Misdee

I can actually remember when these colours were on the newest USA Fenders in my local music shop. I can vividly recollect a bright yellow Jazz Bass. That was just around the time I was shopping for my first proper bass. I think they were Fenders attempt to stay relevant to the "new wave" of that time. General consensus at the time was that they looked bloody awful, but nowadays they look pretty good to me! Just shows you how times and tastes can change.

A good bass is a good bass, expensive or not so expensive. It's just that if a brand loses it's aspirational dimension then it has no direction. It becomes like trying to sell replica kits for a mid-table Sunday League football team. Why would people want them? G&L is such a loss to the market because they have unique features and sounds that no one else has to offer. The L1000 and L2000 are inimitable, nothing else sounds like them.

For me, for G&L to continue as a brand they have to keep making premium quality guitars and basses in the USA. I know the Tribute range has its fans, but without the USA range and it's heritage they have nothing to be a tribute to. What I want is top quality American-made instruments. It's so depressing when prestige brands become a hollowed-out shell of themselves churning out budget fare which bears little or no relation to what garnered their reputation in the first place except the name . It's happened too many times already. If G&L go the same way then it's another brand might as well have gone completely as far as I'm concerned.L

I wouldn't put any value whatsoever in the bass being signed by "serious legends." If you are seriously interested in this bass I would do a bit (a lot) of due-diligence on Alembic Persuader basses, specifically the five string version. I remember the 4 string Persuader was a 32 inch scale, and that scale might not work so well on a five. Check the specs regarding that and also the weight of the bass. A five string Alembic could well be pretty heavy. Alembics basses are notoriously idiosyncratic, and though they sound wonderful are not always particularly user-friendly so if you've got that kind of money to spend proceed carefully. There's a lot of nice basses out there for that kind of cash.

There's a big difference between the two hypotheses "How many basses is too many ?" and "How many basses do you need?" How many basses is too many depends on your personal circumstances. If you're John Entwistle or Geddy Lee then in excess of 250 basses is perfectly okay. If you're living in a bedsit and struggling to make ends meet you can probably manage with less than that. How many basses you need depends on your musical circumstances and is related to the question "Which bass do I need?" In other words, you might need to be judicious in your choice of basses, considering your needs and preferences and bearing in mind the limits on how many you can have at one time. As for myself, I can be perfectly happy playing just one bass, probably a Jazz Bass, if I've got a P Bass as well then there's not much else I really need or want on a regular basis. Add a fretless and a decent five string and I can amuse myself for any foreseeable future. Any additions beyond those are really just icing on the cake. Anything more than that and you're into having a "collection", and a collection is more often than not, an entity in itself that can become burdensome.

It's not so much the active basses you mention (I've recently bought a couple of German-made Sadowsky Will Lee basses and they are superb instruments) as the passive super-Fenders (or so they would have you believe) that are the subject of my ire. Don't get me wrong, a well-made passive boutique FSO can be a very worthwhile purchase, I have one or two of my own. However, when a certain amount of magical realism is included in the retail price I am more than sceptical, let me put it to you that way.

You're not wrong Russ, but I don't think buying a bass is actually a rational transaction for most people. Particularly with expensive and esoteric basses, there's a certain amount of romance involved. It's significant that a lot of people have mentioned how G&L's major perceived shortcoming was a lack glamour and excitement, leaving them with a worthy but dull image in the minds of too many consumers.

Nick Beggs just paid £15000 for his old Wal Pro bass. I could have bought that bass from a chap in Norfolk in 1995 for about £475 if I remember correctly. I passed because I couldn't be arsed going all the way to Cromer. Thirty years ago Wal would do you a new bass for about £1100-£1200 if you went to the workshop with cash. You could get a decent used MK1 Custom for about £600, maybe a bit less if you were lucky. A new Status Series 1 or Series 2 cost a few hundred quid more than a new Wal. At that time Wal and Jaydee were considered a bit old-hat compared to newer Warwicks ect.

I use the resale value as a metric to judge how much money I could get back. If you ever want or need to sell a bass, they worth what you can get for them and what you get for them may well dictate what you can get to replace them. I remember well when Wal basses were less valuable than today, but then again now they are grotesquely overvalued. They, and Status and JD, never super cheap in relation to other comparable basses, just relatively less overpriced than now. Plenty of those basses you are mention are very attractive, no question, but I just can't see me handing over cash for most of them.

It's an endemic problem when you have a nice selection of gear. Choose one as your main bass, get to know it well. Look at the other ones while you are practising on that one and count your blessings.

Oh, there's no shortage of bass builders. The acid test for their relative popularity and desirability though, is how easy it is to sell a used bass to the general public. A few of the basses you mention have conspicuously poor resale value, if you can find a buyer. More celebrated marques will trounce their worthy but less high-profile counterparts. Pay six grand for a new fancy custom Overwater or ACG and pay six grand for a basic standard model Fodera, put them both on Basschat and see how much of your outlay you can get back and how quickly.

