lemmywinks

I have the body from one on my fretless, took the pre and pickups out as they sounded a bit lifeless to me. Very attractive veneers though and look a lot more boutique than the price tag would suggest. Here's mine with a Mighty Mite neck, Duncan Designed pickups, piezo bridge and Bartolini preamp: This is the preamp:

Can get set up with a little digital iron, power supply and stand for around £60 or so, do as many pickup swaps as you want then.

The provenance thing only really works (with the odd exception) for electric guitars and basses played on popular songs or that featured on prominent photographs/videos. Even then unless there's some sort of artist star factor you're not looking at much more. This one would be worth more stripped and stained than in its current state.

I had the same issues with DHL returns, convenience stores and Thomann. In my case the first shop refused the parcel due to size (classical guitar size) and the second accepted it but the barcode wouldn't scan so I ended up contacting Thomann who arranged a collection from my workplace and sent me a new label. Customer service on Thomann's part was excellent, although this was in January and it looks like they're still having the same issues with DHL. They also dumped the parcel in the porch at my work and didn't bother to knock or ring the bell.

Basically any bargain that is at a fixed buy it now price will be snapped up pretty quickly so save a search and when you have a few spare minutes refresh it for a bit. I had one search set at £70 and one at £300 (only for certain brands though), highlights of the cheapies were a Vintage V950 for £50, an Aria STJ for £45 and an Aria IGB55 also for £50. Best overall was a German Warwick Fortress One for £250. Gigged all of them and never lost any money selling them on.

I went through a stage of doing this, set up a search for BiN newly listed basses under £70 on eBay and keep updating it when you have a spare few minutes, all the BiN bargains are usually snapped up within the first few minutes. Just had a constant revolving door of surprisingly good backup basses and lots of fun along the way. Can snag some local bargains on Gumtree/Facebook as well.

Essentially an Affinity PJ with some better pickups, probably not a terrible deal if it plays half as well as he says. His valuation is a bit silly as the cap on what an upgraded bass is worth is mainly decided by the model of the bass itself and not the sum of the parts. You can't make a £100 Squier into a £500 bass by whacking better pickups in there, that's why you keep the original parts and put them back on before you sell it! Quite a lot of choice for ~£250 in the used market, can pick up a Gen1 Sire V7, Squier CV/VM, Yamaha BB414 etc. A pimped Squier Affinity wouldn't really be on my radar tbh.

I can see arguments for both really, the Sire is centred at 600hz I think so most people's preferences will be there or thereabouts. I do like the super low mids on the Ibanez though, one of the first things I did was roll it all the way back and boost a little. Sounds killer.

This is why I keep my basses situated directly under my light fittings at all times.

I first saw them on Tiny Desk Concerts and I watched their performance 3 times straight. They've just got that bit of something that all successful bands need IMO.

Had to ask the same question when I got mine, both my other basses with a mid sweep control had a centre detent so I thought it was broken!

I'm probably gonna pick one up as a secondary/standalone practice device, it does too much in such a little box for me to not want one!

Spent a bit of time with the B1 Four and even though it's their bargain unit it didn't feel or sound like it. Felt much nicer than the 708 I used to have which to be fair never missed a beat and was still working perfectly when I sold it years ago. They used to have a bit of an empty feel about them, plastics are better now IMO and they sound much more organic/convincing. Probably all a lot of people would really need tbh.

Had really good service from Promenade Music in Morecambe when I've used them, including sourcing parts for a bass they didn't even sell me when the shop I did buy it from shrugged their shoulders.

Yeah I saw that, they've gone full USA Hipshot hardware on those and the price tag is pretty high. Would be nice if they could get their own version of licensed Ultralites or Guyker equivalents on the bread and butter Sire range.

My 5 string was 11.6lbs, wasn't an issue until I fractured my left collarbone at which point I started to think about moving it on. It was a great bass though, a mate of mine has a V7 Gen2 in Sherwood Green and after spending a bit of time with it I started thinking about buying another! The Gen2 pickups are a real improvement over the first ones IMO.

You'd think they would have prioritised getting low weight, good quality tuners on the V7 range and up, not much else that needs updating. You can get Lic Ultralites on similarly priced Cort basses.

Are these still just Indonesian Corts btw?

Inflation isn't always a good barometer as some things get much cheaper due to production methods, certainly beginner guitars are in this group. Comparing them to similarly specced competitors is pretty reliable and the street price of £450 is a lot of money for what is essentially an offshore bolt on plank with no expensive components.

The Aria Sinsonido models had some nice minimal headstock designs, might be able to do a variation on that:

Este was made for the slug-in-place-of-guitar photoshop

Mohini Dey been mentioned?

Ah you see mine had the box, paperwork and sealed-in-bag accessories, was just a 2019 model with missing cavity cover/paintwork and a cranked truss rod! Tbh if they'd have said it was B stock, made sure it was setup correctly and made me aware of the dings I'd have still bought it as they go for more than that used (albeit a used one is likely to be made more recently), it does take the shine off the NBD though. I don't really spend much on bass gear now as I've had all I need to gig with for years and don't really change my equipment all that much so it was a luxury purchase for me, luckily the bass is great and sounds immense so I'll probably buy the cheaper version as a backup, possibly not in the PMT sale though.

Well yeah shops in general are supposed to provide a good service. Even if the item you receive has missed QC at the factory that's fine as you can send it back, not the shop's fault and not a big deal. Sending out a new bass with dings down to the bare wood and a missing cavity cover with the preamp hanging out the back is an entirely different story however, as was the Ashdown head they sold as new covered in scratches with a broken eq slider. I think this recent clearance was a case of them getting rid of excess stock from the Liverpool warehouse by someone looking at an online inventory and nothing getting checked on the way out, the very helpful staff having to deal with the fallout. I've always had good service from PMT but this did make me think twice about bargain items in their clearance sale.