Maude

It's here . . . . . . and the fingerboard's not attached!! It was delivered to my inlaws and I made sure they checked it for damage before signing. I didn't know it would have a 'tilt watch' on the box and my inlaws didn't know what it was, they thought it was an electronic chip for tracking. The tilt watch was red and the driver who checked it with the inlaws didn't point it out!! There is no damage to the box so they have signed as ok. I don't know how a fb can come off without any damage to the box, it's packaged so that the fb is in the centre of the box away from any surfaces so the box would need to be pushed in a long was to meet the fb, maybe just bad glueing. I'll contact Gedo in the morning to see where we go now. What is the fb glued on with normally, animal glue or just pva? As long as I know what glue to use I'm more than capable of glueing and clamping the fb in place, the breaks in the finishing are easily lined up to sit it exactly where it was, but that's not the point. This has really take the joy out of buying a new bass.

Woo hoo, it'll be here tomorrow! Bit of a bummer though as it's going to my inlaws, I'm picking it up after work but I have rehearsal with the band I play EB in so won't even have time to unpack it, it'll have to wait 'til Friday. It's the acoustic band rehearsal tonight so EUB it is again.

I remember reading that Rick Rubin said he would always listen to his mixes in the car on the way home from the studio and when they sounded good in the car he was happy, as the vast majority of everyday folk only listen to music in the car, at least I think it was RR. As nearly everything he produces sounds awesome, to my ears, I'm happy to follow his rule of thumb, it also makes perfect sense.

Wow, thanks Bassinmyface, just the sort of answer I wad hoping for, not that I don't appreciate everyone elses. I agree about the clicky being separately controlled, I had wondered if you could put a small passive volume control under the fingerboard for it. I do a bit of slapping but would like to do more which is why I was leaning towards the single with clicky but I'm sure I saw a post with someone saying their bridge PU picked up the string slap quite well. I supposed I could use a big bass and a clicky and merge the signals using my Line 6 X3, you can run two instruments through it and tailor the signals independently, switch the clicky off when not needed.

I use an Ashdown Perfect Ten mini rig, it's only sixty watts but is very efficient and kicks out enough to keep up at pub gigs, if we do a big club I go through the PA. They're discontinued but you can pick them up on ebay for around £150, it's a small head unit with two ten inch speaker cabs, individually the three components are very light and you can run one or two cabs and placement is very flexible being separate. Perhaps not your dream amp but it works for me and is in your price and weight range, so much so I'm going to get another if one comes up locally for even more power/flexibility.

I'm probably going to be getting a J tone PU for my DB, I've seen various threads with folks giving different reasons for getting or not getting the varying types that J tone do, reds, single wing, double wing, single plus clicky, etc and thought it would be good to have all the info in one place. So which ones have you tried and what are your thoughts?

It only left midday Friday, I don't know if it will move over the weekend and the holiday Monday, I hope so though. It'll probably all go smoothly until it reaches good old Britain, then the 'can't be arsed' brigade will have their part to play. Fingers crossed it'll be soon.

If they don't sound that good and are in the way, I'll take them off your hands for £20 to save you the trouble of having to fit them to another bass .

As I'm a complete novice to the world of guts, how much is an average set ? I realise there's probably a vast range in prices but what sort of range are they in? I've ordered my new bass with Innovation Rockabillys but I know I'd love to have real gut strings one day.

Argh! It's a public holiday in Germany tomorrow (Whit Monday) so no courier action I expect, I need I need I need!

I'm trying to thin down at the mo but it's hard, I end up with a reason to keep too many. I've ended up being weak and deciding to keep my Variax (in a covers band so very handy), Aria P clone (because with the mods it rivals a few Fender I've played and owes me next to nothing), it was going to be just those two but the others are all different types and come in handy, a 5 string, a fretless, an acoustic, then there's the EUB and double bass. So from ten I've only managed to agree with myself to sell three. And our drummer has just told me there's an Aria STB Jazz in the local charity shop which after mods will be a sister for the P clone, I'm useless : )

Ooh ooh ooh, had an email earlier, it's left Gedo and on it's way. Oh sh*t, must remember to play it cool, I'm a jazz cat now.

You mean they don't come with frets? :0) I've played EUB for a year and a fair bit of fretless EB already so should be a fairly painless transition. I did put dots in the third, fifth and position on the EUB to start with in white pencil but don't need them now. I had them for a bit of security as I learnt to play it in an acoustic band that was already gigging, fairly laid back stuff but still a bit nerve racking to start with. First gig was providing background music for seven hours Saturday and Sunday at an art and crafts fair underground in December, a strange start.

