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No, these are a completely different bass to the MIM Player II. And as for the pre 2016 American standard, you’re comparing a £550 bass to a £1700 bass. Apples and Pears, my friend 😊

My mum was a piano teacher, so from about the age of 6 I played piano... Then I heard "Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick"... And a bit later I went to my first proper "big" gig, Ian Dury and the Blockheads closely followed by The Clash on the London Calling tour and realised that bass was cool. Then in 6th form we got a band together (me on keys) with our RE teacher to play some Barclay James Harvest and Dylan stuff as a pre-amble to a school showing of "The War Game" and Mike played on his brother's violin bass (it's your fault, @lurksalot!), which was the 1st bass I got to play. I gave up the piano, went to uni and got into The Funk; my flatmate had an old acoustic guitar with the two top strings broken so I used it to jam along to Bootsy and Parliament. As soon as I could play something vaguely funky I got together with the boys from Chestnut Avenue and we formed A Band - Dredd and the Badass Weeds and within a week we were gigging, me having borrowed a short-scale Gibson off Jez (later of MDMA then The Utah Saints). And the rest is history! They went off and had lots of musical success, while I moved to London and formed a bizarre punkfunk band who liked to dress funny.

Congrats BM74 Those first gen Vinteras with the Pao Ferro fingerboard play and sound really nice. I came very close to buying the 60s one in Firemist Gold. Excellent basses for the money. Sounds like you scored a brilliant deal there.

Having had several US Standard Precisions I wouldn’t avoid any, but my findings would be: Late 90s - all over good bass, decent neck depth and good chunky sounding pickup Mid 2000s - good basses, S1 Switching which to me didn’t add anything at all, good depth neck, fairly neutral pickup with no real frequency bias so ideal to fit in most genres very easily Late 2000s (08 - 12) - decent basses, flatter neck which makes it feel wider, pickup sounded quite scooped 2012 - 15 - my fave, nice chunky deep neck, Custom Shop 62 pickups give a good depth to the sound, lightweight tuners I’d happily have any of them, if pushed I’d say stock the 08 - 12s are my least fave as I prefer to have mids and scoop them myself, but a pickup change is easy enough and solves that.

I would keep that barbie pink "line" as it's mixing in quite nicely.

Haven't got any photos of early Weeds with borrowed Gibson short scale... But I do have Barf Roco stuff from around 1987-8. I no longer own the babydoll nightie as that was forcibly removed during the gig by singer and guitarist. luckily I had a codpiece on. Then a couple of weeks ago at Rebellion:

What I am trying to find out is how the 'standard' American P basses of the day varied from era to era, and what are the ones to look for / avoid. I can quite happily pay up to £3k for a Custom Shop or whatever, if something special comes up that takes my fancy. Alternatively, I have the option of getting a Japanese bass and save more than a couple of grand. Of course, I could get something in between those two price points, which is what I'm enquiring about. I did have a Japanese Jazz bass for a bit. I dropped some barts in it and used it on a gig and thought that it sounded great. Then I went down to Bass Direct to pick up some cabs and played an old American Standard that blew it out of the water. I still have that bass. TBF, directly before I got the Japanese JB, I had a 2005 USA standard that wasn't as good. I did have an AVRI 58 Precision for a while, which was a nice bass. I would have kept it, but unfortunately it had to go to pay for my old 78 P bass, when I had the opportunity to buy it back many years after I unfortunately sold it (something I always regretted).

So first we have me in The Shout, prob 88/89 Secondly we have me in The Spacewasters 2022 (I do have later pics but they’re pony, so this one gets the outing)

Over in the thread about acrimonious band splits, I was talking about the band I was in where the guitarist just upped and left after a gig. Here's a pic of that band, and it's the oldest pic I have of me onstage (there's probably a few more that I have as actual photos, but this is the oldest one I have on the computer ) - this is from around 1997, and that's me on the left. ...and this is a more recent one from a year or so back, playing my trusty Sei.

