Dr.Dave

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='192025' date='May 5 2008, 08:20 AM']FWIW, I haven't had any problem with it, its just an ebay page.[/quote] What did that lookout on the Titanic say - 'it's just an iceberg'?? Just warning folk cos it gave me problems and I'm not the only one.

Tch tch tch......... Shouldn't that be '3 Statii' - no 's'?? Which one do I win for pointing that out?

I can't wait to hear one - partic after all you guys are saying. Checking the specs on the website though - is it me or does anyone think 'gimmicky'?? I'm thinking esp. about the combo 'sleeve' and the traffic lights ,on,off,clip,kettles bolied etc etc Still - if they sound as well as folk say..........

Not wishing to sound ungrateful for Clarky's heads up - but twice I've tried the link and twice it's crashed my laptop.

Well - I'm supposed to be a Dr. so I better do my good deed for the day by making sure all of your cricked necks are cured!! Here you go. None of your free NHS treatment round here ,mind - so if it's all the same to you I'll take the fretless Ray in lieu of my consulting fee!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='191546' date='May 4 2008, 12:56 PM']Personally, I can't equate how an amp/cab sounds in a shop to how it sounds at a gig. They're totally different environments.[/quote] That remark's bang on the money. As an example I couldn't get a 'gig' sound out of a high end Eden combo which sounded superb at home/shop levels. Had I had the chance to hear or try one at a gig I wouldn't have bought it. Don't forget the bass bash as a place to try other members gear. Alternatively -using the epi cab you mention as an example I went to see OBBM's band both to hear the cab at gig levels and to meet one of our bretheren. Later , Homer was kind enough to bring his to one of our gigs and let me use it. By all this I'm saying Basschat is a great way to make contacts - doesn't have to be limited to reading posts on a PC - get out there. You never know what you may pick up on - it was playing OBBM's Status necked Ray with side LED's in his dressing room that convinced me to make side LED's part of my Shuker build. I wouldn't be without them now , they do improve my gig performance and it wouldn't have happened unless I'd gone along to see OBBM and his band. No substitue for trying things in the environment you want to use them. It's not a waste of time though to try stuff in shops. I take your point about trogging down to London and I don't know how easily 60 brick comes to you but spending it could save you a hell of a lot more than that in the long run. And - whoever posted the thread you read re. 'buy what sounds good to you' was correct. I hope it was me!

[quote name='Beedster' post='190841' date='May 2 2008, 08:22 PM']At that rate I'm currently worth £14,000,000 in old Fender parts [/quote] £13,975,500 One of your scratchplate screws is from B+Q

[quote name='Rich' post='190433' date='May 2 2008, 12:42 PM']Nah, it's more like: Gang of Precisions: "You're gonna get your fackin 'ead kicked in, you're goin' 'ome in a fackin ambulance, Chelsea Chelsea, etc" Lone Jazz: "Oh for god's sake grow up, you boorish neanderthal cretins." [i]*old Ibanez Musician fretless turns up and arrests hooligan Precisions -- it's a Police bass, y'see...*[/i][/quote] Exactly. Why have a tool kit with 3 hammers and bugger all else. WoT's hammers are particularly tasty though , the pic of them with the jazz spent some time on my desk top! I can well understand him wanting the Jazz to be played though and selling it for that reason. Would I have been interested in buying it??? No..Yes...No..Yes...Maybe!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thought it was glorious. I think there's a lot of P fans in these parts who just might consider a Jazz with a P neck. It's not cheating , you know!!

[quote name='cheddatom' post='188938' date='Apr 30 2008, 04:09 PM']I find it funny that people take more than one guitar to gigs. I have pedals for that kind of thing.[/quote] Are they long,thin roundwound pedals with a ball on one end?

