Alanko

Fender Japan RV-24 2024 Vintage Reissue Reverb? Sold here in two colours but listed in twenty different finishes on the Ishibashi website.

Who don't do the TI version? The Jazz Bass equivalent is this: https://guitarpartscenter.eu/en_US/p/BOSTON-JB-410-bass-pickguard-TI/11291

Neither appears to be the 'TI' variant, but the regular 'T' tortoiseshell version. You pleased with them?

My bitsa! Fender MIA Professional II P Bass body and Jazz neck. Hipshot bridge as the original seized up. Black pickguard and tugbar as I liked the look of John Entwistle's infamous 'slab' basses. Not shown here, but currently wired up with EMG GZR pickups. I have the original rosewood neck in storage, but not sure I will ever swap back. Prior to switching the neck I had a mint pickguard on the bass as I didn't like the dark Fender tort pickguard.

Interesting! I assumed that trebly grind was all maple necked '70s P Bass, but some photos show a '60s white rosewood- necked P Bass with a DIY (?) green oversprayed burst going on?

When I joined the internets some 20 years ago, nobody would care if you did anything to a 1978 Fender. The consensus was that pre-CBS instruments were the gems, to be preserved in as-built condition if possible. Some early CBS-era instruments were also seen as good, but you had to hunt them out. Then the Overton window shifted. Stuff from the late '60s and early '70s suddenly had the potential to be good, on occasion. You had to find the one in ten that played as nicely as a hallowed pre-CBS gear. Interesting that stuff from the peak wilderness years of Fender is now considered valuable enough to cause some pause before modding. Then again, London's Calling, Rocket to Russia, No more Heroes etc is all stock '70s P Basses...

My '90s Epiphone Rivoli had a nice meaty neck on it, from memory. Not uncomfortable, but not the half pool cue necks that turn up on some shortscales. One of the few basses I regret selling.

My suspicion is that most end up with an upgraded replacement preamp if used as a main instrument. The benefit being that the body is already routed for batteries, additional controls, etc, versus hogging out a passive bass to house these.

I tend to think Fender should leave active electronics to the competition and focus on making good passive instruments. Their preamp designs carry minimal clout. Fender were late to the game on this one. Even Sire preamps are quietly well regarded online, whereas Fender stuff is just mystery OEM stuff. I might be in the minority on this one, however!

Weird that he talks about the empowerment of modifying instruments yourself, when this is a pre-modified instrument. He talks a lot if rubbish in general, however. Adding a J pickup to a bass gives you more midrange?! Agree with the idea that Fender have been shown up slightly by the spec Sire can deliver for less money.

Im modifying mine on an ongoing basis to work better. As a 'turnkey' bass the Jack Casady is a better option. It is nice to have a 34" hollow bass, however. Especially one with a normal bridge! There are some good tones in this bass. The bridge pickup has the same poke as a Rickenbacker bridge pickup. The neck pickup is all spongy low-end but not too muddy.

My Skyline Hollowbody. An idiosyncratic design with some odd limitations. The neck is bolt-on with a Fender-style pocket and flat neck-to-body angle at the join. This keeps the strings low over the surface of the body, yet the pickups mount like Gibson guitar pickups in rings. These need to kept very low to stop the strings clattering them. The pickups themselves have chromed plastic covers, yet the pickup rings are anodized metal. The pickup chassis is ungrounded and no wires are shielded. It is a noisy bass as a result, prone to static crackles and pops. I've replaced the factory bridge. 20 mm string spacing is too wide for me and the bridge was offset 2 mm to the treble side from the factory. This caused alignment issues.

Mazak rot, or zinc pest, plagues the model railway world. Specific models from specific manufacturers are known for it. Hornby's Class 31 diesels suffer badly from it, within certain eras of manufacturing, with all sorts of bizarre expansion and warping causing the locos to destroy themselves. When I moved into my house the windows all locked internally with stubby metal keys. These must have suffered from mazak rot over time as several of them were too, errr, tumescent to fit in the locks and the paint had spalled off them. At least two of them snapped off in the locks. Cheap nasty pot metal.

Thanks! I didn't know Epiphone offered a T-bird with these sorts of specs. It probably out guns a few Gibson T-birds I've played over the years.

£600 for a 2005 MIM P Bass is the upper limit of acceptable. £450 for an Epiphone Thunderbird is a bit perverse?