Chris2112

I can only imagine how good a Warwick with Alembic pickups would sound. Mike Flynn's old Thumb NT with the Schack preamp also sounded great, his tone was never better IMO.

That nut looks a bit shonky but it could just be the photos.

I just find that the wenge accentuates the upper mids more than ovangkol. The ovangkol does sound good but it's not as 'tight' sounding to my ears as wenge. No Thumb is lacking in midrange but the specific frequencies which each wood accentuates differ. I say this as a connoisseur of Thumbs. I adore them. I can't walk into a room with a Thumb in it without picking it up. I fancy that I might own an NT 4 in the future - wenge neck plz! The best Warwick I've ever played was a 1990 Streamer Ltd Edition that I owned a few years back. Bartolini soapbars, solid birdseye maple wings and a maple thru-neck. It had a lot of Spector quality in the tone. An exceptional bass.

Yes, they are excellent used buys. Check out the guy who took a total bath here recently on a Masterbuilt Stuart Hamm Streamer for a sobering read. Circa £5000 new, couldn't sell for a third of that a few months later...

Pedulla Buzz, of course.

I don't think they have ever been through a rough patch, but the post 2000 period was probably a low point for them, because... 1) The JAN II just wasn't good enough. I don't think I have ever seen a used JAN II model that didn't have the tabs on the side of the nut snapped off. That's easily sorted these days but at the time, it was clearly inferior. 2) The move to ovangkol necks away from wenge. The wenge necks looked better, sounded better and felt better. The ovankgol necks not only sounded worse, but they were cut much fatter too. I had a 1998 Thumb BO 4 string with a wenge neck and a 2005 or 2006 BO 5 Broad Neck. The sound and feel was remarkably different. I once played a violin-honey colour Corvette FNA Jazzman at Howard's and it had a disproportionately massive, clubby neck and miserable tone. I can get on with most any neck so it takes a real stinker to stand out. I never found any reasonable explanation as to why Warwick shifted from a slim C shaped neck to a fat D profile. Perhaps the ovangkol couldn't be cut as thin as wenge. Whilst Warwick have clearly upped their game, they're still in a bit of a range-mess. Aside from the master built stuff, I'm not sure what's German and whats Korean. Their prices have ballooned but they still tank in value massively on the used market.

I've listened to Lateralus plenty over the years but I've never listened to it all the way through. Like any Tool album, it has it's share of dud tracks that I just wouldn't revisit. I love Tool, it has to be said. But given their low work rate and the duff tracks on each album, I feel as though you could take the handful of amazing songs on each record and compile them all together into the ultimate Tool album. That would surely be one of the best rock albums of all time.

I should have bought a Pedulla Pentabuzz years ago. I played one when I was 18 and decided there and then it was the fretless bass of my dreams, but I faffed on for a decade with a couple of other fretless basses that came and went. Ten years later, I bought finally bought a Pentabuzz. I should have just shelled out back in my early 20's but I'm glad to have one now.

It sounds like I need a Focusrite Scarlett for my home recording and a DI for everything else! Although looking at the Fishman Platinum, it doesn't seem to have the high pass filter that I was interested in. The search continues!

Evening lads, I'm currently looking at getting a DI box to record to my computer. I've never owned one before but my plan over winter is to buy a decent gaming PC with some recording functions built in (so a decent soundcard will be a must). I was after a DI to add to my signal chain. First of all, I wanted to add a high pass filter just to add that extra layer of control to my tone and to cut out some of those articulation and power-sapping subsonic frequencies. I see that some pedals, like the Fishman Platinum, have that feature. I could use it for day to day playing, live use and recording at home. That said, beyond the Sansamp Bass Driver, I don't really know much about DI boxes. The Fishman Platinum looks appealing as it seems to have a good look, which looks pretty well made, and it has good features. I've never used any Fishman stuff before but I know they are well regarded. What else should I consider?

Bloody hell, they're very good.

I can't say that there has been any change in any of my basses, despite the awful humidity and high temperatures on seemingly alternating days. My Bogart I would expect to be fine, but its my wooden basses that suprised me. My Pedulla Pentabuzz, my Ibanez SR3006 and my Cort Rithimic are all set up for very low action and haven't moved at all, despite the conditions! I keep a close eye on them in weather like this.

Did you sell a Leduc Logabass recently? I've always wanted one of those.

I think these double-course basses always work best with a pick. It seems to make the thinner string ring with more presence and clarity than just playing with fingers, so Dave Ellefson should get excellent results from it.

