Beedster

Jeez, 40 years since Permanent Waves, feels like yesterday. The first time I heard Spirit of Radio was one of those definitive moments that stays with you. But wow, 40 years has gone by quick!

I've played Flea Basses with pretty much every combination of pickups, preamps, and bridges, and to me they all sound like Flea Basses. LPs only have mystique because you can't buy them any more, if you could, they would just be one more PUP in the marketplace that some people like ("clean mids") and others don't ("quite polite"), and probably no better and no worse than most of the competition

Well spotted

I had one of the Trads and it was a very nice bass

If it wasn't for bass forums pre-framing people's expectations, I doubt anyone would hear any real difference between LPs and the rest.

My 70’s Tony Franklin, best fretless I’ve ever owned, sustain by the ton, tone to die for, fast and easy action

1. I'm not sure that we should be too impressed that a courier managed four successful deliveries, that should be a given 2. £30 is about average for UK delivery 3. Enhanced insurance is an idea not a reality until someone tests that insurance You keep using them mate, when I get back to using couriers, which given my post-Covid finances is likely to be quite soon I imagine, I certainly won't be

Mmm, i think we can probably narrow it down

It's with some serious trepidation that I choose to disagree with Dan on anything related to bass, but here goes...... It's is of no consequence what we think, it's the value of the bass to you that matters. I decided I wanted a Flea Bass a while back, and specified a budget - higher than the figure mentioned above - because they are now VERY hard to get hold of. Why? Because apart from a few dopaminergic characters on this forum (who generally, like me, end up buying them back anyway*), most people who own a Modulus Flea don't want to part with it, because they're THAT good. For some reason, you can pick up the 5-string versions pretty cheap compared to the 4-string (I wonder if that's the Flea effect, I never saw him playing the former), but if you want a 4-string, and you want it in good condition, you won't have too many to choose from, and you might have to take a big risk in import duties etc in buying from, for example a Japanese dealer (who list them at £4,000+) or a US eBayer (which in my experience can also be VERY risky). Whilst Covid-19 might force a few people to part with theirs for financial reasons, with Flea's it's always going to be a seller's market, especially for some reason the sparkly ones So, if this bass is one you can inspect in person, is from someone you trust (I was very lucky on both fronts with my recent purchase because I ordered the bass new fro Modulus in 2007 and it was being sold by one of the most trusted guts on this forum), and is the spec you want, you'll only regret it if you let a couple of hundred Euros stop you buying it. YMMV etc etc Good luck mate. * And sometimes selling them again and buying them back a second time

Grab it quick Pedro

I think it has in many other PUPs, but much like a Lakland or Sadowsky Precision will rarely have the cache of a pre-CBS Fender, so it is with LP's, rarity being the magic bullet of tone far exceeding the effects of materials and craftsmanship And don't get me started on mics..............

So, by the rules of the game mate (which I'll admit are somewhat emergent at this point), that makes it your turn to suggest another potential owner?

Shall we suggest some names? I'll go first with @Clarky, not an obvious Modulus player - his tastes are generally a little more traditional and rootsy - but I'd be surprised if he hadn't tried one

Ha ha, I suspect this is going to be a story involving, shall we say, the usual suspects

There is no better bass. Period. I used to say that I can play stuff on the Flea that I can't play on other basses. I'd go so far now as to say I can play stuff on the Flea that I can't even imagine playing on other basses. I've owned two Stingrays with Status graphite necks, both times I thought I would get very close to the Flea. Nowhere near. Modulus appear to really know what they're doing when they build basses. I read somewhere that even pre-lockdown they were only producing three per month?

Ha ha, yes, I stayed with a friend in the Alps last year, his house number was in the high 600s, so having just turned onto their road and passing number 40 we assumed that we would need to drive a long way up into the hills. Passed another house, which we reasonably assumed was number 41 and carried on. Long story short, we got stuck on a rock trying to reverse back down the mountain having driven right up the the end of the track, and our friends, and most of the local community it seems, had to come and lift the car off the offending boulder. 'Number 41' was of course our friends' house (although actually number 600 and something), because - amazingly - in that street the house numbers are determined by how many metres they are from the start of the street. God bless France

Fair enough. But they might let you pay an insurance premium when booking, but that's not the same thing as committing to compensate you if something goes wrong (which is the trick Parcelforce used to play), so let's see what happens when someone tests them on this. Interparcel insure musical instruments, I've tested them twice and both times had compensation (although admittedly it was hard work and I had to go to the manufacturers to get estimates of repair costs etc), as do quite a few others. Anyway, it sound like this lot are more likely to lose something than damage it given their apparent inability to read postcodes

Big factor should be if/how they resolve the situation with kjm above. As we've said before, a courier that gets something from A-B should be a given, it's how they deal with things when they go wrong that matters. My experience, as well as those of quite a few others, suggests that this firm would be a nightmare to deal with in that situation

Sold a Ric to a lovely guy in Italy, easy deal, no hassle, much prefer it to eBay as I get the sense that whilst not all musos are honest and respectful, the majority are, and that's who's looking at Reverb. I've had no bad experiences there, buying or selling (mostly high value gear). I think your username is the shop name

It's pretty clear that this organisation are f*****g crap at website design, at cost algorithms, and at communicating with customers. I dread to think what they will be like to deal with when they get around to losing someone's '64 Jazz. All very well saying the price for insurance is cheap until you try to make a claim, then you realise why it's so cheap. Ped, get a deal with a decent courier service, you're not doing BC or any of its members any favours suggesting we use these clowns, especially as the discount is clearly now utterly negligible

Man blows things out of proportion on internet. Who’d have thought it?

17 posts about a rattling bass and not one mention of the word Rickenbacker. Is everyone OK?