Bassassin

Wonder if it's possible to change the quantity in my order & buy 10 copies at £18... ... ... ... Then sell them here for £40 a pop.

Quite looking forward to my 18 quid pre-order. Assuming it ever turns up - I seem to get a couple of revised/delayed release emails every week...

Realistically, I'd suggest that a band that looks & sounds like this, is marketed at Grandad & his scratched Led Zep discography just as much as it is at Da Kidz.

Just had a quick shufty through that list and I have to say it's tragically incomplete - none of the various Hohners I own or have owned are on it, it makes no differentiation between Japanese & later MIK etc guitars - and not even their arguably best-known instrument - The MadCat Tele copy, played and made famous by Prince - features. Needs work. And consultation with geeks!

If a paint job qualifies a bass for the thread - I have a first-run ('85) B2A in black & white, all original, had it from new. Keep thinking about selling it, then deciding - it's a Steiny clone, doesn't take up much room...

Until Grandad gives them Houses Of The Holy to listen to.

But that - with this band - is patently absolutely never going to happen. You have heard/heard of them because they have been marketed at you. They look exactly the way they look, and sound exactly the way they sound because that is the thing that is being marketed. If the marketing is successful (which for some reason it currently appears to be) then they will be expected to repeat that success in future, and it's unlikely that the formula will be allowed to change. And if it does, then you probably won't hear much from them again. Briefly considering musical history over the last 40-odd years, there have been a good few bands who came to short-lived but significant prominence by cloning Led Zeppelin. Off the top of my head I can think of four, three of which have long since achieved well-deserved obscurity. Those three are (or probably were) a German band called Kingdom Come, an ar$e-end of BritPop band called (imaginatively) The Music, and some Canadians called The Tea Party. All of them, like Greta Van Fleet, went well beyond influence, & deep into the territory of imitation. The fourth bunch of shameless Led Zep clones were lucky enough to pre-date the level of label & management control that many of the bands of the 80s & later found themselves subject to. They recorded their Zep ripoff debut in 1974 and released it on their own label (unheard-of at the time), and got picked up by a major for a further 3-album deal, importantly maintaining full creative control. They subsequently sacked their old drummer, bought a bunch of Yes & Genesis albums & started reading objectivist philosophy, resulting in a slightly altered musical direction. That was another bunch of Canadians called Rush. Not sure I can see Greta Van Fleet being in a position to follow a similar path, even if they had either the talent or the ambition. But they might well end up supporting members of The Music or Kingdom Come on a touring tribute band festival in a few years.

Keep hearing about these & just watched a couple of minutes the video posted at the top of the thread. My first exposure to them. Pathetic. Led Zep copying by numbers, the singer's beyond awful and has all the charisma of an upside-down mop with some plastic teeth stuck on. Does make me think though - it must be pretty awful being that age & wanting to play rock. A generation seemingly incapable of bringing anything whatsoever of their own to the genre, re-hashing and imitating ancient music and styles that their parents would likely have found embarassingly dated. If the likes of this is all that's keeping rock alive - then switch off the life support, ffs. Just wretched.

I've struggled with this. I'm pretty handy cutting out accurate shapes for scratchplates, but always get to the point where I don't want to potentially wreck the hours spent doing a tidy job by bodging the edges. I tend to round off & polish a straight-cut edge, which sort of allows the layers to be visible - but not as well as a proper bevel would: Liking the look of the Stanley knife blade on-a-stick tool, think I'll knock one of those up and get practicing on a bit of scrap.

I have a few basses you won't see many of. Gordy Blueshift twin-neck. As far as I know this is a one-off, built in 1985 for a Manchester-based pro - his name's on the case but I can't remember it off the top of my head. Did a bit of research when I got the bass & sadly I don't think he's with us any more. It's been refinished in this rather fetching transparent pink - the original black's visible in the routes & pockets. The fretless neck is gorgeous, but my back hurts just looking at the pics. Thematically related - Retrovibe RV4 - only two in the world with this subdued and sober finish: Some may be aware that I have a vague interest in Japanese instruments - some of which don't turn up on Ebay (or anywhere else) much, like this Tokai Talbo B135. This is the 2000-ish reissue, but still spectacularly uncommon. Had this since 2003 after being consumed by a fit of GAS whilst stumbling around Denmark St. The only one I've ever seen in real life, and not seen another come up for sale since. Continuing with MIJ stuff - Washburn SB-40. This model doesn't appear in any catalogues, and seems to represent a halfway point between the Vulture & the Force series - there is some dispute amongst Washburn anoraks whether the model designation's correct, despite what it says on the sharp end. It's almost a fretted version of the bass Bathiki Kumalo used on Graceland, apart from the reversed P pickup. From the same era, a gorgeous through-neck from Kasuga Gakki. Badged as Pro Martin, which I think was exclusive to European markets, elsewhere this was the Kasuga Scorpion SCB1200. Another bass you could search for for years - as I did. Staying with the Big K - 1975 Kasuga EB750, one of the most elusive (and prettiest) MIJ Rickenfakers out there: And a curious Japanese take on the Jazz, with styling influenced by mid-60s MIJ design (and a few sympathetic reversible mods by me), a Kawai KB-10 Sleekline:

Love that finish!

