3below

Walking bass-lines book bought from John. Excellent communication, well packed and superfast arrival. Deal with confidence.

Yet another on ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1981-Kramer-Stagemaster-Bass-Aluminum-Neck-Rare-Vintage-Dimarzios/264251852748?hash=item3d86a347cc:g:cvgAAOSwHOlcYfRN Not an Imperial and not as nice looking as the one you pictured. USA location so much price creep with import duty & VAT.

Remove bridge, make the string holes deeper (avoid drilling through body), refit bridge. When stringing up, place spacer nuts / old ball ends on the strings. This moves the ball end back into the body, silks etc now behind bridge saddles, Depends on what bridge the DMZ has, mine is BBOT fender style, others have Schaller (branded Kramer), have also seen Badass types fitted. Mine does a bit despite the body weight. Largely but not totally cured by a wide grippy strap and forearm resting on upper bout cutout. Having stopped my SG bass neck diving by putting Hipshot lightweight tuners on it I am going to try some of the Schaller lightweight M4s. I might try a quick change of bridge to a Badass (borrowed from a bass I have from you) and see if that helps. I have also considered getting a replica body made with a longer upper horn. Bonus feature of the DMZ4001 is the standard P size pickup. Plenty of readily fitting alternatives available if the DiMarzio is not to your taste.

I have a DMZ401, bought from this forum at a price that I am still amazed at , thank you to one BCer. Great bass, really well built. Never had any tuning stability issues even in a rapidly temperature changing venue. Plus points, the DiMarzio pickup, the way the bass almost 'plays itself'. The strings respond back with great elasticity / boing. Hard to describe but a pleasure to play, the string response is unlike any other bass I have in a good way. Clarity of notes is superb, no deadspots, even response over most of the neck. It is, as Shaggy states, 'toppy' even with TI flats. Downsides, it is heavy and needs a good strap to prevent neck dive. You will need to do a small (non visible, diy) mod to prevent string silks going over the bridge. It is one of my keepers, in the late 70s / early 80s it was the bass I wanted but bought a USA Fender P as the cheaper alternative lol.

Sadly I am just too far away from East Sussex, seems a shame if someone does not use it for something.

IMO that is in 'lap of the Gods', however I could easily be wrong. Could you get a cheap p bass pickup, hack the case about and bodge it in to the Ibanez - depends on size of pickup routes available. What is the size of the sr800 pickup?

Why not get a pickup (or pickups) made that fit the sr800 and have P type winding and tone. Kent Armstrong springs to mind but there are other pickup makers as well. This way you keep the sr800 intact and save on the woodwork.

How have you managed to get my maple neck sunburst SB1 with the crackle scratchplate and smooth headstock? OK, just checked in my bass cave, and mine is still with me . Yours is the first I have seen in UK based picture. They are a great bass, I really like the smaller body compared to a Precision. My 5er is an L1505, not quite as 'vintage'.

Looks like oak to me... I have built an oak faced bass which (IMO) rather nice...

Have owned my SB1 from 1990, it is not going anywhere else soon....

G&L the hidden value for money basses - I have two.

In my first 5 string foray the 17mm string spacing defeated me, I just gave up fighting 40+ years on 4 string 19mm spacing. I had bought a really good value bass on BC, someone else (I forget now) got a good value bass onwards. My current 5er has 18mm string spacing and after about 2 years I am no longer mis-hitting strings or getting on the wrong string. Practice makes perfect I think. It surprised me how much the change of string spacing affected me on the 5er since I happily change between 4 stringers with very different string spacing. I find the 5er allows me to play mainly between position 3 to 7 where I get the strongest and most even string tones, this zone is the sweet spot on most basses for me.

Exploder bring it on

A large part of my youth late 70s early 80s was spent playing Ceildh / Scottish / Irish folk music. At that time there were certain tunes and keys that would have been easier / better sounding with a 5 stringer (or kit of the quality we have these days). These days I play rock / blues and enjoy the fretted E on my G&L 5er with a massive baseball neck and my small hands. I am not a fan of small / thin necks.

The build inspires me towards a FenderRD, FenderD? RD body and Fender neck, finding an aftermarket bolt on Gibbo 4 aside neck seems hard.

In this type of build if you wanted 'exotic', the ply top (and/or back) could be higher quality stuff e,g flamed etc. I really like birch ply edges in furniture, I keep thinking about this (as above) method for something semi-acoustic and large I have in mind. A very 'low rent' bass I owned in my youth (Kay? Woolworths type Kay?) had a neck made from edge on ply, Rock solid and not bad. Everything else hmm.

German Warwicks are out there for very reasonable money (I have two). I also had a Chinese Rockbass 5 string fretless (from this very forum) which was a) outstanding value for the money and b) staggeringly high quality build and finish. Prior to getting the Germans I bought (and still own) a Chinese Corvette which is about 90 to 95% of the German quality. It was also at giveaway money. Wait long enough and they appear at good money, I would buy German for long term value unless a Rockbass comes your way at a price you can not refuse.