shoulderpet

The Epiphone has a strange muddiness in the low mids but without the huge low end of the original mudbuckers, my personal opinion about neck pickups in the extreme neck position are that you either have to have them really overwound and beefy or you need a really defined pickup in that position, the Epiphone pickup is neither of those things and as a result it sounds a bit lacking

I would budget for a mudbucker, the stock pickup in the Epi EB0 looks like one but is not

That is actually really nice, if slab basses didn't hurt my forearm I would probably get one of those

I wasn't a fan either, I quite like flats and nylon tapewounds but these strings once they broke in just sounded a bit limp and gutless, if these were fitted on a new bass I would just think the strings must have gone dead

I dont know about that, I will agree it is too expensive as are most basses in that price range from other brands however I have played both the Mid priced Contemporary Hofner and the more expensive German made Hofner and imo they both compare favourably to offerings by other brands in the same price bracket, the construction on the German Hofners I have played has been top drawer. I strongly suspect that in keeping with the higher price nowadays they are probably better made than they were in the 60s

Thank you for this post, so many misinformed sources on the web claiming that the Hofner was a cheapo budget bass which was never the case

According to the Rotosound webpage the 100-40 flats are a few ibs heavier tension than there Swingbass 105-45 strings, there 105-45 flats are around 214ibs tension but they feel when heavier as they are quite stiff strings

Never really got the love for satin finish necks, more often than not they just look and feel cheap imo, gloss just looks and feels so much better, just my opinion

You're brave putting 760FS on an acoustic

Roto's are usually very high tension, are you sure they are Roto's? TI jazz flats have red silk like Roto's but are low tension, could put be those?

You need one more for Tapewounds

I agree with this, I have brought a number of basses online and returned more basses than I have kept, the funny thing is most of the ones I returned had quality control inspection tags saying they had passed QC so clearly the QC standards for a lot of companies are not particularly high

I wouldn't normally be so quick to make a judgement but I tried 4 P's and 2 J's and they all seemed that way, there was 2 basses out of the lot that didn't have sky high action but even then the build quality, fit and finish etc on those was pretty much on par with my Ibanez mezzo that cost me £200, strangely when I owned a P/J Mustang which was price around the same as these the build quality, fit and finish etc was light years ahead of any of the Player basses I have tried. That being said the fact that you seem to have a decent one says to me that maybe there are a lot of "Monday morning specials" being cranked out and maybe you just have to do some hunting to find the good ones, also I am very fussy with new basses so I may expect more than most people.

I recently tried a few of the MIM Player series P basses and a couple of the Player series Jazz basses, I love Fender basses but tbh I was shocked by the Player series, they all felt really cheap, cheap feeling necks, crappy tuners and most of them had action that was about 4mm high and tbh they didn't feel much different to basses costing a third of the price. The more expensive MIM Fender basses seemed a LOT better, imo it's almost like the Player series is Fender in name only, I wouldn't be surprised if they were identical to the low end Squiers just with a Fender decal

They really are, when I compared to the Player series the Player series felt really cheap in comparison, basically felt like Squiers with Fender decals

And....... I found a crack in the finish of the bass that I did not see when I brought the bass in the shop😥 I went back to the shop half expecting to keep the Vintera as I got it for a good price and it is a cracking bass and I spoke to them about it and played about half a dozen basses P basses in the same price range and a little bit over however compared to the Vintera Precision they all felt a bit cheap, didn't sound as nice, didn't look as nice, didn't play as nice (the Vintera practically plays itself) and had satin finishes and narrow necks (both of which I really dislike), long story short I kept the Vintera P bass. Happy that I tried out the competition and happy that I made the right choice in keeping the bass.

To be honest this must be just about the only bass where I haven't wanted to change the pickguard, my camera doesn't show the colours that well but the gold pickguard is gorgeous in person

And some more pictures, because, well why not

Yes, is a great color, I was pretty psyched to have a P bass that I dont have to change anything to make it look (or play) the way I want it, the colour, the gold pickguard, the gloss neck, visually it ticks so many boxes for me

Yes, I havent used flatwounds for a couple of years and I suspect that with a little bit of a boost in the highs and upper mids I can probably get a pretty biting rock tone from them, haven't used this bass with my band yet, that will be the true test. I am finding with the TI's I am having to be conscious to lighten up my attack a bit, I could raise the action but this plays like butter so I think I will leave it where it is

So after considering my options with short scale basses I actually ended up going the opposite route, I found a lovely used Fender precision bass, I think it is a Vintera. Anyway, I tried it out and not only is it a looker but the action was setup nice and low (just a hair above 1.5mm at 17th fret), the neck is also one of the nicest feeling necks I have played and with a gloss finish which is nice because I'm not crazy about satin finishes, the neck is definitely chunky at thennut, the hardware all seems solid and the overall build quality is impressive. The strings on the bass are flatwounds and I am fairly sure they are TI Flats as despite being flatwounds the strings feel low tension and very flexible for flats, not sure whether to keep to flats or change to rounds yet, if I go for rounds it will probably be nickel rounds as I want to keep the frets nice but I may change them to Labella low tension flats as they are slightly stiffer but are close enough in tension that I shouldn't need to adjust the truss rod One question I have that I am hoping someone can help with... The truss rod is at the body end rather than the headstock end, does that mean the it operates opposite to a headstock end truss rod ie on a truss rod that is at the headstock end turning the truss rod towards the E string side of the neck tightens and turning towards the G string loosens the truss rod, is it the opposite of this with the truss rod as it is at the body end?

I found them just a smidge looser than Rotosounds but not floppy by any means, more of a medium tension rather than the medium high tension of Rotos which are quite stiff in anything above 100-40, to be honest I think more people will have more issue with the mid scoop of Pro steels than the tension but if you are after a bright zingy string these are it

I have a Hofner club bass and I measured the neck a while ago and it was around 43m at the nut and went up to 48mm so slightly wider but not much, only reason I dont play it more is that if you become too accustomed to the Hofner string spacing everything else feels really clunky in comparison

Ok, so looking for a replacement short scale has kind of made me wonder if I should start looking at longscales too but being a short derrière with small hands I am not sure how I would get on with long scale (I have only short and medium scale basses) I love the look of the short scale Schecter Banshee bass but it is slightly out of my price range, am looking around the £500 range and actually seems quite difficult to find a decent short scale with a contoured body