Bassassin

41 posts & no Chicken Man by Alan Hawkshaw? For shame! Grange Hill ftw. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SlvZF6k5bE[/media]

I'm a big Schaller 3D fan - versatile, compact & beautifully engineered. Adjusting string spacing is incredibly straightforward. Downside is that you need to drill new holes for it on a Fender-type bass.

Done a few scratchplates, plus a few other bits & pieces, with results I'm entirely happy with. Which is a rarity, when you're me. [url="https://postimg.org/image/y95mdkq7f/"][/url] [url="https://postimg.org/image/vaffkcdx7/"][/url] [url="https://postimg.org/image/eiosqjztn/"][/url] I have a jigsaw & a Dremel-type tool but not found these ideal for cutting the material accurately. The rather long-winded method I've devised is this: Find a piece of wood slightly larger than the dimensions of the plate you want to make. Place your blank on the wood, then using the original as a template, accurately mark the screwhole positions. Carefully drill the screwholes, and then screw both the original & blank together, onto the wood. You now have a fixed template that won't move. Next, trace around the template, including any pickup & control holes, then remove the original. Screw the blank back onto the board & then (this is the boring, fiddly bit) using a small-ish drill (3mm or thereabouts), go around the edges of the design, as close to the tracing as you can get without going over the line, and spacing the holes as tightly as you can. Several years later you'll have a thing like a giant scratchplate-sized plastic postage stamp - and you'll be able to remove the excess just by breaking it off, leaving you with a rough-edged scratchplate. Fortunately the material is really easy to file and shape so smoothing it back to the line is reasonably painless - I have a couple of different sizes of half-round file that seem to work well on the curves. The only thing I can't do is a proper 45 degree bevel, but it's possible to round over the top edge a bit to make the plys more obvious. The good thing about doing a Faker or Rick scratchplate is that you have the opportunity to try & do something a bit more interesting than the ugly afterthought that Rickenbacker decided was good enough...

Hatchet job.

[quote name='ZilchWoolham' timestamp='1498498576' post='3325048'] Oh, and that price, by the way, was a princely £100! [/quote] Oh, no way. Jaw on the floor... Had one of these on my watch list for about 32 years.

[quote name='kodiakblair' timestamp='1498347086' post='3324036'] Recently joined the double P pickup people with the Peavey TL-6. Still no idea what I'm doing owning a 6 string but hey-ho nothing new there [attachment=247814:TL 6.jpg] [/quote] Too many strings but I want one.

Didn't watch the Glasto coverage but I saw Foo Fighters at T In The Park a few years ago & I agree. Fine playing but dull, one-dimensional and with very, very few actual tunes. Doubt they're a whole lot different now. Shut up & play the drums, Dave.

Rush and Metallica for me too. Rush haven't made a great album since Power Windows (1985!) but I've religiously bought everything they've heaved out since, with that little glimmer of hope getting fainter & fainter as the decades dragged past. I suppose they went out on a sort-of high, with Clockwork Angels, a proper concept album with some genuine gems amid all the so-so & disappointment. I have a depressing certainty that I'll be buying anything in the future that Lee & Lifeson so much as break wind on - but I won't be buying any of Peart's leaden, clumsily executed dullard ramblings. No I wont. Slightly different with 'Licker (as a mate once said, it's not like they're "metal" any more) because I did like Death Magnetic. I got into them with Justice For All & DM does stylistically hark back to that - it was good to hear them sounding properly hostile again after the rather MOR Loads, & the mess that was Stanger. The last album was boring after two listens though.

Liked them a lot from the early 90s, initially bought Pablo Honey expecting everything to sound like Creep - which it didn't. I would consider myself a fan for the first 3 albums, but was never motivated to buy anything since. So for the last 20 years I've sort of been wondering if I was missing out, but getting the impression from what I had managed to hear that they'd wilfully disappeared up their own bums. Although I enjoyed watching them last night, there was a marked difference between the first and second halves of the set, which was a lot more than just familiarity with the material. They do seem to have lost - or more likely, abandoned - the qualities I loved about their earlier material & become, to my ears, quite inpenetrable, cold & alienating. There were occasional moments that grabbed me (particulrly a track that sounded very reminiscent of early 80s King Crimson!) but I won't be rushing out to grab the back catalogue. Glad they exist, and glad they can maintain success doing wilfully obscure music though.

If you're a member of the Rickenfakers FB group, drop David Konig a PM. Set neck goodness!

