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Adverts that say how fantastic a bass is, but are selling it anyway. "It's an incredible sounding and feeling instrument but I just can't bond with the colour!" Hmm.

"Me stupid? Sorry, I don't understand."

It like it. Taste is so personal.

I wouldn't presume to suggest what you should like. I have 19 basses, active and passive, 4 & 5 string, long and short scale, fretted and fretless, modern and traditional, d from every decade from the 60s to the 2020s. So I think I'm very open to different instruments. I've tried basses like the modern players. They look pretty, but I don't bond with them. My friends who have had early 60s fenders since the 60s/70s still gig them and I do prefer them. The two basses I find myself gigging most are the 1960 P reissue and the 1963 J reissue. Having played real ones, I'm pretty sure I would use them if I could.

Yes the most obvious option really! How do you find it? I don't really like the colours!!!!!!

Wait.. have I missed it, or has no-one has mentioned Howard's Bass Place in Newcastle yet? The shame!

I'm willing to bet that the ratio of headed/headless basses in the world makes it a reasonable assumption to make. Anyone who ventures into headless land really ought to be able to solve for X. Also, I've seen a few headless basses have a little sticky out vestigial "head" which might get caught by the mechanism of these stands? I say "might" - I've never tried.

Getting then in line IS tuning, no?

He’s playing a Jamerson style line on a similar bass and the objective of the vid is to promote the bass. I thought it was tasteful but each to their own.

It is yes but I was making a very poor joke

Curly - The Move

Ah - you're assuming it was in tune at the time the photo was taken... 😇

.... unless you have a headless bass or guitar I actually do have this stand, and the portable one and the three headed one. They are great stands but do make rather a fundamental assumption about your bass/guitar (apart from the small portable one). Rob

Just dropped on a brand new Reissued Vintage JV74 in Natural finish, I wasn’t looking to buy another bass but it was on sale at a stupid low price so I thought I’d give it a try. I think I’ve been through all of the internet searching for information and reviews on these basses, surprisingly found very little details about them, usually just repetitive advertising blurge, can any owners give me their honest opinion on them please? Anyway, my thoughts so far on the bass (after 2 days) are as follows; The bass looked very smart fitted with its chrome pickup cover plates, however as most will agree they make any jazz basses very difficult to play as there’s only a limited access to the strings and unfortunately they cover everywhere that I like to play. They had to come off! I couldn’t even leave the neck pickup cover on like Marcus as I play over the pickup a lot. Next were the strap buttons, I use Dunlop Strap Locks on all of my basses and I decided to fit a spare set I had on this bass. I was very surprised to find that the stock strap button screws were very thin and quite short and were very easy to remove which could have been an issue. In contrast the Dunlop screws are noticeably thicker and about half as long again, now fitted they are very secure. While the body of the bass looks very nice, the neck seems very bare, almost unfinished. I had seen a few photos of these having black edge binding but not this one for some reason? I can’t establish whether the neck is bare wood or satin finish?? Anyway the neck itself is quite good, no dead spots and the factory set up was really good, the G string had a very slight fret buzz but I raised the saddle a turn and cured this. Fret ends not sharp and it’s comfortable to play, however it is quite a chunky neck and very unlike the Fender Jazz bass necks I’m used to. I believe this is supposed to be based on a 74 jazz which possibly had a beefier neck, I think the Squier VM bass also has a substantial neck if I remember correctly? I’m used to having basses with rolled fretboard edges these days so the fairly sharp neck edge on the Vintage is not to my liking, if I keep the bass I might use a screwdriver shaft and burnish the fretboard edges a bit, I’ve done this before on a MIM Jazz and it was quite successful. I played the bass at our gig last night, first set was 1 hour and after only about 45 minutes my back/shoulder was starting to ache - this is a heavy bass! I don’t think I’ve ever owned a bass that has given me this level of discomfort (4 and 5 string). I swapped over to my Sire Z7-5 bass for the second set, this is also a natural finish bass (swamp ash with a roasted maple neck), still a reasonably heavy bass but a fiver no less and still lighter than the JV74. It was definitely better for my back but the JV74 had already done its damage so the rest of the night didn’t go entirely without pain. I assume they fit cheap bass strings as my finger tips on both hands were black by the end of the set. Overall though and partly because it came with a fairly good factory set up the bass was quite nice to play, it was just a bit strange playing a Jazz bass with a larger neck than I’m accustomed to. Oh, and I love the large black block inlays on the neck, I’ve always loved the look of these. I am pleased with the Wilkinson hardware (tuners, bridge and pickups), and I think it’s these that do sort of making it a reasonable bass. The overall quality of the bass though I would put it in line with a Squier, certainly not as good as the Sire basses I’ve owned. The Wilkinson pickups however are quite good, they are fairly hot with a nice warm tone. The tuners too seem reasonable quality and stayed in tune fairly well over the time I played it, funnily though I find that the D string tuner to be a bit harder to turn and I’ve found this to be the same with other Asian-made basses, I don’t know the reason behind this? Well, those are my initial thoughts on the Reissued Vintage JV74 bass, if anyone has one of these basses I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with them, any tips on how to treat the hard maple neck and fretboard would be appreciated!

Must try harder

Nice to see a properly tuned bass.

Today I tackled the sloppy, oversized problem that is the neck pocket. In a super janky, homespun way, of course! A few days ago, I said that the neck angle (for string alignment was just right with a small piece of veneer at the open end of the neck pocket, so I made that official and glued a small piece of veneer up there: Super janky! To add to the jank factor, I used one of those furniture repair/touch up pens to try to disguise the top of the veneer... Then I got to the yawning chasm which is the right hand (treble) side of the neck pocket. Aye, that's the edge of the neck. Ouch. So I spent quite a lot of time cutting, shaping and gluing veneers to the offending area (a 2mm thick then a 0.6mm thick) And did the same cover up job with the touch up pen. And now the neck pocket looks like this... Real luthiers - look away now - heh, too late! So, a final check of everything with the fake strings... It's far from perfect, but it's a damn sight closer to what it needs to be. From a distance, no-one will know. I think I'm ready to fit the neck now. Still have to decide what to do about all that spare material - but I know I'm putting off the inevitable which is that it'll probably have to be routed off and the offending area refinished. Yay!

If you want the top surface nice and flat, print it in PLA top down on a smooth plate on your 3d printer. Turn it back the right way on the bass and job done. Print at the slowest speed and at the highest resolution and if you can tell it extrude 5% more for the first layer or two, it'll be a lovely finish and not need sanding. I was going to say that it looks like its printed on a plate for PETG which is not smooth, but the dimpling is too pronounced. I actually like the top surface though. Rob

Back in the days I actually made money playing, I got insurance through the MU.

The balance is tricky, no? I have one but never play it because it does not have enough strings. Can I bring myself to sell it? Can I heck!

No offense taken by me. Whether he plays too many or too few notes, it still sounds gorgeous. I don't think I'm in a position to critique his skills as a bass player. Now if he wants to discuss compiler theory or Perl or SmallTalk or network architecture, let me know and I'll see what I can do Rob

She (has) Bangs - Ricky Martin