lemmywinks

Mine had to go back to be fixed twice within the first month of having it. It arrived with a faulty output and later started cutting out quite regularly. I used it for occaisional practice and it wasn't reliable enough for that really

I did the trick of taking it out if it's casing and it's been fine since, i'm actually starting to like it again! Taking the extra casing off improves the ventilation, weight and IMO appearance, just make sure you budget for a set of rubber feet and 8 corner protectors, those corners are sharp!

As said, the tone is best described as decent, it's a bit underpowered and is most likely poorly built.


Tbh i wouldn't buy another, there's a Hartke i flagged in the eBay section for £175. Much more reliable i think

I think the dings in the neck (i don't know how deep they are) make all the difference between setup preferences and actual damage, unless you prefer to play an uneven neck!

It's one of the most critical playing areas and if it has significant damage then i'd be wanting a full or partial refund. If the dings are going to affect how you play every time you pick the bass up then it's quite a big deal


Just my 2ps worth!

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amazing-70s-Fretless-jazz-bass-guitar_W0QQitemZ220516668315QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item3357d1539b"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Amazing-70s-Fretless...=item3357d1539b[/url]


This one i think

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rare-Fretless-Matsumoku-Pearl-Vorg-Bass_W0QQitemZ170413128704QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item27ad69fc00"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rare-Fretless-Matsum...=item27ad69fc00[/url]


Fretless green Ricky copy!

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='668373' date='Nov 28 2009, 03:41 PM']We had one at a London venue back in the mid 90s who our drummer confused in soundcheck by speaking backwards into the mic and then shouting over to say she must have plugged it in backwards. Bless her, she checked![/quote]

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='668409' date='Nov 28 2009, 04:06 PM']obviously all this money was declared to the taxman [/quote]


Who?

I always liked that Squier, if i didn't have too many basses i would never have sold it!


Here's my bitsa fretless Jazz, bought from Geoff Byrne for £130 (his photo too). It's currently in bits while i remove a snapped screw from the neck (my fault) and sort out some previously drilled holes (not my fault). It's currently got (all black) Wilkinson tuners, neckplate and string tree and will eventually have a black piezo bridge and black pickup/bridge covers, going for the dark natural stealth fretless!

I'm also swapping the active pickups for passive ones and also removing the LED and active/passive switch and having a series parallel switch put in there (a black one, naturally!)

We did a wedding a few years ago and the bride's family were all of greek heritage. Her mother was the commandeering sort and although the groom's family (who'd booked us) were loving the set she came up to us after few songs in and paid us off. Apparently she wanted the bozouki played she'd hired to play the entire wedding!

The groom looked a bit sheepish but didn't argue (think he feared the mother-in-law backlash) so we got the full amount for less than 20 minutes work!

The previous night we'd had a Walkabout gig cancelled and got paid in full (£550 between four of us) so we'd "earned" around £1200 for less than an hour's work. We were home by 9pm with big fat wallets and big fat smiles on our faces!


There's a band who play the pubs around my area who were booked at a Brannigans. Being a cheesy dad-rock band they didn't go down well and the manager actually went on stage and handed them the money and told them to pack up/never come back in front of a baying crowd. We always go down a storm there so it made me chuckle, esp as when we gigged with them at a charity do they were really pompous

[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hartke-HA3500-Bass-Amplifier_W0QQitemZ290375087865QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL?hash=item439bb436f9"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Hartke-HA3500-Bass-A...=item439bb436f9[/url]

Excellent amps, think this is the older USA made one too. Postage is cheap (£10 for 24hr) so this looks like a bargain. I tried this before buying my HA5500 and there's not much difference in real world volume despite the extra 150w

You've spent £400 on it and it's not as described, get a refund but contact the guy first and be reasonable.

I've kicked up a fuss over something that cost me £4, never mind 10 times that much!

If the seller thinks it was in reasonable condition and you have taken good photographs to prove otherwise then you'll win

Btw if you need cheap tuners then Wilkinsons can be had for around the £25 mark. I just stuck some on my fretless and was well impressed with the feel of them, as good as the Schallers i have which cost more than twice as much

[quote name='Linus27' post='663316' date='Nov 23 2009, 11:15 PM']Well, today I ordered my passive Warwick Corvette Standard in Ash. I went for passive as I am not a big fan of active basses and if the passive is dull, then I always could upgrade to active at a later date. I am getting it brand new from Andertons and they price matched the Bass Centre at £598 which is a bloody good price[/quote]



That's the exact price i paid for my Corvette Standard Active in Ash back in 2002!

