Bassassin

Sad, but sadly inevitable. RIP

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1451147216' post='2938560'] Yes, he is. You're lucky these basses are made in Japan. [/quote] Well, in fairness if you want a 70s bass that looks like this, but has functional truss rods, and is assembled using glue that still holds the body wings & fretboard on - then buy a Japanese one. J.

I remember. The bad old days - and basses back then were just too damn light too. I'm sure I'd have kept my Peavey T40 if only it had had an extra 5lbs of wood between the top horn & 12th fret. What were they thinking? I cry myself to sleep over What Might Have Been... J.

One o' these: [url="http://www.rickysounds.co.uk/Bezels.html"]http://www.rickysoun....uk/Bezels.html[/url] Very sensible way of not lacerating your thumb on the sharp metal edges of the standard surround. Looks better than a bloody great hole, too. Jon.

[quote name='sprocketflup' timestamp='1450973637' post='2937555'] I seem unable to read the word 'Guiter' in my head in anything other than a Hillbilly drawl. Anyone else have this problem? [/quote] I read it (phonetically) as "gwitter". J.

[quote name='itsmedunc' timestamp='1450993710' post='2937776'] Why? [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/End-of-the-Road-Guitar-Looks-Smashed-Plays-Perfect-Road-Worn-Sunburst-Strat-/172034363620?hash=item280e0c10e4:g:RkYAAOSwLzdWTbXt"]http://www.ebay.co.u...kYAAOSwLzdWTbXt[/url] [/quote] Because there's a market for horrible, over-expensive novelty garbage, I suppose. And breaking a musical instrument is just [i]so[/i] rock 'n roll. Man. Jon.

This is what I see: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:58513] Jon.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1450872667' post='2936586'] What more do you need to know?? [/quote] What the brown goop smeared over the scratch plate is. I've had several nearly-new guiters over the years and I'm sure none of them featured brown goop smeared anywhere. Maybe my nearly-new guiters weren't as nearly-new as the sellers might have intimated. Should there have been brown goop on mine? Jon.

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1450480005' post='2933329'] Not sure what you mean by 'the same case'? It has a different colour lining and handle... [/quote] Never noticed the handle - might just be a similar shaped case then. Bass is still a Melody, though. Wouldn't bank on the pickups being DiMarzios, lots of other cream-coloured ones around in the 70s. J.

That bottom horn definitely is a bit wonky! Anyway - am I right or what? ScumTree "60s Fender": Melody 5000: Even looks like the same (presumably original) case. Jon.

Blind ones, presumably. Judging from the position markers & truss adjuster, I think that's an Italian-made Melody, from the 70s, and IMO that makes it infinitely more interesting than some poxy Fender. Would be easily worth £70 if not for the Dulux paintjob. Jon.

These are good basses but I very seriously doubt they are US-made. My money's on MIK. Jon.

Saw them in Edinburgh a couple of nights back. A quite joyous mix of virtuosity and nonsensical silliness. Bands like them exist to remind us that playing music is meant to be fun - and I've seldom seen a band so blatantly enjoying themselves on stage. Oink! Jon.

Great pics Dups - unfortunately what this does is chuck us right in at the deep-end of the confusing, poorly-documented and murky world of vintage MIJ basses & guitars - where there are very few absolute answers to anything! There are a good few Washburn oddities out there - I know this because I have one. Mine's an SB40, although some "experts" have insisted it's not, despite what it says on the pointy end. Not as rare as Dups' Force 30, but not in any known catalogue, and there aren't very many identical examples out there. Anyway - this isn't about [i]my[/i] bass... Good to get a look at the guts of the thing, glad to see it's not been messed with, apart from the pickups, which I'm 99% sure aren't standard. The P unit is definitely a DiMarzio, but not sure about the J. Does it have 2 separate coils, end-to-end? The poles look do like DiMarzio Model J types but the visible wiring is different. You find lots of random letters & numbers in various different neck pockets & routes, so no real way of knowing what that mean. Might be a daily production run number, or maybe relates to the finish - no idea, really. My bridge has the same Chushin logo: [sharedmedia=core:attachments:70307] What's interesting (well, from an MIJ nerd perspective) is that Chushin was known specifically as a hardware manufacturer before the current perception that they were a major instrument manufacturer, and it was therefore assumed that Matsumoku (then assumed to be building Washboards) bought in Chushin parts like these bridges. I may well be rambling a bit here, but It occurs to me that the current trend (backed up by no concrete evidence that I'm aware of) which assumes that any otherwise unidentified MIJ instrument is "probably a Chushin", is likely to be encouraged by Chushin-stamped hardware like this. So Chushin or Matsumoku - or someone else entirely? I dunno... Sorry about that. Just don't get me started on those tuners! J.