I didn't actually say it was that cheap, I just showed her the really cheap ones you can get and said it looks like that, she just assumed I'd bought that one, and we all know you must never correct your wife :0) So now that's sorted it's just a waiting game for the bass, I keep looking at pictures of it in anticipation. We've got a gig booked with the acoustic band in three weeks so I'm hoping I'll be used to it by then so I don't have to use the EUB.

Holy moly that's a big box, at least it's well packed. The boss knows about the new bass now, it's amazing you get a such a nice bass for £350 eh ;0)

Thanks for all the suggestions on 'bass smuggling' :0) Worst of all I've had to put her parents address down for delivery as we work in the day and I don't want it going back to the couriers. I have this weekend to sort it. Every electric bass I buy is on the proviso that I sell a couple of the others to fund it, still got a rack full of basses though. They're just getting bigger that's all,

Sorry, double post due to 'chubby thumbed muppet' syndrome.

I've got five or six days to work on that one :0) Without meaning to sound rude, you're the person that put doubt in my head about not getting the Rockabillys and going for the Honeys, at least I think it was you that loved them, I spent most of last night crawling the Innovation section. Once I've used this bass for a while I'll put my name down for a trial of the Honeys.

We do 'No one knows' by QOTSA (goes down a storm btw) which is in drop D and then all strings down a tone, sorry don't know what that's called, but I play by just dropping the E to C, we make sure the song before it ends on just guitars so I can quickly drop to C before we kick into QOTSA, it's quicker and visually slicker than swapping guitars. We always finish the first set with it so I can tune back up in the break. I always take and set up two basses anyway in case of any issue.

Well after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing I've made the decision and ordered a Gedo hybrid bass with adjustable bridge and strung with Innovation Rockabillys, I went fir an adjustable bridge as I'm not sure what height is 'my height' yet dependant on what tension strings I settle on. I ordered it with Rockabillys but I think I might like the Honeys, I'll get my name on the Innovation string thread after the new bass arrives. The worst bit now, the wait!

I've toyed with getting the Vox one and may well get one if they're pretty good, do they have an aux in like the flanger one in the OP? Another fan of the BDI21 here, got two of them, one for 'my sound' and another as an overdrive, I also have the acoustic version for my EUB.

I'd love to own a really top end bass but can't justify the outlay to myself when some inexpensive basses are so good. I also like to tinker so enjoy making a cheaper bass better and then it's a little more personal too. I bought an Aria STB Series P bass copy for £40, I'd heard the necks were good and they are, I fancied a 'classic' P bass (in my eyes), it was a nice sunburst so I put a tort scratchplate and a bridge cover on it, 1\4 pounder PU's in, a set of Chrome flats and made a foam mute for under the bridge cover. A really good clean, set up and sorting any bits I wasn't happy with later, and there weren't many at all really, and that bass is awesome. A mate has a Fender P, not sure what exactly but it's around the seventies somewhere and he reckons my Aria is nicer to play. It's one those never sell basses as it's not worth anything but it cost less than £150 all in. It's like it plays itself, can anyone tell I love that bass :0)

This seem a bit strange but if you're into experimenting, how about using two Precision bass pickups, so four separate PU's in total if you see what I mean, mount them vertically rather than in the convention manner so you'd have four pole pieces per string, you could then control the tone and volume of pairs of strings or if you wanted to rewire the separate PU's then a tone and volume for each string or just the conventional single tone and volume. Or maybe I just need help :0)

Thanks for all the replies, some noteworthy points made but only reinforcing what, deep down, I think I already knew, I was sort of hoping there might be a 'don't worry, get a full ply and it'll be fine' reply. A ply probably would be ok but there'd always be that 'what if' in my mind. I'm going to get a ply with a carved top. I could stretch to a full carved but only the cheapest available, which coupled with the fragility of a full carved in comparison to s ply worries me, this will be a gigging bas.To address some replies, I've allowed £100ish for new strings and if bought from Gedo it will have a proper set before shipping including fitting whichever strings I want. The EUB pre amp bypass, the one in the Harley Benson, which is a Palatino even came in a Palatino box, is IMO rubbish, hissy and tinny sounding, the only way I could make it sound good was by using an outboard pre so I tried bypassing it and improved the bottom end by miles, plus no hiss or batteries, after getting the sound U liked from an outboard pre I found that I could get the same sound just using the eq on my amp, I still use a pre if I'm going into the PA. My next dilemma is there is half carved from Gedo on sale which is Romanian built rather than Chinese in my price range but it's a very white blonde which I'm not sure I like but would probably be the best sounding. I know it shouldn't be looks over sound but I've got to live with it, oh the choices :-)

I have a BBE Acoustimax, Behringer ADi 21 and Line 6 X3 live which has a few preamps in it so hopefully I can get something decent sounding out of it. I've bypassed the pre in my Harley Benton EUB and run the piezo straight into my ashdown minirig and it sounds really good. So many choices :-)