LeftyJ

Revelation Bass VI-alike

This is my Fender Crafted in Japan JB75-US. The pic is from 2009 so this isn't even its final form () I changed: the electronics to an Audere JZ3T preamp with 3-way impedance switching, but hated it, for several reasons (1). I had a battery box routed into the back of the body for this; the electronics back to passive VVT, but with the addition of a De Gier / Vanderkley FatBoost,. It's a subtle active bass boost of up to 6 dB, accessed via a rotary switch where the jack used to be, with a regular Jazz Bass knob to camouflage it. It has an internal trim pot for setting the gain level. Works great, subtle but effective. The electronics cavity needed to be routed slightly to make room for it; the stock bridge to a Leo Quan BadAss II; the stock tuners to Hipshot HB2's and an Xtender; the strap buttons to Schaller security locks; added a pickup cover. The previous owner had already changed the white pickguard to a black one, which I like a helluva lot better, and had holes drilled for both covers but I never mounted a bridge cover because it gets in the way of my playing and I don't like the look. It's a heavy beast with a fairly deep neck profile, and oddly for a '75 RI has the bridge pickup in the regular 60s position (like most CIJ JB75's in fact, but there are exceptions). But it plays and sounds great and I love it. (1) I was always struggling to find a "neutral" tone that matched the passive sound of the bass. It just wasn't there. And the most important USP of the Audere, its impedance switch, was a totally useless feature for me because I hated the high-Z and low-Z settings and only used the normal position. Besides that, the Audere was prewired righthanded, so the pots turned in a direction that was very unnatural to me. They were PCB-mounted, so I couldn't change that. I hated it so much that I stopped playing this bass alltogether, which is a shame because it's so good! So I had it changed back to passive and it reignited my live for this bass.

Welcome, fellow lefty and Warwick fan! Lovely Streamer you have there! I have two Streamers, a 4-string LX and a 5-string LX5. The 4-string has the same colour as yours, but in high gloss lacquer.

I tried an Audere JZ3T in my Jazz Bass once (it was the 4-knob version with active 3-band, passive tone and 3-way impedance switch, but they sell them in 3-knob config too) and it was nice, but I got lost in all the tonal options. The impedance switch is cool but to me it didn't really offer anything usefull beside the middle (neutral) position. The low-Z setting gave a very deep, dubby low end and less high end. The high-Z setting was thin and almost a bit out-of-phase in character and was completely useless for me and my bands. In my Ellio Martina I have an Aguilar OBP-3 in a 3-knob configuration (volume/pan stacked with active/passive push-pull, mid/treble stacked with mid frequency select push-pull, and bass) but I don't like the center frequencies they chose for the EQ. The bass frequency is too low to my taste, the treble control is too high, and the mid control somehow only has a noticable effect when it's almost entirely up. May be a problem with the MEC pots it's coupled to in my bass, I don't know. Probably not the recommendations you were hoping for Other preamps I have experience with were stock electronics of various brands (Carvin, Ibanez, Cort, Status) so not much help there. I have yet to try the Darkglass, but the idea of two mid controls and no upper treble sounds very appealing to me, and very functional.

Your bridge appears to be an ABM Mueller 3705 in aluminium. Your best bet would be to send them an email or give them a call. Make sure to check the spacing first, these bridges come in either 17 mm or 19 mm spacing and the saddle inserts might differ in width between the two.

Was that the Kiesel Osiris copy?

It's not for the Roadster RS900 in your profile pic is it? That's not a Roadstar II but a Roadster from the first series. They use what I believe to be Gotoh GB-1's with a custom heart-shaped knob instead of a clover. The normal GB-1's are still readily available from Gotoh.

Ooooh, finally a lefty version of that Mustang-like shortscale PJ! It still only has a master volume and master tone, but the switch is a great add! I'd love dual volume. But FFS, why only black for us? I would sooo choose the Shell Pink one if I could!

Came here to say exactly this

Wow, I wouldn't have guessed the Cutlass necks to be made by Modulus. The Alembic and Musicman necks were constructed very differently to Modulus necks, with their woven graphite monocoques rather than the patchwork necks Modulus used on their own basses. Today I learned!

