Chris2112

[quote name='Mark Latimour' post='1084599' date='Jan 10 2011, 06:26 PM']As for John looking like a "mug", I really don't see it myself. He has no control over this situation and has come off looking pretty reasonable.[/quote] Mark, such a situation would be enough to make a mug of anyone, but especially so in the case when something extremely expensive which you own and initially thought was unique turns out to have an extremely convincing copy made of it. Someone has went to great effort here and has left John looking like a mug. It's definitely a proper mugging off, and would make a mug of the best men. Especially when it's out of your hands; as we see the bass has been sold and may never resurface!

And therein lies the danger John. Like you, I would take one look at that "fake" and think it was a real Ritter, and a particularly nice one at that, with none of the over the top excess that spoils some of Ritter's other instruments. I can see why someone would be taken in by it. Hopefully Jens will chime in soon and clarify whether or not he did indeed make the bass.

I bet Rickenbacker are spinning in the grave over these high quality copies!

Yes, those trousers are the most remarkable thing about the video, she looks ridiculous!

You just couldn't try and cover Shawn Lane's "Not Again" and just make up a bassline as you went along. That bassline is just perfection coming from a Modulus Quantum (I am of course referring to the 'Powers of Ten, Live!' album).

Those LX basses were always overlooked. Pretty reasonable used prices (or at least they were a couple of years ago) and all the quality you'd expect from Warwick, especially before they started cheapening things with Ash Covettes and $$'s.

At that price range I'd probably lean towards a used Squier VMJ.

I hear there isn't much between these and the top dollar Stingrays. I'd like to try a couple and see if thats true! It wouldn't surprise me after seein how good the Squier Classic Vibe jazz bass is!

They sound great but I've never liked the silk wrapping on the tops. I've been meaning to try the recently reintroduced Funkmaster strings as these were what Geddy Lee used in the 80's when he was playing Wal basses. It would be awesome if they unwrapped at the top!

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='1083597' date='Jan 9 2011, 09:01 PM']I'd recommend the Bass merchant certainly. Nice guys, great basses and a free coffee Enjoy. Oh and I've a Sandberg PM5 I need to add to my sig. Guess where that came from Peter[/quote] Peter, I can't believe you have an ACG and a Status Empathy bass. You have great taste in basses!

There is some pretty awesome playing in this cool John McLaughlin tune. I've got the CD in the cupboard so I'm not sure who is on the bass here but it sounds like Hadrien Feraud so I'd guess it's him!

Quite frankly, I'm surprised there isn't a bigger market for fake boutique basses.

[quote name='KevB' post='1084267' date='Jan 10 2011, 02:39 PM']Not a member on TB so rarely even look at the site but this was an interesting thread and I think I read most of it. All the usual posturings of recognised forum types, the 'nudge nudge I'm on the inside' expert types to the die hard 'fighting for justice' vigilante types and even whiffs of conspiracy and big dollops of 'it's us little guys against the big corporate machine' mentality. Fascinating. 45 pages of the stuff and it's still not sorted, it's possible that the true facts might never come out which would be a shame as there are still unanswered questions, the main one being is it really a true fake at all?[/quote] Yes, the thread is standard TB fare. The "inside types" remain cryptic, the vigilante martyr types reamin over the top in their "I will fight to the death to see justice done" stance and John Turner looks like a mug because of the whole sorry situation. At the moment, it's all a bit strange because Jens Ritter doesn't seem to have stated either way that the bass is real or fake. For all we know, JT could be holding the fake as the other bass looks better than his if I'm honest! If it's a mistake in the serial numbering of basses I wouldn't be surprised.

Of all the myriad preamps I've come across over the years, the Tonepump has been one of the better ones. A friend of mine used to have two Spectors, one US made with a Hazlab preamp and one Euro with an Aguilar preamp. The Hazlab was the best sounding of the two, but when I A/B'd my Euro against his basses it sounded a lot better than the Aguilar and not far behind the Hazlab one. The Hazlab preamp sounded amazing, absolutely great. Thats what Fodera used to use, and I believe Victor Wooten's #1 Monarch has this preamp. The Spector in question certainly sounded said fairly "Wooten".

[quote name='Russ' post='1083840' date='Jan 10 2011, 01:42 AM']There's actually some rather nice looking Jem and Universe ripoffs available from that Tradetang site - here's a nice Jem7V ripoff.... [url="http://www.tradetang.com/for-sale/Free-shipping-new-seven-strings-electric-guitar-for-sale-electric-guitar-/137320-2203578.html"]http://www.tradetang.com/for-sale/Free-shi...20-2203578.html[/url][/quote] This is the sort of thing I had seen, with the cheap, dull looking hardware and so forth. I recall seeing an Ibanez Joe Satriani model with the "Fred" finish which looked particularly poor but this counterfeiting has come a long way if the Ritter thread is anything to go by!

The daft thing is, on a relatively simple bass like a Ric or a Stingray (which seem to be the most copied) I doubt there is much to separate them, especially if you can get a fretjob and setup done when you buy them in. I'm not surprised people are making money off this. It's also funny that Musicman and Rickenbacker are the most copied, saying as they are the ones who are so desperate to protect their designs!

[quote name='icastle' post='1083822' date='Jan 10 2011, 01:23 AM']Ritter aren't the only ones being faked. I see that Ibanez have a Counterfeit Warning on their homepage...[/quote] Ibanez fakes have been big news for about 5 years now, maybe more. There is a big market for older Ibanez, particularly the "shred boom" era models of the late 80's and early 90's. Things like Steve Vai signature Jem and Universe guitars and the Joe Satriani Signature models with the exotic paintjobs were commanding high prices (they still continue to appreciate too) along with other models from the era. I think it was initially revealed when a Chinese Ebay seller was offloading a number of the paint swirl Universe and Jem models. Now, these are fairly rare anyway and to have such a number was a giveaway. It's really only Ibanezrules.com and the Jem site that get decent numbers of second hand paint swirl models coming through. A couple of people spotted them and it was pretty obvious they were dodgy fakes. However, a few had worked their way around the world and iffy Ibanez guitars were beginning to appear in America. Ibanez were made aware of it and have been warning about dodgy Ibanez guitars ever since. In fact, at one point they had a buyers guide up with the advice of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". These things were being made on a large scale, there must have been a factory producing them. I remember seeing a fake Jem7V at a shop in Newcastle. It was very hokey and obviously fake from a mile away (as it's £200 price tag suggested) with some very iffy electronics, a woeful knock off tremolo and some incredibly poor inlay and fretwork.