I'm currently working out a deal with someone for a guitar I'm selling - him being in Brighton & me just outside Edinburgh would involve a 21+ hour return journey costing £162! Think it's going to be £35 with UPS & fingers crossed...

It can't really work like that, if I understand you right. He's sending it, regardless who pays, so a courier can't be booked unless they have the dimensions & weight of the package - which is info he will have. They will also probably require an address/phone no. for each end before they'll even quote. And yes - never use Parcelfarce, and avoid MyHerpes if at all possible. I've heard some horror stories about UPS, but have used them several times myself with no issues. I don't think any of them are immune to disaster, unfortunately.

That's how I know about the pups/hardware - still got your old twin-neck! It is so heavy that that light falls into it, but tbh I'm not sure it's a great deal worse than the Peavey T-40 I traded with you! Bought it for my prog band which sadly came to an end not long after, so I've never used in anger. Much to the relief of my back... Might be the original bridge here - it's string-through, and the bridge on it is the type used on early 80s string-through Washburns & other Yamaki basses. Always got to be an MIJ link...

It's the complete bass minus pickups & electronics, by the looks. Tuners look like cheap & nasty replacements, would expect the originals would've been Schallers. It's definitely an interesting project but no idea where you'd find pickups, other than another Blueshift - AFAIK they were unique to these, unusual fitment with back-of-body height adjustment.

It's a very thin coating so fine sandpaper will get it off easily. In fairness you could probably scratch most of it off with your thumbnail! Btw if you get bored with that SRC6, give me a shout!

Related to Paul's Rickenfaker - Diamond is an Aria-related brand & a Matsumoku build, early 70s. I actually have the same bass branded Eros Mk II, unfortunately with a warped neck. If this is decent (and no reason to think it's not) then that's a bit of a steal.

I have one of these, lovely, lovely bass: I also have an '84 RSB Deluxe II, which I've had from new. Was pretty much my only bass for 10+ years but retired when the neck developed an alarming and irepairable twist. It's currently wearing an RSB Straycat neck, which is sadly a completely different profile - so I'm looking for a proper replacement. And finally - that there Cliff Burton bass, an '83 SB Elite I B&G - absolutely beaten to hell and back, modded with a Bart J pickup, rewired by an imbecile and half the original MBII pickup dead, as they are seemingly wont to do. Despite all that, the neck is perfect and it's gorgeous to play. Just very quiet... It's currently in bits waiting for me to have time/motivation to do a sympathetic pseudo-resto, which will largely involve filling the hole where the J pup is, dropping in a Rautia replacement pickup, wiring it properly and giving it a tidy up. And one day, finding a pair of the original knobs - as well as that RSB neck...

They're OK. I remember Maison as a decent midrange MIK brand from the ealy 90s. Had quite a nice time noodling on one of these at a party a few years back, nice player. Couldn't get much of an idea of how it sounded, through a little practice amp & accompanying haze of alcohol.

Four in the entire world, and three of them just happen to be on UK Ebay at exactly the same time. What are the chances etc etc...

Looks like it's the stain. I'd assume the body wings were coloured after they were joined to the neck, & that's a masking error. Just makes it a tiny bit more vile.

That really is quite spectacularly foul.

I think that's the oddest thing about it though. Enough skill's gone into the cutting, shaping & laminating of the neck/body so that it does, on first glance, look like a modded & abused factory-built bass. You see plenty of have-a-go home made instruments that are instantly identifiable by wonky/queasy body shapes, bodged joins & splintery, misaligned routing - this doesn't have too much of that. It does seem to have been quite meticulously copied from the Hohner Jack/B Bass body shape, with a bang-on Gibson Grabber headstock. Where it all goes wrong is the use of cheap pine planks for body wings, and "fretwork" evidently carried out during a power cut. So, I wonder if it was originally a fretless 4, and the fret job & 8-string conversion/perversion was inflicted on it by a subsequent owner.

Not very pretty - but the reason Fenix/Young-Chang got into trouble with Fender is that the original ones looked like this: And that was because, when they thought no-one was looking, they were putting Fenix logos on the same Squiers they were licensed to make! Inevitably, Y-C lost their contract with Fender but carried on selling Fenixes, (with several different non-infringing headstock shapes) for several years. Very good they are too - the one in the pic's mine, and all in all I prefer it to my mid 80s MIJ E-serial Strat.

This looks like a fairly early one - think it's essentially a B2A with a body - same pickups, controls, electronics, and neck dimensions too by the sound of it. Always had a bit of GAS for these - quite fancy the J/J version.