Bassassin

There's a short & not particularly in-depth 'making of' thing about the song here: Seems it's McCartney playing the slide guitar.

Good detective work! It's also a close relative of the Mats-made Epiphone ET280 - basically the same thing with a 4-inline headstock & single pickup. It's possible if you can get the paint off the original finish underneath will be restorable. I've had good results with a healthy dose of T-cut & elbow grease on similarly Dulux-ed basses & guitars - once you get the paint off, the original poly tends to be pretty bomb-proof.

Maybe. But if I told them I might have to kill them. You know how it is.

I know many things.

Just had a listen - not a Beatles fan (although my Mum was) & it's OK. Sound like a Lennon tune, nothing particularly cringeworthy about it, it's 4 mins so doesn't outstay its welcome. The tech used in its creation sounds interesting. If nothing else, it's better than the recent new thing by the Stones. Won't listen to either again though.

Not knockoffs as such - probably design licensing considering the apparent relationships between Japanese & Korean manufacturers - this is an MIK version from the mid 70s to (probably) early 80s, different pickups make these easy to spot: There's also a variant with a 2x2 headstock, MIJ, seen branded as Dynatone & Zenta, not sure who made these, possibly Guya. Although these do raise the question of ripoffs... These weren't anything to do with Teisco (too late) and weren't sold branded Kay. Interestingly they also turn up in a 1975 Aria catalogue, alongside a couple of Sakai-made Kalamazoo KG/KB copies. https://vintagejapanguitars.com/aria-1975-catalogue/

This is interesting! It's early/mid 70s & probably made by Sakai Mokko. Originally one of those Burns-inspired things & would've looked a lot like this: These turn up (like loads of old MIJ stuff) with a bewildering number of names & variations, but there are Sakai-branded examples which 99% confirms the manufacturer. I expect (if you do refin it) you'll probably find the screwholes for the top horn scratchplate & quite likely the old finish under the red. Looks like a cool project - for me the worst bit is the fretboard varnish which might take care to remove without damaging the binding. Frets don't look too badly worn & should tidy up OK. Do the pickups work? Not sure about these (never been hands-on with this type) but if they don't, it might be possible to re-use the chrome covers over replacements to keep the look. I'd expect the original bridge (if you have it) will be a pretty crude 2-saddle job, so if you intend to us a more conventional replacement, check the string spacing/neck width. Not too sure about these basses but a lot of the earlier original-ish MIJ stuff has pretty narrow spacing. Anyway, looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

My profoundest apologies and best wishes for a swift recovery! I perhaps should have mentioned that the visual experience requires no additional chemical enhancement... Dunno what your band done, Mush - but we been an' done a new vid, ain't we?

Bumping this thread because my band done another video! This is a little different to the previous one, visually and musically. The song's around 7 1/2 minutes long (it's prog, what ya gonna do?) and in two distinct sections, the first 3 minutes or so instrumental. My aim was to create (by manipulating free-to-use clips, mostly) the sort of visuals I'd want if we were able to perform this with back-projections/video screens onstage. Part two (the proper song bit) is a lyric video with visuals appropriate to mood/words (well, as far as I can tell - I only pluck the strings & press the buttons!) with a bit of green-screened performance. Recording-wise this is a bit of an oddity - we started this 3 or 4 years ago when we moved from using an old standalone digital multitracker to a PC based setup. For some reason I'd been using Tracktion as a DAW, but had terrible latency issues that I couldn't sort, which ultimately resulted in this song being shelved. Having moved to Reaper & doubled my RAM (whereupon latency problems magically vanished!) we carried on with other stuff & this got pretty much forgotten. I remembered it & dug it out a few months back & we decided it was worth salvaging, and that involved importing everything one track at a time into Reaper & then creating a tempo track (there are one or two time signature & tempo changes!) to get the MIDI drum parts working. All the instrument audio had to be lined up & that's when the consequences of the latency became apparent! Anyway, it was all salvageable (if you don't listen too closely!), a few bits added in to extend part of the instrumental section, and new vocals recorded. As I recall, I played my CSL (1980, MIJ) Jazz with DiMarzio Model Js, plus Yamaha SG1500 & Squier Strat. There's also a brief cameo from my Sire V7 fretless - which may or may not qualify as a bass solo... Anyway, if you enjoy bombastic self-indulgence, pretentiousness & melodrama you might like this, and if you don't - have a watch/listen anyway!

