NancyJohnson

The Lambourne place was part-owned by our guitarist...from memory it was called Sounds Good? The exterior resembled something off Dad's Army, right at the back of this old trading estate. I have video somewhere.

It looks nicer than the Flea...I'd like to see a readable logo on the blumming headstock though.

I was on holiday in Minorca a few years back and this guy walked past me and said, 'You look familiar, I think I know you.' We had a beer that evening and tried to work out from where. We didn't live in the same area but after a few minutes, we both admitted to playing bass; turns out we both used to frequent the same rehearsal place in Lambourne, near Swindon and he recognised me from load in/out periods.

I'd completely forgotten about this Max Webster ('Flex Lobster') track. I saw them supporting Rush at Hammersmith, they were promoting A Million Vacations. Good band.

I had an EH Black Finger. Everybody telling me how it would revolutionize my tone. Couldn't tell the difference to be honest.

I'd concur Mick Karn, forget Japan here for a minute, but you listen to Polytown, JBK or even the stuff he contributed to Gary Numan's Dance album, he's instantly recognisable. I often wonder to myself what Hesitation Marks by NIN would have sounded like with him rather than PP. Of the rest? Billy Sheehan. Ummm. I'd love to hear what Geddy Lee would be like in a non Rush/solo band.

No sweat...I suppose with my huge gorilla hands, neck sizes, width at nut, radius and profiles etc. don't make a lot of difference for me. The only thing I'm not a fan of is necks with a high gloss finish.

Can I ask the obvious? Why not just source a ready made one? Surely the costs are going to comparable, if not lower than going through a luthier? A genuine loaded Fender from somewhere like The Stratosphere is going to come in shipped at less than £300.00.

The fundamental issue with active basses - well for me at least - was that the signal chain got muddied; you're piling an active signal from the bass into an amplifiers pre-stage, which is adding more tonal characteristics to the signal path, before you're actually amplifying anything. By virtue of what the active bass does means you simply don't dial up everything to 100% like you would a passive bass. I've owned two active five strings...a Streamer and a Bongo, plus a Fender Jazz with a John East fitted. When I was recording, these had a nice tone straight into the desk, but in a live/rehearsal environment you just end up tweaking and tweaking until everything was full on and it's just mush. Irrespective of whether it's bass or guitar, god knows how people run mutli-FX/boards into the front of a head and wonder why it sounds awful; I played with a guy once, nice guitar into a Fender Twin Reverb. He bought a processor of some kind, Yamaha I think, and ran an overdriven sound from that into his already overdriven amp and he went from great to horrific in one jam. He just could grasp that distortion into distortion just didn't work.. Its really a case of less is more...small tweaks; it's a fine balancing act.

Has anyone here actually purchased a bass through DH Gate or these Ali-Baba sites? I'll admit a fascination with these You Tube Chibson/Chickenbacker unboxing videos; the pre-opening excitement through to the post-unveiling disappointment.

Can we get past the fact that Rickenbacker copies are not actually Rickenbackers? Same goes with Gibson Thunderbirds; your Tokai or Epiphone copies are just that. Right, after getting that off my chest, I owned a 4003 for a while; like all my gear, I tend to play with everything full on, for convenience more than anything else. Taking this as my start point, it became more about tweaking the bass set up to accomodate this, so pickup adjustment, rattly low action. It did sound delicious. Incidentally, the OP alluded to using a Sansamp into a choice of amps. I'd always favour running a BDDI (or similar) into a power amp or the effects return on a head otherwise you're colouring the Sansamp tone by running it through a secondary on board pre-stage.

I've never seen a Telecaster that I actually liked.

They do make them in the classic guise. While I have little intention of ever owning a Stingray, I do like what MM are trying to do with finishes...the Stealth one (all black) looked beautiful and, on the subject of MM, the St Vincent in Stealth Black is specfeckingtacular.

If it were me, the rosewood one, BUT man alive, that is a huge slab of pickguard. It actually detracts from the niceness of the sunburst.

For reasons too long to put into words, if you like how they both play, then revert to the lowest common denominator, which is the visual aesthetic. Which one looks the nicest, which one do you think would look better on you and which one do you want to keep picking up time and again. Born from a discussion as whether Geddy used a Rickenbacker or a Fender Jazz on Farewell To Kings, Gary/cetera and I put on a bass blind shoot out at last years SE Bass Bash; 25-30 attendees tried to select the correct bass from the fifteen that were submitted for the test. The highest mark was 3.5/4 out of 15, there were quite a few zeros with some people not even recognising how their own basses sounded. It's highly unlikely that once you're in a band environment the nuances that you're applying will make any difference.

I had a washer go on my old Waterstone bass; it was nightmarish trying to get a spare/replacement, you just couldn't get the odd one or two. Ended up making a replacement myself out of an old bit of plastic...little dab of WD40, not pretty but it worked.

Flew out to Italy for a couple of dates in 2017. One of the security guys at Heathrow recognised us from somewhere we'd played, he was an old punk bloke. That was nice.

I bought one on a Reverb offer a couple of years ago, I think it's perfectly adequate and fit for purpose...it was under a fiver and it's still going strong. That said, I wouldn't use it if I was doing a bit of a set up (ie intonation work), just need something that I can plug into rather than relying on vibration if the body. I'd concur with an earlier comment that it's essential to mute the other strings when you're tuning.

...but what you need to factor in is to be prepared for every eventuality. It's perfectly feasible that you're going to play a howler due to inadequacy in the PA set up if you went ampless. Currently, I genuinely feel that normality is not the ditching of a head and then relying on DI boxes and the available PA. I certainly wouldn't want to ditch the amp.

To what, Pete? In answer to George's OP, this is one experience I'd had and from that alone my boy scout fallback position would always be be prepared. Sometimes you have defining moments that make you sit up and reconsider how you've done things previously; in this instance it was enough for me to make the decision there and then that I would always carry my amplification to every live show I did. Unless you're running your own event, with your own PA (and are wholly aware of it's limitations), then expect the unexpected and pack everything, because there's always someone or something that will bite you in the donkey.

Hey @dave_bass5 We were playing this little club in Reading, it did seem a little weird that there was nothing about sharing of backline being circulated pre-gig, so as we were second on, I just took a 4x10 and my rack. The stage was low and tiny, but we never really stayed on stage anyways, these type of platforms served more as a drum riser than anything else. The sound guy was adamant about keeping the stage volumes down and letting the PA do the work, which, fair enough, would be fine if the (house) PA and monitoring were fit for purpose, which it wasn't. There's something somewhat disconcerting playing live in a situation that you can't actually hear what you're playing, plus my fecking tuner was in my rack, which was in my car, which was no use whatsoever. Luckily I was always carrying a BDDI, so at least I could shap what I sounded like, even through the tech was telling me to roll off the dirt and go cleaner (he didn't even know what we sounded like, so why would I do that??). We just tuned up between us and went for it. It wasn't great really. P

Just an observation, the Serek body shape borrows heavily/looks very similar to an Epiphone Crestwood.

I've done one gig in my lifetime where I went ampless, and not through choice. It was a disaster. Sound guy told me to just leave my gear in the car...took a DI out of my Sansamp; no monitors, couldn't hear anything except for drums. There's something reassuring having an amp/cab(s) behind you.