LeftyJ

The Ibanez TMB35 could suit your needs, it's an affordable shortscale 5-string with classic styling, simple passive electronics (2x volume, 1x tone) and quality build for the price.

Exactly! Who takes a loud and unwieldy 100 watt tube stack on the road anymore, when you can get an eerily close emulation (or hyperrealistic IR profile) from your Kemper, Quad Cortex or Helix? Marshall has long been out-marshalled by both the modelling and IR guys AND the tube amp guys. Have you heard the PRS HDRX amps yet? They're an incredible Marshall Plexi inspired amp that's both practical, loud and affordable and offers blend controls for internally linking (and blending to taste) of the two channels that you'd normally patch with a short cable at the front of an old Marshall. They're absolutely brilliant. I think for guitar amp manufacturers these days, it's important to have on offer: - good (home) studio tools, i.e. something compact and quiet that can emulate the tones of your classic and modern amps; - loud but compact gear for small club or pub shows; - maybe small batches of your big heads and cabs for the few rocking dinosaurs still out there (guilty!). Marshall were very late to the modelling game, with their Code series, and chose to have these emulate their own amps only (OK, and an American clean, American OD and American high gain model) instead of offering a wide range of models to cater to a wider audience so these are incredibly limited for what they are. I think Marshall may have also misjudged what taking over Eden Bass Amplification would bring them. They made a loss, and had to sell Eden to Gear4music.

Yep, Jeff Kiesel is a bit of a tool. I don’t really like where their design direction went after the name change either, with all the bevels and bland headstock shapes. I kinda liked the LB shape (now out of production) and love the old rounded DC guitar shape. They're very comfortable to play and just have a classic look to them.

Ah yes, in their new Guantanamo Bay Orange finish, of course.

Finished musical instruments were exempted from CITES rules in August 2019 - with the exception of Brazilian rosewood. Ebony was never on the list, it was always mostly about rosewood

Maybe @Smanth?

The Fender Colombian Professional series, with a hidden drug compartment (and another one in the proprietary hardshell case!).

The Indecision Bass: when you can't choose what finish you want, so you just pick them all (i.e. those patchwork basses Sandberg builds).

Status necks aren't made of carbon wrapped around a core material, but rather start out as an outer shell that was shaped in a compression mould by vacuuming it. The core material (foam) is added later and does nothing in terms of shaping or adding to the structural integrity / rigidity Here's a nice example of someone who made a (succesful!) attempt at building his own Status Streamline-inspired bass from scratch: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/headless-full-carbon-fiber-bass.1064945/

They were last year's limited edition, as they do every year, and they were only around as long as the very limited supply lasted. The 2023 model appears to be a Corvette $$ with an ebony fingerboard instead of wenge, a custom 12th fret inlay and what looks like a Macassar ebony top. Which isn't exactly spectacular, they've done several versions of the Corvette $$ already with various top woods. Reactions on the Warwick forum were underwhelmed to say the least. Looks like there will be both a teambuilt version with bolt-on neck and a masterbuilt version with neck-through construction, similar to what they did with the 2022 Streamette. This is the masterbuilt neck-through:

I've used Italia Leather Straps a lot, and think I own around 8 of them - both 2" and 3" width versions. They're great, my oldest and most used one has been with me for around 15 years now and used extensively, and shows zero wear. Currently the ones I use most are my Mono straps though. My Status S2 Classics each have their own Mono The Betty (extra long), and my Carvin DC727 has a Mono Warsaw in grey seatbelt material that matches wonderfully with the silver metallic finish on the guitar.

The fret work looks absolutely stellar! Whoever did it did a beautiful job with great attention to detail. I particularly love the rounded fret ends.

