4000

And this:

And then there's this:

This is one of my favourite examples of the two things I love about a good Rick; the singing, full high register stuff and the snarly, aggressive low end stuff.

I think his Wal sound is his second-best sound. I think his recent Jazz sound is his worst by far. I also quite like light strings though, as I have a very light touch. My old Wal Custom sounded better with light strings than heavier ones.

I nearly bought Neil's bass off him once. I was looking for a spare for my main '72. Had no idea about him or Druid until he told me he'd been the bassist in them. I later found a copy of their first album and love it. His bass, despite being a '72, was far heavier than mine and to my ears didn't sound as good, although his action was twice mine. Of course I now really, really wish I'd bought it, although deep down I hope he kept it. Lovely bloke by the way.

And yet they're arguably the only bass I can still play with all my issues. I find them really comfortable, but then I learned to play on one. Unlike a Fender Jazz for example, which cripples my arm. As I've said ad infinitum, I've owned or played most of the basses out there and always come back to my Rics. I'd take them over absolutely anything. And they're actually quite versatile, far more so than most of the active basses I've owned. They're not really just plug in, flat eq and play though, and they don't bond that well with some modern-sounding bass rigs.

Huge Entwistle fan here, although to be honest I came to him very late. I was born '63, didn't start playing til '80, didn't really listen to Entwistle until I'd been playing a few years (The Who mostly bypassed me prior to that). As a kid most of the stuff I loved was harmony bands, The Mamas & The Papas, The Beatles etc, later ABBA, before discovering heavy & prog rock in my early/mid teens. Never really liked Motown, R&B, Reggae or Soul growing up; no-one I knew was into them either, except as above some of the thug contingent, which further put me off. I grew up in a mostly Jazz household though as my dad was a jazz trumpet player. In terms of bass, I guess Macca and Rutger Gunnarson were pre-playing subliminal influences. After starting, I was mainly into heavy rock /prog players, but to be honest, I really wanted to play guitar. ;-).

That seems a lot then. Many will also do a fret dress for that sort of money. Your call though.

It’s all a learning curve. That’s pretty much the rule of thumb though.

Of course if there’s fretwork that needs doing then it’ll be more....

Oh, and I think last time I looked the Gallery charged £35 for a set up.

If the strings are stiffer it will put more relief in the neck, as you experienced. Therefore you need to adjust the neck first, to counteract the pull of the stiffer strings. If your action is too high with the neck relief set correctly then you adjust the bridge.

Have never understood this assumption. It’s like people automatically assume that if you play with a pick you must have a right hand like Lemmy. I use a pick & play really, really lightly, unless I’m digging in on purpose. In fact I think all of the 100% fingerstyle players I know play way harder than me.

Fixed. 😉 Which is why I’ve played thousands of basses since 1980. I have a bizarre need to try every single one I see.....or did until a couple of years ago.

Good luck! Here we are...

I'm with Chris. I've played a hell of a lot of Warwicks and I've yet to play one with an Ovangkol neck that I like the sound of. Every wenge-necked Warwick I've played has sounded miles better to me, but I guess like everything else most of it's down to personal taste.

About five years ago, I cut a fingernail-sized piece off the tip of the 1st finger of my left hand. I played a gig a few days later with the finger wrapped in bandaging the size of a golfball, and had to play everything without using that finger, which is obviously the finger I use most. Bear in mind my bass style in the band is kind of Squire / Entwistle-esque, so let's just say it was an interesting challenge. 😉

My custom Alembic Triple Omega. It was my present to myself for my 40th, when I finally decided life was too short, regardless of how expensive it was. Sadly my back and neck were a mess by then, meaning that although I had it built as light as possible it was still too much and I eventually moved it on a few years later. I wasted years and a lot of money (way more than it eventually cost) buying lesser things when I could have just bitten the bullet and got a good decade or two out of it.

I'll add that all the best Warwicks I've played have been '91 or earlier, although I haven't played much that's very recent (last few years). My '91 Dolphin was miles better than my '96 despite them looking and feeling almost identical, bar the colour of the hardware. And the early Thumbs are some of my favourite ever basses; if not for some ergonomic issues (I have trouble with the tiny body and short upper horn) I'd happily use them as my choice of "modern" bass.

I've had 4 (2 Dolphin Pro 1s, a Pro II and a Streamer) and they could all be set up with the strings on the frets. The only one that initially had an issue was the Steamer S1, a 1991 model with what apparently at the time were dodgy truss rods. Martin Petersen added a washer, tweaked it a bit and it was fine from then on.

My first bass was a brand new Rickenbacker 4001 in Jetglo, bought Aug/Sept 1980, serial no TC915. It was stolen from the band van in Hendon in 1985 or '86; '86 I think. I'd replaced the white scratch plate with a black one and the back pickup had been rewound or had extra magnets fitted (I forget which, possibly both) by Kent Armstrong; I didn't know about the capacitor at the time. Also stolen were my Fender Bassman 135, a HH 2x15 (IIRC), a Marshall Superbass head and our drummer's kit. I was on the dole at the time and they weren't insured so was absolutely gutted. Never did find out what happened to them. In the unlikely event that anyone has any info, please let me know.

As the "checkered binding", "crushed pearl inlays" and skunk stripe appear to be mimicking a mid/late '72 is it likely to be a '71? Not an expert on fakers by any stretch but it seems less likely to me as they didn't have skunks and had walnut headstock wings. Oh, I'm always in. 😉

Maybe a couple of very old ones. ;-) Or a couple of new Sei basses!