - and would be quite happy never to see it again

I had a long conversation with a top American string maker a few months back and he was really, really against through body stringing. He said it tends to be worse on modern, and particularly, cheap bridge designs. He still makes longer strings for this use but advises anyone who'll listen not to do it as, amongst other things, it can kill strings really quickly. It can totally deaden the tone of flatwounds very quickly and one of the really annoying things is that it can often depend on how they are strung individually. E.G. You can find a single string to be totally dead whilst others sound OK. It was enough for me not to think about ever stringing through the body again

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1376899420' post='2180373'] Absolutely. There are [i]always[/i] two sides to every story. Since this whole tale kicked off, I've been trying to refrain from making any judgement in my own mind until I heard JC's POV. All I've got to go on so far is an overly-defensive and sarcastic response from him, which doesn't help. [/quote] Jimmy is a passionate guy - I think anyone who's ever met him would agree with this. He wears his heart on his sleeve and writes the way he speaks. I've had a lot of communication with him over the past 2-3 years and all of his emails are a little like his TalkBass response. He just writes stuff down as it comes out of his head and hits the send/post button. He's clearly not happy with the representation of events as put, very eloquently, before the denizens of TalkBass. However, my understanding is that he feels there's nothing further to be gained on his part by getting involved in a fractious, and very public, debate. Given the vitriol and bile directed at him I can certainly see where he's coming from. Were he to put a more detailed explanation of his side of the story out there I'm pretty sure a lot of people would continue to condemn him - after all, just look at the abuse he got on TalkBass before he even knew that the other party had publicly posted stuff - something like 38 pages worth I think. The fact that there's 17 pages worth of thread here, much of which continues the condemnation or hotly disputes there can be another side to this story, pretty much demonstrates that a lot of people aren't going to believe anything he says either. Of course, none of us are ever likely to know exactly what happened here and both parties are obviously disputing the other's version of events. I can't see Jimmy deciding to say a lot more in the public domain now - but I've been wrong before

All I, and others are saying is that there are often two sides to every story. Some people seem to find it difficult to accept this and believe information gleaned from a web forum must be correct. I've gone to the trouble of speaking directly to one of the parties involved and have picked up first hand knowledge of some of the events discussed. This has lead me to believe that there is much more to this tale if woe than has been made publicly available. A lot of people clearly have no interest in this. I can completely understand this, after all, it's much more fun taking shots at someone with a, previously fine reputation than accepting there may be an alternative story.

[quote name='thisnameistaken' timestamp='1376857996' post='2180112'] I don't think that's a scenario relevant to this buyer's situation, unless the buyer - having spent five grand on this bass - then decided to take it into his workshop and make some changes to the body shape. This seems pretty unlikely. Unless you're saying that the terrible work on the back of the body was 'obvious wear marks'. In which case, I say 'Haha, good one'. [/quote] And I think my question is directly relevant to this scenario - and, by definition that there are two sides to every story. Of course, your interpretation of the events and the exact sequence in which they occurred is probably based on a greater knowledge of the facts than anything I've found out. . .