Styling cues you don't like

[Muzz]

Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

[AndyTravis]

14 minutes ago, thodrik said:

Okay, I'll bite.

I think it looks cool apart from the pickup covers. The tuning machines don't bother me in the slightest. The look of the bass though makes me think that I would need to water it a couple of times a week to help it grow. 

Looks like a wound...or that ginger guy in Robocop who falls into the toxic waste at the end...

[Cosmo Valdemar]

2 hours ago, Rich said:

Oh thanks, now I really fancy a caramac. Off down the shops for a spot of social distancing, then.

Difficult to find in the shops now! I buy in bulk on Amazon.

 

 

Seriously.

[Cosmo Valdemar]

F holes that have no place in a design. Guild Starfire - perfect. Warwick Infinity?

DESIGN YOUR OWN SOUND HOLE.

[ead]

We should run this again in 2 months time when we're all stir crazy, there'll be no holding back then 

[spectoremg]

46 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

😂

[Woodinblack]

23 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

Difficult to find in the shops now! I buy in bulk on Amazon.

Seriously.

Plenty in sainsburies

[Woodinblack]

8 minutes ago, spectoremg said:

😂

Slightly more attractive than tort, but not much.

[Newfoundfreedom]

22 minutes ago, ead said:

We should run this again in 2 months time when we're all stir crazy, there'll be no holding back then 

2 months?

I'll give it until Friday before I eat the dog. 

[Osiris]

2 hours ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

This 'thing' I saw at Warwick's NAMM stand, and photographed in utter disbelief. 😱

 

That's bringing back a few memories for those of us who have changed nappies on our kids in our time. 🤢 🤮

And why have they used burnt fish fingers for pickups?

[LewisK1975]

Agree on the modern singlecut Basses, never seen one I really liked.

One that always gets me is matching colour headstocks on Basses with Maple fingerboards.  Just looks wrong to me.

Same Bass with a rosewood/other dark fingerboard, usually very nice.

YMMV!

[Jono Bolton]

23 hours ago, Rich said:

I don't mean functional features like slim necks or tighter string spacing, I'm talking about purely aesthetic stuff here. Body shapes and the like. I'll start the ball rolling.

Early P-bass/Tele headstock shape. Don't like it, at all. It looks like someone's had a bandsaw accident with a regular P neck and tried to make the best of it.

90s hair-metal Charvel/Jackson pointy headstocks. Looking at them, you can just smell the hairspray and dodgy spandex. Stick your foot on the monitor and away you go. Far, far away please.

 

"Whoops".

Rawwwwk. Errm, no ta.

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

[Jono Bolton]

1 hour ago, Muzz said:

Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

Maple neck, black blocks, binding. Absolutely rancid. I've no idea why it's so popular. Rosewood and pearl isn't far behind, but maple and black is particularly awful. I don't mind binding and dots though on a rosewood fingerboard.

[yorks5stringer]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

Slightly more attractive than tort, but not much.

Bay City Rollers CS edition?

[linear]

2 hours ago, Bobthedog said:

What come out of this is collectively we could not build a bass that anyone liked in it’s entirety. 😀

But could we, perhaps, build a bass that was universally hated?

We could start with stick on f-holes and work from there.

[yorks5stringer]

20 minutes ago, Jono Bolton said:

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

On that very subject, this seems to me an acquired taste?

[Jono Bolton]

11 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

On that very subject, this seems to me an acquired taste?

IIRC, that shape was used for 12-string Teles, but it doesn't really work for a 6-string. It barely worked for a 12-string. The only good Fender 12-string headstock was the one on the Electric XII

[Woodinblack]

16 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

On that very subject, this seems to me an acquired taste?

Are you saying someone has acquired a taste for that?

[yorks5stringer]

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

Are you saying someone has acquired a taste for that?

Well they started on this, and who knows as food shortages....bite?

[CamdenRob]

3 hours ago, thodrik said:

Okay, I'll bite.

I think it looks cool apart from the pickup covers. The tuning machines don't bother me in the slightest. The look of the bass though makes me think that I would need to water it a couple of times a week to help it grow. 

I’ll go a step further and say I think it looks cool in its entirety 😕

[SteveH]

Really don't like gold hardware , and some exotic wood finishes,  like buck eye burl. Oh and black hardware . And finally I would have any colour  bass over shell pink 🤮

[threedaymonk]

5 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

I forgot this beeeeyoooteeeee 😝

 

 

My eyes! I don't like the aesthetics of Fodera at the best of time, but that's appalling. But the back is even worse:

They've just hacksawed the key off a Hipshot D-tuner, haven't they? Monstrous.

[Jonse]

Matching headstocks on fender style basses 😷

Edited March 31, 2020 by Jonse

[la bam]

Cream coloured or white plastic pickup covers.

[Jonse]

2 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

When I was about 13 I had a go at putting a parts bass together. I got an awful Tele body from eBay or somewhere and a full scale P bass neck. Needless to say that the bridge was in the wrong position so it wouldn't intonate but I didn't understand that at the time. I mixed creosote with red food colouring to stain the body and that really didn't look too bad. It had two 51 P style pickups in the Tele positions and I seem to remember that I wired up them pretty good. 

 

Think it was all firewood after a year or so 😁