molan

I must admit that a good starting point might be to stop thinking of this as a '63 Jazz. If you think about it as something with a nice neck & body that you've grown to love plus some old electrics then all you're potentially tinkering with is something that has sentimental (rather than high monetary) value. If you're sentimental about the heavy body then just keep it & accept you need to buy one of the zillions of fantastic light weight basses on the market today. If you're not sentimental than hang on to the bits you like & junk the rest - plenty of lighter weight bodies out there to fit the neck to and your end result would be just as much a '63 J as your current bass. One thing to watch out for might be balance - if it currently balances really well then a lighter body could wreck this and make it neck heavy (although a set of hipshot ultralites could make a huge difference).

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='658125' date='Nov 18 2009, 02:22 PM']It's about flippin' time! Glad you're finally up to it. That's good news. Anyway.. it's a GREAT bass. That pickup is as poky as they get, and the whole bass feels great. [/quote] Only issue I had was that it didn't balance as well as my AC or MTD (my 'reference' basses). However that may simply be that I was using an old school smooth leather strap rather than one of my Comfort Strapps which tend to support the bass better.

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='658122' date='Nov 18 2009, 02:18 PM']*baits breath* [/quote] Opps - hit the send button by mistake - must have still been in shck from the joy of a '72 P last night

So I bought WoT's lovely '72 P bass on a bit of a whim & have been mostly just playing quietly at home. However last night I took to rehearsals just to see how it worked in a band mix at loud volume (of course we rehearse far too loudly!). I sounded just great with such an out & out rock tone. There was a pick sitting on top of the bass amp & I just couldn't resist using it - despite having not played anything with a pick for years. Dropped the strap a few notches & I was in pure old school rock heaven Thin Lizzy bass parts kept popping into my head & I'm sure I managed to irritate everyone, expect my loud ex thras metal guitarist, by continually hitting everything really hard & playing far too many notes. . . Had a great time though - will ahve to try the '78 J next week in the same setting

sh*t - I thought I'd try & dig out some more of Larry Carlton's work & just read his autobiography. Had no idea he was a victim of 'random gun violence' right outside his studio a few years back & was shot in the throat, shattering his vocal chords! Had loads of therapy etc & still playing but that must have been one hell of an experience. . .

I have an all maple NS5XL and I can't say I've noticed any drop in volume when playing hard although the Euro I had for a while was definitely considerably higher output & could easily overload my amp which would ahve lead to some natural compression. pics of mine here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=24492&hl=ns5xl"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=24492&hl=ns5xl[/url]

[quote name='beerdragon' post='650709' date='Nov 10 2009, 03:08 PM']Yeah, i know people who don't like the Beatles.[/quote] That'll be me then - I find them almost unlistenable - if one of their songs comes on the radio then I'm heading for the change channel button almost immediately! In terms of the Dan - I love the idea of 'treating' yourself to a morning of their best work I bought the 4 CD box set a while ago & love it. I have some original albums but really enjoy playing through the whole catalogue in sequence. Apart from a lot of the stuff that's been said elsewhere in this thread I think it's the guitar solos that really stand out for me. So many amazing solos seemingly just dropped in and pretty much every one of them has something really listenable whilst also being bloody clever. I think Larry Carlton probably plays my favourite ones but I don't know each track well enough to know exactly who plays on which song. There's a couple of them in the middle of this sequence on Youtube (skip straight to about 1:30 if you want to miss Hill Street!)

My old Esh had quite a complex set of active & piezo switching options but if you put everything in one particular setting then they were all bypassed, including volume, for a 'studio' tone. Not sure if it was a true bypass or not but it was actually my favourite setting!

A budget range of between £500 & £1,200 is pretty wide. Towards the lower end you're in good quality Fender & beginning to hit Musicman territory but once you go over £1,000 in the used market then you can think about serious high end basses that would have been close to £2K new. One relatively big decision that might help to kick off with is the core size & shape of bass. E.G. Would you prefer something smaller bodied like your SGC or a Fender 'clone' with a Jazz or a P shape? There is an amazing range of quality J shaped basses around from people like Overwater & Sei & £1,200 would definitely get you a nice one of these (there's a really nice Sei on EBay sitting at £1,000 at the moment). A lot will also depend on whether you're really after 'the one' bass to keep for a really long time or if you're prepared to try a few things and trade a lot. If you are going to swap things around then make sure you get something that's relatiely easy to re-sell if required. Simple answer to this is one of the nicer Fenders on the used market as these generally hold value well (although 5 string Fenders are a very mixed bunch). It really is way tougher to make a definitive choice up over £1K because there are so many choices, passive v active, exotic woods v painted, 'organic' wood v glossed, classic style v modern etc. As ever the thing to do is to try as many as you can get your mitts on

My (first) wedding cake was in the shape of a white P Bass, lol. Must have an old pic of it somewhere in the family vaults!