Those are a rare beast with an excellent electronics package. I've never heard it in a Fender bass but I loved it in my Kubicki basses. Worth hanging onto, I reckon.

Muse, lots of Muse. I don't like them but my mates love them (guitarist and drummer) so I might surprise them.

Streamer LX models are usually pretty good, like the Streamer Jazzman and Pro M, seem to sell for pocket change in comparison what they sell for new. The deflated used Warwick market is insane, there was a Stuart Hamm Streamer on for sale here recently, going nowhere at £1800. That was what, £5000 new a few months ago? I love Warwick basses but they depreciate like milk.

Always loved this one. Clearly, Mark had been listening to 'School Days' when he came up with this one but I find Dune Tune resolves the melody in a much better way. Mark is a phenomenal player, and not just for slap. Remembering that he hadn't been playing all that long when Level 42 kicked off, he had basically matched Stanley Clarke's chops in a couple of years. Bending harmonics, slap, blazing fingerstyle solos - Mark had cracked it. His solo in 'Foundation and Empire' is an absolute blazer and has a strong hint of Stan about it!

Frankly, they were all godawful. The first time I ever heard of The Smiths was when Marilyn Manson was talking about how much he hated them in 'the long hard road out of hell'. He holds a special contempt for Smiths fans, it would seem.

Have you ever had a bass that you couldn't find a reason, or the energy to sell? I have found myself in this strange situation twice in recent months and I'm starting to feel as though I'll never find the energy or inclination to sell a bass ever again! Okay, that may be a bit much but in recent months, I've listed my Ibanez SR3006 for sale twice and had two bites. On both occasions, I'd only listed it for sale because I'd bought another bass and I felt like I should sell something to at least curb the excesses of my profligate tendencies, a desire that inevitably fades after the next paycheque arrives. I am faced with no good reason to sell and no good reason to keep. The SR is clearly at the bottom of my list of preferred instruments. My Cort Rithimic is my favourite. My Bogart has a totally different tone and a monstrous low B that encourages a different style of playing to the Rithimic. My Pentabuzz handles the fretless duties and the Ibanez comes in last. Being a six string gives it some utility over the other basses and I do get it out for the odd bit of UZEB stuff I don't do on the Bogart. I sometimes look at the relatively low valued Ibanez and think 'well, I can take this bass anywhere and not worry', but I never play any shiteholes, so... The fact it's worth maybe £600 used is another factor that means it's likely to stay longer. I paid a little more than that for it from Bass Direct a few years ago, though I've no idea where it came from before it ended up there. I had always wanted an SR3006 after lusting over them in the Ibanez catalogue as a teenager shortly after the turn of the Millennium. As a 'prestige' Ibanez, made in Japan to an exacting standards, with top notch materials and Bartolini electronics, it's a great package. I look around guitar shops for what £600 will get you these days, and it's not very much at all. Does it make much sense to give a great instrument away for so little, even if it just comes out of the case a couple of times a month? I keep thinking back to the summer of 2015 when I bought it, having barely held a bass in three years, after a long time off playing. It was the instrument that instantly brought back my love for playing. I just prefer the process of buying to selling, but I expect that the next time I buy a bass I'll go through the same cycle! I was in discussion to sell it a few days ago and was almost relieved when the deal was called off since it saves me the work of packaging it! Has anyone else ever felt this way or am I uniquely lazy?

Steve Vai was raving about this guy a little while ago but that whole smooth jazz thing does nothing for me. It sounds pretty cheesy and whilst the lad has talent, I'm not hearing great music. Maybe in time he'll produce something with some edge.

Sounds like a great service. I think that pink Lakland Skyline on his website is currently for sale at Bass Direct. There can't be many of those in the UK... I'd be very wary of any trick to lower the customs and import duty. The charges for a small item like a bass guitar are, bollocks, and it's a cheek that HMRC thinks they're entitled to compensation for you getting your hands on a nice bass. That said, I would imagine they'll hang you by your knackkas if they catch you in any sort of swindle or creative importation.

There are so many I could name as I think I change my mind every day about which one I love most. At the moment, I'm in love with Jeff Berlin's solo in 'Joe Frazier Round 3'. He weighs in with a sledgehammer of a tone; a huge overdriven, chorused sound and wails with a really wild, bluesy sort of spirit mixed with gorgeous note choice. If really lifts the song and changes the mood and direction of it. It almost feels like the answer to the blazing solo from Steve Vai. I almost see those two solos as two sides of the same coin; the thematic centre of the music.