NancyJohnson

I'm just curious...what made you decide to sell any of your kit? So many times you see for sale ads, I'm selling my cherished bass, I've owned this since blah blah blah. I went years without any serious investment in gear at all. Mortgage got paid and the floodgates just opened, I one point I think I was at ten Gibson Thunderbirds, a Bongo, DJ5, it got to the point where I couldn't actually remember what I had. I was in W H Smiths one day and saw an article with Jeff Ament in Bass Player; I saw his Lull and it was like someone just threw a switch...almost immediately I lost interest in Gibsons and my primary focus was on getting the Lull. Then another. It saddens me a little that I don't have any Gibsons anymore, but ho hum, what I do have is arguably way better.

We hadn't even got to an acceptable number of people showing interest before members started down the route of saying what they wanted. Had we got, say 50 interested parties, we could have taken it private, haggled over the design perspectives and gone from there; personally it was soul destroying seeing what started as a fun and simple idea, turned into a me! me! me! thing. Even if I'd posted that it was going to be (at the most basic of levels) a 4-string, 34" scale, alder body etc. people would still have been saying they wanted short-scale, 5-string made out of bamboo and chewing gum.

Re-reading this thread earlier, I honestly started it with all best intentions, the mindset that we could ape what the Lakland Owners Group had done previously and the remit really couldn't have been easier or clearer (if you wanted a Precision/Jazz etc. then just buy a Fender etc) and this was not really intended to be a route for Eastwood to produce a knock-off of Serek designs because it was the more affordable route (and f*ck any litigation they may be subject to as a consequence) and so on. I had a few email exchanges with Eastwood and they were extremely positive about trying to do a Basschat bass for us if only we could decide on the specs and the sadness is that had we gotten our metaphorical poop together, we could all be enjoying these by now. We're all different I suppose, so it was never going to work. Looking through these pages, my heart just sinks reading the suggestions of a Fender Bass V or the Rickenbacker 4005. I just don't understand how people could even suggest these for gods sake, Rickenbacker are probably difficult enough to deal with at the best of times...the Eastwood guys are smart enough not to touch that design with a barge pole. With the best will in the world, it's almost like people here don't even have a clue what Eastwood's remit actually is. You would stand a better change cloning a 4005 by going to Ali Baba or one of the plethora of Chinese knock-off sites. They're really not about copying Fenders or Gibsons, aside from a handful of designs, the bulk of their output is frankly quirky updates of long lost designs, things you might expect to see in Hanna-Barbera Jetsons cartoons:

Good things come to those that wait. I'm just shaking my head that this was all over two years ago.

I'd had a John East unit on an old Jazz bass and decided to install a three-knob unit on one of my Lull basses earlier in the year. Things didn't go well, but John was quite brilliant in helping out. I also put a four-knob unit on my Spector 8-string a couple of months back. Top kit!

Just as an addendum here, I probably learnt more about music from my mum and dad. There was always music on in the house; my mum (who passed away a couple of years ago aged 87); while she was a huge fan of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks and The Small Faces, her musical roots were Sinatra, Martin etc. She took me to my first concert (Elton John, Hammersmith, Christmas 1970-something), I took her to her last (Kiss, Wembley. 'I can't do this any more.') Until a few weeks before her death, I went down to the house and she was listening to Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi and had a copies of Quiet Life (Japan) and Destryoer (Kiss) in her car. Just because she was old, doesn't detract from the fact that she'd been listening to Bon Jovi 35-odd years ago, when she was around my age now. My dad loved soul and reggae, but his overriding passion was for Hall & Oates (which makes my head tilt, even to this day).

Today? Today is a Veruca Salt type of day. Two (very) attractive girls with guitars, I mean, what the hell was there to go wrong??

The lessons didn't help in the slightest, no. We had two teachers during my secondary school education that didn't seem to have any love of music beyond classical; this was late 70s, when we had rock, soul, punk, disco, prog, reggae etc all fighting for some kind of dominance.

Over on another group I follow the Spark is being offered with $40 (yes, dollars) off the price. I don't know whether this will work for UK purchases (I guess is all sales are in $, then you'll get the Dollar price). but there's an offer code of REFERRAL40 that you can use at checkout.

I suspect that the Adjustanut bridges people have so much disdain for may be different from what was on my old Streamer. Mine looked like this and it worked brilliantly:

Today I'm just leaving Japan on. I procured a CD yonks back of some recordings from 1977 that pre-date the first album and that's on now. I'll profess I've never actually fully listened to these recordings until now and they're excrutiatingly awful.

While I'll admit Band On The Run and Wings Over America rank highly in my favourites, I've never really been a Beatles fan (a few songs) nor do I really know much about McCartney's output post-Beatles. Last night I put together a playlist of everything I could find on Spotify in chronological order and I'm about ten songs in so far and the only one I know so far is Maybe I'm Amazed.

Pull Me Under by Dream Theater.

It's fine, honestly. Yep, strings off, adjust the truss rod to get the neck straight as possible. Restring, tune up and check whether the neck has moved. If it has, detune, give the truss rod a quarter turn, tune up again. This is just an exercise to ensure the truss rod is doing its job. When I'm tweaking, I'll just continue adjusting until I get to a point that the notes are all cleanish through the whole neck...I can't better describe it than that!

