LeftyJ

To be fair, Cor-tek has a unique position because they make a load of their hardware themselves. Bartolini-licensed Mk1 pickups and preamps? Made by Cort! Hipshot-licensed Ultralite copies? Made by Cort! Select by EMG? Made by Cort! The more affordable CND (Carey Nordstrand Design) pickups on Ibanez Premium basses? Also made by Cort, as are all Indonesian-made Ibanez guitars and basses! It wouldn't surprise me if the Omega bridge (which is sold under the Allparts brand, as Allparts has acquired the Leo Quan company) is also made in the far East by one of Cor-tek's suppliers or Cor-tek owned companies and they can get them cheap.

I've owned 2 MIJ Ibanez ATK300's that were remarkably similar. I had one favourite, but only for being my first. They felt and sounded truly the same, and were very similar in weight and feel. What's more striking to me is how different a 5-string version of the same bass can be! I also still own an MIJ ATK305 that looks and feels the same, but sounds very different despite all the same woods, pickup and electronics. I think it has something to do with the wider neck, and the effect of simply having to move more wood. It sounds nowhere near as warm and punchy as the 4-strings did. Instead it sounds much tighter and brighter and has more of a mid-scoop than the 4-strings I owned. The 4-strings just sounded so much more alive! It makes sense to me now, but back when I first got it I was expecting it to be an exact copy of my 4-strings but simply with an extended range. It really was a different beast though! I have since experienced the same with other instruments that I have both a 4- and 5-string version of, although these differ on more specs than just neck width: I have both a Warwick Streamer LX4 (2001) and LX5 (2003), both with solid flamed maple bodies, ovangkol necks, wenge fingerboards and bell brass frets, but with the 4-string being a reverse P-J combo, and the 5-string a J-J configuration. The 4-string again sounds warmer and with a more pronounced midrange, but amplified and played acoustically; I have both a Status Graphite S2 Classic 4-string and 5-string, but there's some 10-15 years between them and they don't have the same pickup and preamp. I think the body woods are different too, the 4-string being alder and the 5-string a lighter-weight poplar. Again, the 4-string is more resonant and warmer sounding. Still the 5-string is currently my favourite bass.

Very cool! I think Mark Ronson played a 4-string version at Glastonbury 2019 when he joined King Princess for one song. It looks to be modded with Basslines pickups and simpler electronics though:

I wonder what inexpensive country will be next, now that we're already seeing some pretty high-end gear coming from Indonesia at pretty steep prices. The most expensive Indonesian-made Ibanez Premium costs more than the entry-level Japanese-made Ibanez (not a Prestige, mind. Think Genesis Collection). I bet in 20 years time the used market will be filled with expensive "vintage" Squiers from "back when they were still made in Indonesia, much better than they are now!"

This isn't new right? The U5 was introduced at 2020's Winter NAMM and has been for sale for several months now. @Bassdude BE posted a lengthy but rather excellent review of one of these here.

I had a similar dent in the neck of an old Squier. A luthier I often went to suggested to fill it with clear lacquer. One drop at a time, then let it cure, add another drop, let it cure, and so on. So I left it with him, but when I still hadn't heard back from him after a full month it turned out he had refinished the entire back of the neck (he did a cracking job though, and the dent is still very much visible through the clear lacquer but can't be felt!) Even though he didn't do what we agreed upon, I think his suggestion was probably a good and effective one.

I don't want to make this more complicated for the topic starter, but I always thought it was only called a "bullet" on the so-called bullet truss rods on 1970s Fenders (which are actually bullet-shaped), and is called a truss rod "nut" on all other guitars and basses.

This! The pictures don't help much, to be honest. When you press the strings down at fret 1 and fret 14, how much clearance is left between the string and the frets at the highest point, and at what fret? This will help give an indication of just how convex the neck is.

They changed their headstocks after Fender threatened to sue. They used to have exact copies of the Fender headstock, but now they've more or less "reversed" the cutout. I'm not a fan either.

Warwick-branded tuners are surprisingly affordable, and pretty solid. When I wanted to replace the gold hardware on one of my Streamers with black I was pleasantly surprised by their prices. Thomann stocks them, and Warwick's own webshop is rather excellent too. Don't know if any UK suppliers do too.

Come to think of it, I think this might very well be your problem. If the output transformer of the Nordell is straining to provide more current than it is capable of (the 100mA limit per output) the output voltage may drop and this may cause your pedals to either not work, or for things to get damaged by underpowering them. Your power supply needs to provide a higher current than your pedals require, so they can draw as much from the output as they'll need. TC Electronics only specifies the minimum current rating, but not the maximum so it's hard to tell how many mA they'll draw at their peak. The switching power supply can also be an issue, as these often don't like mixed loads.

To be fair, so is a "Teambuilt", and even a "Masterbuilt", Warwick: they're CNC-routed, in standardised shapes with run-off-the-mill hardware and electronics. Of course there's a lot of attention to detail, and a lot of manual labour still goes into the fit and finish of each instrument. But in my opinion it really doesn't justify why they're so wickedly expensive. That Streamer Stage II posted above is to die for, but 4000 pounds? And this one is over 7000!

