Which basses do you gig with?
Some basses are good in a band and some are good for messing around with at home.
If you can find a better bass then go for it.
Andy Bown played a standard P bass when he replaced RW for the Wall gigs. And as Pink Floyd have used Guy Pratt and his Jazz basses since forever I'm not sure using the type of bass Roger Waters played really matters to any degree.
If your budget is very constrained I'd check out some of the Squier basses.
If you could add a little more to the pot, you could also look at Fender American Standard's for P or J basses . Very nice 4 and 5 string passive basses. I don't know Fender P5's but the AM Std Jazz V's sound pretty good and are dead easy to play. Again the proviso is find a good one.
Lakland basses are also a good alternative to a Fender.
The best 10 years? The 60's
The 60's went from the likes of Miki and Griff, Alma Cogan and the Billy Cotton Band Show to Sgt Pepper, Woodstock, Hendrix and Pink Floyd.
IMO, what occurred (musically) in that decade beats any other 10 years.
I'd always suggest separates because upgrading is easier and you'll probably want to change things when you've been gigging for awhile.
We're flying blind here, but depending on your volume, genre and band. . . . . a 300 - 500 watt amp and a 112 is a good place to start. Then you could add another 112.
What's your budget?
Sounds like you're not looking to gig this, so a small combo should be fine. In the classifieds there's an Eden 50 watt 110 combo and a Phil Jones Briefcase.
If you see interviews with the top US studio musicians they all seem to prefer and use pre CBS P basses as their first choice in the studio. These guys live in a world where every nuance in their playing is analysed to the nth degree. It's an environment that we will never experience and, looking in from the outside, would find difficult to understand, so if they all think they can find that something extra in a pre CBS bass then I'll believe them.
In my world that type of "finesse" isn't required. I got a couple of compliments on Saturday, which meant more to me than any perfect note I could have played on an all original 57 P bass. If I was playing a Squier I would have been just as chuffed.
Comparisons based on price aren't helpful. If anyone can find a great sounding Squier, if all you can afford is a Squier, if all you aspire to is a Squier, buy it and play it till it falls apart. Spend what you save on lessons or down the pub, but striving to be the best player you can be doesn't depend on the instrument.
I tried to get back on topic!
It's a scam and, somewhere down the line, it's aim is to steal as much money from you as they can.
Don't "play along" (that's pretty dumb suggestion), don't call the number (you can get charged £100's a min on some numbers), delete the email and get on with your life.
[quote name='jezzaboy' timestamp='1433106778' post='2787960']
there wasnt the internet for players to bitch to each other how bad some of those Fenders were.
Now most of us have heard stories of how bad Fender qc can be,
[/quote]
Everyone knew about Fender QC and the term pre-CBS was in common use by the end of the 60's. Everyone still bought and played the CBS Fenders because they were still better than the competition, and only a few years later the replacement industry would be offering a solution to any Fender "problem".
But none of that mattered, back then what you played mattered more than what you played it on.
The origins of House of the Rising Sun are not known so songs like this are credited as Trad (itional) arr (anged by) name of arranger. Alan Price was clever enough to know this and had his name put on the credit, which meant he got the royalties, even though it was Hilton Valentine who found the number and arranged it for the band.
Check it out. If the Ashdown is OK then temporary storage gives you plan B up until about the end of October.
My other suggestion is to get rid of all your cabs and fund a couple of BF Super Compacts, for a much smaller foot print which you can leave in your daughters bedroom. She won't mind and won't even notice for a good few years.
I have a 3m x 4m log cabin. A very high quality "shed". I have a lot of stuff in there but I wouldn't store my gear in it.
My main concern would be condensation, then there have been a lot of shed thefts around here lately and, finally, I would have to carry everything through the garden and around the side of the house for every gig. My gear is an unsightly mess stored against one wall in the front room, and it's not going anywhere.
The wife has her own "messes" stored around the house so we're quits.
Back in the early 70's we played the US airbases in Germany, which was 5 x 45min sets from Mon to Thu and 6 x 45 min sets on Friday and Saturday.
Regularly playing long gigs sorts your chops out very quickly.
Check out YouTube videos of Sly and the Family Stone, Jean Knight, James Brown, Maceo Parker, The Crusaders, Margie Joseph, Betty Wright, Bobby Patterson, Joe Tex, Keb Mo.
There's a Funk Groove thread on BC that's been running for years.