Any excuse to get it out (ooer). I first posted about this in a remarkably short-on-detail entry back on page 1 (15 years ago!), and it's still as gorgeous now as the day I first picked it up in March 2007, more so in fact. Behold, my custom J5... English white ash body with a burr poplar top, matching front/back facings on the headstock and matching ramp, all in a satin baccy-sunburst finish; neck is maple, wenge and flamed maple with a bird's eye maple board; orange side LEDs; Delano quad-coil humbuckers with coil taps, and Jon's own 3-band EQ with a push/push switch on the volume control for the LEDs; ebony control knobs; Hipshot Ultralite tuners.
I originally specced it with EMG-TW pickups, but I changed them for the Delanos a few years back and they're a thousand times better. The tap setting on the EMGs just made them quieter, but with the Delanos it's a proper tone change. The neck pickup adopts a split-P arrangement when it's tapped, which is ideal.
I didn't gig the bass much (if at all) for a few years, using my Sire V7 instead, but I've started taking the Shuker out instead of late and to be honest I've barely even looked at the Sire for months. As good as the Sire is, this is just perfect. Even now after all these years, I have to keep looking at it to make sure it's actually mine.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... when I took it to Jon to get the Delanos fitted, he told me that another customer had seen his gallery pics of my bass and loved it so much that they had him build a six string version to a virtually identical spec.