I quite like this demo by Nathan Navarro:

It looks huge in the video, with a fairly short upper horn. I wonder how far away that first fret on the low B is when playing that on a strap!

Lakland Jerry Scheff signature!

The Strandberg Boden basses are made in Indonesia as well, and much more expensive. In my opinion the Ibanez EHD makes the Boden bass more or less obsolete, unless you really want that EndurNeck. It would be cool of Ibanez did a Prestige version though.

I love Atlansia! The company is run by Nobuaki Hayashi, better known as H. Noble, who designed many iconic Matsumoku-era Aria Pro II guitars and basses like the famous SB series. I love his mad professor-approach to guitar building, constantly coming up with solutions to problems that don't exist, often completely ignoring ergonomics and userfriendliness but always beautifully engineered. He doesn't play guitar or bass himself, he got involved in guitar manufacturing when he was building wooden cabinets for Matsumoku sewing machines!

If it runs on an external power supply, it's very unlikely its outputs are fully isolated. All the 9V outputs probably run a common ground. Ideally you'll want a multi-tap transformer on the power supply itself, when going from 230V to 9V. The Nordell is a rebranded Joyo JP-02, which is sold under many names. It has an external switching power supply, and most definitely does not have isolated outputs. True electrical isolation requires a transformer with separate secondary windings for each output section and this is why the products from Voodoo Labs, T-Rex, and others are more expensive (and also why they are a bit bigger and heavier.) The T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon has a transformer with 5 independent secondary windings and 5 voltage regulators. The Joyo product in contrast has only 2 voltage regulators: One for all of the 9v outs and one for the 12v out. (The 18v out comes straight off the wall-wart voltage.) That would explain why more than one output failed at the same time. It only has some sort of short circuit protection. This site offers an excellent and rather in-depth comparison of most power supplies on the market today: https://stinkfoot.se/power-supplies I don't know enough about electronics to understand how it could have damaged your pedals. Your TC pedals require a minimum of 100mA, and the looper draws 94mA. The 9V outputs of the Nordell are 100mA each, so that should be just enough. The external power supply gives 18V at 1000mA.

That would be a certain mr Gary Willis, it comes stock on his signature Ibanez basses 🙂

New pickup arrived today, I installed it this evening and it sounds great. The bass is in perfect working order again. Thanks!

That guide is nice, and very useful if you're talking volume or regular tone pots. However, the C4H has an active EQ, and 100k audio taper pots are perfectly normal for an EQ knob because your on-board preamp alters the impedance of your signal, so the rating of your pots will need to match it. I wouldn't change the value, because it will either not work, or sound different.

Pretty ill-prepared

As a lefty, this is extra funny to me and something I've never given any thought! I have only once bought a bass from stock, because there usually simply weren't any. On the rare occasion I bought something totally new in a shop, it always had to be ordered for me and arrived untouched and boxed, at the risk of not liking it and having to sell it at a loss (or not buying it and losing my deposit). The one exception was an Esh Stinger I that I bought in a shop where the Lefty Bass Day was held. I had been coming there for 4 consecutive years and that very same bass had been there for all those years and it had intrigued me from the very first time I laid eyes (and hands!) on it. The last time the price had dropped by a lot because the shop was clearing stock to focus on amp building (CMS Music in Duisburg, Germany is no more, and is now Rheingold amplification). That said, I've never really thought of shop models as used or even secondhand. I think it's important to be able to try a bass out first, and pick the one that suits you best because it's something so personal! You just can't say "I like this one, so get me an identical one from your storage that hasn't been touched" because the new one could very well feel and sound different. I buy all my instruments used these days, often having them shipped to me without being able to try them out first. The lefty community is fairly small, so I often know the seller or other previous owners from different forums like this one. This will sometimes only add to how I feel about an instrument, and it builds trust

Wow, I wonder if those rules apply with shippers here as well. I received a Warwick Streamer LX just over a week ago from a private seller that was shipped in just its original gigbag, with a DHL label directly on the gigbag. The only form of additional protection added were two old t-shirts around the headstock to protect the tuning machines. I certainly wasn't expecting it shipped like that! But more importantly, I guess I (or the seller) got really lucky nothing happened to it during shipping, with all the steps involved in its logistics! According to DHL's track and trace site, tt was picked up by DHL at the seller's home address in the north of the Netherlands, then transported to DHL's central sorting hub on Zaventem airport in Brussels, Belgium before heading back to DHL's delivery hub in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and from there on in a delivery van to my work address in Gouda. DHL's proof of delivery claims it was delivered to me and that I signed for it in Amsterdam, strangely. Due to the current covid-19 measures, they don't take a signature and just ask for confirmation of your name (but to make it easy they just ask "Are you [add your name here]?" so anyone can say yes and accept your package).

That has to be one of the most beautiful Thumbs I've ever seen! That bubinga pommelé looks superb, and the dark ebony fingerboard really sets it off. Does it have matching ebony tuning knobs too?