Dan Dare

I agree with your overall argument, but would add that it isn't only the US that can produce quality gear. We do it rather well in Europe, too.

Would a Strat bag do the job?

Some of us are happy to do so. Over the last few years, I've bought two US made bass amps, a German PA, British accessories (DI boxes, mic's), a Czech bass and other non-Far-East-made odds and ends. I acknowledge I'm fortunate in that I can afford to do this.

Quality over quantity every time.

If you play at home quietly when the kids are asleep, a decent pair of headphones would be a good choice and no risk of waking the rest of the household if you get a little too enthusiastic.

I'd definitely go used. Buy wisely and you should get much of your money back if you sell it on. On a £500 new instrument you will lose around £200 once its classed as used. You asked about MIM Fender necks. The one on my Mex PJ (they are a P body with a J neck) is very similar to than the one on my US Jazz. And it's in better nick, being a lot younger

I played a Hofner violin/Beatle bass recently. Neck was very narrow all the way up. That was about its only redeeming feature. Ric's are also pretty slim.

Puzzling thread, this. It's almost as if some are surprised that musicians have achieved higher academic qualifications. When you consider what understanding music requires of you, it's more surprising that musicians wouldn't be capable of doing so. I don't mean that in a formal sense - plenty may have chosen not to pursue academic qualifications, but that's a far cry from their not being able to.

At a funeral? Oh dear. I want this bloke to sing at mine.

I don't want AI to generate music for me. I want it to take care of the boring, time-consuming cr@p - washing the dishes, doing the laundry, cleaning the toilet, etc - and leave me more time to do things I enjoy, like making music.

As I was in my teens during the late 60s, this bloke: However, his partner in crime at Motown inspired me to play the bass. He played on Tears of a Clown, which was the first bass part that really hooked me. .

I appreciate he's the classical music equivalent of Kenny G, but if you want to be clever and have the last word, have at it.

Very happy to be the first to post feedback for Quent. He bought a Cort A5 from me and was great to deal with. Many thanks and I hope you enjoy playing it.

Love this (apart from Greg Koch, who can't seem to resist playing a pastiche of everything), but Guy's a great singer as well as being mighty handy on the geetar.

Yes. You ain't the only one on here who knows about classical music. My first instrument was actually the violin, btw.

Debatable. Strads are pretty well all accounted for and range in value from £4m for a regular one to "name your price" for one of the more highly-regarded examples. Even a very prominent player would have difficulty in parking those sums at the kerb of a fiddle and insuring it would be a nightmare.

Much obliged, Pete. Spot on. I do concede that there are a few Nigel Tuffnells among the absurdly rich and famous.

It's akin to sports companies sponsoring footballers, golfers, etc. The collector (they can be companies as well as individuals) loans the instrument to a prominent player in return for credits in concert programmes and so on - "with grateful thanks to Megacorp Insurance Inc".

I encountered someone similar. Hi schtick was to hang around with musicians and he used to let people play his toys as a way of buying their friendship. A little bit sad, really. He saw the instruments as investments, in much the same way as others view paintings and the like. Provided you know what you're buying, vintage instruments, art, etc are a sensible way to invest, especially with the volatility in the financial markets.

Very true. Wealthy weekend warriors - lawyers, doctors and other professional types - buy an awful lot of premium instruments. They are rarely capable of using them for their intended purpose, but we shouldn't knock it, because it's thanks to them that many instrument manufacturers stay afloat. Real musicians tend to find and stick with a few instruments that we really like and change them relatively rarely. When we do, we often buy something old and used. Fender and Spector aren't going to stay in business because I have a couple of nice older basses from them, for example. The really wealthy collect vintage instruments. Few can play them decently or even competently/at all. Some years ago, some US multi-millionaire placed ad's in a number of the instrument magazines, such as Frets, looking to buy vintage stuff. The ad's, which included much bragging about how well he'd done and how much of the folding stuff he'd accumulated, carried a photo of him, wearing jeans with knife edge creases down the legs (always a sign that someone is deeply dodgy), sitting on the bonnet of the Batmobile (he'd apparently bought it from the film company), holding a '59 Les Paul and a Gibson Citation jazz box. He was clutching them like shovels - it was obvious he didn't even know how to hold them. He saw them purely as investments. I thought of parcelling up a dog turd and sending it to him, with a note explaining that he would probably be better able to use it than a fine vintage instrument, but I decided it probably wasn't wise.

What Stevie said. You might try a pre/power amp combination, but modern bass amps are generally pretty neutral unless you use the eq. You might consider the fact that "uncoloured", whilst an appealing sounding idea, may not be to your liking in reality. I've heard my instrument reproduced through some pretty serious stuff in recording studios. It was clean, hi-fi and all the other clichés and needed tweaking in order not to sound sterile and to fit in the track. That would be likely to be the case in your blues/hard rock outfit.

Eurowhat? Have I missed somethinig?