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Jon sent me a few pictures.

Finally it's back! I traded this beast away several years ago and always considered it to be 'one of those that got away'... I think we've all been there, trading a bass and then suffering instant regret! However... finally after 3 years of failed attempts to get this bass back, the right sequence of trades has now landed this monster back in my hands. It's a Warwick Thumb Single Cut 6, a horrendously expensive thing if you wanted to buy it new (price tag is a shade under €8000). Warwick only made 120 of these and now only make them to order. These are heavy, but they are exceptionally good basses. The tone is outstanding and slices through any mix, the construction is immaculate. Pommele Bubinga top with USA ash body, flame maple neck and thick ebony board. Solid brass 'invisible' frets, MEC active/passive pickups and preamp. This one is near mint, with the flight case and Warwick folder. Very glad to have it back!

Well I don’t know about anyone else but all I have ever really wanted from Fender is decent build quality and some interesting colours, not just black and sh*t-burst.....so on that note, well done Fender and yes please to this....

As part of my ongoing search for a decent Overdrive pedal (ie a warm, slightly overdriven sound rather than a dentist’s drill), I decided to pick up one of the new Fender Downtown Express Bass pedals incorporating and Overdrive, Eq and Compressor. Build-wise this thing is high quality and a really substantial bit of kit both size and weight wise. It was apparently designed in conjunction with Mr Aguilar and I can well believe it. At just under £150 the quality of the Compressor (analog) and the really meaty Overdrive (all the way from thick warm valvey sounds through some serious dirt) as well as a decent eq and a DI, it really seems to be very good value indeed. Granted I’m not a massive user of effects, but it really is a good (in essence) multi-effect pedal as one that is very intuitive and easy to set up. The LEDs are something else too!

The Q\Strip is very capable as an analog speaker sim if set correctly. I'm not familiar with the other pedals you mentioned. For a speaker sim, it's best to use after any distortion producing pedals. You should obviously have the LPF engaged. You need to make sure everything is gain staged correctly as you could be getting fizz from overloading the interface. If you're running a number of pedals in series you want to set the gain structures so you have unity gain. Here is a video showing the Q\Strip as a speaker sim in action.

I'm asking Rocco to fund my holiday to Crete

A new Fender range. "Vintage style for the modern modern era" 60s Jazz 70s Jazz 50s Precision 60s Mustang

A fellow Scot here, with a Sterling Sub Ray 4 in my arsenal. (No cheap shots, please, about tight Scotsmen, or I will hunt you down like a dog.) Like the OP, I wanted to test the MM waters, but I find the wide nut on EBMM basses to be too wide for my delicate little paws, being a Jazz Bass player by temperament. The Sub Ray 4 I nabbed may be cheap, but it really packs a punch, and sounds close enough to the real thing to me to be well worth considering, to get a sense of these things, which are very different to the Jazz. I got mine for 200 quid, and there are plenty around, so give one a whirl, I say. I will now duck into my previously prepared bunker, so as to avoid the inevitable incoming from those rightfully enraged by my maundering.. Carry on.

Always looking for a bargain...one day somebody will post an ad for something I want but missed. Hope that I'm doing the same for somebody else... That or I'm fuelling everybody's GAS...

I'd like to take some of the credit but I think at least 95% must go to @Andyjr1515..... As you say "amazing skills"..

...Handbox looks great, but sadly only 200W at 8ohms, otherwise I would have been very tempted myself! Mesa M6: definitely a bit of fan noise with this one (not noticeable at all as soon as you start playing). But does it just deliver the best tone of any amp I've come across to date? Yup

Thunderfunk all the way.

The Portamento basses has 30 “fret” boards

Every time you buy a cd with tracks you haven’t heard in the radio. Every film you’ve gone to see at the cinema, or bought as a preorder.

The basses are ‘no great shakes’, but some of the telecasters look quite tasty...

I've actually always wanted one of these. When you think about it they are ridiculous, having only 15 frets and the same range as a 4 string but I still want one but I like the odd balls from the 60s & 70s like these:

Brilliant, thank you

@cetera Oh Spector King - knowest thee what this is?

As an artist I think it is somewhat presumptuous and disrespectful to your (potential) audience to expect them to crowd fund your recording. It is my experience as a artist that if your music is worth releasing you will find a way to do it without resorting to begging. It is also my experience as a fan of bands who have used crowd funding to release their music that the incentives being offered aren't really that special. What I am primarily interested in is the music. I'll be able to buy that for £10 when the album comes out. Nearly all of the other stuff is irrelevant to me. And in this particular case $50,000 just seems to be far to much money to ask for with no explanation of exactly how it will be spent. Is it just for recording costs? Getting your music on-line with all the major download and streaming sites only costs $50 for an album, so unless he's going for a large volume physical release that seems like an awful lot of money. For that kind of money just for recording plus mixing and mastering I'd be looking at a couple of weeks lock in with a name producer and mixing engineer with the aim of producing a fantastic sounding album and turning at least one of my band's songs into a potential hit single. Getting your music recorded and released has never been cheaper. My last studio recording (made earlier this year) was charged at the same hourly rate (£6/h) as my first back in 1980 and while both were made in similar locations (converted garages) the quality and range of the equipment (as well as the acoustic treatment in the studio and control room) used for this year's session was vastly superior to 1980's semi-professional 4-track tape machine fed from a modified 12 channel PA desk and the sole effect available being reverb and echo from a spare 2-track tape machine. Maybe the way forward for crowd funding recordings would be instead of offering useless "special" incentives would be to give everyone funding the album a cut of the sales? I might be tempted to throw a couple of hundred pounds at my favourite bands in return for 1% of the sales of their next album.

