ZilchWoolham

Sounds like a pretty normal clean, modern, slap-happy tone to me. In the video annotations he mentions he's using an "Audere Audio" pre-amp, but I'd assume you could get something similar with most hi-fi styled pre-amps or Class D amps, which do seem to be dominating the market. Should be fairly easy to dial in with common equipment, and of course, in agreement with the previous speaker, in every way the opposite of what I'd consider good tone! (Go for it, though!)

I think it's quite elegant in a way but it does seem strange that they would make the body out of figured ash and then top it off with a wood that looks just like mahogany. It's certainly no more boring than a solid colour, though. The price, however, is a joke, obviously.

Personally I'd rather have the Status than the Dingwall (and Kestrel), and I'm assuming you feel the same way since you're considering the offer. Going purely by market value, though, he would certainly be the real winner of the two of you. Is he looking to sell it, or was he interested in the Dingwall specifically? Who initiated the negotiations? Since he's looking to trade his bass for two others, I've a feeling he isn't desperately wanting for your particular duo, and might just end up selling one or both shortly after the deal's been made. If he agrees to sell it, that might be preferable for you, provided you're given enough time to sell the Dingwall.

I'd say it's quite steep indeed. As you can see, this particular bass was 65000 yen in 1989. Adjusted for inflation, that's about £560. Very few Japanese instruments, or any instruments, for that matter, actually increase in value as time goes by. Going back far enough, a US Fender certainly does, but this is a Japanese Fender, and not one of the more famous models either (like the Squier JV series), so unless this particular model has some special connection I've missed I would not recommend paying more for it now than you would've payed for it back in the day. In fact, there's one on eBay right now (from a Japanese seller) that's priced at just under £400. Even with shipping and import charges that might still be cheaper than the local one you've found.

The reduced number of strings got me thinking about what might just be the most revolutionary bass design ever:

To me it just seems like another variation on the general boutique blobiness we've seen in recent years, albeit slightly more angular. What strikes me as more interesting is the number of strings on the bass in the timelapse video.

I've always associated the Stagg name with the very bottom of the barrel, but in all honesty I've never tried one myself. The body is supposed to be solid, though, which is good to know. If you can find a nice picture of the sunburst one you might even be able to tell how many pieces of wood they use. The hardware and pickups will most likely be utter rubbish, but you're probably OK with that fact if you're going to be modding it anyway. My main worry would be the fit and stability. A setup upon arrival is of course to be expected, but I've no idea for how long those necks stay in shape.

Sometime in the future I'd like to own an old EB3, but I can't really see myself using it for a whole lot. In fact, it would mostly be because of the Cornick connection. I've tried one of the newer SG basses but it didn't feel particularly great to me, and of course they don't have the interesting 5-way (I think) chicken switch.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1461780952' post='3037639'] when I contacted him for my 'custom' Jake, I indicated the bits I wanted the price was similar to yours (a bit cheaper, but exchange rate fluctuates etc). It could have been cheaper by choosing different hardware, pickups etc... My first Jake was only custom in that I specified neck profile/dimensions and wanted a lacquered neck. That was cheaper as I went with their standard hardware and electronics. For me, the neck accounts for a huge deal, so being able to specify that while barely increasing the cost is amazing. Anything else I can change/modify myself later on if I want to. [/quote] It was the 1200€ as the starting-off point, before the added electronics and so on, that surprised me a bit. I suppose all is as it should if your first Jake was essentially stock, except for the neck, and the price was similar. A little peculiar that a bass with a lacquered neck would be cheaper than standard, perhaps. I take it your second Jake was a bit more expensive then, and had non-standard pickups? Oh, wait a minute. Do you mean he gave you the quote in £ as opposed to €? It's true the minor price difference might be because of the exchange rate, in that case.

Hi there, everybody! (First post here!) Recently I've been eyeing this brand quite a bit, as I've only really heard nice things about them, and I'm quite intrigued by some of the pickups and electronics they offer for their custom basses. So, recently I dropped Adrian an email regarding a custom Jake. I, very quickly, got a reply in which it was stated that a custom Jake 4 starts at 1200€, with pickups, preamp etc. adding to the price. This is of course not by any means a massive price for a solid, EU-made bass, but it did surprise me slightly as some of the Jakes they have ready for purchase are considerably cheaper than 1200€. Of course, it makes sense that a bespoke bass would be a bit more expensive than a similarly-spec'd regular production model, due to the customer contact and added workload, but I do also recall reading about remarkably cheap custom jobs on this very forum. I'll contact Adrian again and ask if I can somehow down-spec the bass to cut the cost a little bit - perhaps he assumed I'd want something a bit fancier and just made an unusually high estimate - but I'd also like to check with you lot to see if you've gotten similar estimates for your Jake inquiries. Perhaps they have become a tad pricier in the recent years? Anyhow, 1700 or so euros for a bass made to my specs, upgraded with the pickups and preamp I want, is not unreasonable, but if that will be the final cost I'll probably have to take a closer look at the old budget. Grateful for any replies!