The Sony wireless system and some of the more expensive Line6 systems even have a function to mimic signal loss due to long cables

Quite fond of mine too! Both are German Streamer LX's, the 4-string is a 2002 and the 5-string is a 2003 I think - I don't have them at hand right now, I'm at work. The 5-string was my main axe for a few years. It rarely leaves my rack anymore, but I could never bring myself to sell it. I changed the worn gold hardware to black. The 4-string is played regularly

Bold = still in possession: The Animal AB20/08 practice amp EBS 300 Gorm 2x10 Ashdown ABM300 EVO II C210T + ABM115 Compact Line 6 Lowdown Studio 110 (for home practice and recording) EBS HD350 + EBS Proline 410 EBS NeoDrome 12-150 (mostly used at home, the big rig and the preamps reside in my rehearsal space. Plenty loud for rehearsals, small gigs or as a monitor though) EBS MicroBass II Ampeg SVP-CL Ampeg SVP-PRO SWR Grand Prix

Oh my! I'm loving the CW's, but the S2 Classic with the pickups in the CW positions stands out for me. To me they just look better without a headstock, the shape works really well without a head. Lovely couple!

Sorry, I should have elaborated more (or at all ). I just think the guitar in the opening post looks like a Jazzmaster with a few prosthetic limbs. Which isn't a problem in itself, but I think the various parts aren't exactly a visual match. I can understand that the creator had to work around the limitations of his 3D printing equipment, but they could have done a better job making it visually appealing. Like these guys: Imagine that with a woven graphite neck!

I've been playing active basses for many years and still do, and I have long liked to have many controls because to me "many knobs" was synonymous with "versatile". But I have come to appreciate simpler controls, and varying my tone with my plucking position and style. I also tend to keep tweaking whenever I'm playing an instrument that has many tonal options. I have found that for me, the perfect bass has two pickups, master volume, pickup pan, bass boost and treble cut (I'll happily take a passive tone control and an active bass control). I never touch the mids on my basses that have a mid control, and I don’t get along with filter preamps. I like my controls to have a "neutral" setting either at 0, 10 or a center click so I can always easily go back without having to search for it. And I like having a bypass switch for the controls so I can use them as a sort of preset that I can always go back to. I have found only one downside to active basses: when you play with pedals a lot (especially overdrives and fuzzes) the output impedance seems to matter a lot. Passive basses seem to get a better response from some pedals than actives.

Sure is! I love it so much, I barely touch my other (longscale) 4-strings anymore. It has a few quirks, but I can appreciate them: it has 16,5mm spacing at the bridge, so it's fairly narrow - but not dissimilar to my Warwick Streamer LX5 and the Stingray 5 I used to have, so it doesn't feel all that weird. And the 2-band EQ is boost only, whereas I would have appreciated a treble cut to shave off some of the inherent brightness in its tone. It's also slightly neckdivey. Otherwise just a lovely instrument with a very luxurious, high-end feel and quality to it.

I picked up a (barely) used Harley Benton PB Shorty the other day, for sh*ts and giggles mainly. For the €50 I paid I didn't expect much, and in all fairness, it delivers. Supercheap tuners, poor fretwork (uneven frets with sharp ends), a "quick and dirty" black finish with a nice orange peel texture, and a truss rod nut made of chewing gum that is misaligned with the access hole, so no key will fit and the hole will be stripped soon. When I tuned it for the first time, the low E tuning post barely handled the string tension and there are some serious grooves in them from the string winds. But! The neck feels remarkably good and comfortable (despite being a bit bendy) and this thing is so much fun to play! And the best part is it sounds exactly how you'd expect from a miniature P Bass. I don't think it will last long (and I don't think I'll be keeping it for long) but for now I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it.

There's a whole thread about the TRB series that might be of interest https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/188461-yamaha-trb-history/#comment-1825191

Only UK builder I have any hands-on experience with are Status, who are great. But I've been drooling over many a UK build that was posted on this forum, especially the many beautiful ACG's that have been pictured here were particularly GAS-inducing.

Not so much. He announced it in his statement when he "closed shop", he said he was working on a special project that he would unveil soon. This must have been it! That's absolutely AWESOME. I love the reversed LED colours on the FPPR one. Very tasty. I'm not generally a fan of LED position markers, but Status and LED's go very well together.