mudsprout

Never played either but looked into these a while ago. Judging by the body shape that looks like a B4 - the Element is rounder, more like the A series. From memory, some of the differences are: body construction (mahogany with an ash top on the Element vs all ash I think), fretboard material (roasted maple on the Element), preamp.

I’ve got an Extreme 4, had it for 5 years and absolutely love it. The neck in particular. Nice C profile, thin but not too thin, and the satin finish is ridiculously smooth. Fit and finish is great and set up was good out the box. It just feels so nice to play. If anything the sound is the weak point (not bad, not terribly exciting), but I mostly play alone through headphones so can’t weigh in too much there. Take the gushing with a pinch of salt as this was my ‘upgrade’ from a piece of junk and is my only bass. I did go and try out some potential swaps recently and far preferred mine to a Player Jazz, Mustang and Yamaha TRBX…nicer neck and the quality just felt better. Its actually annoying because I’ve kind of grown out of the fancy inlays but looks like I’m stuck with this thing forever!

Mate, congrats on the dream come true 🙌

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing what you do with those - assume different wood selection etc. Exciting times!

Looking good! Slight tangent: are you going to continue the NT range? Not a lot of shorter scale 5’s out there, would be a shame for those to disappear.

Yep it’s totally justifiable and good value for a locally produced product (assuming decent quality…made in UK doesn’t automatically mean that, though in this case I’m sure it will). Just knee jerk reaction is that’s noticeably more than the expected 15% increase. Didn’t mean to sound whiny, I’ve already said I’d happily pay the premium to support the shift to local production. Also most phones aren’t over £660, just the fancy ones! Good perspective though, phones are relatively short lived products yet we all accept it’s normal spending a couple hundred every few years on them. By that standard even a £3k bass can be seen as good value 😆

Ouch, £530 to £660 is some jump! Understand some of it is to get improvements in but mentally I’m going from rounding down to £500 to rounding up to £700 and it feels pretty significant. I’m sure it’ll still be great value though. Please do put some pictures up when you’ve got them! And as someone said earlier, 32” 5 string SWB would be epic.

Well done Chowny! What an inspiring move, all this shipping stuff round the world multiple times over has gotten ridiculous. We’ve only got one planet, etc. Really hope you do well out of this and can set an example to other companies and industries. I’ve been thinking about getting a SWB for years, now its a definite and happy to pay the relatively small premium.

Sweet! The 4 string version was the first bass I ever saw (in a video) and thought damn, I want one of those. Interesting 5 in a line headstock. Are the tuners closer together?

Mine was a really odd Shine active J-MM which I held on for about 12 years (many of which were gathering dust in the corner of my room), sold it to a colleague along with an old bike for £50 when I finally upgraded. Pretty sure it ended up in Cash Converters. Good riddance!

Too late! Lots of fancy stuff there, it's slightly terrifying.

Yes it's crazy the amount of shorties that keep popping up. Actually tried a Mustang PJ a while back and didn't like it - so in my head 32 is the magic number. Will totally go sift through that thread, cheers

Good advice! The problem is justifying the space any extra gear would take up given it's just a hobby. The guitars live in the bedroom (bass, acoustic guitar and my SO's electric which he never plays). I think that's the answer there actually, trade the guitar for a short scale... No one would ever notice.