Maude

I'd hazard a guess that many factors come before tone when choosing wood. Strength, stability, cost, availability, appearance and weight are a few off the top of my head. The balance of importance between these factors will change depending on other factors, whether budget or high end, painted or natural/stained finish, etc. Some woods might have gorgeous grain but are too heavy, some woods might be very light but lack strength. Imagine various woods and their attributes in a Venn diagram and the ones in the centre that have the required mix of qualities have become the standard woods for guitar/bass building and have become known as 'tonewoods', but I suspect tone has had little to do with the choosing of these suitable woods over the years. Now in the day of excess wealth marketing is king and 'tonewood' is an important word in marketing only. Find any wood that has the required strength and stability and I'd be very surprised if it couldn't be used to make a great sounding bass, it just might be very heavy, expensive or boring to look at. To take it to its extreme, are they any woods that have the needed strength, stability and weight but are unsuitable purely because of their bad tone?

Peter Steele from Type-O-Negative at over 2m tall needs to be in goal.

I guess so. Have you got anything at home you could use instead? 🤔 😁

Ben - Michael Jackson

You can buy a device that you leave on the strings to simulate years of playing. Who's going to buy one to test and put the 'played in wood' argument to bed? Tonerite

Converse Chuck Taylor All Star, unchanged (significantly) for one hundred years and still one of the most popular, recognisable shoes. Are we far enough off topic yet? 😄

Never Enough - The Cure

You Need Hands - Max Bygraves

I bought 'Kiss This' when it came out in the early 90s for the car. All of 'Bollocks' and the rest of their good stuff without the extra guff on 'Swindle'. It came with a 'Live in Trondheim' CD. In fact I'm going to dig it out and pop it in the car now.

Brand New Cadillac - Vince Taylor and his Playboys

You're History - Shakespeare's Sister

Lavender - Marillion

The gold top 'Maben' is £2.5k, so not cheap, but probably about right.

Absolutely deserved.👏

Seems like lovely genuine man. For some reason I've never actually made the link between Dan and Kent Armstrong.

How does the trombone work? 😄

Come With Me - Po Diddley ft Jimmy Page

All done. 🙂👍 A little confused though. It says it's about the links between audio and visual stimuli, yet there are no visuals. Or is there more to come?

The Joker and The Thief - Wolfmother

Been Caught Stealing - Janes Addiction

I'll do this tomorrow morning when I've got some peace and quiet. 🙂👍 "What do we want?" "Procrastination!" "When do we want it?" "Erm, tomorrow?"

That would make a lovely bass. 😎

Oh yes, all designs are heavily borrowed but I just thought the way they incorporate their own ideas into those designs and the craftsmanship were top notch. There's lots of companies copying old designs, these just seemed to adding some nice touches to those old designs. I think the offset waist really works with the 4003 horns, and the rear cavity covers add a real touch of class.

The above is good advice, but if you do end up deciding you want new pickups then maybe look at the Entwistle PBXN and JBXN. I've always said the PBXN is very much like the SPB3 but with slightly more mids, and although I haven't tried the Seymour Duncan 1/4 Pound J, the Entwistle J has that same vibe going on as the P. Absolutely go with the 1/4 Pound range of that's what you want as they're great, but the Entwistle Neo's are just as great at a fraction of the price.

Babylon's Burning - The Ruts