lemmywinks

Well done, maybe Roger Sadowsky will give you a pat on the head? I'm also pretty sure if either Warwick or Sadowsky thought it was a massive issue they could have easily changed it themselves, what with having amazingly well equipped workshops at their disposal and the original logo files to print them from. I don't really understand the fuss over placeholder logos on prototype basses, presumably they sound and play great with excellent build quality or they wouldn't be there on show for everybody to see.

Presumably they assume most people aren't going to get hung up on a headstock logo to the point of not taking their new line of basses to the biggest music trade show on the planet. I get the feeling timing was tight on these and they were on a deadline for Namm.

Can see the Metroline and Masterbuilt ones here I think:

It was mentioned in the video that they are the first prototypes and the logo and string retainer were incorrect.

Same!

Set of Duncans on eBay, prob get them for £80: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Seymour-Duncan-Bass-Lines-SBJ-3B-SBJ-3N-Jazz-Bass-Pickups/174148573264?hash=item288c105850%3Ag%3ALq0AAOSw6PpeFK8U&LH_ItemCondition=3000

Go used definitely. I got a set of Nordstrands on here for £70 last year and some Wizard '84s just sold for £80 so you can definitely get within budget if you wait for a good deal. Artec SE preamps are extremely good for not much money and are prewired with push fit connectors so there's minimal soldering, I have one in my backup bass and I can't fault it. If your Squire is passive then you probably won't fit everything under the bell plate so that's worth considering as it would limit your options to something designed to fit (and way over budget) like the East J series. Some Jazz basses have the neck pickup and control cavity routed as one big hole so there's would be space for a 9v battery if that's the case, have a look under the pickguard! Oh and obviously keep all the old bits in case you decide to sell the bass, modded instruments tend to be worth less than the sum of their parts.

Looks neat but unless it sounds radically different from every other super micro head (unlikely) or is priced extremely keenly then I don't see what it offers that you can't get elsewhere. Doesn't seem to have a USP as a bass amp unless you really want a stripped back feature set I guess. Still it looks cool. Hopefully it has speakon out and is a similar size to the Elf/BAM.

First thing I thought, hopefully the guitarist doesn't Google himself regularly (no euphemism).

They were still fetching decent money prior to the Thomann clearance which had a knock on effect for used prices as you would expect. As with a lot of niche stuff they were never flavour of the month but always got good good reports on here from anyone that heard them. As for the ridiculously low prices I think it would have still been around £1k for the pre and power amps so they weren't exactly giving them away and the pre sold out pretty quickly.

I think they had quite a good rep on here going off user reports, did you have one?

The Hellborg pre/power amps are highly regarded top end amps, dunno if they're still in production though. The smaller heads that look like vintage stereos are supposed to be pretty good. Had a quick look on their page and Rob Trujillo, Stu Hamm, Steve Bailey, Stuart Zender and Rex Brown play 'em - not a bad roster. Edit: Also Jonas Hellborg as well! These do look like nice kit IMO:

Warwick?

The later IGB basses have that nice carve, I think it's more pronounced on the newer (guessing Chinese?) ones. The older Korean ones were flat with a different logo and pup arrangement (either P/J or J/J). Then there are some early oddities made in Korea with the older style Japanese body with Integra writing (like MIJ Billy Gould's basses), stubby headstock shape and the proper MIJ classic Aria bridge found on the more desirable basses. All this with basically no model numbers on the basses save for the odd one with it on the truss rod cover. Not sure how enthusiastic collectors are regarding the serial number identification of Korean Arias (I'm guessing not very much) but it might be worth a shot. Looks to be from May '03 going off the serial anyway.

In fact seeing as this has the S at the start of the serial number it would be a Korean Samick wouldn't it?

Samicks I think for the Korean ones, think these are Chinese but could be wrong. Same bridge on the Korean ones though.

Btw the last one (regular IGB68) to sell on eBay went for under £190, seller accepted an offer: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aria-Pro-II-Left-Handed-Bass-made-in-Korea-/174109872612?hash=item2889c1d1e4%3Ag%3Ak1AAAOSw99Rd3qVz&nma=true&si=g3h7yDytXui3Gd3Xy8s1qxFqn5M%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

They are nice basses though, many years ago my local shop had a 5 string 68 which I played for a bit and didn't want to put down. That was up at circa £380.

The only differences between the regular IGB68 and yours are the Duncan Designed pickups, the addition of a J pickup and the single switch instead of two. Same hardware and body. Definitely a nice bass and they tend to go for a bit more than the budget IGB basses. With the Korean and Chinese IGB basses Aria have the 2 digit nomenclature to differentiate between models which doesn't always make a lot of sense, you might find the model number by just Googling IGB with every number from 60 upwards which should be fun!

The 4 string versions came with a different brushed metal bridge and knobs, I've had Integras from the 90s and 2000s with it on. Like this: Never not liked an Integra, I had the passive version of the bass above which cost me £55 and I gigged it all over. All except the very early Korean one I still have were crazy light too. Never seen them with Duncan Designed pickups though, are these original?

Is it one of these (IGB68 or something)?

That's weird because the neck on this one looks like a cheapo which has had its headstock crudely reshaped, definitely looks agricultural compared to the rest of it: The more observant amongst us will notice different coloured control knobs. Seems like quite a few "luthiers" are taking cues from the master!

I've seen that horrible noburst on basses before, can't remember what brands but none of them were ones I'd want to own and I love a cheap bass or two. Youtube demo here: Agreed they are just bolt together bitsas with reshaped headstocks, not exactly warranting the "Rowland Custom Shop" logo.

Nice one thanks, is the Donner brand any good?

At the moment we run a simple pair of T bar stage lights on a preset program for most of our gigs. We've been trying to cut down on long cable runs to make setting up and packing down faster and getting rid of the XLR cable between our lights seems like it would be a good investment. Is there a cheapish rechargeable wireless kit we can just plug into the DMX in/out on the lights to link them instead of using a cable? The ones on Thomann work out at around £90 which seems a lot for a relatively simple bit of kit.