I'm a bit of a pretend guitarist on the side, and on balance I will always go for single coils over 'buckers when recording. Much easier to achieve brightness & clarity, and pretty much automatically leave a nice space for the bass to sit in, without having to spend ages fiddling with eq. I have a nice 80s Fenix Strat and an Aria PE with p90s which I use pretty much exclusively, even for heavier stuff. Jon.

[quote name='EssentialTension' timestamp='1449926063' post='2928042'] [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vibrator-classico-Ace-of-Spades-Motorhead-classic-vibrator-stimolatore-intimo-/161835444110?hash=item25ae24e78e:g:OGwAAOSwVL1WAq60"]http://www.ebay.co.u...GwAAOSwVL1WAq60[/url] [/quote] All that silver paint really looks like it would just, erm... rub off.

Been having SR GAS pangs for a bit now, regretting having sold both of my 90s MIJ SR800s. Came very, very close to pulling the trigger on an SR300 several times. Then a somewhat beat-up SR500 came up, took a punt and got it for £87... Jon.

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1449922304' post='2927984'] Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees.Who is not very well at the moment. [/quote] How did I manage to forget Severin? Always loved his playing. Didn't know he was unwell, hope he recovers soon. J.

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1449896476' post='2927817'] No-one will give a stuff about the new material, giving it a polite clap for it getting them all back in the studio... [/quote] That's better than the traditional heading-to-the-bar-in-droves. J.

JJ Burnel (the main reason I picked up a bass in the first place) Bruce Foxton Russell Webb (Skids/Armoury Show)

[quote name='stevebasshead' timestamp='1449841559' post='2927396'] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yNAABKD4IA[/media] [/quote] Alternatively - and probably my favourite Tool song: [media]http://youtu.be/Lm38Ojh61lY[/media]

Gutter Cat Vs The Jets - Alice Cooper [media]http://youtu.be/VjJMgCSEcS0[/media] Lovely solo bass intro into a superb line from the great Dennis Dunaway. Alternatively from the same man - and from the same album: [media]http://youtu.be/QgzoYzZiI7w[/media]

Good deal. Don't these have the Seymour Duncan Rick replacement pickups as standard? If so, that's probably about £150's worth. Jon.

[quote name='FlatEric' timestamp='1449737128' post='2926313'] Nice looking bass!! Jon (Bassassin) should be along soon, he'll tell you all about it!! Cheers. [/quote] Well, I can tell you a lot about what I don't know! Ok - never seen a Force 30 before, that's a really interesting & cool old MIJ Washburn. There's a lot of uncertainty about who made MIJ Washburns. What we do know is that early ones were indeed made by Yamaki. They have numerous manufacturing details and hardware types identical to Yamaki's own Daion range to confirm this. Yamaki seem to have made Washburns up until around 1981/2 after which the same designs were produced by a different factory. Until recently Matsumoku was universally creditied with building these later instruments - in fact the [url="http://www.matsumoku.org/ggboard/index.php"]Matsumoku forums[/url] have an entire board dedicated to Washburns. However recent research does seem to lean towards Chushin Gakki as manufacturer - there is some evidence to support this but I have to admit I'm not as up to speed on what's what as I could be! Anyway, I'm confident your bass is from the Chushin/Mat/whoever era, not Yamaki, based on its date, build & hardware. As I said earlier, I've never seen a Force 30 before, but the model appears to be a P/J version of the single-pickup Force 4/Force 8 models. There is a possibilty that it's been modified - I'm not sure the scratchplate is original, and the pickups may have been swapped, possibly for DiMarzios. You can check these things by popping the scratchplate off - if the plate's been changed, there will be unused screwholes for the original and possibly non-original routing in the body, and if the pups are DiMarzios, they will have red/black/white/green wiring (the J-unit will be a twin-coil) and the pole pieces will be imperial sizes and will not accept a metric hex key. However I may be wrong about both of these things - having never seen another Force 30 (and there are no pics on Google that I can find) I'm just guessing from the look. That's probably as much worthwhile info as I can give. I'd suggest, for further research, trying the Mat forum linked above, and the [url="https://www.facebook.com/groups/55074615631/"]Vintage Japanese Guitars FB group[/url]. They may know more than me (certainly more about the Chushin/Matsumoku thing) and if not, I'm sure they'd love a look at it! Jon.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1449651317' post='2925473'] Too many unrealistic starting price Matsumoku basses today. Then, by comparison, there's this one: [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brown-WESTONE-electric-quitar-/262180986016?hash=item3d0b345ca0:g:bZEAAOSwfZ1WZDOH"]http://www.ebay.co.u...ZEAAOSwfZ1WZDOH[/url] [/quote] Proper bargain, I'm saved by the fact it's so far away. J.