Well, I might be getting old in years but I still understand how the world works, for young people as much as myself. I suppose the critical difference is how much credibility and importance the individual places on whatever respective media. You see Russ, I would beg to differ that most of the manufacturers you mention are adequate replacements for those that are effectively gone now. Dingwall would be the exception. Shuker, Sei, Overwater and GB all build fine basses but I wouldn't give them house room. They just have never appealed to me. None of them can hold a candle to a Wal, or Status or Jaydee for that matter, in terms of being what I want. I'm sure plenty of other folks feel the same. It's naive to think that what most people want when they are buying a bass is merely an adequate (or even superb) instrument. More than anything they are buying an idea combined with association, and the feelings that combination gives them. Very few bass builders appeal to me nowadays. It's not just a generational thing or me hankering for my youth, basses just aren't as interesting or diverse as they once were, fanned frets ect. not withstanding.

For me, the whole boutique passive Fender but not made by Fender fetish is getting a bit out of hand. Thousands of dollars for a bass sounds like...a Fender but I suppose with a bit of a story to it and some snake oil thrown in, if that's what you're really after. That's fair enough, let the buyer beware, but what I can't take is the guys who think they would be doing me a favour selling me one of their basses for mere money in return. Trust me, there are some out there. At least G&L were honest about what they were offering and Leo's heritage. They actually did have some worthwhile innovations on the Fender designs and they could and should have been a lot more successful with them.

That's a good point, but the end result is still the same in so much as I feel like there are far fewer desirable new basses that I would consider buying. I expect a few other folks feel the same way. A lot of the newer builders are offering what is essentially yet another faithful rendition of a Fender i.e brands like Moolon or Olinto, for example. There's less variety of worthwhile original designs, for my taste anyway.

There's nothing wrong with the bolt-on Thumb, it's just slightly different in certain aspects to the neck-thru. There might well be a good reason why Warwick have made those slight changes for the bolt-on version.

So many bass makers are gone recently, Modulus, Pedulla, Vigier, Status, and now G&L. Myself, I don't see any of the newer makers as offering worthwhile alternatives to what those established brands offered. I know Wal are still going and turning out better basses than ever but last I heard it was a six year wait, so in practise you can't really buy a bass from them either.

What happens when crap bands go unchecked? Worst case scenario- Coldplay, that's what happens.

I agree! Despite all I have said, I'm still a sucker for a nice Thumb Bass. I could see me ignoring all good sense and buying one like that example. I once nearly inadvertantly got given one by the Bass Centre in Wapping when I bought a gig bag and someone had very thoughtfully left a brand new Thumb fretless inside. For a moment I thought they might have been so impressed by my playing they were forcing an endorsement on me. However, honest to a fault, I alerted the shop to their generous oversight and gave them their bass back.

If you enjoy it and you can play on it okay then that's all that matters. I really like the sound and appearance of Thumb Basses but I can't play very well on them so I've never bought one.

I've got a 4HH Bongo and it's a beast of a bass. It's got a unique character that I love, and a lot of folks who criticise the looks have never seen on in the flesh. I think it's a beautiful design, and I have done since the first time I saw one at NAAM. I like basses that sound obtrusive, and the Bongo certainly fulfils that brief. It's such a great sound, especially for modern music that's sonically very dense because it cuts through so well. The dual frequency mid controls are really useful in that respect. It's also got massive bottom end that can compete with guitars, synths and electronic drums. I think the problem for EBMM with the Bongo has been that it has an unapologetically modern sound and design in an era that is preoccupied with retro and vintage-inspired gear. If that bass had come out in the mid-1980's when modernity was all the rage then they would have sold loads of them. It's a design that's ahead of its time but behind the trend, if that makes sense.

I've wondered that too. It's not because it rectifies any of the problems with the neck-thru design because both versions are very uncomfortable to play if you're used to a more conventionally-proportioned bass. To play a Thumb you've got to love them, because there are so many drawbacks regarding the ergonomics. Still a great sound, though.

You might well be right; I'm getting too old and confused to understand what young people really want. (That was the basis of my defense in court, anyway.) That whole math rock, new metal thing is unlistenable for me so I don't pay too much attention In terms of sales numbers I have no idea, but traditional designs still seem to proliferate in the mainstream.

It only makes sense for Fender to buy G&L if they keep it separate entity. Migrating features of G&L instruments to their Fender counterparts would be a monumentally silly thing to do for lots of reasons. In terms of marketing G&L is an entity in its self with a profile that Fender could easily improve. It would only take a bit of razmatazz and a couple of big name endorsements to get players interested in buying G&L instruments again. To undertake creating some kind of Fender-G&L hybrid and making it successful is a much more difficult undertaking. Consider that Fender have never had an active bass that could rival the L2000, for example, and if they brought one out now it would be a hard sell to a conservative consumer base. Much better just to promote the existing model from G&L. . There's something a bit exotic about G&L, what with their history, their innovative designs and the interesting players who've played them in the past. Fender must surely have the wit to see what an opportunity this is to resurrect a potent brand. In football terms, their clean through on an open goal, all they need is but if clever marketing to put the ball in the back of the net

I'd be honest and tell them what I really thought from the get-go, in a discreet but frank and honest way. Your friend might well respect you more for doing so. Unless your friend is particularly vulnerable or overly sensitive then I don't think telling the truth is wrong in this instance.

My point is if you want a Bongo then one of these basses will only satisfy your craving for something that looks like a Bongo. If you want an inexpensive bass then a Sire offers much better value for money than one of these. They get much closer to their inspiration than these Sterlings do to a proper Bongo.