First one is a rehearsal with a bunch of school friends circa 1973. The bass is a 1964 Burns Jazz……I still have it! Second one is from earlier this year……….rocking a fretless P in a café bar.

Right. The paint has mostly cured now, and I've taken the masking tape off to reveal the final look. I still need to do the clearcoat, but the only thing that will change from this look is the level of shiny-ness. I decided that I was going to lean into the description "poor man's Status" that was often applied to these basses when they were new. It looks a little wonky on the front because the pickup routs are slightly wonky. You can't tell once the pickup surrounds are in place though. If you look closely you can see a thin (like, less than 0.5 mm) line of barbie pink on the edge of the masked off area. I'm not sure whether to keep that visible as a little in joke to myself, or to knock it back with a little bit of red sharpie.

I had a similar experience in that same period. I look back on it and wonder how the hell the fallout isn't still with me.

...And to think I was annoyed to find that my favourite "extra-super-ultra-uber-lightweight-barely visible to the human eye" 30-85 Rotosounds have now gone up to 26 quid on Amazon.

Never underestimate the power of suggestion. It's known as positive association advertising. It really works. I strongly suspect that what PIno is looking for from these strings is not so much a new sound but more a financially-secure future. That's not to say that they aren't a really great set of strings- I'm gonna buy a set to see what they're like now I've read a few user reviews- but if they didn't exist we wouldn't be missing them, if you see what I mean. There was already enough strings like these Any signature models I've ever owned were incidental to their artist. I used to have a custom Jaydee Mark King and the last thing I wanted was to sound like Mark King. I wanted to sound like Alembic-era John Entwistle but I couldn't afford an Alembic. However, if there was a signature bass for an artist that really didn't appeal to me and was cognitively dissonant to my own self-image for whatever reason I might well not buy it even if the instrument suited me.

I've told this before ages ago but it's my fav band breakup story so here goes... We had a song where the lyrics before the solo was 'call out my name'. The drummer and I had developed the habit of calling out 'w@nker' at this point, the vocalist not being our fav person (the reason at end of story). Well, on this occasion it's gets to that point in the song, I shout out said word with more gusto than normal, the drummer decides for some reason not to join in and the band goes unexpectedly quiet at this point. Much to the amusement of the audience the vocalist lunges at me during the solo while I try to keep playing the bassline and fending off the attack with the pointy end of my bass whist running around the drum kit as far as my lead will allow. At the end of the gig the vocalist just walks straight out. Apparently he stormed off in a huff but as he always left straight after the gig and never helped pack up the gesture was lost. He never returned and I, unfairly in my opinion, got the entire blame for the episode. The band didn't survive after failing to find another vocalist.

Precisions for me were the first thing that floated my boat, and always will. Had a few, starting with a ( bit of a dog ) late 70’s job, which amazingly didn’t put me off buying another , an early Squier 57 which I wish I still had. Wonderful, vibrant and fairly light - the polar opposite of the first one. Soon after I acquired my 63 Precision which I’ve now owned for around 40 years, and I still love it. Whilst in a function band I got into Stingrays which always seemed a logical route to follow after a P-bass. Had a late 70’s one ( sooo heavy), then a couple of nice 80’s / 90’s ones along with a couple of USA Subs, one of which may have been my favourite. A shoulder injury meant looking for something less heavy, so I tried a P- Lyte which I bonded with immediately. Had maybe 5 of these over the years, and have kept my ( slightly road worn ) sunburst mid 90’s one which I use for most gigs these days. Although not really Precision like, I still prefer the simplicity of a standard P-bass really - had mine concerted to passive. I’ve had a Jazz and just didn’t get on with the controls, pickups or body shape TBH! As I’ve got older I’ve got into short scales too. Started off with a Dano Longhorn which is ace, and currently have a Sire U5, a Squier Jaguar and a Fender Kingman, all around 30 inch scale.