Beedster

The shop close to where I work - a family style music shop with lots of recorders, keyboards, and guitars under £100 etc - has a lefty fretless bass in stock at around £400. I said to the guy behind the counter "surprised that hasn't shot out the door". I don't think he got the joke

[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1391864507' post='2362105'] Whatever it is, it's not the weather [/quote] When I was a kid we used to go to Cornwall on our hols. It always rained. I could never understand how all the 'West Coast' bands - Eagles, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac etc - looked so tanned. It took me a surprisingly long time to realise it was a different West Coast entirely

There is clearly something about the rugged west coast of the UK and reggae. Is it relative proximity to Jamaica?

[quote name='Muzz' timestamp='1370435404' post='2100746'] Because they don't look (from a distance) like a boutique/luthier built bass, I think people underestimate their quality - you have to play them to really appreciate them. [/quote] Funny, I just made exactly that comment in a thread about my new one, looks like a £500 bass, plays like a £2500 bass (or, to be honest, a lot of £5000 basses)

I've no doubt that this isn't 'the best' Precision Bass, or even the best Yamaha Precision Bass, but I can justify my enthusiasm in pretty clear terms. I have - as the pages of BC will testify - owned an awful lot of basses, mostly the work of, or derivatives of the work of, Leo Fender, and for a brief period some by Ric and Modulus. Whilst I've often gushed about nearly all of them, and whilst most of them were very good instruments for what they were, all had limitations if I looked beyond the 'what they were' argument. By this I mean that my c64 and v63 were outstanding Rics and outstanding instruments, they did the Ric thing incredibly well, but there are times at which the Ric thing isn't right. Likewise most of my Precisions did the Precision thing very well, but on occasions I needed a little bit more. My late '90s Modulus Flea was the most playable and powerful bass i've owned, but it's core tone was a little Jazz/Stingray, when the core tone I look for is more Precision/Ric. In short, for a long time I've been looking for a bass that is more than what it says on the label - Precision, Jazz, 4001, Ray or Flea. The obvious approach given my preference for the Precision tone has been to look for a good P/J. Probably the closest I got were Sadowsky P/Js but they just didn't quite do it, I found the J-PUP a bit tame and needing a lot of active grunt to make it work alongside the P-PUP, and to be honest, I prefer passive instruments. The Fender Roscoe Beck was amazingly versatile for a passive bass, but despite all that I read about it on here and Talkbass, I couldn't really get the Precision tone I wanted out of it. In fact I wanted this. 1. A core tone very close to that of a traditional Precision (like most - but not all - of my Precisions) 2. Versatile (like my Bongo, my Wals and my RBIV) 3. Simple controls and circuit (like most of my Precisions and my Rics, unlike my two Wals) 4. High build quality, structurally and functionally 100% reliable (like my Wals and Sadowskys) 4. High playability (like my Modulus Flea), 5. Passive (as were most of my Fenders, and my Rics, I just don't really like active instruments as much as passive) 6. Classic looking (like most of the above, unlike the Bongo) Now the Yamaha ticks all of those boxes, and it's the first bass I've owned that does. Moreover, unlike any P/J I've owned, not only is the J-PUP powerful and sweet soloed, but it works incredibly well with the P-PUP, producing a tone that is unique yet highly useable. I think it's fair to say that with pretty much every P/J I'd owned previously, I'd use the P-PUP for some songs, the J-PUP for others, but rarely the two combined, in fact on many P/Js the combined tone is weak to the point of being unusable, or with some active basses, too synthetic for my tastes. On this bass - as was the case with my c64 - I start with both PUPs on full all of the time with the tone fully open, and make small changes from there. In fact, a huge amount of the versatility of this bass comes from the power of the PUPs, which really respond to what my hands are doing, and the sheer playability of the thing, meaning that I can get the hands in question to be a whole lot more expressive and versatile than on many other basses. And over and above all of this, it's built like a tank. Furthermore, and interestingly to my mind, whilst it feels and plays like a £2500 bass, it looks like a £500 bass. This is the opposite of a few Fender Custom Shop basses I've played which looked like £2500 instruments but felt and played like a £500 model. I don't like gigging with basses that look really valuable, so I find this an asset. All in all, as basses and me go, this is as good a pairing as I've had to date. Of course I'm not naive enough to say it's 'the one', and even if it was, things change. I am however bloody happy with it C

Saw 'Cornwall' and 'Reggae' in the same sentence and it could only have been you! Hope it goes well, I'd love to be there C

I don't get email notifications of PM's anymore either

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1391156457' post='2353798'] I assume from Chris' updated sig its not a Fender but a Yamaha BB2024. Can I collect my £5 now please? [/quote] It is indeed mate, and what an amazing instrument, does pretty much everything I need in a bass, does it with a passive circuit, and is as easy to play as was my old Modulus Flea, my reference point in this respect. I've spent the last two nights A/B'ing it against other basses, and the Yammy just blows them out of the water. In terms of PJs, nothing I've played by Fender or Sadowsky gets close. Of course, many of you will now be keeping a keen eye on the For Sale forum

I've finally found the Precision Bass I've been looking for

Not to my taste but you can't fault that guys commitment and I kinda enjoyed it

[quote name='Jonnyboy Rotten' timestamp='1390927769' post='2351400'] I think the seller refusing to be responsible for shipping also reduces the incentive for the seller to make doubly, doubly sure about packing the item well and offering the best possible protection. Otherwise they (in theory at least) could get away with a single layer of bubble wrap and a few bin liners to send a bass guitar through the post without worry of comeback if (and in all likelihood) when it arrives at the other end damaged. [/quote] This increasingly I find I will only do deals with folks I 'know' from here - and that includes both buying and selling - because there's an increasing number of people on the forum who, to my mind, push the limits of what is reasonable behaviour between two private individuals.