Doctor J

If you want something old, buy a good Japanese bass from the late 70's or 80's, something along the lines of a high-end Yamaha BB or the likes. They're now just as old as the oldest Fenders were when they were made and people started losing all rationale over the value of 30 years or older instruments in the 80's. Plus, they started out as good quality and consistently well-built basses too so, if you believe in the road-worn feel, magic wood and pickup fairy dust, they'll have all of that too at a fraction of the cost of the very worst 70's and early 80's Fenders. Seeing JV Squiers sell for over a grand these days... what have they done to my beautiful planet?

They both should've quit in the early 90's. Both have lost the fire and released some utter rubbish (albeit million-selling rubbish) in the last 30 years.

But... the bass is the only part worth listening to?

Nice! I'm looking forward to hearing about it.

Where's the fun in that? 😂

Let Arthur Barrow tell you what it was like https://www.arthurbarrow.com/frank-zappa

Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe (') and One Size Fits All, you just can't go wrong with them. Hot Rats is spectacular. I'm particularly fond of Absolutely Free and We're Only In It For The Money, from the Mothers stuff. The Beeb put together a decent documentary shortly before he died, well worth watching. I particularly love that, in a one hour documentary, they gave 10 whole minutes to a performance of King Kong, that was a massive inspiration to a band I was in at the time 😂

No, not the same analogy for solidbody instruments, that is the entire point.

The working title of the movie was "Who the F*@% is Frank Zappa?", it was always intended to be an exploration of the man, not the music. There's lots of talk about his music out there but not so much about what made him tick. To his eternal credit, Alex Winter was behind the whole idea from day one, he put it all together from scratch.

He was very much not from drug culture but I can see why he'd be lumped in with it. He was operating at a very different level😁 If you're unfamiliar with him but vaguely familiar with his music I think you'll enjoy it a lot. He had a lot of strings to his bow, so to speak, a really fascinating character. My earliest memory is actually listening to my Mother's Mothers of Invention records, so Zappa was my musical starting point but, even for me, his music ranges from sublime to unlistenable. There is a bit of both in the movie 🙂

But they're quite commonly all used in instruments. Pine https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Fender-American-Pro-II-Telecaster-MN-Roasted-Pine/3IYJ?origin=product-ads&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6qPq4tOo7wIVBLTtCh3s8g4eEAQYAiABEgKq5fD_BwE Basswood https://m.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_ehb1500_def.htm?o=8&search=1615480565 Padauk https://m.thomann.de/gb/le_fay_herr_black_5_xs_semi_wn.htm?o=64&search=1615480614 Oak https://m.thomann.de/gb/fodera_imperial_elite_5_select_beb.htm?o=32&search=1615480754

Yeah,I participated in the crowdfunding for this over 6 years ago 😂 Actually, the funding was to digitise the material in the vault and the documentary was a parallel project utilising the vault material. We got the doc a few weeks ago, I thought it was well worth the wait, there's a lot of stuff in there I had never seen before. If you're a Zappa fan, there's probably not a lot you didn't know already but it's a great overview of the man and his music.

I got slightly damp just reading that 😁

Ahem... tonebreadboard, surely?

Brah, don't deny the tonemammoth.

In acoustic instruments the wood directly vibrates the air generating the soundwaves you hear. In a solidbody electric instrument, not quite.

Is a maple neck and rosewood fretboard one? 😁

Surely it's tonewoods, not tonewood?

I'm very exciting, personally, but I play boring basses.

Here

Have a read of what I said without defaulting to petty outrage and trying to put words in my mouth which I didn't say. I did not state that "only the good ones are now beaten up", merely advised caution that there could be more to it looking pristine than meets the eye.

It looks like it's from that era, but bear in mind that the S7 serial numbers were used well past 77 and the S8 serial numbers were used up to the early 80's, so it's probably not strictly from 1978. That battery box gouge would irritate me every single day. As for why it looks in pristine condition? Maybe it's crap and not good to play? It's certainly heavy. Old doesn't necessarily equal good.

Discharge - Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing

Ozzy Osbourne. The galah has never put a shrimp on the barbie in his life.