Happy Jack

If Jack (a) had a multimeter, and (b) had the slightest idea how to use one, then no doubt Jack could indeed do this thing. I leave electrickery to those who don't realise that 'amp' is short for amplifier.

I originally found this link on Flat Eric's blog, and a very fine read it is too. https://westone.forumotion.com/t971-westone-us-design-development-history

The original pickup on mine seemed to be a no-name clone of a Schaller. It had really weak output and had become microphonic ... not a great combination.

On a black example like mine, the poles aren't black. All the black bits you see are indeed wood, and there is no evidence anywhere of an earthing 'mechanism'. Something that probably needs to be stressed is that these basses were not high-end, boutique instruments cooked up using only the finest ingredients. Far from it. As built, they were novelty basses designed as something of a joke and absolutely built down to a price. All the electrics/electronics without exception were compete pants ... cheap, shoddy pickups connected to cheap, shoddy pots using cheap, shoddy wiring. My bass is just glorious, precisely because I had a luthier strip out every electrical component and replace them with decent stuff. The core of the rebuild was this: That's a Dark Star pickup which I was lucky enough to pick up cheap on eBay many years ago. Although the same width as the original (well, duh!) it's a fair bit 'deeper' so the slidy bit on which it's mounted had to be extended by nearly a centimetre. For the avoidance of doubt, the sliding mechanism works really well as a tone control, with the upgraded electrics my bass sounds excellent, and it attracts attention everywhere I play it.

It's only First World War buffs (like me) who'll get the reference ...

Bizarrely enough, I'm playing a festival in Mons (Belgium) on 25th/26th September. Is there an impending Expat BassBash, I wonder?

Paging @Bassassin ...

Crossbeam's gone askew on't treddle ...

So it's not so much "good buy" as "au revoir"?

If he paid me $12,500 I'd be up for it ...

Any unusual basses in the collection, or are they all 'normal' 3/4 and 4/4 basses?

What sort of music do you play? What sort of venues do you play? What type of bass do you play?

That would be enough to have me move to Yorkshire that same night ...

Is 'Age South West' a Care Home? 😉

Very nice-looking bass, that, but I have ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for another bass, OK?

18 years ago we wanted to call ourselves The Junkyard Dogs but careful searches revealed that there was already a Junkyard Dogs playing in the NorthEast so we ditched the idea. Two years later following some changes in personnel we wanted a new name and - to my complete astonishment - the Junkyard Dogs near Newcastle at that moment posted that the band was folding, it had been a great xxx years, thanks to everybody who had come to their shows, blah blah blah. Righty-ho then, we'll have that thank you very much and The Junkyard Dogs we immediately became. Around the same time a band in the West Country started calling themselves Hobo Jones & The Junkyard Dogs but we never noticed a problem. On a couple of occasions pubs in Devizes and Marlborough tried to book us, presumably Hobo Jones received enquiries from pubs in Ealing, who knows? Fast forward 12 years and - lo and behold - the original band near Newcastle decided to reform, still using the same name. By this time of course we were so well established on social media that we were the first hit on any search for a band called The Junkyard Dogs in Britain, so within a year or so they changed their name to The Junkyard Dogz. But still we weren't in the clear, because quite recently Hobo Jones has presumably decided his band's name is too much of a mouthful, and they seem to have started calling themselves ... wait for it ... wait for it ... The Junkyard Dogs. So where's all this going, I pretend to hear you ask? Well, we were booked (by phone, through someone I've met face to face) for a West London gig at a new venue last week. The booker said he'd do his own poster, which was nice. Then he sent us the poster. The band details were all for Hobo Jones' band down in the West Country while the photo of the band showed the original Newcastle band. I'm still trying to work out if this is wind-up or just an example of Irish humour.

Can't be AI ... it has the same number of strings, tuners and pegs. 😉

Agreed, but it does make each note sound way more expensive. 😉

And as you can see, AI has managed to capture the very essence of Duck there. Oh no ... wait ...

I do find it puzzling that the AI is capable of doing so much in these images, but then hits a brick wall when it comes to things like the number of strings / tuners / pegs etc.

Did a designer somewhere win an award for photographing a silver bass against a distressed off-white background? Yet another triumph of arty-farty nonsense over common sense.

As far as I'm concerned this is a complete no-brainer. That's not a real band, walk away now and find some decent bandmates.