[quote name='Bassassin' timestamp='1448134064' post='2913284'] The two Aria SB-R80s (or SB-Elite IIs - same thing, AFAIK!) are Matsumoku. [/quote] Aaaaand - it's Pedantic Self-Correction Time! They're not Matsumoku - and neither are they SB-R80s or indeed SB-Elite IIs. They are late 80s, post-Matsumoku SB-ELTs. Still MIJ, but probably (from what I can find out) Tokai Gakki builds. No serial number makes these a bit hard to pin down, though. How do I know? I've been & gone & impulse-bought one myself, fulfilling a long-held need to own a through-neck SB, and - possibly - the urge to own a double-P bass. No decent pics yet, but here's a rubbish one: [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Aria%20Pro%20II%20SB-ELT/SB-ELT002_zps1flyc15n.jpg.html"][/url] What's cool is that I have also got a project 1983 SB-Elite I (which needs a lot of work!) from the Matsumoku era, so I can make a direct comparison. The most noticeable real difference is the neck - the SB-Elite has a quite Precision-y neck, 42mm at the nut, whereas the SB-ELT is a skinny 38mm. Most of the other differences are cosmetic - the inlays are tidier on the later bass & the Matsumoku has a recess for the output jack. Hardware's a little different too - the bridge on the SB-ELT is machined, while the SB-Elite's is cast, and the control knobs are generic plastic instead of the unobtainable machined metal ones used by Matsumoku. Controls on the SB-ELT are v/v/t with coil split switches, whereas the SB-R80 or SB-Elite II had 2x stacked v/t, rotary selector + coil switching. Anyone still awake?

If it's the Vantage that Retrovibe/Chowny sell, then that has an offset body which doesn't infringe JH's registered designs, despite being entirely recognisable.

I'd want to have some idea of what sort of player they were looking for. As it is I'd pass it by because I have no idea if they want a root-note plodder or someone who wants to use the bass to add dynamics, colour & energy, and might like to b*gger about up the dusty end occasionally. Also, much as it shouldn't be important - some vague idea of age range would be helpful. If they're all 19, then a 50-year old strolling up might be a bit awkward.

If not, a good alternative would be a Schaller 3D - very common kit on basses from that era and features adjustable string spacing. Easy to get hold of & a technically great design too.

The variations in weight, neck profile & pickups on older pre-RIC 4000 series basses is the stuff of legend! However, it's reasonable to assume that modern 4003s will have a lot less difference than older basses. Rickenbacker have been using automated CNC manufacturing for a couple of decades, AFAIK.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1497820726' post='3320746'] PM sent... [/quote] ...And received! Many thanks!

Was very interested to give AAMS a try, unfortunately the developers seem to have done a cracking job of eradicating v2 from the entire internet! V3 is of little use to me and my 9 1/2 minute prog meanderings.

Off the top of my head, I think original parts would've been DiMarzio Model P, Badass Mk 1 bridge and either Schaller M4S or Grover Titan tuners. If you go down the original or resto routes (which I probably would) then these parts shouldn't be too hard to find. Espcially on a forum full of bassists!

[quote name='karlfer' timestamp='1497772245' post='3320420'] Bassassin (Jon) did this with one of his fakers. Wonder if he will sue for copywright [/quote] As I've said before - if they'd a mind, Hoshino Gakki (owner of the Ibanez brand) could have a field day with Johhny-Come-Lately Hall & his trumped-up claims of intellectual property and trade-dress registration. Fortunately they're more concerned with the business of designing and manufacturing good-quality, interesting, playable and affordable musical instruments to give much of a sh!t about what they were doing in 1971... Liking the new RIC colour scemes though - I'm a massive sucker for checked binding on a 4000 series bass, and if my black plate/bridge Frankenbugger had that, I might drop Ol' Johnny H an email! [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Rickenfakers/bugsampheads_zpstpqqsxfe.jpg.html"][/url] The pink one's fine, but I'm inclined to think if you're gonna do it, then do it properly: [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Rickenfakers/RV4_001_zps9yxr3eww.jpg.html"][/url] And while you're at it, bin that ugly afterthought scratchplate design and the pointless guitar controls too.

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1497602900' post='3319358'] As long as it's legit, and it shows, their CEO won't bother anybody about it. EBay and Gumtree, and other places, are absolutely fine. [/quote] John Hall is on record saying that if he could prevent the sale of secondhand original Rickenbackers, then he would. Deluded megalomaniac fantasist he might be, but for him it's all about his bank account's bottom line. Has anyone mentioned RIC's interesting warranty? Which starts not when you buy the bass, but when it leaves the factory?

That Wilkes has been a beautiful bass, and could be again, with some tlc and a pro refret. Would like to hope someone here will get it & bring it back to life.

Here's an idea. Don't buy a Rick. Buy a good condition 70s MIJ copy and get everything that's cool about a Rickenbacker with none of the downsides: A truss rod that works! A finish that doesn't change colour and fall off! No association with John Hall! And all for less than 25% of the price of a new 4003. I'd recommend the Shaftesbury branded copy - still lots of them around, very robust and accurate (some MIJ basses were neither!) and pretty much indistinguishable from the real deal. And if you don't like it, you'll get your money back, no bother. Just don't go thinking you can buy one on here...