[quote name='steve-soar' post='648182' date='Nov 7 2009, 04:22 PM']Looks like Paddy McAloon, see my avatar. [/quote] That made me smile It also made me dig out my best of Prefab Sprout album

[quote name='Platypus' post='646753' date='Nov 5 2009, 10:10 PM']Silver Fox with A/C alert came across this on YouTube: [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/roosjeetje#p/a/u/2/AzCV5ntbDWM"]http://www.youtube.com/user/roosjeetje#p/a/u/2/AzCV5ntbDWM[/url][/quote] Some good playing in the various bass extracts here I can't work out who the bass man actually is though - Paddy someone? Roger Happel is a keyboard player & singer as far as I know (I've heard of him working with Candy Dulfer).

[quote name='Sibob' post='646135' date='Nov 5 2009, 11:56 AM']I definitly agree with that! I guess a lot of it is having a system in the room that joe bloggs recognises and is cheap and easy to replace. Si[/quote] I reckon sometimes it's simply that some people jsut want to see big old 'pro' looking rig in a rehearsal room. I've been to so many that have 300w+ bass rigs & 100w valve guitar stacks & everyone's cranking them up!

[quote name='Sibob' post='646117' date='Nov 5 2009, 11:33 AM']Isn't that a little bit like comparing a horse and a truck? lol Depends what you wanna do! You wouldn't take a 1x12 on a stadium tour for example Si[/quote] Totally agree - that's what I'm really intrigued to try out, lol. I happily run a pair of 12's to gig with. I have no idea why a rehearsal room would want a 4x10 & a 1x15. The money they spent on this would have been far better used on something more suited to the room but of higher quality than an Ashdown Mag system. I guess some people love the idea of a big rig for rehearsing though - The guitar amp is a Marshall half stack as well!

[quote name='Gwilym' post='645902' date='Nov 5 2009, 12:50 AM']... I don't believe you - got to be the amp [/quote] I did A/B the amp and the little Sadowsky pre - the Sad was sooo much nicer than the Ashdown! Next week i'm gonna take one of my Berg cabs and see how a single 1x12 compares to the Ashdown 4x10 + 1x15 combintion. . .

Hi All, Well - first thoughts are very encouraging! I arrived back pretty late last night so just grabbed the bass & used the studio amp (which I hate!). It's an Ashdown Mag 300 with a matching 4x10 & a small 1x15 extension cab. Way too bog for a small rehearsal space really. I did bypass the front end of the amp by using my Sadowsky pre-amp pedal (with tone controls set flat) running into the effects return. The core sound was really nice, all the band immediately commented on how much more punch & clarity it had than my MTD535 which I'd used at the previous rehearsal (albeit running through the Ashdown's rather 'murky' pre-amp). Thea biggest difference for me in 'everyday' use was the useable range of tones from onboard the bass. I set the trebel & bass around mid way & used the master tone control to soften things out for older style stuff or sharpen the tone for more modern songs. I also played with the pickup mix a fair bit & this is something I hardly ever do. I've tended to find that bridge pickup solo sounds are too thin for me and/or I've had to use a lot of eq to get a sound I like. However the bridge either solo or with a strong bias sounded really nice & cut through the mix really well. I actually found myself subtly playing with the neck pickup volume as the core tonal adjustment for different song styles. To be honest I've generally just picked a sound & stuck with it in the past & just moved my hand around to vary tones. I was also 'testing' the variations last night so probably wouldn't change stuff as much on a regular gig or rehearsal. The other big difference was that I almost always cut mids on my amp to get a sound I'm really happy with. I simply didn't need to dot his with the AC & I'm guessing this would hel improve overall bass definition at a live gig. I found it very easy to play as well, definiteyl allowed me to try stuff I would never normally play or would maybe stumble over. This even included using some slap parts in rock songs, lol. I NEVER do this normally and my slap technique is dreadful, I'm always leaving strings ringing. However the AC just seemed to 'work' really well on this sort of stuff & was a lot of fun to play on the umpteenth run through of the same song, lol. Weight & general feel was great as well. Maybe not as light as the MTD but not a huge difference & absolutely a good gigging bass. Neck felt vaguely wide at first but I that seemed to disappear as soon as I started playing. I could really feel the difference in the 34" scale as well, easier to play without losing any definition. Didn't use the B all that much as the songs didn't desperately need it but I did swap a few song positions around to give it a try & wasn't aware of any issues by having a slightly shorter scale. Everyone in the band said it looked really classy as well - surprising in a way as it's effectively just a J bass in a sunburst finish & the MTD they'd seen before has a flamed & spalted maple top. Maybe they are more 'traditionalist', lol. Will report back on more stuff soon & get some pics taken

It's arrived! Turned up yesterday and the box was really rattling around - I was seriously worried that something might have been damaged but it was just one of the latches on the case that had opened. It arrived strung with a set of flats (which I never play) but even these sounded really nice. A lot more punch & growl than any bass I've tried with flats on. I swapped them out for a brand new set of Elixirs & it's just lovely to play. The different strings made it a little buzzy so needs some fettling but I've got rehearsal tonight so will try it out there. It's in much better condition than it looks in the pics too - I'll try to get some new pics done at the weekend