Quite the rare Warwick there! That's an "Infinette", a semi-hollow Corvette / Streamer hybrid that predates the Infinity but ultimately inspired it. Very unusual and very cool!

I was going to argue musical instruments were exempted from CITES rules a few years ago - but then I googled it and found out the B-word meant the UK dropped out of that exemption

This right here. You can actually see it in your last pic if you look closely: the upper line is where the bottom of your string sits, and the bottom line is where the nut slot appears to sits

Hugo Prinsen Geerligs of The Gathering. They were my gateway into modern metal back in 1997, when I first discovered them, and through their development into more atmospheric and progressive styles they also dragged me along into different styles outside my comfort zone - almost straight away, when they released their double album "How to measure a planet?" in 1998, which was nothing like its precursors. I've been following them ever since.

Please tell me you covered Willie Nelson's "On the road again" On the road again I just can't wait to get on the road again But one Al Krow is making music with his friends And I can't be arsed to swerve around again

Or no pickguard, like an actual L1000 (how is your 5-string neck labelled L1000, and not 1005?)

The current S-locks are vastly different to the old Schaller Security Locks though! The strap button and screw are one single piece, made on a lathe. They no longer have a Phillips screw head but require an Allen key. The locks themselves now accommodate thicker straps, and use a large thumbwheel instead of a washer and a nut. The thumbwheel locks in place with a little lockscrew which works great. I'm quite happy with them on my basses and guitars. The strap buttons come in three different sizes now, but size M is standard (and indeed slightly thicker than most normal strap button screws, on purpose). The S is both shorter and thinner, and the L is both longer and thicker.

Those earliest ovangkol necks really weren't Warwicks finest hour. Both my Streamer LX's are from roughly the same era and aren't perfect either (but no twist, thankfully). They play fine, but my 4-string LX can't be set up extremely low because of a small microbend at the 3rd fret and my 5-string is the most sensitive to changes in humidity out of all my instruments. This appears beyond what a fret level can solve. I think you'd need to remove the lower frets (or possibly all), plane the fingerboard, reset the nut and refret. That doesn't come cheap.

Not half bad! I'm intrigued.

This sums it up pretty well for me too. I buy used most of the time, only rarely have I bought a new bass. The last one was a German-made Esh Stinger that had been hanging in a store for years and I paid €800 for it NOS in 2014-ish - and without that massive discount I wouldn't have bought it. Most of my instruments came from private sellers. My most expensive bass was probably my 4-string Status S2 Classic that had to come from Israel and I had to pay customs fees and 21% VAT when it arrived. All in all it came in at around €1700 I think, which is still good considering they were around €4000 new in the end.

I know the owner of the lefty model all the way at the bottom. It's an interesting beasty for sure, but I don't like the wonky shape. That Helectrix model is really cool!

My Grand Prix (Grand PRE, get it? ) is the "redface" version, which in this case is a stupid nickname because all that's red is a small area around the SWR logo. If you're familiar with SWR amps there are no surprises on this one: it's got the typical SWR controls and tone. It has the aural enhancer, 4-band EQ with semi-parametric low mid and high mid, a push-pull pot on the bass knob for a high pass filter, and an FX blend on the front panel for the effects loop. On the back there's two balanced XLR outputs (one for recording with a ground lift and switching between line and direct), one with its own volume control, an effects loop, an output to tuner, two unbalanced outputs to a power amp or amp head, and an unbalanced output that sits before the preamp's master volume. On the front there's a headphone out with its own volume control. It's a great unit and very versatile. I bought it for home use, but I'm usually too lazy to plug it in and play either through a combo amp or straight into my little USB mixer. Good call, I should try that. I have a few JJ 12AX7's laying around.

Ampeg SVP-PRO, SVP-CL and an SWR Grand Prix here - though I only really use the SVP-PRO. The SWR needs maintenance, it has a constant little fizzy hum. The switch in one of the push-pull pots was broken but is working again now, and a previous owner modified one of the output jacks for some reason. Then again it was cheap (€100).

Aye, reminded me of Paramore a LOT. I thought it deserved to finish higher up.