Machines

They have a few on ebay as damaged. Looking closely it seems like they've had to scrap a whole batch of them due to poor QC. Hard to tell from your pics what the neck is, I think it'll be maple and should be roasted, but may have been stained instead to cut costs. I'd have the neck off to have a look.

Pics please 😀

5 out of 6 will do.

Err yeah. Alas the only way I can prove the point is a phone recording, which will sound like pants.

I think "nothing like" is a stretch. If I recorded my P and J side by side (with same strings) there is a difference, but it's very similar.

Jazz bass neck pickup is 90% close enough for me.

It's mostly the scale length over fret angle I think, i'm going from a 34" to 36.25".

I have a fanned fret 6, and 2 normal 5 strings (34" and 35" scales). After playing the multiscale for a while and going back to the normal, it feels a lot easier, but didn't feel hard on the former. Going from parallel to fanned after a while feels weird, but the adjustment is pretty quick and improves with familiarity.

I'm a few miles east of Tamworth but let's not be pedantic 😆.

Yeah it must have been a part-ex, which makes me a little sad the original owner most likely got about £250 trade in from GuitarGuitar 😬.

I had to zoom in and turn my screen brightness up, I stand corrected. Not sure of point of 18v preamp you can't change the settings on.

Also just noticed it appears to be passive 😨. Also also, that laqueur line on the neck is ming.

I'm a big Myung fan and like Bongos, but this does nothing for me. Agreed with @Lfalex v1.1 that the fingerboard division doesn't seem to have any real utility. No 4 band EQ ? That's got to be the Bongo's best feature taken away too. Pickup switching seems usable though. I expect these will be about £3k, so it's a no from me.

Got this from GuitarGuitar a few days ago. I saw it the day before but was busy packing for a camping trip so decided to leave it, but then ordered it the next day at 5AM whilst staring at a tent roof. I figured it was worth a go and could return it if it wasn't for me. USA Built, June 1995 in Blue Swirl (aka bowling ball finish). In reasonable nick with a few lacquer dings you can only see close up. The finish is quite subtle but really shows up with decent lighting. Stock EMG 40DC pickups and BTC preamp, these were the stop gap between the L-5000 and L-2500 as the 5 string MFD pickups were not yet available. Produced for about 2 years and ~350 were made, mostly in stained ash finishes. It was up for quite a decent price for the spec, only a bit more than you'd pay for a L-2500 Tribute 2nd hand. I can't think of any other USA built instruments that go so cheap, and it is not the quality that is the reason for this. On arrival it didn't work which was a bit annoying, but only a loose volume pot wire, 20 seconds with the soldering iron sorted that. Build and playability is excellent, the tone is very bright and in your face as you'd expect from the pickups, not typical G&L sound at all which may have put people off. For a 34" scale the B string is surprisingly good, no flapping fart noises here. Decent sound demo:

Yeah that's me. I think it's a theme with G&L generally. Not a Fender but it is at the same time. I'll post the L-5500 tomorrow when I have some decent light for pics.

Sounds more like buyer's remorse to me. Legally they had no leg to stand on if it was inspected before collection.

Done, waiting for my brown envelope.

I've had a Dingwall, a few Musicman (SR5 / Bongo 4 & 5), Fenders MM Jazz, Overwaters, Spector. All of them were obviously good instruments, but now my 'go to' bass is a Squier VM Jazz I got for £200. I couldn't justify the capital in the basses value compared to what I could get for under 25% of the cost

It's not about being happy with what you've got. It's the dopamine hit of wanting something new, researching and getting it.

Had a 4 string. Was good fun but never really emulated the intended sounds that closely (except maybe the Rick and Modulus). I think the best way is to treat it as many tones, rather than replacements for the targeted basses.

I really wouldn't be losing any sleep over this, if it sounds decent get on with playing it. If you really want matching pickups get a replacement set or even just covers.

I sold my MIM Jazz pickups on ebay a few weeks go for £30. Had them sitting around for 10 years.

I got £30 quid (10%) of my RedSub Coliseum 6 from Gear4Music as it had a headstock ding. I pointed out this was the same bass used in their YouTube demo, and the ding was visible in the website photos if you zoomed in really close. I was happy with that.

Update - it didn't happen. The seller refunded me on Friday with no explanation provided. It was a USA Stingray 5 (2008) with a Buy-It-Now price of £460, be fun if it had have arrived. I left negative feedback as clearly they were time wasters, but it somehow got removed. Sh*t happens.

Picked this up yesterday... tuned F# to E. £200 second hand, but as new condition with the plastic still on covers. Needed a setup tweak (too low choking notes) and the intonation is today's job, but the pickups seem decent enough and it does the job I want. EDIT: Intonation done, no problems.