Elton was among the first artists I got into when I started listening to music properly as a kid in the 70s. Although I couldn't count Dee as a direct influence, it was clear (as soon as I became aware of such things) the level of musicianship within the band was stellar and Dee's playing impeccable. Also I had no idea he was from Gillin'am in Kent, just like me! Fellow Medway Tahns scum!

Well - I listened to 4 tracks (which was pretty much the time it took to read through the thread) and it's OK, I quite like it for this sort of thing. Some stellar playing, as one might expect, but like most instrumental fusion it makes me think: bland, over-fiddly prog with the edges buffed off, & someone blooping down a saxophone instead of a vocalist to give it context. It sounds composed, rather than improvised, & that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned - although it'd take repeated listens (that it isn't going to get) for me to start to properly appreciate how it's structured. There were a few passages where I thought - if I'd had that idea I'm sure I could do something epic with it. But I never have those sorts of ideas.

Not enough to change the design (if you can call it that!) the way the body has! I may have mentioned my antipathy for that slapped-on afterthought before - the only bit of the 4001/3 design John Hall didn't bother to trademark!

Imagine going to such lengths to make your Rickenbacker not look like a Rickenbacker - and then going "oh, sod it" & slapping the original ugly afterthought scratchplate back on it completely unmodified, not even bothering to trim it so it doesn't hang off the bottom edge of your svelte new Pointybacker.

Better late than never... Early/mid-70s Matsumoku-made starter-ish thing. Weird pickups, thin (but solid mahogany) body, generally OK unless it has a corkscrew neck, like the one of these I have, sitting around in bits! Fantom was a Japanese home-market brand - probably not that many of 'em in Hull. Wouldn't pay £300 for it.

I think this is a 70s/80s Japanese copy that someone's trying to fob off as genuine. To make it look more 'authentic' they've tried to make the pickup routing look rough & gone over the wiring channel with a forstner bit - notice how it's dead straight rather than the slight curve of the routing on genuine 4001s. The hardware (apart from the tuners) back up the theory - the chrome saddles & round tailpiece holes (real ones are more square) indicate it's a copy bridge, & the bridge pickup looks like the unit found in MIJ Shaftesbury 4001 fakers - the corners of the bobbin are much more squared-off than the genuine unit & the poles have rounded heads, not the hex heads of a modern Rick Hi-Gain or the squared-off slugs the pretendy horseshoe reissues have. The neck unit (which I assume is a toaster) has a single magnet rather than 6 individual poles a genuine toaster should have. Several Japanese brands had specific McCartney replicas - amongst others Greco, Kasuga/Heerby & Fernandes sold them in their home market in the 80s/90s (and probably later) and all of those would have had a single truss rod. A tenner says the one on this bass will be metric rather than the imperial size you'd imagine Rickenbacker would insist on!

It's some dude's weirdo tribute bitsa. Nothing to do with John D & not a replica. I suspect it has a limited market - and that's who's trying to sell it! Looks like he's handy with a laser engraver, at least.

They're very nice - I have a black one. It's a late 80s/early 90s SB-ELT (or RSZ, if you're an 80s hair metal fan, as they were exactly the same instrument), pretty close to the Matsumoku-era SB Elite II & SB-R80 but with some small differences. Not clear whether these were Japanese or Korean as none of them have been seen with country of manufacture or serial stickers. If I could get £700 for mine I might be tempted. It's in a bit better nick than this one.

That's the fella.

Roughly, pre - 90s, I'd say. Although that might be because I'm not comfortable considering the 90s as a 'vintage' era just yet.

I had one ages ago, different brand I think. It's a Warwick Fortress Flashback copy. Certainly not 80s Korean - '00s Taiwanese or Chinese. Mine was OK but nothing special.

I bloody love these! Kicked myself for ages after I once missed out on one here for £100! Couldn't justify it now as I'm not gigging & too lazy to sell any of my bass surplus to make space. Which is a shame as I'm FB pals with the seller, who's also a BC member, or at least used to be.

Right dull, drab lot I've got. Think there needs to be a green San Dimas P/J in my future.

The Chickenbacker bridge design seems to originate on Korean-made Shine copies from the early '00s: The Shines were pretty decent basses by all accounts, & came fitted with Seymour Duncan Rick-type pickups as standard. Never been hands-on with one but I think they had conventional Fender-ish neck/scale proportions. Like a few other Fakers from that era (Indie & Wesley spring to mind!) it seems they though they could get around RIC's litigiousness with a wonky headstock shape - John Hall's C&D letters set them all straight about that, so you don't see too many of any of them!