4000

If the neck is tinted, any sort of blue.

May have been a commission sale where they just wanted it shifted. Can’t decide whether I’m happy it’s sold or gutted. I was actually toying with selling the Azure ‘72 Ric for a brief (very brief) moment. Probably a good thing it’s gone, took me 17 years to find that!

http://walbasshistory.blogspot.com/p/growth-in-80s.html

Well, I’d class that as an oddity, if not the only one.😉

It is an oddity though. No scratch plate (poss refin?), Custom knobs (which could have been replaced). Interesting.

Tell you what Andy, you get the loan and buy it and I’ll buy it off you in a couple of years. 😉

Was just thinking exactly the same thing.

Chris Squire’s main bass wasn’t Snowglo. It was cream, as refinished by Sam Li. Sorry. FWIW Snowglo is a custom colour. All the old white basses were simply white, not that his was.

I’ve been a huge Marvel and DC fan for over 50 years, Robert E Howard (Conan creator) for over 45, big fan of GoT too. Never liked the British comics at all, even as a kid, although I used to like Viz.

No, the sound is very different to my ears too.

Well he ended up with the Ric humbuckers, which he liked. He wasn’t a fan of the Ric single coils, or so he said (I think he referred to them as sounding like “tin whistles”) , but I’m not sure he actually changed the treble pickups. Or you could take the Bartolini route, or even the T Bird one; several people make copies of those these days. I always thought his first bass sounded best.

I remember that too.

Not a fan of Game of Thrones, Conan or Aquaman then.😉 And soon to be seen in Dune...

Andy, how are you finding the Status?

Anyway, sorry for drifting off topic. Enjoy the bass, I’m sure it’ll scrub up nicely. Got to say, I do love full-width inlays, vintage or modern. it’s definitely a looker.

Nice bass! My first ever bass, a Jetglo 1980 4001 serial number TC915, looked quite a bit like that after I changed the scratch plate for a black one. Didn’t have a black trc though, and of course some of the details were different as per a 4001 from that period. That bass was stolen from the band van in 1985/1986 (think it was ‘86). It wasn’t insured. Especially poignant at the moment as my dad paid for the bulk of it and he died last week. Would have been nice to have still had it. They also took my amp (Fender Bassman 135), a Marshall Superbass head, a HH 2x15 bass cab and the drummer’s drum kit.

I wasn’t thinking specifically about this thread - although it could equally apply here - but I’ve seen loads of threads on here where a simple look at the manufacturer’s website - or at worst an email to the manufacturer - would have answered the question being asked. I’ve even pointed it out on occasion to be met with “oh, never thought of that”. Baffling.

If I’m ever interested in finding out info about what a manufacturer produces I always go straight to the website. If that doesn’t work I usually email them. I always find it a bit strange when people ask on forums without even looking on the manufacturers site.

I like the feel of graphite necks. The sound, not so much, generally speaking at least. I always find I need some sort of parametric-type eq to make them work for me.

From early interviews he definitely did use it. He described the T Bird pickup as sounding like, amongst other things, “a road drill”. I think he only started changing things round when he got the signature bass. By that point his hearing must have been completely shot; when I met him in 1980 and 81/82 he said he was deaf in 1 ear (I forget which one, it may have been the left). He also completely changed his amp settings later on too. Originally he had everything full on except the bass, which was full off, and the volume, IIRC. Later - again IIRC - he only had the middle on full. I’ll try and dig out some old interviews I have at some point. I once spoke to Paul Gray, who at the time was working at Peter Cook’s, who said that when Lemmy’s original bass had come in it was wired wrong and had a really low output.

Lemmy’s first bass from around 2:54.

From what I can see that looks like the original aluminium tailpiece with the aluminium saddles; it’s difficult to tell from the picture but it looks like (as on one of mine) a lot of the chrome has flaked off, which may be why some parts look dark and others lighter. I’d need a better picture, which I may have somewhere. I’m pretty sure he replaced it at some point with one of the later (structurally worse) tailpieces, probably due to intonation issues; the bridge unit on the original tailpieces is narrower and tends to run out of intonation. Both of my vintage basses have had the tailpiece routed for a later bridge unit, and even then there’s not a lot of adjustment available. Edit: looks like virtually all the chrome is gone here!

A lot of that “vintage” clank is down to eq too of course, and in some of the classic examples, the entire rig the bass was played through. The attached video is good reference for “that” sound. Even though he’s using stereo and I use mono, I’ve adapted some of my settings since watching the video. Note how relatively warm/ bright the neck/treble pickups are. I’ll add that I’m not going for exactly that sound; my sound is a bit warmer and darker.

The case/foot thing is annoyingly common, especially given how much the cases cost. You’d think it would be easy enough to address. So far as I’m aware, the “vintage circuit” just puts the 0.0047 capacitor back in the circuit, thus cutting the bass output on the treble pickup. It doesn’t actually add treble so much as lose bass. The old 4001 basses used to have the cap permanently in (unless of course you removed it), then they removed the cap for the 4003, until they came up with the switch. Worth bearing in mind that an old 4001 would normally have 500k tone pots and less hot pickups. I think the 4003 originally went to 250k pots, and then 330k. So between the hotter pickups and the pot values, you’ll generally get a darker-sounding bass. I have found though that the extra warmth/girth of a good 4003 can be beneficial in a band setting, although of course it depends what you’re after.