I've currently got 5 1) 73 P. Treasured companion. I'm precious about it.Had it 30 years. 80+ gigs a year. The numbers are stacking up and something , or someone , will happen to it one day. If it's someTHING , at least I'll have the bits but if it's someONE and I caught them I'd have to go to prison and I don't particularly fancy being bride or groom. 2) Shuker 4. I knew what gigging tool I required (a lightweight Ray with side LEDs in poncy wood) to replace the treasured companion so I got this and sold the Status Energy I had been using in this role. 3) Status series 3000 4. I like graphite necks,I like headless basses partic for small gigs,I wanted a back up for the gigging tool so I don't have to use the treasured companion for that purpose AND I deeply regret selling my Status Energy which used to do the job of (2) - though this one's better so I'm cheered up a bit. 4) MIM upgraded Jazz - on it's way to becoming a fretless (which will get lots of home, and occasional gig, use) and currently a nice passive alternative to the gigging tool and the back up. I'll keep the fretted neck for emergencies. 5) Epiphone Explorer - because I do a ZZ Top trib and if I'm bothering to look the part I figured my bass may as well too. This will be in the 'for sale' section and ebay the day after I stop doing the ZZ Top trib. It's ney but a prop like the false beard and the cheap sunglasses. Oddly it was the cheapest of the bunch but earns me the most. There may yet be a 6th. 6 will be the most I've ever had at once. I've owned a couple of 5 strings. I have use for a 5 string. I sold the previous ones becuse they weren't right. I went looking for them and I suspect the right one will come looking for me. Sure a lot of us know what I mean by that. One day I'll semi retire and stop gigging. I know that day will come. I'll keep the treasured companion and one more.70% chance the Status - 30% chance the Shuker. 2 only. The rest will be sold. I guarantee that at my funeral the treasured companion will be coming to the crem with me. It's written in my will. In the box - light the gas...history.

[quote name='Beedster' post='188857' date='Apr 30 2008, 02:44 PM']LOL You're right about ebony Doc. Funnily enough though, noit sure your comments on maple are quite right. That is, when I whip out my maple Precision fretless I don't look like Sting at all, just like the idiot in the photo to the left. Should I take it back to the shop and complain that it's not doing its job properly?[/quote] You any good at this tantric sex lark?? If so , maybe the rest of the Sting effect will follow!

Stop taking the piss - this 'beauty' has got '1960's Fender VINTAGE American made Reissue Ceramic Disc CAPASITORS' for Christ's sake. Bugger me. So old they even have an 'S' in them. ...........which means if it's followed by a 7 then a 5 digit number it must be................. I'll get me coat

[quote name='Beedster' post='188803' date='Apr 30 2008, 01:49 PM']I've just realised that you meant ebony board on maple neck, not ebony or maple boards. Thought it was odd you considered them similar Maple boards are also extremely cool and should be an option above Chris[/quote] Feeble attempt there to cover embarrassment at initial misunderstanding!!! Feeble enough to go into politics - Beedster for PM ?? Back to topic - there's something warm,feely and traditional about ebony on maple. if it's good enough for a violin that's hundreds of years old etc. Rosewood is a bit soft and I've seen lots mark quite easily graphite is just good full stop but lacks the warm feel. Maple as a fretless fingerboard makes you look like Sting a few years back so unless you have an ethnic looking mate with a CD in his gob , don't bother!

Doc B bought my spare Badass - no worries with this dude. Obviously not - you can always trust a Doctor!!

[quote name='Rayman' post='187095' date='Apr 28 2008, 12:02 PM']Are you still with Dr Blue? It'll look smart along side the guitarists blue Les Paul assuming he still has it.[/quote] Since you saw us, Russ, we've aquired a drummer with a blue kit too!! Dr B is still going strong and we do the ZZ trib band too. Websites are in my sig. Sadly Rodders traded his blue Les Paul for a tobacco sunburst one just a couple of weeks ago. You'll remember the P that's in fettled Fender (1) I expect. I recall us sitting out on the grass at Colne with young Homer and having a play about on it. OOps - just looked at the pics from Colne on the webbo and Martyn WAS drumming with us then. Not on his blue drums though - generic kit for the fest.

The history tells us the 'new' Stingray was around in 1976. Which fits perfectly well with my understanding. Then goes on to tell us the first Stingrays were introduced in 1984. In fact it tells us that twice. There's probably more mistakes but the whole site looks like a 6th formers exercise so I shut it down and wonlt be back in a hurry.

