NancyJohnson

A long, long time ago (in a Galaxy etc.), I smashed up an Ibanez Roadster bass at a gig. It was a horrible PoS and I'd just had enough... I'd kept the neck and used to keep it under the bed. We'd been burgled at our old house and I just felt that if it happened again while we were in the house I'd have something to swing and dish out some Johnson justice. I know there's probably a ton of SJWs out there that would be going, 'Oh, no, you can't do that,' but I figure, my house, my kit, my family and I wouldn't be bothered about asking any masked intruder what the fork they were doing in my house in the middle of the night. My brother used to do weekend gamekeeping near Windsor. He had an armoury of guns, one of which he always used to keep loaded in his bedside cabinet.

I do like mine, but it needed a bit of work to get it playing nicely. The factory setup was horrific; stupid high action, the pickups were a bit muddy (replaced with humbucker-sized P90s) and the machine heads were frankly awful (replaced with Sperzel locking types). It's brilliant now. Here's my good friend Luca Vulpio using it at a gig we played with his band. That's my old Thunderbird too!

Much like @AngelDeVille if budget allows, I'd take Gibson over an Epiphone if it was a like for like thing (Les Paul/Flying V/Explorer/Firebird); I still find the headstock design horribly off-putting. I suppose if I were looking for a guitar now, I'd go Gibson or Dusenberg, maybe even stretch abit more to see what I could get from Frank at Diemel (the matt black Firestar, with the pickup behind the bridge) or Gabriel at Echo Park (The '59 or La Carne). That said, Epiphone have done many original/standalone models; I own a sub-£500 Phantomatic, which is a hybrid of an Epiphone Wilshire body with a stock Epiphone Les Paul neck; I suppose I like it because it's not apeing to be something else made by a more expensive bigger brother.

A couple of years back I saw Corey Glover and dUg Pinnick on the same bill at The Cutting Room in New York. VIP. dUg was pretty good, Corey, in hindsight, was a bumbling, blubby, shambles He came out dressed in a pink hoodie, pink sweatpants and a tweed flatcap. At one point he started crying between songs. I honestly think he needed a bit of help.

I'll admit that a bit of me died when Muzzy left/was given the Spanish Archer. Still unsure which was the case.

While I have little love for Fenders generally, that's the dream colour scheme for a Jazz right there. Also, I love the prominent headstock logo.

Hmm. I can see the association, I'll grant you that you do see an awful lot of this: and this: I often wonder whether Spector love the association or whether they cringe a little at these. They're still great basses.

While my loyalties lie elsewhere, I'd still say buy a Spector. On that budget, you should easily be able to find a Euro LT (or two) off the shelf without much issue, top end of that budget might get you a US made NS or X model. They also seem happy for customers to approach them direct to circumvent the whole dealer markup.

I seem to remember a few years back - and this may have been a company like Seymour Duncan - used to have a table online of the tonal characteristics you may expect from each pickup. By aggressive, I suppose I'd be looking at pickups that are reasonably hot, that they are not vocied to ponk or some too dubby, like you say, it is possible to dial in tone via you amp (or processing). To lift a quote from elsewhere, I'm looking for a brighter/more aggressive sound, rather than a warmer sound with more mids or a more open/passive tone with increased headroom. It may also be the case that I could just stick with the pickups as they are (Spector SSD Design) and just stick a John East system in it.

A few of you know what I do musically. I play in a studio project called Lutz; in the main it's noisy postpunk with a lot of samples. This Public Service Broadcasting meets Shudder To Think. Recording is a bit odd. I go in, record lots of looped bass against little snippets of stuff, a few days later I get a cut and paste instrumental MP3, the next week I go in, rerecord the bass, then do another load of looped stuff. An repeat. Pete, our erstwhile guitarist/producer (currently furloughed), is just going through months and months of unfinished material, then sending it out to the main singer who is doing vocals on an iPhone. On an iPhone. Once he's happy, he's now sourcing video and posting on You Tube. Here you go:

Unless anyone has done these trips, they find it hard to comprehend the white-noise/radio static in the US. There's a lot of empty. We'd put the radio on and scan frequencies, stations would be there and gone a few minutes later. Small bubbles of activity. The Sweet Emotion game is a must, though. God knows how much revenue Aerosmith make from that song some 45 years after it was released. Pick up your hire car, find a random station and boom. I think one time we picked up a car in Boston and it was on the radio before we'd even left the Alamo parking lot.

