Beedster

But……. What they’re listed for and what they sell for are not always the same. IMO I paid over the odds for my ‘73 at £4k inc OHSC. £3k of that was logic, the last £1k was emotion, because it very much ticked every box I have re finish/mojo/wear/board etc. Buying from an established and trusted business also brought some extra cost but that coat bought extra security to the transaction. No way I’d go £3,500 on that ‘72 without a LOT of initial affection for the instrument backed up by a lot of evidence and assurances from the seller.

I had exactly the same on a quite nice but could have been nicer 70’s Precision, tone with BBOT suggested Badass might be a step up, but quite the opposite, to my ear anyway, seemed to compress the tone somewhat…

Venues eh Totally OT but three of my old band used to live close to each other and close to our rehearsal rooms so would walk together with instruments on our backs back and amps/cabs/bags in hands. It was always good fun following rehearsal to pop into a busy pub on the way home, walk up to the bar and say 'Hi, we're tonight's band, where do you want us.....?' just to see the look of horror on their faces. Even more so when there was already a band setting up Anyway, as you were 👍

When I was looking to buy my current '70s Precision I looked at a lot of similarly poorly described instruments on eBay and Reverb and on far too many occasions the seller was either unhelpful, clueless, or both (all the old classics were there in force; for example "I'm not going to take it apart, but I know it'a all original because the bloke who sold it to me said it was..."). I guess I now look at poorly photographed and poorly described basses and know what to expect

No photo of the case, pretty poor photos of the instrument (SN unclear for example), collection only? But hey, you may well be right, either way, time will tell mate 👍

We usually do 2x45 mins, BUT I seem to remember that a couple of gigs at venues where punters are coming and going we did 3 x 45 mins but (and keep it quiet) the third was simply a repeat of the first, on the basis that by the time we started the third set audience members who'd been there 2-hours earlier had either left or were too pissed to notice 👍

£3k isn't BIN though it's an auction. Either way, it's probably ballpark price for a '72 in the current climate, and I won't be surprised to see it sitting there a while as nothing in either the images or the description grabs potential buyers?

This ^ But I also go back to my earlier point that while one bass may have a set of characteristics that mean a Badass will make a difference, another may not, while a third may sit somewhere between the two. There's no generic and reliable effect of a Badass, and they certainly can have a negative effect, for example the tone you're after is present with a BBOT but is perhaps more toppy, immediate, or simply more clear than you'd like with the Badass. It's the same arguments as tonewoods, PUPs, passive circuits etc..... They can make a difference but certainly not always, Any difference they do make isn't always significant, And even if it is significant, it isn't always desirable, And even if there's a difference, it's significant, and it's desirable, there's a bloody high chance that neither your bandmates, the audience, or sometimes even you, would notice that difference when it matters! Me? I love a Badass

I certainly preferred that over the first, vocals had a bit more going on, shame about the audio and video not being synced though

As do I mate. I wasn't saying I could do better, I was most certainly saying that I prefer to listen to the original 👍

Just how Olly Murs or Ed Sheeran would do it. Nice if you like mediocrity. I don't

What I love about eBay is how they’re always thinking about what’s best for the customer without worrying about margins, profits etc 🤔

I suspect if he upscaled he’d quickly find himself propping up a new building somewhere, so while it appears basic I imagine his MO lies somewhere between ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and ‘Don’t start fights you might not win’. I suspect that he’s probably slightly shrewder than he seems 😕

I've no experience of having PA installed so perhaps an acoustic analysis is part of the process, but if not, and even thought it's a simple shaped room with lots of banners, it's probably worth a visit from an acoustics consultant. I have to do a lot of speaking to groups professionally. While most rooms I'm in are regular shaped, the difference between speaking in a treated versus not treated room is huge. In some treated room I can get away without using a mic (which is always preferable), whereas in some untreated rooms even a good mic and PA sound crap.

Absolutely This ^ You could spend multiples of your budget on the best audio gear and still not get the solution you want. The difference between listening to even unamplified speech in an acoustically treated verses untreated space is huge, and it the difference usually increases the more the voice is amplified/processed. Treating the room would not only reframe and likely optimise any audio solution you choose but significantly reduce the costs of that system.

It might be, but if so I don't think it's a 77/78 as the seller states, I think I'm correct in saying that Siennaburst was very much an 80's thing. And certainly every Siennaburst I've seen has a standard board (i.e., no block inlays). We should never discount the idea that Fender found an unused 70's neck and stuck it on a new 80's instrument of course, but the bass is so far from original anyway that I doubt it the question of whether that body left the factory with that neck could be established to any reasonable degree. Given this I suspect that in marketplace terms it's a bitsa, and as you say, around £2000 too expensive 👍

....or as I'm currently really enjoying, some very very old rounds on a 70's Precision, glorious sound, and all the squeak has been played out of them 👍

Buy some used from here and that way you can sell for the same price if they don't work out, they're always popping up for sale 👍

At the height of my electric playing albeit more than 20-years ago - even I was probably getting through around a set per month - in those days I was all about the zing, funny how things change! I guess the reality is that electric strings have probably been affected by the same inflation as guts, it's just more exaggerated with the latter?

I think it’s easy to get into false logic along the lines ‘strings should cost 10% of the value of the instrument’. DBs are simply too unpredictable

My present guts, gamuts, have been on my bass for around 3-years. I know electric bassists (and guitarists) who change strings after each gig. i’m probably spending less on strings despite the massive one-time hit

I disagree Jack, even my old Alu - not a machine built for tone - sounded way better with guts than with Evas or Spiros, and the guy I bought it from was playing Eudoxas on it. High quality strings can significantly improve the tone of even quite inexpensive instruments