One sold on eBay this week for almost £400 so they hold a good chunk of their value.

I'd keep an eye out for a Squier/Vintage/Aria etc. bass cheap on eBay, you can pick these up for around the £50 mark.

If you want to sell the neck, tuners and pickups on they'll have a higher value than Johnny Brook parts, Squier for the Fender shaped headstock alone

Squier Affinity P-Bass for £50 + p&p here:
[url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/bass-guitar_W0QQitemZ180435663664QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV?hash=item2a02cdbb30"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/bass-guitar_W0QQitem...=item2a02cdbb30[/url]

I bought an Aria Jazz for £45 and it sounded heaps better than the usual budget stuff. I've played a very nice Stagg natural Jazz too

Balanced out, the XLR one

I use a DI box over my amp's DI purely because if my amp were to cut out there'd still be bass FOH

I use an MXR M80 for DI. Never saw the point of getting a standalone DI box when i could have one that has distortion too!

Can't really grumble for £50, looks quite nice too

You can pick up a cheap but decent bass off eBay for under £50. I break strings every so often so a spare is essential for me, just something cheap i can sling in a corner

No matter how well you maintain your bass something can always go wrong. The volume pot on my Warwick went kaputt with no warning a couple of years ago, spare bass saved the day then

[quote name='henry norton' post='660236' date='Nov 20 2009, 03:29 PM']Don't know whether they still do it but Warwick used to use a similar (somewhat neater) adjustable nut on their basses. Cool idea I thought. Nice bass too - I remember Jackson used to do a thru neck Precision shaped bass with their signature pointy headstock and some rather lurid colour schemes. Not as nice as this though (unless you're into big hair and spandex...)[/quote]


My Fortress has the brass one and it's excellent. They use plastic ones now which are flakey (and sharp) but still work. I can't think of a reason why they changed them, other than cost and convenience

I think the screw might be a bit soft for pliers, really i should have used better screws but there's no suitable ones in the shops near me. Has to be in black as i've kitted the fretless out in all black hardware, the neckplate was the last bit too!

Btw the seller, nottinghammusicshop, has very kindly sent me a replacement screw, so a big thanks to them

Cheers for the offer Wayne, i think the screw may be a little soft though. I've ordered a stud extractor kit anyway as it's something i could do with, i've a feeling i'll need it on one of my projects at the near future!



Thanks for the help guys!

I've been doing some upgrades to my fretless jazz before the body goes in to get a piezo fitted. Been fine with all of it and it's gone trouble free, until i got to the behemoth of a job that is fitting a new neckplate

I drilled what i thought were adequate pilot holes to accomodate the new, wider screws. However on tightening up one of them snapped in the neck pocket, worse still none of the screw is protruding so i can't get any leverage on it

The screws in question were quite soft (they came with the neckplate) and i considered scrapping them because of this, but just carried on regardless as i wanted to get the bass assembled today. Looks like i'm paying for my impatience!

Is there any way to remove this without resorting to drilling it out or removing a chunk out of the heel?

Ta!

Like this one?

Could be wrong but looks liks your standard budget job, Harley Benton-esque cheapy.

This eBay shop sell some Richwood gear:
[url="http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Dangleberry-Music__W0QQ_sidZ132925157?_nkw=richwood&submit=Search"]http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Dangleberry-...p;submit=Search[/url]



How much are you paying for it?

[quote name='peted' post='657965' date='Nov 18 2009, 11:52 AM']+1. I believe most Warwicks are actually equipped with both active pickups and active electrics. The push/pull switch only disengages the active electrics, leaving the pickups running on the battery. When the battery is dying I can pull the switch to get an extra bit of life out of it but when the charge has completely gone my Thumb BO is silent.

The MEC pickups with silver writing are the passive ones. The ones with gold (or red apparently) writing are active and won't work without any battery, regardless of the push/pull switch.[/quote]


My Corvette has the gold script logo pickups and i'm dead sure it works without a battery.

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='655215' date='Nov 15 2009, 03:10 PM']I used to have an Epiphone strat copy with exactly the same headstock. Looks legit to me.[/quote]


I couldn't see anything wrong with it either. My mate at uni had a similar super-strat epiphone with the pionty headstock and a floyd rose