Just to set the mood (and bear in mind this was 1997): Quite a few years back, me and my wife were on a three week 4,000 mile USA roadtrip, zig-zagging around the lower southwestern states. On the last day (after a very heavy night in Phoenix with some friends), we packed up, heading west, overnighting in Palm Springs, then onto LAX for the flight home. If you're reading this and have done the drive, you'll know it's mainly desert/mountains until the highway briefly passes through Blythe (petrol/lunch), then onto Palm Springs. We always listened to the radio on these trips; played the Sweet Emotion game, flipping through the frequencies. We're in the desert, not picking up anything really. Found a rock station and they're playing Overkill by some indie band, then Colin Hay comes in for the last verse or two. It's goosepimply good. I ask my wife to stop yabbing. The lady hosting the show says, 'Lazlo Bane from their album 11 Transistor.' I am smitten. My wife writes it down. I hit up a couple of CD shops in Palm Springs. Nothing. I wonder whether I got the name right. I'm not certain whether Lazlo Bane is a guy's name, or the band name. I get desparate. Beyond Palm Springs, we park up at a prearranged shopping mall in Montclair (which I later find out is where most of the LA based porn industry does its films); I buy first editions of the new Stephen King book, the new Kurt Vonnegut book, some banana coffee (yum) and happen across a small music store. They have a copy of 11 Transistor. Cue angels singing. I listen to this album about once every couple of weeks. It's deeply embedded in my psyche. It's not (for some reason) on Spotify/iTunes, but the rest of the catalogue that followed seems to be. So anyhoo, today it's Lazlo Bane.

Suggestions please. 3.5" width. Doesn't matter which manufacturer. Want something a bit agressive. Active preferred.

ABC in Addlestone was my local one. My late father bankrolled a few purchases for me. I did visit the Surbiton branch when I broke a string when we were recording at Crow.

Yup, saw them at Hammersmith supporting Rush and thought they were oustanding considering the sound was awful and I'd never heard a note by them beforehand,

@cetera @ClassicVibes While I've generally been a passive bass guy, I would never sell on a bass because of what's in the control cavity. I had a Bongo 5HH a while back, the pre was stupid hot and while it sounded fine, during rehearsals you'd just keep notching everything up and up so by the end of the session it would sound awful, but this was more about restraint than it being uncontrollable. That said, the Tone Pump Jnr in my Spector Legend was a POS and has been taken out. The DG pre in the LT is wonderful.

I'm doing cashflow reports today, so need a bit of Max Webster.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OPEN-TO-TRADES-Custom-4-String-35-scale-Fretless-Gold-Top-Electric-Bass-Guitar/383525064046?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20190212102350%26meid%3D0dadac2bd39f45d5a01e3b3f091557b6%26pid%3D100012%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D193431376522%26itm%3D383525064046%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv5PairwiseWeb&_trksid=p2047675.c100012.m1985

My old vocalist put me onto them...he saw them (I think at The Roundhouse?) shortly after the first album came out so that would have been 2013-ish. I remember hearing Signal 30 when I first listened to Inform Educate Entertain and I knew the song, so must have heard it at some point. It's all good though.

Brendan, if you look at Adam Fogo's conversion, he used an OLP 5-string as his donor instrument and turned that into a twelve and the spacing looked pretty comfortable to be honest. Incidentally, I own a Spector Euro LT (four string) and a Spector Legend (eight string), the eight srtring is actuallt narrower at the nut than the LT by about 3mm!

Seen them a handful of times, really stuns me that I know so little about them. I've never been so moved at a gig either, felt quite tearful at the end of the Hammersmith show when they were touring Every Valley and they assembled a collery choir at the end. Quite beautiful.

Today? It feels like a day for Public Service Broadcasting. I have a complete playlist on Spotify, so theat'll take care of the morning at least. I may try and listen to the Proms show this afternoon:

/I check eBay for Hamer basses daily and this one must has been up and sold in a very short time. I round the listing buried as a Worldwide listing seller and not a UK based one (even though the sale was London based). I would have honestly pulled the trigger on that one within seconds. No brainer. That said, god knows how many £££ it would take to bring it up to scratch.

A couple of months back a Hamer Quad Bass sold on eBay for £800. Did anyone here buy it? It was in a pretty sorry state. I'd just be interested in seeing whether it's being given the TLC it deserves.