Yes , I play bass all the time in our set and sing lead vocals on about a third of it. Which do I concentrate more on??............... Sorry folks but the vocals , always, always ,always. This is like my mantra but a song to me means melody and lyrics , everything else is in support of that. The vocalist has control of the melody and lyrics , the bass player is supporting him/her. If that ruffles feathers....tough. You should have trained to score the goals and not be centre half.

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='185741' date='Apr 26 2008, 09:21 AM']I mean -you wouldn't buy a new car that was scratched to f*ck would you or am I too anal?[/quote] Yes I would , providing the price reflects it - which I think is where you're coming from. Half the trouble these days is bigger shops where the staff aren't in a position to make much of a decision. Let's be fair - a sentence is a challenge to a lot of them. I yearn for the old days when you could see a price tag for £130 on a used item that's £200 new - wave 9 tenners under the owners nose and walk away with it.

Last night was the first gig it's done as a 'complete' project. It sounds excellent. Woody.I was hammering it a bit late on and the sound started to break up a little but not more than what's explainable. I only had one cab too last night so the volumes were up on the amp. The d-tuner I was only brave enough to use once!! Bit fearful of cocking the tunes up. I'll have a bit of a practise before I try it again. Works very well though , esp if you follow the video tips on the Hipshot website. I might put one on the Shuker. I'm looking at my sound quite a bit at the mo. I'm finding it lacking esp playing hard. Think it's a style thing rather than an equipment one but I'm doing more knob twiddling to compensate and making things worse!!

So - following on from the Precision post here's the Jazz I bought only a few weeks ago. If you read that you'll get some idea of why I've done what I've done on this Jazz so here's a link.... [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=17846"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=17846[/url] I joked at the time about the 'Midnight Blue' looking more like half ten but in these pics it looks even earlier - about like the adverts in Coronation Street at this time of year. Must get a decent camera. I bought this knowing great changes would ensue - mostly based on my reasoning/experiences with the 73P - so thinking only the wooden bits would be staying I didn't see much point in shelling out more coin for a US Jazz , only to chuck half of it away. This was £150 off the bay. Same as I paid for the Precision 30 years ago. There's irony. Set of Dunlops went straight on , before I even tried it with a strap , and away went the plain white scratch plate to be replaced by this pearly white fella. The knobs were of the placcy stratty variety and went off to Silverfoxnik for his Roscoe. These chrome/mop top jobbies (to sort of mirror what I've done with the 73P) came from Axes R Us - as did the Dunnys and the scratchplate. And so to Mr Badass - a last minute steal (from the 73P where it had lain undisturbed for many years) half an hour before the gig I wanted to try the bass out at. Never had the saddles filed. Dropped straight in , being a II , and though I checked the intonation at the gig through my korg rack tuner and poked at the saddle screws with the point of a Lee Enfield bayonet (because the allen key got nicked a while back) there was bugger all to do in terms of adjustment. I'm sure in this day and age there'a a dozen products that give as much improvement over the stock baked bean tin that Fender use but I like Badass , and I'm always right , so that's that. Not much I can tell you about the Wizzard 84's that hasn't been raved about elsewhere on the forums. I'm really pleased with the sound ,and with the help and service Wizzard offered. The stock Mex ones were OK , just a little weedy and probably the single most useful upgrade to a Mex is the PUPs......or the bridge , but they're rubbish on all Fenders wherever they're made. Don't forget , playmates , that upgrade J sets are likely to be 2 different sizes (for neck and bridge routing) but this Mex body was 2 routings the same - both bridge size. As the scratchplate was a replacement 'proper' size the neck pup wasn't a prob. but , weirdly, the bridge was. 2 coats of laquer too tight. The cheapest bit is the pup cover so I went at it with a kitchen knife til it slid into place. The pared off bits are below the level of the body so you can't see a thing. Painless. There's that second string guide again - see Fettled Fender 1 for explanation. The Fender logo was half coming off this one - sure that's part of the reason for the cheapish price. Think the dude must have been trying to erase the Mex serial number with a hammer or something. Whatever. I had this 70's one kicking about. Easy to put on and then a few coats of spray laquer , nothing spesh - just the stuff they sell in Wilkinson. The sharper eyed amongst you will have seen a lump of metal sticking out. That's a Hipshot BT4 Bass extender key. 'But Doc , you dozy Northern monkey' I hear you exclaim 'that's the wrong model number for a Mex J'. Fair comment - so let's turn it over and see why. I was going to hawk around for a set of Schaller M4S tuners - a la 73P - but I saw these fancy Fendery fellas of very similar design for sale singley at Bass Parts Resource. So I bought 3. The matching Hipshot was from a US ebay shop. The old tuners went off to Sir Rich of Bristoltown for his old Squier Jazz that he's done up for his son while I got the Black and Decker out and drilled the 2 holes per tuner into the headstock to accept the pins that are part of this M/C design. I could lie and say I made some fancy template or tell the truth and say I blagged it but whatever - they're near enough spot on. You can't see the old screw holes at all. The front ferrule just screws on helped by a 19mm spanner. Never used or installed a de-tuner before. Pretty easy to do though the printed instructions were the wrong ones for this model and crap anyway. The litlte video demo on the Hipshot website is all you'll need. Have to get used to the bottom string going out of step now - playing by numbers etc - bloody useful thing to have though and it works very well. Final touch which you can't see. The nice shiny 70's Fender neck plate complete with big F and the number 384915. Had that in a drawer for years and knew I'd find a use for it. There you have it. 2 Fenders fettled by my own fair hands - I hope you can see some method in my madness and if I've encouraged anybody to think about making practical changes to their tools of their trade I'll be well pleased.