@Heimrich Over the years, I've had many basses and pretty much all of them have needed neck adjustments one time or another to suit my needs. As a start point, I personally would always strive to get the neck as straight as possible with the strings off and work from there. Once you're tuned up, check how the neck is, if it's pulling forward a bit, slacken off the strings, tighten the strings and check again. A bow of a millimeter or two over the length of the neck isn't a huge problem...if the truss rod is doing it's job and maintaining that when the strings are on, it's fine. The thing is, and I hope this has come over in these postings, is that there isn't one adjustment to getting a bass or guitar to play the way you want it to; it's a combination of few little things and there's a lot of adjust, tune-up, play, de-tune, adjust, repitition involved.

We have a builder over here (Crimson Guitars), who posts some detailed videos about guitar building. While this is for a guitar, the levelling/dressing process will be the same for a bass. P

The frets look like there's wear, but they really don't look that bad. There's a lot of fret material left. Try a local tech guy. He'll be able to ensure the neck is straight, that the frets are set OK and get level the frets out. This should sort out the issues you're having.

Compared to the old bass Rich @Grangur did for me, there looks like there's a lot of meat on those frets. If all the frets are seated OK (and don't need tapping in), I'd suggest that if you're not happy trying this yourself, find someone to get the frets levelled and dressed. If you want a punt at doing this yourself, try here: https://www.crimsonguitars.com/collections/luthiers-tools You could spend a small fortune on luthier tools (fret levelling, crowning and polishing tools), or find someone locally who could do the work for probably less. Where do you live? There's a lengthy list of luthiers somewhere on this page.

I haven't actually listened to any of the nine (yes, nine!) CDs that make up XTC's Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles/Hinges collection. The delights of working from home. Wish me luck.

https://www.sky.com/watch/title/programme/4c6e5289-9fa7-4efe-9056-b5c291e61aa0/xtc-this-is-pop There was a bit of a campaign to get this released on BluRay at one point, but that seems to have died a death. Andy Partridge did infer that there was hours of material cut from the broadcast version that wouldlikely make for decent viewing. With XTC releasing Steven Wilson's Surround Series Editions on an annual basis, I kind of see this as being put out with an inevitable Best Of collection rather than being standalone or bundled in with whatever is left for Mr Wilson to sprinkle his magic over.

Ooh, that's good. I'll be able to watch the XTC documentary again in glorious HD.

@Heimrich I'd do a straight edge check while the strings are on (this will determine whether the neck is bowed when it's under string tension). If the neck has a concave bow when the strings are on, I would say that the truss rod would need tightening to straighten it out; ALWAYS do this with the strings off (or very loose). If the neck is too straight, this will at least allow you to identify high frets. In between each little adjustment, I'd just give things 15-30 minutes for the wood to settle, you don't want to cause any undo damage (it's highly unlikely that the neck will split, but go easy), then string up and play. Just one other thing, I used to have a white Gibson Thunderbird; these are known for their very skinny necks. With the strings off, the neck had a quite pronounced convex bow that came back to normal once the strings were on it. I had no issue getting the action down to 2-3mm at the 12th fret. Thing is, there's a multitude of tweaks you can do to achieve your ideal playability. Neck adjustments, nut adjustments, bridge saddles etc.; beyond this, it's possbily fret dressing and/or refrets if there's not much meat on them. It's all about doing little changes.

I'd wager you have a bit of a concave bow going on, which would account for rattling near the nut and the dusty end of the neck (like the top of the image below). If the neck has a concave bow, you need to tighten the truss rod (clockwise/righty-tighty); just do this in quarter/half turns to straighten things up, adjust, leave it to settle, check with a straight edge, adjust. Do not go crazy. Little adjustments. (Also worth remembering that the neck may pull forward once the strings are at tension, so a slight convex box may be in order.) I think it's essential that you take the strings off and determine whether the neck is straight/level first. Have you got a long rule/straight edge? Make the adjustments. Once the neck is straight, check for high/low frets (as Rich and I mentioned above.). As @Chiliwailer said, these are Warwicks and it's feasible that (as they're akin to being funk machines) you may have some fretwear. @Grangur dressed the frets on a 40 year old bass of mine a while back...I was thinking I may need a refret, but it's still going strong. He knows his shirt.

When I read the OP, first thing I would confirm is that the neck is straightish and the truss rod(s) tensioned. Adjust if necessary. Moving along, with the strings off, check for high/low frets; take a straight edge and check for high frets. You can do this (quickly) with a debit card; despite frets being seated OK, you can still have high frets. If you do find one, just tap it in lightly with a plastic headed hammer. Restring and check the neck again...you haven't said whether it's a bolt on or neck through, but it is feasible fo set necks to have stable wood up to the edge of the cutaways and for it to dip away with the headstock pulling towards you when the strings are at tension. If you look at the image below, the Thumb's dusty end is embedded in body wood. I'm glad Rich just chipped in while I was typeing this out @Grangur he does know his stuff. [EDIT] I had a Just a Nut on an old Streamer. Liked it a lot. In truth, that isn't going to affect what happens to the string further up the neck, only what happens if you play an open note.