Bassassin

Shame it looks like the idiot's murdered a perfectly decent bass to make this grotesque lump of functionless congealed sick. The neck - & likely the other hardware - is from a Maison RB series fretless. Perfectly nice, well-made SGC Nanyo clone, I once spent a peasant drunken evening at a dull party noodling aimlessly on one. Would happily have taken it home with me.

Don't know about the comparative merits of the two basses, I'm afraid - but if you go down the fretted J neck route, I'd be very interested in that fretless neck!

They do - search under electric guitars & there are 2xP models, 1xJ plus a T-bird & EB3. http://www.tokaiguitarseurope.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=59&page=1 None of them are the Ebay one - the P & Js have the later shape headstocks. I'd agree this looks like a Fakai.

Great work Brian, looks awesome! I'm saying nowt about those knobs, though!

You could've said that in the first place! All valid points, depending on your aesthetic view. I think it's cool-looking (aside from a couple of details that do spoil it), but I like basses that are a bit different. I also like pretty conventional basses too - quite partial to a 'burst J myself - athough I'd have maple board & blocks - preferably pearl.

So what you're saying is "looks funny, brain can't cope"? Well - it might be, you're not explaining too clearly.

In what way? The tort doesn't work but otherwise it's a Precision shape with a block inlay neck. Paint it black & it'd look much the same as any other P-derived design.

It's the truss rod doing the bulk of the job of countering string tension, so the wood's taking little of the stress. No practical experience myself of heavy gauges on a skinny neck but I doubt it would be an issue, should only require a truss rod tweak.

Only just noticed - postage - £150. OK, I know acrylic's heavy but... Also having had a look at the Electrical Guitar Company's website, the price he wants for this is cloud cuckoo land - brand-new basses are around $2500.

They're not showing it too clearly but I don't think it's exactly the same as the Travis Bean - that's a T-shaped cutout, this looks like a wedge shape. More like the Kramer but with a bit across the top, I suppose. 4 inline would've suited the style of the bass better.

Knock a nought off the price & I probably would! Maybe at full price it comes with a crane to lift it. Wonder who thought that tort was the natural & obvious complement to clear acrylic & polished alu?

Couple of things @DGD - you can expect that post to get pulled since BC does not allow the promotion of members' Ebay auctions. Also being in the US it's a bit of a chocolate teapot for most of us. Melody is not a Japanese brand and your bass is absolutely not MIJ so I would suggest you modify your auction text - these are from Recanti, in Italy and while it's an intersting copy-era instrument (note - not "lawsuit") it's pretty crude compared to the MIJ versions. http://www.fetishguitars.com/castelfidardo-recanati/melody/

I would say "kill it with fire" but it looks like someone's already tried that.

No need to apologise - something this ridiculous deserves a revival!

It's a chopped-up Strat copy with home-made string retainers/"tuners" & strung with bass strings. Odd thing is, if they'd used budget headless hardware (the Chinese Hohner copy stuff that's about £30) they'd have saved themselves a lot of metalwork & could have spent that time routing for P/J pups & making a scratchplate. And they'd have had something that worked, too.

What is this, a bleedin' echo chamber, eh? Eh? https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/325746-the-£450-peavey-milestone-seen-it-all-now/

I'm frankly amazed to find myself to be the only person to make a helpful suggestion such as: Sell your old S2000, buy a Streamline. /Coat.

Few things about Greco. Japanese domestic brand, which means they're rare in the UK. I think some may have been unofficially exported to the US & Australia but I don't think they were ever sold in the UK or EU. Absolutely not a "Lawsuit Brand". 70s Grecos were made initially simultaneously by Matsumoku & Fujigen - the Fujigens are the same instruments as the equivalent Ibanez, which, again, were the same as equivalent Antoria, which was a UK brand. So if it's a toss-up between an expensive Greco & a less expensive Antoria, then yes, they're 99% likely to be exactly the same. There's nothing special about the "Gneco" logo examples, except they're older, rarer so more collectable for MIJ anoraks. It's worth remembering that later copy-era guitars were better built & more accurate than most early ones. While most Japanese export brands all pretty much phased out their copy ranges in favour of originals by the late 70s, it wasn't the case with domestic market instruments - although you won't find any Greco-badged Fender copies made after 1982. This is because Fender Japan was set up by Fender and Kanda Shokai, who own Greco, and the deal stipulated that Kanda drop the Fender fakes. Anecdotally the first run of JV Squiers & Fenders started production as Grecos - so it goes without saying if you have a choice between an eye-wateringly expensive JV and an early 80s Greco, buy the Greco.

That's been on before. It's a body from some weird pointy '80s shred guitar, the bodged-on neck from a '70s MIJ Grant shortscale starter bass, and a bunch of random and inappropriate parts-box components. I would be amazed if it didn't sound & play worse than it looks.

Perhaps you read this:

How about: Buy a sunburst P or P/J body. Buy a maple neck with the dimensions of your choice. Buy a white scratchplate. Buy some pickups/pots/tuners/bridge etc of your choice. Buy some screws, string, superglue, sticky-tape, nails, a hammer, an angle-grinder and an oxyacetalyne blowtorch. Build the exact bass you want. Easy!

Seen this a few times in the last couple of days. Fortunately, if you look closely, in the text of the fob-off the word "listing" is actually a link back to the original item. Still a frustrating pain in the ar$e though. I'm guessing there's a rationale behind this, not including an obvious link & making the actual link inconspicuous, but it's anyone's guess what it is. Just another step in the ongoing process of making Ebay hostile, awkward, unintuitive and irritating.

If I ever have a custom bass built, it will have colour-changing LED dots/inlays. I love the idea (that I just had) of LED (or maybe fibre optic) lines on a fretless. Vulgar & garish? I should hope so!

Well personally I'm all about those flat silver thongs - but moving swiftly on... We've had one right here back in '07 - the seller (Tinman, who I don't think comes here any more), managed to dig up what looks like official specs, calls it a 505 (despite it being a 4) and I assume bought it new: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/863-aria-sb505/ Formatting's a bit mangled following the site update but pics are intact plus a fair bit of discussion & info. Also found a 5-string 404, which might (or might not) be called a 404/5. Googling SB405 finds lots of pics of this and very little sandalage. http://www.chorder.com/electric-bass-guitars/aria/sb4045-5212