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Rebirth of the Lakland / Prose 5 string...


lowregisterhead
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I said to a couple of people on the forum when I bought this bass that I would post something when it had been altered, and now I've gone about as far as I want to with it, here it is.

As I understand it, it started life as a bit of a project, with a spare neck from a Lakland Joe Osborn Skyline that had developed a small split behind the nut from the truss rod being overtightened. A Paul Rose body was added to it, along with a Schaller bridge, a couple of Bartolini pickups, and some rather oversized Korean tuners. It showed promise, but was never really completed. It then passed through the hands of at least three Bass Chatters, and I bought it on impulse on eBay last year, thinking it might be worth investing some time and money in.

It had problems - the tuners were huge and heavy, unbalancing the whole bass. The pickups had a nice variety of tones, but were pretty weak. The bridge was just too narrow, with nowhere near the spacing needed for the neck. The split in the neck, although unsightly, was stable, but the first thing I did was source a replacement - I figured that if I was going to sink cash into it and if I ever wanted to sell it, the split would make it virtually unsaleable, at least for the kind of money I'd need to recoup my outlay. Luckily I came across a brand new JO neck online, and asked the wonderful Martin Petersen at The Gallery to fit it, along with a set of Hipshot Ultralite tuners, a new ABM bridge strung through the body, and an Aguilar OPB-2 preamp. Martin finished it off with an inspired 'teardrop' scratchplate to echo the Stingray-like tones it's capable of producing.

It now plays beautifully, sounds fantastic, and looks really striking, IMHO. And sorry, it's not for sale. :)

Dave

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Thanks you for your kind words, folks.

As to the possible cost/value, I did a quick calculation, and with the purchase price of the original bass plus the new neck, bridge, tuners, preamp and scratchplate, in total it cost around what a good second hand JO5 or DJ5 would cost. I used it on a gig for the first time last night, and it was great - tonally it's quite a different animal from either of those basses. The only slight downside is the slab body, which makes it fairly heavy at a shade under 11 lbs. I'll try and put up a YouTube clip soon.

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