Boodang

Yep, for a minute there I thought I was on pianochat!!

Ah, but are you playing a half diminished b9 b13 at the 24th fret?!!!

An angled headstock is going to be more susceptible than a level one. As it happens I'm having a bass made with a particularly thin jazz neck (36.5 mm nut) and although I didn't want an inline 4 headstock we've kept it level as an angled version would make it a bit vulnerable.

In 40 years of playing I've never broken a neck, and although such a thing could happen I've never chosen a bass based on how easy it would be to repair.

If I'm in a mischievous mood and I'm in no hurry to sell something (and I did this with a classic car I was selling as I was fed up with ludicrous offers).... if I've explicitly stated no offers, the buyer gets one warning after which the price goes up by the amount of the difference in their offer. Huge amounts of fun to be had with indignation from the buyer, especially if they then go up to the original asking price which has now in turn gone up, so I treat it as an offer and price goes up again! They even use swear words!! Brilliant!

Yeah, gobsmackingly expensive!! You see his stuff and think, ooh nice I wonder how much that is. Answer is, you could have a table or a house to put it in but not both.

So, I've been going through the recesses of my mind to see if I can locate the reason why I have the correct (!) attitude towards bolt on necks and think I've come up with a culprit.... John Makepeace. MakePeace is a furniture maker par excellence, his stuff looks like it's grown into being rather than been made. I think if he saw two pieces of wood screwed together he'd cry! He had a place called Parnham House in Dorset which I used to visit when I went down to see my parents and you could see all the furniture that had been commissioned (back in the 70s a table from him was about £40k!)... they were works of art. Now I'm not say a guitar should be made in the Makepeace tradition as no one would afford them, but they should be made in such a way as to not make him cry in disbelief!!

Yep, don't know why, but from the very first bass I got many moons ago, I thought the 'bolt on' arrangement was clumsy and most un-elegant. Consequently i saved up so I could get a neck thru custom made and solve the issue. But since then I've owned many 'bolt ons' as well (but still prefer neck thru), so to avoid getting rid of half my collection, as well as yours, when I'm PM I'll just ban them from now on!

Gwizdala's really into bit crushers and he gets some interesting sounds... too mad for me though.

Yeah, as you say the bulk of playing is always going to be below the 9th (unless you're Gwizdala!) but it's nice not to ignore the dusty end. Funny enough, as I've been playing mostly with keyboard players (piano/bass/drums stuff), I've gravitated to centering my playing on the C rather than working from the low E, as I'm the only 'string' instrument in the band.

Gwizdala plays 5 string but strung high C. I'm just using his playing as an example of what can be done but you're right, it's hardly mainstream. I've got a custom that's made for that type of work but when I play fretless 4 string I still want to use the full range of the bass but not necessarily in a Gwizdala way. I'm just bemoaning the fact that i like to play Jazz basses but it would be nice to have one available without the bulky bolt on, without having to go the extent of getting it custom made.

Check out Michael Moore's book Melodic Playing in the Thumb Position to see how being up around the 15th fret can be ... well, melodic! Double bass players have long realised there's a lot of effective playing a bass player can do in that region and they're not afraid to go there. It seems it's more in their DNA than bass guitar players which is ironic given how much harder it is to do on a DB.

As the saying goes, the money notes are not at the dusty end of the neck.... but that doesn't mean we can't go there! So, whilst the 19th fret is not that hard to get to, try doing an exercise out of Janek Gwizdala's book Chordal Harmony with a bolt on and see how you get on. Ah you say, just buy a bass that's suitable.... and you're right! Except it just raises the question that is a bolt on joint actually up to the job (and I mean playability not strength) and i would say it's not fit for purpose. If you gave 2 pieces of wood to a proper joiner he wouldn't bolt them together. It just seems like a cheap, unimaginative way to make a bass. Now as to why I'm up there, well as we've established it doesn't have to be widdling. Check out some of the double bass icons and see how far up the neck they go when walking to add interest into their lines. Also chordal stuff (aka Gwizdala) works nicely, again to add interest (and no, I'm not a frustrated guitarist, how dare you! The upper register notes on a bass sound so much different to a guitar). I used to play in a folk/rock band and play high up to double the lead riffs which sounded good, and my fretless lines start/end up in dusty end often as again it adds interest. Many reasons to be up there.

Yep, such a shame that they will not be in production for much longer. I was disappointed though when the series 4 went over to bolt on as I thought their thru neck basses were something truely special, especially with their own single coil pickups. I did actually email to ask them why they moved over to this construction method but the reply was very wishy washy and therefore made me think it was for financial reasons. At some stage I want to track down a Vigier Passion thru neck with a delta metal fretless board but you don't often see them for sale. One of the truly great basses. Incidentally they changed the name of the 'delta metal' fretboard to 'iMetal' which irritated the f*ck out of me as everything seems to have 'i' in front of it these days in a misguided marketing attempt to make it somehow modern and relevant (another old man rant from me!). I sent them an email about that as well!!

I used to use a bit of reverb but then I got into Janek Gwizdala who uses delay instead. I've got the TC Electronic flashback with the Gwizdala toneprint which is basically a triplet repeat in a low mix... this has now replaced my reverb on the pedalboard. As for tremolo, no idea as that just seems too bonkers for bass and haven't found a use for it yet.

Every now and then Olympia comes up as a brand to try... never tried them myself but please do a review. To be honest the cheapness is off putting, so would be interested to know how good they are. The flats I currently use are the Galli Synthesis which are considerably more.

Have to admit I've never broken a neck but I wouldn't choose a bass based on what would happen if I did. I remember being in a music shop overhearing a conversation between a salesman and a punter when this arguement was presented and I thought no! Buy the bass you like playing not the one you think is easier to replace a neck on because A. that will more than likely not happen and B. If it does, who gives a sh*t! At least you'll have a good story.

Ah, Pedulla basses are wonderful. Shame they're not going to be making anymore. Definitely a bass I want to add to my collection at some stage.

When it comes to construct and tone, as you say there's many variables but in my opinion none of those should include a neck body join that makes playability more difficult.

I would say if you're shimming a neck there's something fundamentally wrong with the bass that needs fixing. Shimming is generally a botch to cover an underlying issue. But that's different to what I'm talking about which is a neck joint getting in the way of your thumb when you play up the dusty end.

A bolt on might be stronger than both neck neck and body but for me that's not the point. It's not engineering elegance if it's not the best solution and for me something that means it gets in the way of playing (as I said, try playing a Cm root ten double stop at the 20th fret with a typical fender) doesn't achieve that. If the frets are there it's meant for playing, so why not design the bass with that in mind.

I've lugged gear IN Luton.... does that count?

In terms of playability I've always preferred a neck thru, in terms of tone I liked both. I've always found a neck thru to be less prone to dead spots but that could just be luck of the draw. Now, I'm going to put my cynical hat on here and hypothesise that 'the sound is tighter' is code for it's cheaper to to build a bolt on. Vigier did the same thing, versions 1, 2 & 3 are neck thru, then along comes version 4 and it's a bolt on. A tone decision or a cost cutting one?

Just as well you don't care about getting higher than the 7th fret with that bass!