DF Shortscale

I wonder if he ever sells anything at these prices, I had a look at the rest of his shop, there are some shockers on there.

Yeah I thought it was a 'touch on the optimistic side'. It has a couple of watchers, which means there must be some people out there thinking it's not completely crazy.

I saw a converted fretless '72 P neck on Reverb for what seems to me like an insane price, around £1.5K (link here). I have something similar which I was going to put up for sale at some point soon but I had a very different price to this in mind, I'm curious what people's thoughts are - to me it seems like this should be priced as anything else that's vintage but modded, but who knows.

The G&L Fallout is basically a Mustang with a humbucker, they might be worth a look if you like that sound.

Cool, let me know if you’re looking to move it on, it needs to go on a Precision so that might just work.

Hmm yeah that does seem a little sketchy. I chucked in a couple of offers on that neck on eBay, both rejected so I'm guessing the seller is expecting to get close to asking price. I suppose it does come with tuners but it is quite a high price. I looked at Warmoth too but by the time you include frets, nut and finish it ends up being more like $370, and that's before tax and shipping. Allparts is coming out on top at £260, but I'll need to factor in a proper set-up / fret dressing etc. All in all, it's gonna end up costing roughly between £400 - £500 whichever way I look at it!

If you have a moment, would you mind expanding on this a little bit please? Wondering what makes let's say a Warmoth neck better than an Allparts neck. I'm guessing fit / finish will be ok with most of those brands, so does it come down to fretwork, weight, overall feel? Or how close it feels to the real thing? Or is it reliability / stability? One thing I really like about USA Fender necks is that (in my experience anyway) they tend to be very stable, I very rarely have to adjust any of my USA necks unless I'm changing string brands - once they're set, they're set.

Having looked around, AllParts seems to be my best bet, they’re MIJ necks from what I can tell. I trust MIJ a bit more than MIM. I’d potentially be willing to fork out the extra for a USA neck with the F on it, but there doesn’t seem to be a maple one for sale anywhere and I have no idea what the difference in quality is actually likely to be between that and one of their MIM necks. Too much of a crapshoot.

Fair enough, looks like I’ll need to up my price. Maybe this is a supply problem too, most of that inventory says ‘no stock’. I’m guessing the issue with Fender’s site is similar, it looks like all they sell is mim necks but they’re more likely just out of stock on usa ones. In any case with 600 quid for a neck (especially once you include shipping and fretwork etc) it might be that buying a used usa fender starts to make more sense.

Hmm maybe I should add that the cost should be vaguely realistic (let's say up to £350ish?) and the neck should be available somewhere within reasonable shipping distance to the UK..

I’m looking for a replacement jazz neck for a USA Fender, and wondering if the necks available directly from Fender are any better than the alternatives that are available online (from places like Northwest Guitars etc). The replacement necks Fender sells are all made in Mexico, and I’m not sure how those compare to the necks on their USA basses - I’m guessing they’re the same but I don’t know what makes the necks on USA basses more ‘special’. Their prices are between £250-350, and they’ll need some fretwork and nut filing etc. Elsewhere, seemingly similar necks without the F logo are maybe £100 less than that. So let’s say you had a really great USA Fender, and you wanted the best possible replacement neck for it - what would you go for?

If you get a chance to try one, pls let us know what you think.

Yeah, really nice sounding duo for sure. I'm not 100% sold on that bridge pickup, it's really nice in that context but I think I'd prefer a single coil / J style pickup back there for the kind of stuff I play. I know there are a bunch of options for pickups, I think I'd configure them a little differently. Although that front pickup sounds nice, not as boomy as I expected.

Yeah looks like you're right! Wasn't aware of that (or him). Here's a video:

It's a copy in body shape only, looks to me like it's a hand built instrument, which would bring it in line with other small builders' prices - actually probably on the cheaper end for a custom hand-built bass. Fender Musicmasters are between £1-2K on Reverb, and they have a crap pickup, single coil hum, terrible bridge and who knows what other issues. They tend to need a bunch of mods to make them playable, and in the process they also lose their 'vintage' value, so the price is actually fairly realistic given the current state of things (which isn't to say it's a price I personally like very much). What makes Musicmasters special is that they are short scale, they have a fairly unique tone, they have 18mm string spacing and they feel really good to play. Until they became collectible in recent years, they were also a cheap mod platform while still being an old Fender. Part of the reason Musicmaster copies have started popping up in recent times is that their value has gone up.