Cato

I was gassing for the orange one but these pics of the Pacific Blue look much nicer than the official promo pics I've seen and are making me think again.

I think the answer to 'Could I just have bought a better bass for the money I've spent on this project?' is almost always 'yes'. I spent considerably more modding a Squier VM 70s bass with new pickups, loom and bridge than the bass itself cost me and in all honesty it was a decent bass before the mods. I changed it but I'm not sure I improved it. But I enjoyed the process immensley, which is why I'm thinking about doing it again,

I think I'm done buying expensive instruments for a while, but I am starting to get the modding bug again. When the new Squire Sonic range starts turning up s/h I may well crumble.

Sounds like the sort of territory multiscales were designed for. Without buying a new bass you could try contacting Newtone for a custom set of strings. https://newtonestrings.com/products/?v=79cba1185463 Never used their custom service but I guess there probably are limits on what they can produce.

I don't see anything on BC I would describe as pop ups. I see banner ads at the top of the page, which I find completely unobtrusive, but nothing that intereferes with using the site. I would define pop ups as those ads or vids you get which open in the middle of a page, usually obscuring whatever it is that you're trying to look at. I've never seen them on BC. Tbh I have no problem with the people that own and run the site trying to make money off a service I use everyday. Which reminds me.......(Finally gets round to renewing supporting memebership)

I've been having impure thoughts about getting an Aria FEB for home noodling for some time. I've never tried one but I'm incredibly drawn to the aesthetic, how it actually plays is almost an irrelevance. For under £300 new I'm definitely tempted to roll the dice.

I've had nothing but joy from the Squier Bass VI I got a few months ago, to the extent I've been ignoring instruments that cost more than 3 times what the Squier did. I'd confidentally take a punt on any of the Squier ranges.

I think it's a very niche market to be honest. I can't see many people wanting to install a fancy neck on a bog standard Jazz or Precision type bass and most basses that have exotic grained body woods that might suit such a neck will already have one. Good luck anyway.

I understand what all these words mean individually, but....

It looks like all human musicoans may be at risk. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65298834

I was thinking the other day that Ed Sheerhan was the new Coldplay and has been for some time. The best selling artists will always be someone reasonably bland and inoffensive that appeals to the widest posiible audience Metallica have never been that. They are doing some heavy promotion right now and have picked up some new younger fans via Stranger Things, but they still peaked 30 years ago. You can argue about which album they peaked with, but most fans will name one of the first 5.

That may be my favoutite subtitle error of all time.

I saw these, I assumed that they're replacing the simarly priced Affinity range. There are some interesting colours and pick up configurations though. I'm tempted to get a purple single humbucker tele as a modding platform.

When I got into Led Zep as a teenager I bought the 'Song Remains the Same' live video, only to be simultaneously horrified and bored senseless by the interminably long version of Dazed and Confused featuring Jimmy Page doing awful things to his guitar with a violin bow. I never watched that video again. I completely understand that it gets boring for bands to do the same version of the same songs night after night, tour after tour, but as an audience member there are definitely limits to what I'm prepared to put up with and as a rule I reckon I'd always prefer to hear a shorter version of a classic song than one that's been spun out way past it's original play time.

Case in point I saw a lad playing a Music Man Bongo in a pub covers band a while back. The bass sounded great in the mix but while I was sitting round the corner just listening, before I actually saw him, it never occurred to me just from listening that he was playing something a bit out of the ordinary.

I think a few years ago Fret King were doing a couple of more quirky models. The current range seems very much based on Fender and Gibson body shapes albeit with a few unusual pickup combos which give them a sort of retro 'pawn shop' vibe. There only seems to be one bass in the current range, a sort of skinny jazz bass with humbuckers.

It does feel a bit like manufacturers are testing the perimeter to see what they can get away with. Epiphone recently released this at an RRP of around £1200 https://www.andertons.co.uk/epiphone-1958-korina-explorer-electric-guitar-aged-natural-white-pickguard?tduid=2d3397177038d5d9693b7246da940ed2 Obviously you couldn't get close to an orginal 58 Korina Explorer for that price but I reckon you could probably pick up one of the various Gibson USA 58 Korina Explorer reissues that have been released over the years for similar money, and the Epiphone version from a few years ago for less than half that.

Stunner.

Not mass produced but... https://www.thomann.de/gb/martin_guitars_d_200_deluxe.htm Btw. I'm not totally sure that the price on this isn't a typo. The only new guitar I've ever seen with a comparable price had real diamond fingerboard markers and a mammoth tusk ivory nut.

As always the market decides. If something is truly over priced then it won't sell.

No worse than Fender charging the same for a 'Custom Shop' replica of a 50s or 60s P Bass that was originally designed to be mass produced and sold at an affordable price point. I'm sure there will be enough collectors and EB enthusiasts happy to pay to get their hands on one.

I'm sure there will always be a market for the classic Marshall guitar amp stack, but, personally I think there are better modern options. Modern modeling amps give you near as dammit the same high gain valve tones in a more practical package and without having to max out the volume, meaning you can use the same rig for home and live without the neighbours calling the noise police. Maybe the new owners will do a better job with keeping up with modern tech developments.

I was about to post the same. Although I listened to a bit of Kiss back in my school days I've never been a huge fan. But If I had to put a Kiss song on a playlist, this would be it. Honourable mention for Crazy Nights.

I think there a few variables at work. The 32 year old Epiphone acoustic guitar I've had from new and played the hell out of for about 5 years while I was learning has grooves in the first three frets directly under the B and top E strings, to the point where those strings will snag in the grooves and then audibly 'ping' out if I try to bend those strings at certain points. None of my basses or guitars, some of which I've owned and played for nearly as long, has anywhere near the same amount of fret damage which suggests to me that maybe the frets on my old cheap acoustic are made of softer material or the higher tension on the acoustic strings (I used 12s or 14s for years) exerts more downward force on the frets or maybe something else. Interesting that it's happened under the 2 thinnest strings though and the 2 that have always been plain (unwound) as in theory I'd have assumed that it would be the thicker, more abrasive wound strings that would cause more damage.

The simple probability is that if you play Michael Jackson songs in public there's a good chance that someone will either raise an objection or at least raise the question of whether it's 'appropriate'. So the question is really whether the performer/performers are OK with that. Incidentally I saw a trio of Michael Jackson impersonators do a show at a family resort in Jamaica a few years back and it went down very well with the assorted Brits, Americans and Europeans present, but that was before the Netflix documentary that seems to have convicted him in the court of public opinion.