LeftyJ

I never thought I would do this... First flatwounds on my Sandberg Lionel shorty, and now mutes The Acinonyx one is for my Atelier Z Baby Z-4J which has narrower string spacing. Yes, I know I paid too much (ordered directly from Carey). But I was sold after trying one from the guy I bought my Sandberg from.

I use one by Harley Benton with a detachable bit that fits in a power drill. I pair mine with a small Bosch IXO 5 electric screwdriver which works great! It turns fairly slow, it's nowhere near power drill territory so it works precise enough for roughly tuning up to where I need to be and doing the last stretch by hand: Harley Benton Speedwinder – Thomann

I think it had to do with ovangkol being a less rigid wood than wenge. But presumably Warwick got an offer they couldn't resist on a huge supply of ovangkol that would last them 10+ years Both my Streamer LX's are early 2000's and chunky too, especially my 5-string, but not uncomfortably so to my big hands.

Warwick abandoned wenge necks in 1998, in favour of ovangkol. At the same time the neck profile changed to a chunkier shape. So yours must be from just before the change They moved back to thinner necks around 2009/2010.

Holy crap. Formatting? When pasting text from another source, the forum has a button in the text editor to remove the source formatting. Select the text you want to edit, and tap the icon that looks like an underscored T with a tiny subscript X next to it. Would improve readability a LOT here I think the main difference is in the hardware and electronics. The basic framework is near identical, and both have used pretty generic hardware, depending on model year. The real Mayo's have had hardware by Warwick (the familiar 2-piece bridge and tailpiece), WSC but also Schaller depending on year. The MEC pickups and electronics aren't exactly sloppy or cheap, but also not quite in Bartolini territory. The Mayones BE4 Gothic I once played came stock with active EMG's and VVT controls. It really depends on the exact model and year.

That's a lot of money for a cable with non-serviceable plugs, even if they are Switchcraft! The lifetime warranty is nice, so I guess it isn't a problem, but I would much prefer a cable with plugs I can (re)solder myself. I've been a very happy Spectraflex user for many years now, and at home I use a few Sommer cables with silent jacks (the Thomann site doesn't mention it, but that gold ring around the straight jack is very much a switch) that were very affordable but high quality.

Nice alright, but very much righthanded

Today I learned my spending problem is actually just a nickel allergy

Yes, you're not going to find a new one within your budget (the cheapest at Thomann is this Corvette at 1880 GPB) but you can definitely find used ones out there. For example: (unfortunately not a 5-string) this Corvette Standard at 550 GBP.

Not necessarily, a used Corvette Standard, Fortress One or one of the bolt-on Streamers can be found for affordable prices. The real question here is if you can find one that's light I paid €500 each for my Streamer LX and LX5 in 2013 and 2022, but their solid flamed maple body and chunky ovangkol neck make them heavy beasts despite the body's compact dimensions.

This thread is 8 years old and was just dug up by a new member who specifically joined to leave that message about the G&L JB-2 and then left again ...which is an odd suggestion, as it is just a regular passive Jazz Bass with a somewhat Stingrayish shape.

Good call! According to Warwick, they're an alloy of copper, zinc and iron and should not contain any nickel. To confuse matters though, Warwick explicitly refers to their fret material as bell bronze, not brass. However, bronze would primarily be a copper and tin alloy and brass would be primarily copper and zinc - and there's no tin in Warwick's frets according to them. Some googling shows that bronze very much can contain small amounts of nickel.

Where have they been hiding that CNC router from us all this time? (edit: image taken from a Rickenfaker ID thread, so not a real Ric. Routing job of the wiring channel is accurate though )

Came here to say this I was just looking up the story on that bass and stumbled upon a story by someone who claimed to be a friend of Tye, who says it never evolved past the two or three prototypes (one was a fretless apparently) because the involved Fender custom shop Master Builder got caught with porn on his work computer and was subsequently fired (?). There were also the Fender Heartfield DR-6 and DR-6C (the latter is a neck-through version) which have a reasonably goodlooking 3+3 headstock - though one could argue they're not true Fenders.

