Munurmunuh

Never in the history of the world has a single instrument screamed out for a black pickguard. Ooh, a beautifully painted bit of wood, if only it were covered up with some black plastic.

Am picturing someone down the pub, surrounded by friends, tucking into their fourth pint, saying "I'm celebrating never drinking again! Pint?"

Oh god they've got you too

• Take a 424 in dreary sunburst • Replace the pickups with a G&L humbucker • Add a 2 band cut/boost eq • series/parallel switch • Reshape the body, slimming it down (and taking the first B out of "BB424", I know) • Create two massive cavities in the wings to reduce weight

Five minutes dabbing at my phone screen with my finger gets me this.... ....which reassures me that slightly slimming down the body and creating two large cavities in the wings wouldn't make a dogs dinner of the design. Replace the pickups with a G&L MFD humbucker in the [s]L-1500[/s] Stingray spot. Add a 2 band cut/boost eq and a series/parallel switch. Paint it black.

This should keep you giggling until bedtime 🙄

I've a Yamaha BB that weighs far too much for me. The neck is perfect and I wouldn't want to touch it at all. I'm trying to work out if a replacement body could be designed that would be significantly lighter, without the chunky neck plunging south. Hence my asking about where on the body meat could be lost from.

If you've a bass which is heavy and yet still on the cusp of having neckdive, is it possible to remove the wood from the body in a way that would avoid worsening the balance? As I try to think it through, I'm imagining that thinning down the upper horn and removing the lower horn entirely would be taking weight away from the neck's side of the bass, thus actually improving the balance and allowing more wood to be removed from elsewhere (eg more contouring around the top)

I don't know how many L-2500s made from empress there are out there, but in the TB ads I'm looking at the weights are 8 lbs 3 – 8 lbs 6. The empress JB-5s are even lighter, some down at 8 lbs 0.

My Dimarzio Model P is 5mm from the steel strings, and the sound is punchy af

I would give them a call, from what they say, they seem to be quite a flexible outfit, you never know

I wonder if The Bass Centre sell individually the pickups on their Bruce Thomas Profile Bass. A demo of them is at 17'50" on this review

I've decided that I'm going to park it under the bed, with the intention of one day, no time soon, of using the neck for something completely different. Eg, right now combining it with a small body and Stingray-ish pickup+electronics seems an *excellent* idea

Can the singer still sing the material?

I remember that YouTube demo of an early one, and had been wondering if they had sorted out the preamp and shielding – really pleased to hear it's all good now

Probably the same fools who pay to hear professional musicians when perfect enjoyable free entertainment is available at any pub's open mic night

If the replacement pg on the bass sat next to me had been professionally installed, I wouldn't have had to have it professionally sorted out 🙄

Daddario EXL170 45-65-80-100

That's probably why he's asking what people's experiences have been, no?

Can we have a separate subforum for natural finishes, I'm sick of the sight of them, and would be glad to have them stuck out the way in their own little ghetto.

Is the benefit of that, that the little markers pretty much point you to the right spot, but oblige your ears to take over for the actual placement?

I wasn't sure if you wrote this before it arrived with you. If you did – any further thoughts?

My conspiracy theory is that the Swiss are making up what they lost by handing back the looted nazi gold by increasing the number of holes in their cheese. I must get round to finishing my youtube video on this. Yoko Ono is refusing me permission to quote from A Day In The Life 😡

These all have value. Its obviously very nice for you that you can charge yourself nothing for odd parts and labour, but no one is born with the knowledge and experience to bring an instrument to its highest potential, nor with a boxful of handy bits and pieces. You've earnt those.