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No, you haven't - gifts you are involved in any way with the choosing of (which you have basically confessed to above by announcing your prior knowledge of the bass in question) are a fail - so you have the choice of failing this year or next, depending upon when it becomes yours.

I came close. Despite being the proud owner of more than my fair share of signature basses, I managed to resist this one....and believe me, I did seriously consider it.

Agree, I bought one but returned it, nothing wrong with it, very nice bass actually, but although I bought it to be a Mustang that sounded like a Precision ultimately that was why I returned it, I found that I just prefer my Mustangs to sound like Mustangs. But for anyone wanting Precision sounds from a short scale bass with Jazz width neck then these are hard to beat, the one I had played beautifully with the factory set up & stock strings.

Hi, Not going to be of much help but i can see the output from rectifier is +45V and -45V so perhaps secondary winding output of transformer has to be in such region. As that is what feeds rectifier. I don’t remember much from college (studied electronics extensively) but i can imagine two wires on input (220V) so them three should be related to output.. See diyaudio website, people there design their own amps and perhaps someone there could help on how to go about sourcing appropriate transformer for your amp.

The changes suggested will all improve the bass in terms of quality, but as above a good fret level & change of nut will make it be able to be set up to play at its best. That coupled with the pickup change will get you a bass that plays great and sounds it too. One thing to consider though, quite often Squier put 500k pots in the electrics, resulting in a quite toppy sound, sometimes just swapping those to 250k can bring a real change to the existing pickups. Might be worth a try.

I might get my wife to buy that Epiphone and save it for me for New Year, but let me borrow it this year. Technically that would keep me in this year, and should be exempt from next year as it would've been bought the previous year. Have I just found the perfect workaround? 😁

I got into classical music with my school orchestra playing double (contra)bass. The school music teacher was a closet jazz fan who encouraged me to explore improvisation techniques. This was great for my musical development, but didn’t help my street cred one bit. Most of my mates at school were into rock music………and I wanted to be in a band. So, I acquired a beaten up Burns Jazz bass and began playing it in various local rock bands. Most weren't that good and folded through common adolescent hot headedness. Feeling a bit disillusioned, I auditioned for a cruise ship touring big band on double bass. Dang me if I didn’t get the role and then scared myself xxitless when I realised what journey I was on (literally and metaphorically). I have to say that playing three sets a day and reading the dots was a great leveller for a naïve gap year student. Interestingly, my dear parents were diametrically opposed to my activity at the time. I was pursuing a dream, playing bass with serious musicians. I guess that I quickly learned that living the dream was hard work and not all I had imagined. Went back to serious studies (not music), family, and life in general with little time for bass. I never lost the passion for performance based music and began again playing bass in my 50’s. I had kept a 70’s P bass and thrashed that in various cover bands over the years. I still get a huge buzz from playing bass, especially gigs, festivals etc. My musical tastes have certainly evolved, and being able to sight-read has certainly helped me explore different types of styles. I am still poor at slap though….and proud of it. As far as basses, I’ve been through a passive-active-passive journey and up a 4-5-6-4 string cul-de-sac. The first serious electric bass was the Burns; the latest was a Yamaha BB1200. I guess there have been about a hundred instruments in between. Some are still with me………as well as the passion.

Well spotted lol 😜

Unfortunately the slant is so slight that I can’t really make that argument 😂 it did cross my mind though

Hi there. Sorry I completely forgot about this. Here's the voltage selector, looks to be on 120/240 for mine.

This journey, into bass playing? What made you pick up that first bass at the start of this long and winding road? There seemed to be a lot of bass driven music around, growing up in the late '70's and early '80's, no matter the genre, though thanks to an older brother, I heard a lot of hard rock & metal, Sabbath, Hawkwind, Purple, etc. Hawkwind's "Space Ritual" stands out as the "wow" moment, then discovering Rush and others. Tried convincing my parents i needed a bass, but it wasn't til I was 16 that I got a Kay P bass and dodgy amp from a bloke that worked with my Dad... Do you still have the same fire and enthusiasm? Do you still love it? Fits and starts. Still love to play when I get around to it, but getting around to it takes a bit more these days, as I'm not in a band at the moment. What has changed along the way? Your taste in music, taste in basses? Taste in music has waxed & waned, visiting numerous rabbit holes, but still mainly hard rock & metal. What was the first bass? And what’s the latest? First: Kay P bass. Current: 4003 Always lusted after a Rich, took me 20 years before I finally bought one, but it was like coming home. Love them.

But Liszt was also a good looking man who knew how to dress stylishly. Something I'm not detecting in any of the "bass virtuosos" being discussed here.

If you’re going to this level of mods, I’d get the frets levelled by a top luthier to make it play like butter. That and the nut will make the biggest difference.

The Mexican Fender plant at Ensenada is putting out some lovely quality instruments these days. Obviously, try before you buy still applies to all Fenders if you can get to a dealer. As for the Player/Player PJ Mustang, it's a nice bass overall. But... Don't expect it to sound like a Mustang. It sounds like countless other full-scale PJ equipped Precisions. Basically, like a much larger, more generic bass. In order to get the true Mustang sound, you need the smaller Japanese split coil pickup used in the Mexican Vintera II Mustang and the American Performer Mustang. So back to that Player II PJ Mustang... Yes, it's a nice bass, but that big split coil makes it sound like a full size Precision. If that's what you want, then go for it. There's a nice satin Surf Green American Performer for sale in the BC classifieds, and a friend of mine has an Aubergine American Performer, a Competition Burgundy Vintera II & a Cherry Burst Player PJ for sale, two of which I previously owned for a short time. Hope that helps!

Think I’m the same but the strings are starting to suffer and GAS has struck for an amp in the classifieds I find myself trying to justify…..

Not wonky just slanted for warmer D and G 🤣