When specifically searching for "stainless frets" on the Thomann website, the cheapest 5-strings that pop up are the new Sire Z7-5 Stingray-inspired basses at €709 euros. Maybe have a look at these? Edit: Ha, great minds think alike!

I had an Italia Torino Bass a few years ago. My 2 cents: yes and no To elaborate: because of the large body, and the bridge sitting relatively far forward, it was a fairly big bass. It had a separate tailpiece which sat farther back, enabling the use of normal longscale strings. That said, because of the weird plucking position relative to the size of the body (and to counter its tendency to topple over forward, because of the arched back) I always wore it somewhat to my side so the 12th fret was more or less dead center in front of me. This added to the shortscale feel of the bass to me, despite the larger size. It was a fun bass, with a big mudbucker up against the fingerboard and a guitar humbucker underneath a closed cover close to the bridge. It sounded big and thunderous and looked great. It was surprisingly heavy due to the solid maple center block below the bridge and pickups, but played great.

Cool! When I saw them on Later with Jools Holland once she played a gold Fender PJ Mustang. Sounded great too.

With bonus t*tty veins!

With the Marshall JCM2000 series, stick to the DSL models and leave the TSL models alone. They're less reliable. Great call on the 6505 too! Great metal tones - but yes, the clean and crunch could be better. And Blackstar... I don't know with Blackstar. I always feel they sound good on their own, but get lost when playing with others. They look cool, they're packed with useful features, but the HT series lacks top end presence to cut through a mix.

Looks like this one: https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/ksm-4-string-bass-bridge/

With amp modelers and multi FX-units being the norm in metal these days, a good used valve amp can be had for silly money - but can be a tough sell once you want to get rid of it again. For modern rock and metal I agree about looking at the Orange Rocker series. They're cool little amps, but I do feel the controls on the smaller models are a bit limiting (like not having an EQ on the clean channel on some) - and their "clean" isn't exactly clean, with little headroom. The drive channel is great though! I would also take a look at Laney. Their Ironheart series are great high gain amps. Stay away from the small heads (the IRF-models) but look at the IRT30-112 and IRT60-112 instead. And maybe have a look at ENGL amps, they have some smaller combo amps too and especially the older models (Thunder and Screamer, both 50 watt 1x12 combo's) are high quality amps built tough. The Thunder has shared controls between the two channels which can be a bit limiting, whereas the Screamer only shares the EQ section. Look for one that has the original footswitch / floorboard included, they're expensive to buy separately - especially the 6-footswitch affair that pairs with the Screamer, that switches between 4 different sounds (two channels, each with a boost), the reverb or contour filter, and a second master volume for a solo boost.

These are made by TubeAmpology. When they first came out I ordered one directly from the source for my '09 Ric 4003. Unfortunately back then they didn't have all the different varieties of built-in thumb rests yet, so mine was a plain one. Shop Treble Bezels — The Original Treble Bezels By TubeAmpology (thetreblebezel.com)

Nice! That teaser pic suggests they've come up with a better looking headstock shape too - although the tuner placement looks very irregular and weird. I'm really curious to see the final design!

I've had numerous basses that I just wasn't ready for at the time, and that I would appreciate a lot more with what I know now. I had a rather lovely Sandberg Bullet 5 fretless with a simple Noll 2-band preamp and two covered J-pickups that I loved on its own, but I had no idea how to make it work in my band - sonically, mostly. I couldn't get it to cut through and be heard in my bands. Back then I thought it was the bass, but now I know better As far as taste in appearance goes, like @Jason Karloff, I was always into fancy natural woods. Add to that the old "Guitar companies give us lefties only black and sunburst with white pickguards!" - which I both hated. Nowadays I love a well-executed opaque finish, especially metallic or sparkle. And I used to think shortscale basses were for small people and beginners - and apparently, so did many guitar manufacturers because there was hardly a quality shortscale on the market for a long time. But I'm having so much fun playing my Atelier Z Baby Z-4J and my Sandberg Lionel, they're both absolutely brilliant!