Cato

My other instruments.

Gas is a dangerous, insidious thing. At the moment I really want a Yamaha Revstar 502T skinny stringer in green. I keep thinking 'well I haven't got anything with P90s and i probably should have at least one guitar with P90s. What if a situation arises and I need something with p90s and I haven't got a Revstar?' But I'm deceiving myself. I don't need it at all. I just really, really like the way it looks.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

I don't know what the situation was when Flea and Sterling Ball had their conversation but if you look at their range today they don't do signature guitars like most other guitar companies. Music Man signature guitars are not based on other prexisting guitars in the range with a few tweaks here and there and a signature on the headstock, like, for example, most Fender sigs. Each MM signature guitar is a unique model in it's own right.

Nah, it's too close to the bridge.

Nice looking bass and I'm a big fan of Aguilar pups and preamps. What's the thinking behind the unusual scale length?

I don't think we're 100% sure that Fender are going to put them into production yet, let alone which price range it would fall in to.

I'm not normally too comfortable with sig models, but I do love Jazz basses and this looks like it could really provide something different tonewise to Fender's current models. Ideally I'd like to see an MiM or even a Squier version so it would be more economically viable to upgrade the pickup and preamp to something as close to a genuine ray as possible.

Picked up mine from the Post Office this morning. It looks like they have been used for something as they've been labelled 1# and 2#. Nice T shirt too.

I had a missed delivery card when I got home from work and I'm not expecting anything at the moment, so fingers crossed.

I reckon BC branded picks and/or fingers might be a winner.

That's a beauty. The FSR 70s Precision and it's Jazz twin are just about the best looking models in Fender's current line up IMO. Yours looks like a particularly fine example.

There's a shedload of mwah in that video. Interesting clip though.

I took the plunge at the start of the year with a Sire V7 fretless. The bass is great. It sounds lovely on the rare occasions I manage to to get the fingers on my left hand in exactly the right positions on the fretboard. My only tip, as a novice myself, is to record yourself playing along to songs you can play easily on a fretted bass and then listen back. Only then will you hear just how good or (in my case) bad your intonation is.

I don't understand why Fender are replacing rosewood boards with pau ferro. There are much nicer dark wood alternatives. I saw a Squier Mustang Bullet with an Indian Laurel board the other day and it looked so nicer than the orangey, streaky pau ferro Fender are using on their midrange guitars.

Hang on, does this mean there's going to be a general end of line sale like there was when the American Deluxes and USA standards were discontinued a few years ago? Sh!t, someone hide my wallet.

Thats about £100 up on the old standard model. Don't get me wrong, personally I think MiM instruments offer the best value in the Fender range in terms of quality vs price, but I can't really see what extra bang people are supposed to be getting for their buck over the old model here.

The amount of new (to me) music you've introduced me to over the last few years, I should either buy you a pint or send you a bill.

Have you seen this? It's worth watching for the performance alone. I bought her last album on the strength of it. That one was a bit of a mixed bag IMO, the good tracks were very good though. I'll definitely give the new stuff a go.

That felt like it went on for a lot longer than 44 seconds.

I'm not sure I can name a bass player I don't like, not on playing grounds anyway. Normally I appreciate the skill even if I'm not that keen on the music. Guitarists on the other hand...I can't listen to super distorted overly shreddy stuff no matter how much skill it takes. So that's most online guitar reviews out.

As you say, it's the different nature of the amps. Valve guitar amps need to be pushed to a certain limit before they produce 'that' tone. Even a 50 watt valve amp needs to be pushed to a level that's far too loud for most pub venues. Bass players tend to have much higher wattage amps, but we're more concerned with headroom, how much we can turn it up before the cabs start distorting.

It's the 70s Fenders that used to get the most serious flak. Although prices for instruments from that era have been rocketing up in recent years. I don't know how bad QC was at Fender in the 1970s but it doesn't take that many instruments leaving the factory with a serious fault to tarnish the reputation of an entire brand. If everyone knows someone who has owned or played one of the dodgy ones, word soon gets around.

I avoided them for years because I thought they were boring. Then one day I decided to see what all the fuss was about and instantly fell in love with the sound.

There's a couple. Status would probably be the most high profile.