Beedster

Ha ha, we're all the same aren't we, if a pharma company developed a pill for GAS, this place would fold in seconds

There was a BO-60 for sale in Japan a while back (about three times the price I paid for this) and it didn't look anything like as well finished or substantial. Hard to say anything conclusive from photos I know, but this baby looks like a tank in photos, and looks and feels like a tank in the flesh

Yep, it's the FPM-80, and yes, whilst there have been a few for sale over the years - mostly in Japan - with rosewood boards, the maple boards seem to be very rare, and whilst I can't give you an evidence based reason, maple seem to be more at home on this bass, or put another way, having p;ayed it for a few weeks, I can't imagine it with a rosewood board. (which I usually prefer) John, I'll be sure to give you the heads up if I sell mate

Start a new ad might be quickest

Ha ha, gonna have to keep an eye open for the double neck version I've put some medium flats on the Fernandes, and the tone from the back PUP as well as the two PUPs blended is sublime, it has a quality that I can't quite locate to any PUP I've played before, far more meat but also more subtlety than a J-Bass PUP in the same position, but much less harshness than MM-style humbuckers or double-Js at the neck. I think the only bass I've owned that had such a good back PUP was the Yamaha 2024, but I suspect that this PUP works even better. I've had to lift the back PUP and lower the neck PUP a little to balance to the volume between the two, but on a bass which I bought because I hoped that the bridge PUP might offer some versatility blended in with the neck PUP when the latter alone wasn't enough, I've got two very useable PUPs in their own right as well as in combination. A good result all around really, only added to by the outstanding build quality and tank-like stability of the bass itself.

Good move, but move this add to Amps & Cabs for sale - and perhaps an ad in Items Wanted - you'll get more interest there (you can still indicate that you only want to trade, but to be honest, there's nearly always a couple of Big Twins or similar for sale here, so a cash sale for your Aggies might still work best for you).

I was lucky enough to be taken through the process of taking a vintage bass apart by an expert a few years ago when buying a '64 Fender. All I'd add to the above is to make sure you use the same screw in the same position when you replace the neck, and that you tighten each screw in turn so that you don't pull the neck slightly out of line by tensioning one corner more than the others. Is it a 60's PBass you're selling? If so, I'm looking for one at the moment

I think you're overthinking it Marc, that's what a double bass is for But seriously, the cello strung and played as is sits in a rather nice acoustic and stylistic niche in that track. The thought of that being replaced by the horrible synthetic tones and artefacts of an octaver makes me shudder, even if it would track the more complex signal coming from whatever mic or PUP that cellist is using in the first place.

Sounds like a fretless classical guitar to me

Love it

Thanks Stew, think it's unlikely to be honest, too much going on at present, but will let you know. C

Ah, gotcha! Thanks mate. C

Not getting that HKH?

Canterbury Kent. Will be in touch if things transpire that way. C

And with impeccable timing, UPS have just trashed my incoming amp. Same driver/depot as last time. Packaging badly damaged plus covered in an oily smelly liquid which they appear to have covered with tape to cover the fact. Guess what? Broken tubes and lose transformer. At least they're consistent. Now don't have a big amp for the weekend because my SVT is being a little bit naughty. I'd buy Stew's but it would need to be couriered. You can't make this stuff up can you

Hope? Hope is wasted on couriers. I'm currently waiting on the delivery of an amp that has been in transit for 8 days, the delivery of which has been rescheduled several times, which delays the seller has just informed me was the result of the item 'needing to be repackaged at the depot'. This is courier speak for 'we dropped it, it's bloody obvious that we dropped it, we know that you won't sign for it because it's that obvious, so we're going to wrap it in 5 rolls of duct tape and hope we get away with it'. The irony is that the same courier did the same thing to me two years ago with an almost identical amp, it cost me £200 to fix, and the courier got out of it by saying that the original packaging was insufficient (something I couldn't disprove because it was no longer even there and which the seller couldn't prove because he hadn't taken any photos). The point is that with couriers, no amount of 'I did this when I sent my SVT and it was fine' or 'this should be OK' matters when things go wrong, and in my experience, the pressure that couriers are now under means that things go wrong far more frequently, as the result of which they have very well rehearsed processes and very fine small print to ensure they don't lose loads of money. And the customer loses out. This if OK if you can afford the loss, which many business can as they are either insured or build it into their risk, but when you're hard up for cash, and you're sending an expensive but heavy and easily dropped/damaged item that no courier is going to cover because it has glass components (and which even an expensive flight case will probably not protect against being dropped out of a lorry which was what had clearly happened to mine; flight cases, despite being designed to protect amps, were done so in the context that most people moving them had a vested interest in the amp getting to where it needed to go in one piece - cue numerous clumsy roadie stories), it's best to hold out for a local sale. When it goes wrong, someone somewhere within the courier company admin layers will be tasked with making sure that, in your case, they do not pay out. They spend their whole working day doing this, week in, week out. The stress and anger of dealing with this person, who will say "I'm sorry, despite the fact we dropped it/lost it/sent it to the wrong address, we do not owe you anything because we are covered by page 47 line 68 of our T&Cs" is not worth it, I've been there. Do I sound angry?

Good shout

Yep the rear PUP is a whole lot better than I expected

No winners here, just two strong competitors

Ha ha, thanks mate. I'd love to know where this has been in the interim, I'm pretty sure I sold it to Marcus, who else owned it since?

Yep, I had a Mesa BB750 delivered by UPS. They had clearly dropped it, and despite the fact it was in a head case and decent packaging, they managed to not only shatter all the tubes, but break the bolts holding the transformer and thereby cause a load of internal damage. Cost me £200 to put right. And that's a small cost to what it might cost with a heavy amp

Look for a local sale or a trade mate, two months ago I would have traded you a relatively lightweight Mesa Walkabout head for it. And trust me, if an international courier delivery goes bad, it tends to go really bad

Keep it Stew, it's one of the best bass amps on the planet. Find a bass to sell if you need the cash, as I'm starting to realise, real bass tone versatility comes not from the range of basses, but from the range of amps in your collection