prowla

And not PayPal F&F!

Does the Pedaltrain site still have their layout tool?

I have Status Graphite and Warwick active 5-string basses - I like them. I don't have a Dingwall or Strandberg headless multiscale bass, but if I had £2k I'd be looking at them. Alternatively my £2k could get me a set of Moog Taurus pedals or a Chapman Stick.

Sorry to hear your issue. We had an situation a while back where there was a scammer selling the same item to multiple buyers; the loud and clear message was don’t use unsecured means to pay up-front to people you don’t know (PayPal F&F, bank transfer, etc.). That seller gave several people the same shipping ref as proof of posting. If you’ve decided it is dodgy then it is a good idea to report to the police and get a crime reference number. Hope you get it sorted.

Oh, it’s in Japan; it’s probably a speculative broker fronting someone else’s sale.

Yep, Japanese. The neck-lift is quite severe; could be the set neck failing. Severely overpriced - the Macca paint job isn’t worth that. Looks like an Allparts replacement bridge/tailpiece on it.

Oh, I don't know - I think it "adds a touch of style to any performance".

Yep moving a tuner is just slight cosmetic wear.

But it does say:

It could be one of the tabs on the jack socket touching the foil. Perhaps only when you plug a jack in?

It's a no from me. The seller does have 106 items sold, so at least it's not a 0 feedback scammer.

£1500 - have they slipped a decimal place there?

The round bridge on those doesn't do it for me; they should either have rounded pickups to match or just do rectangles.

Tell me you didn't use F&F!

I've owned mine since 1977; it's the second bass I ever bought and I've never looked at another bass and thought I'd rather have that.

All it needs is the tuners re-shaping and the nut made to look like a set of piranha teeth and it could be....

It's more Peavey than P. 🙂

AI can be good for somethings, certainly to assist in pattern matching. However, for eBay listing descriptions it just produces a load of meaningless twaddle (WTF is "With 20 medium jumbo frets"???).

Works for me!

AWS came about when Amazon decided to sell the spare capacity from their warehouse systems.

Alternatively...

Strats are the guitars I seem to get on best with, though there are so many variations of neck and fittings that simply saying "a Strat" doesn't tell the whole story; I have several, plus copies (a Levinson Blade is my standout). For some reason I don't get on so well with Gibsons; I have an SG and a Les Paul (Studio), but they seem slightly cramped for me. OTOH I had a play on a Flying V last year and I really liked it, plus I've aways wanted an Explorer. I've also got a couple of Teles built from parts (Fender MIM) and they're pretty good. There are some other brands I have too, including Washburn, Danelectro (tuned to DADGAD), Aria Pro (I would like a vintage PE-1000), plus others, but none I would get evangelical about. That's electrics. Acoustic-wise I occasionally pick up my Ovation (they have a specific sound, but are hard to play sitting down) and a classical guitar (which can teach you things about bass playing). So, overall my recommendation would be a Strat, probably HSS, with not too light strings (10s), a not too curved neck (if you want to bend strings), a whammy (just because), and whatever style neck (I don't notice maple vs rosewood) and colour body you like. Fender MIM is probably the benchmark for price vs. performance for me, so I'd suggest those as a comparison baseline.