Here you go.. [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=15660"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=15660[/url] Since the pics the Badass II is now on , and the Detuner is on it's way as we speak. BTW I have a Badass II going begging if you're interested. Like a prat I ended up with 2 !! Used ebay purchase , saddles are filed.

[quote name='Muppet' post='182425' date='Apr 22 2008, 12:07 AM']I use one of [url="http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9371874&fh_view_size=6&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB&fh_search=case&fh_eds=%c3%9f&fh_refview=search&ts=1208819146899&isSearch=true"]these.[/url] Cheap, and durable. Someone from here told me about them, I think it was Homer, IIRC....[/quote] Me too - except the current one belonged to a sales rep. who threw it in a skip so it didn't cost me anything. Never be afraid to root in skips - our band has loads of quality bags/cases etc , all of which I found in skips outside shops within a hundred yards of where I work.

[quote name='uptonmark' post='182054' date='Apr 21 2008, 05:51 PM']looking for lots of bottom end play mainly fingerstyle but do slap plenty which would suit best.........64`s or 84`s ........ i`m guessing 84`s but correct me if i`m wrong[/quote] I put 84's in my Mex Jazz. Lots of bottom end , plenty of output and nothing extreme in the middle to annoy me. Mellow and useful sound. The 64's I haven't heard but are more of a trad sound - give them a ring , you'll find them very helpful folk.

I can't remember now if it was a Jazz or a Precision , I was just interested in the graphite neck. Now I think of it wasn't there a blue one going too , maybe not quite so long back. I've since bought another Status so I wouldn't be in the market now anyway. In the address book for my old email there's a Greek guy's email address. I don't like giving folks emails out but if you like I'll pass a message on for him to have a look at this thread. Course it might be a bloke I met on holiday or something but could be worth a try.

[quote name='uptonmark' post='181982' date='Apr 21 2008, 04:49 PM']just ordered a SX jazz bass and i expect i will more than likely change the pick ups. any recommendations on a decent pair of [b]PASSIVE[/b] jazz pups? dont wanna break the bank as this will be a back up bass, i also want passive as my other bass is active. i have only recently started playing again after a ten year break. when i was playing, EMG and seymour duncan were quite popular.[/quote] More a case of 'witch' passive J pups at the mo!! Try these [url="http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/shop.asp?category=Bass"]http://www.wizardpickups.co.uk/shop.asp?category=Bass[/url] And if you look around the site more you'll find a bunch of us raving about them.