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It's a slippery slope/vicious circle. They play too loud, cause damage to their hearing, turn up to be able to hear themselves, cause more damage to their hearing, turn up, etc, etc... Guitar players who wear earplugs are just as bad. They turn up because they can't hear themselves because of the plugs and wreck everyone else's hearing. If the rest of the band wears plugs in self-defence, the volume goes up even more because nobody can hear themselves properly.

There's nothing at all wrong with ceramic pickups, but in this instance the point is that neodymium pickups are the essence of the Bongo's unique tone. It was the first EBMM bass to feature those magnets, and was probably one of the first basses anywhere with that type of pickup. Allied to that four band preamp, those pickups give the Bongo it's incredibly powerful output and tone. Without that formula you are may well be left with just a funny-shaped bass that ain't that cheap. I love the Bongo, always have done. At these prices, like others have suggested, I'd look out for a used USA one.

Great to see it coming back to life. These are such nice basses, they were outstanding for their price point when they came out.

It's true, they are.

Is the rattle just when you lift your finger off or whenever you play the open string? The first could be technique, in which case it will improve as your technique develops, especially damping. If the second the nut could be cut low, still not enough neck relief, action too low especially if your playing style is quite aggressive) or a high fret. Hard to diagnose without the bass in my hands! You said you checked for high frets with a credit card. Something longer such as a 150 - 300mm rule is better. In the short term raising the action a little if you find the rattle intrusive.

Say Hello Wave Goodbye - Soft Cell

Surf's Up - Beach Boys

Definitely Following! Where' that "munching popcorn" emoji gone?

I agree with @Hellzero - it definitely looks better with the extra pickup. And sounds good too - well done that man!

I seem to have an odd relationship with Sire. I had one of the original early model V7 ash bodied models in trans white, followed by a couple of second generation V7/P7/V7 Vintage models and finally a V10 which was a cracking bass. But I ended up selling them all on. Seems I prefer a Pure Vintage pickup equipped passive real Fender Jazz. (I have two, both with the Pure Vintage 64s and nitro finishes.) I also have a recently acquired 2016 American Ultra Jazz which is utterly phenomenal. I found with the Sire preamp that the sound was too deeply scooped (even for me!), and I had to boost the low mids in order to get to the sound I really liked. I've really been fancying a Z3, but I've held off, having recently bought a '95 2eq Stingray with an Aguilar pickup. Maybe I'm just in a lucky position where I can own great examples of the real thing. Let's hope Sire don't bring out a Status alternative. Then I'll be in real trouble. Oh no, there's one coming out, isn't there? 🤔

Great tone, great playing, I do find it hilarious that he's playing a Sire bass, but he's still using a Fender branded strap.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/sterling-by-music-man-bongo-5-bass-in-firemist-purple-satin/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=surfaces&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20740064305&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqebEBhD9ARIsAFZMbfzluWZstvyIdzYnPqDNx6l7fI3In8OhC-FjCSDIYJ7fkQSrM-QdHFQaAvZVEALw_wcB Wow! I’m sure you can get a second hand USA model for £1500-1700.

i should pop my new'un up. A bit of a rare bird... details here:

Surfin' USA - Beach Boys

Some people are just dicks

Two more days were spent filling the exposed ends of the fret slots with lacquer, which is a slow process of dripping stuff in with a pipette and then filing it down. After that I was ready to start painting in my newly aquired (from Argos) spray booth/greenhouse. I was a little stumped by how to hold an instrument that has no tuning peg holes or neck pocket to use, but decided on a big M-10 eyebolt through the jack socket hole. And here's how it looks as of right now. Don't worry, this is just the first step in what will be a fairly elaborate finish.

Good man!

Righty. So I've made more progress since the last update, but I'm afraid I've not been very diligent about taking pictures. When I last checked in, the new frets were in the board, but that was about it. The first big job after that was to trim/file them all to the right length. This is a painstaking process because you're filing and filing and filing for ages, but you're still having to maintain enough control that you don't accidentally gouge a chunk out of the fingerboard. I did one half of the fingerboard one day, then came back and did the other half of the fingerboard the next day. I've learned from experience that if you try to do the whole thing in one go, you're going to end up with a cramped-up claw hand. I didn't take any pictures of this process, partly because it's really boring and partly because I was listening to something interesting and got distracted. Here's the finished fingerboard. The little shiny spots you can see here and there are a mix of glue and sawdust, used to fill the tear-out from the fret removal. As I said, I didn't do the neatest job of that, so these are sort of like bits of tissues paper stuck on after a really inept teenager's first shave. Next comes the leveling and crowning. Again, not many pictures of this process. I did what I always do, which is mark the tops of the frets with a sharpie, then put some 320-grit self-adhesive paper on my 1-metre engineering straightedge. I only had to take a little material off here and there because the fingerboard was nice and level and the frets went in cleanly. After that I roughly rounded over the frets with my crowning file and then tidied them up with a three-corner fret dressing file. After that, it's polishing time. Which involves lots of 2500 grit wet/dry paper and a lot of patience. Here's the finished neck. I'll oil up the fingerboard when the rest of the work is done.

Sounds promising, but I think you should raise the T40 pickup a bit as the P-Bass pickup seems more powerful. I really like the look it with the added pickup. Congratulations, very nice job!

Sounds to me that venue acoustics meant the guitarists couldn't hear themselves, so they all kept turning up. Instead, the band leader should be taking control and telling everyone to turn down. It's not a difficult concept to grasp. I saw a band on Saturday night. They complained about the sound. The guitarist and bass player had amps set on stun, the sound guy had to turn off everything in the PA except vocals. At one point he went up to the stage and told them all to turn down. Which they did, but 2 minutes later, turned back up before the sound guy had a chance to sort it all out properly. I didn't see their soundcheck, but you wonder how they'd got to that point.