Cato

I prefer BC to magazines, either online or printed. Just as example, taking into account their other brands such as Gretsch, Charvel and Jackson, Fender account for a huge chunk of all guitar related advertising revenue. No commercial guitar related business can afford to give a Fender product a negative review. Here on Basschat people offer up honest experiences and opinions and have no problem describing the negative aspects of any instrument or amp.

First thing to do is raise the P pickup. If that doesn't sort it there may be a problem with the pickup Generally on a PJ bass I'd expect the P to be louder than the J because of their relative placements and because Ps ten to have higher output than Js.

I love the look of these, Brian and his dad knew how to make a beautiful looking guitar. Although I just went on the website to check out the current range and it looks like something from the late '90s.

As I posted in another thread recently I nearly bought a Wal for £500 in about 1990 but went for a Washburn Status instead. At that time they weren't a well known brand and they had none of the mythology that they've acquired in the intervening years. I'd never heard of them before that day If I had bought it I'd almost certainly have kept it because I still have the Washburn. With the benefit of hindsight do I regret not buying it for that price? Not really, the potential windfall would be nice, but the truth is I spent hours in Birmingham Musical Exchanges going between the Wal and the Washburn and 17 year old me preferred the Washburn.

Not sure if it counts because it's not programmable but I got this a couple of months ago for home practice. To be honest I wouldn't have much of a clue with programming my own rhythm tracks so the presets on this do the job I need them to do. It's mostly 4/4 stuff but there's couple of more unusual time sigs in there.

Can't help with makers but for authentic Wide Range pickups you'll need to go for CuNiFe magnets, that's what made the original Fenders unique. The Creamery version above has that as an option but a lot of the Wide Range offerings from other manufacturers, including the current Fender version do not.

I'm another one in the take them all off at once, clean the fretboards and oil the boards that benefit from it camp. To be honest I'm not someone who regularly wipes their guitars down after use, if I didn't make a conscious effort to make it part of the string change routine, I probably wouldn't do it at all. I used to worry that the sudden lack of tension on the neck might cause problems but I've gotten away with it so far.

My brother in law has a bog standard Harley Benton acoustic bass which is a lot more fun to play than it should be for £130 One of these I think https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbb30nt_akustikbass.htm

Times are tough financially for a lot of people. If I owned a 6k bass it would be the first thing to go if I needed quick cash. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have really nice stuff, but a high end bass can be adequately replaced with something that costs a fraction of the price and the rest of the money can go to tackling whatever emergency has cropped up.

I saw that show at the NEC in Birmingham. My favourites of the night were predictably Megadeth who were probably my favourite band at that point, but also Suicidal Tendencies. I went out and got the whole ST back catalogue after that. Slayer had technical difficulties that night, I think it was probably to do with the onstage sound because they sounded OK to me in the audience. The whole set roadies kept running on stage to check Jeff Hanneman's guitar or give him a different guitar and you could see him getting more and more frustrated until eventually he threw a guitar on the ground out of pure anger. All in all they were still pretty good and the whole thing is still one of the best gigs I've seen though.

My 2 favourites of the 'Big 4' were Megadeth and Anthrax. They were sort of opposites in that Megadeth were complex whereas Anthrax were more like a punch in the face, almost like a punk band but with an opera singer on lead vocals. I only saw them live once, on that Maiden tour and they were absolutely superb. I think career wise they took a wong turn when Belladonna left and they went grunge on 'The Sound of White Noise' even though I actually really liked that album. They alienated the metal fans and I'm not sure they picked up many new ones from the alternative/grunge scene because they already had a huge reputation as one of the 'Big Four' thrash bands. I stopped listening to metal not long after that but while occaisionally I'd hear people talk about Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer I didn't hear much about Anthrax after that album.

I have now reached the point where if I get anything else it will start getting in the way. Although there's a sort of mop/broom sized cupboard in the kitchen that may have potential if I can sell the idea to other family members.

If I got a gig tomorrow I'd take my Epiphone Embassy and the Squier Bass VI and leave the Precision Deluxe at home I'm sure my preferences will rotate through my small herd as they always have but the moment those are the 2 basses I'm enjoying the most. Congratulations to the Op for finding at great bass at a great price

You could just ask for donations. Suzie Quattro recently donated one her basses to a local museum. Although really it was more of a swap because she wanted the pink paisley one she'd previously given them back. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-67949095.amp

Not sure many mùseums have 8 million quid. A lot of the priceless stuff in art galleries and museums was acquired many years ago or has been gifted on permanent loan by the actual owners. I doubt any of them could afford a single Van Gogh or Constable at todays prices.

I didn't watch the whole thing but from the bits I did I wouldn't be at all suprised if this has set some sort of record for a guitar auction.

A Reverend guitar which, assuming they didn't specially hand built it for Mr Knopfler, would go for maybe £500 on Reverb just went for £27k.

That auctioneer may be the most charismatic person I've even seen in my life Essentially all she's doing is reciting numbers but I'm absolutely mesmerised.

I suppose if you've got a few very rich superfans bidding against each other the sky's the limit.

Anthrax always seemed like nice young men.

That's more the sort of thing I was thinking of. While I was looking for a clip to support my earlier 'context' comment I found this one of a gig I was actually at. I can totally see how these days that could look like a Nazi rally. Looking back we danced like electrocuted Nazis. I'm frankly astonished I had the energy. (That's not to detract from the entirely valid point and subsequent evidence you made earlier though).

Fair enough.

I'd need to see those pictures in context. It was normal back in the 80s and 90s for metal fans to 'airpunch' enmasse during a gig and it was normal for the bands to do it back. In hindsight I can see how that would look like a Nazi rally, all I can say is that I never heard those sentiments being openly expressed by a metal band on stage during that period . I can't say that nobody in the crowds or on those stages believed that nonesense, but none of it was ever obvious to me. I remember G&Rs 'One in a million' being incredibly controversial back in the day for it's use of the N word in the most negative possible way but, while I'm sure there were others that weren't as mainstream that were openly racist, that's the only recorded bit of metal racism I remember from the whole era.

Trujillo is a phenomenal player, one of those guys who can and has played any genre at the absolute top level. Outside of Metallica he's jazzy, he's done punk/hardcore and he can be funky as hell I've been a fan since I first heard and saw him with Suicidal Tendencies in the 1980s. I've said it before I don't begrudge him the paycheck but, creatively, he's wasted in Metallica.

I did the modding thing just the once a few years ago on a Squier VM 70 I'd acquired just because I was interested in having a go. I was happy with the results but for the overall cost of the project I certainly could have bought a new Mim Fender.