Jerry_B

But it sounds the same as some pickups in a plank of wood... If you put together a cheap bass with as much care and attention to materials as you can (or want to) afford, you can end up with something very nice indeed. I don't think spending masses of cash on something for those reasons really makes it better than something that ends up costing much less.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1331577766' post='1575222'] I did say 'sensibly specified' - things like diamond encrusted coffee perculators, solid gold bathtaps and sports cars don't really fall into that category in my world... [/quote] But the asking price for some basses is on the same par, relatively speaking. Fender, etc are guilty of this, despite the fact that there seems to be no real reason for it. Even if we consider more 'normal' prices, is a new Fender bass (for example) really worth £800-1000+? Seems unlikely.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1331471654' post='1573221'] Provided an 'item' is sensibly specified, I tend towards the 'you get what you pay for' adage. That 'item' could be anything from a car to a camera or, in this scenario, a musical instrument. [/quote] Ever been in a TVR or some other performance cars? Money doesn't always buy quality or reliability

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1331451089' post='1572883']I personally think that a £70 bass fitted with £100 worth of new hardware\electronics is just that - a £70 bass fitted with £100 worth of new hardware\electronics. The same category as the 'yoofs' with their £300 Ford Fiestas pimped with £1000 of accessories. [u][b]But[/b][/u], as a way of experimenting in a quest to gain understanding of what makes things work 'under the bonnet', it's hard to beat. Others will insist that the 'final product' is a fully giggable instrument, possibly in an attempt to justify the time they have spent on it to themselves in some way. If that was the reality of course then manufacturers would never be able to sell an instrument costing over £170. [/quote] Hmm, I wouldn't say that's strictly true. Just because a bass has been cheap to put together it doesn't mean it's not as usuable or as 'good' and something that cost ten times as much. I tend to think that the owners of expensive basses live in a bit of dream land where money spent = always better. This doesn't have to be the case. At the end of the day, if a cheap bass is very playable as some bits of wood and the hardware doesn't break, the most important thing is the pickups and some decent wiring backing it up. Everything else in terms of 'quality' is entirely in the mind of the owner.

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1331458078' post='1572948']Mate of mine later went on to play with her .[/quote] Really...?! Oh, you mean in a [i]band[/i]...

Unlined mahogany Fender-like types are rare. You may be able to pick up an older (1990s) MIJ Jazz with an unlined rosewood fingerboard on ebay or gumtree.

But then again the Wilkinson stamp is not noticable - the strings obscure it and it's not easy to see at anything apart from very close up.

As someone once said to me: 'What are you worrying about? No-one looks at the bass player'...

Yuck - it's certainly been beaten with the ugly stick IMHO

Tasty

Thanks chaps! The BC pic uploader squashes and pixelates the images a bit, but I can post some bigger pics if anyone wants to see 'em.

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1330786367' post='1563001']Add on £300 for some serious quality hardware and there's £1k. [/quote] 300 quid? You could get decent enough hardware for about half that if you shopped around here at Basschat and elsewhere So maybe 100 quid or so.

[quote name='cytania' timestamp='1330750933' post='1562538']Mind you £2824 is alot to pay and no furry, sparkly, crazy finish... [/quote] I'd go as far as saying that it's a ridiculous amount to charge, full stop!

I have 3 fretlesses with different fingerboards - this one's mahogany, then I have a lacquered maple Maya Pbass and a rosewood Jazz. There is a slight difference in tone from the fingerboard wood - not much, but a very slight difference. This new fretless has a good overall solid feel when playing. There's a short build diary about it here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/167834-fretless-precision-project"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/167834-fretless-precision-project[/url]

Right, the whole thing's done and dusted now. Here's some pics...

Here's my recently completed bitsa (Allparts, Fender, Schaller, KiOgon, Wilkinson) fretless, with various bits acquired from Basschatters. I could never afford a real fretless Fender P, but this one sounds and plays great for alot less money

The only basses for me now are my T-40 and a bitsa fretless Precision I recently put together (I also have a nice fretted Tokai maple neck for it). They both play and sound just how I like things, to the point that I no longer have any desire to buy anything else. Not that it's not nice to look at other basses, of course, but I have no inclination now to buy them The other basses I have will either get sold, or will I will hang onto some of them them to see if they ever go up in price over the years (a Yamaha BB414 and an unlined fretless MIJ Fender Jazz).

I like the Fender 'Original' pickups. If you're worried about breaking the internals up, take out the whole lot (for now) and get a wiring harness from KiOgon. This give you the option of keeping the original electrics and connections intact and untouched, whilst also giving you an easy way to swap in new pups.

Maybe a Wilkinson bridge? They're cheap and you always have the option of brass saddles. I still don't get hi-mass bridges - they make the action too high, they have no effect on tone/sustain, and cost far to much

I bought a very nice maple Hardpuncher neck from Eamon. It was extremely well wrapped and was sent along to me nice and quickly. Great stuff!

I've found a plectrum in my loft. It looks quite old. I seem to remember being told that it was once used by that bloke from John Entwhistle. I'm going to sell it on Ebay.

Quick update - the new scratchplate and bridge have arrived and been added. I will upload some pics once there's a sunny day. In the meantime, I've also acquired a Tokai Hardpuncher neck from a fellow basschatter, and it fits the body pretty well. It's slightly smaller in the pocket, but not anything remarkable from more than anything but very close distance. I got the Tokai neck just as a backup should I want to dabble in fretted things again - and I like all-black with maple

D'Addario Chromes or LaBella 'Deep Talkin' - preferably light guage (.95 etc).

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1330423914' post='1557055'] STUDS!? I don't think I've ever owned an item with studs on Minus the studs, that's what I usually wear, I must be stuck in the 80's I did wear a white shirt once though...oh and a I did do a gig wearing my second best suit. It was a private function and very enjoyable it was as well. [/quote] Nowadays Metal is a pretty wide church so you can probably get away with what you already wear - unless the band are going down the Judas Priest or KISS route

Weird - I didn't know that Sunn were Indian! That means that my very first bass (back in 1988) was possibly a Sunn, as all I can remember about it was that it was a sunburst Pbass with ashtrays and that somewhere on it it had 'Made in India'... But maybe it wasn't, maybe it was. Anyway, it got overhauled and repianted and then sold, all in the space of 2 weeks!