Yes, I've forgotten to thank Luke for his work on the badges - looking good.

What a negative thread! Give them some credit - they've made up a word!

O_O Wait a second, are my eyes playing or is that a STEPPED FRETBOARD?? I'm so curious to try it! How does it sound? How does it work? Why? I need to know

Gorgeous top, back is a lovely colour too.

Every day I’m more convinced Mick is employed by eBay

First thing is that I found none of them to be intuitive however , reaper has so many tutorials on you tube that it shouldn’t take long to get started , you will have plenty of head scratching as things go awry , but it will all come together before too long

Gallien Krueger 1001RB11 ? 700 (loud) watts + 50w horn bi amp. Affordable and only 22lbs in weight.

Its also the joy of the game we get to learn other stuff. And the clues are fun too, just look at @Stub Mandreland his blackberry whey clue. Awesome.

At a pub on the Isle of Wight and reinforced the fact that I’m really not a fan of “classic rock”...

Wasn't it to protect the finish on the capstan?

One of each? I mean - you need a backup!

They were Hofner branded. The D and G strings had a bit more presence than the E and A at first but they have evened out now.

I've put a bit of money into mine (about £190 for Schaller tuners, Gotoh bridge, Nordstrand pups and metal knobs), it's my main gigging bass though and is still cheaper than most at £490 total spend - everything except the bridge and some of the knobs were used. If you're not bothered about through-body stringing then there are much cheaper options for replacement bridges.

Lucky you - saw her a few years ago in Birmingham, she's still got it. Enjoy!

There's a lot more to the MM experience than just the tone. The neck finish on a USA MM is VERY different from the SUBs and thus the feel is VERY different. I love the oiled neck of my Sterling - I can't play sticky painted or lacquered necks anymore.

*polite cough*

A snapshot is linked to a preset. It is a variation of a preset where parameters or pedal off/on states can be different. For example, if you had an amp and a chorus and a distortion in your preset, your default preset could have the amp drive set low and the chorus off, and the distortion off. You could then save a snapshot of this exact same preset, but with the amp drive cranked and the chorus on. You could save another snapshot with the chorus on, the distortion and and the amp mids cranked. You could switch between these variations of your preset. Best use of snapshots is changing sounds or effects values mid-song (my guitarist has a rhythm, a lead and a solo snapshot for example) where you are emulating the multiple pressing of pedals OR the changing of pedal settings. This is preferable to switching presets mid-song. It's really cool.

I owned one of the early releases of the Ray4 alongside a US SUB and full fat US Stingray 4 and 5 strings. It more than held its own in terms of sounding like an Stingray. Where I felt it fell a little short (and I mean just a little) was that the pre-amp was a bit brittle sounding to my ears, although easily fixed with amp eq. The set up on mine wasn’t brilliant on receipt either (a raised fret) and it was quite heavy (even for an MM) but perfectly balanced. It would definitely give you the sound you’re wanting to try.

If you have an £800 budget just go direct to getting a used American Stingray from the classifieds on here. It may be a bit scruffy but they're tough basses and it should be perfectly usable. If you get a new Sterling for £800 you'll always be wondering if its the same as a 'real' Stingray. Which it isn't..... Its close but not the same. If you buy at the right price used you can always sell it on for about the same price if you don't bond with it. But you'll have scratched your itch. Re the 2 band /3 band sound - they are quite different. There isn't actually a flat setting on the 2 band as it's a boost only preamp but the 3 band is centre detented. And that isn't necessarily a flat response. The 2 band generally has a warmer bootier sound in my experience.

Yeah, I just put some La Bella low tension flats on my Jazz. They're really nice. A bit like TIs but not so sticky and rubber bandy. I prefer heavier strings on Ps but I think for Jazzes, they're spot on.

Can't see it being a problem. If you are buying on line it doesn't matter where the shop is, and I would image that most people prepared to drop several thousand pounds on a vintage bass won't have a problem travelling to Leeds to try it out.

When you get it, it will be worth it

And then we moan about them only rehashing the old faves, looks like they can’t win doesn’t it. For me if they constantly improve Precision, Jazz etc that’s enough, an occasional special excellent but keep the old faves updated and in some competition with their rivals.

Overeater OS050. One of their first models ..I got it around 1981 ,I got it from new the neck was twisted ,I sent it back in its new case & came back in an old case ,the neck was straighter but there was no tension in the neck it felt like the truss rod was broken ,I felt as though my complaints were ignored ,so never again ..

First rule of interviewing, eliminate candidates who aren't appointable. So rather than compare A with B, ask the question of each 'is s/he good enough to join the band?' This will then leave you with two, one or no candidates, so you can move on to the next stage of the process.

Somebody asked about this bass so bumping it again... A horror story start with a happy ending..

Hey Dazed, nice of you to resurrect this thread. A great reminder to get this out of it's case where it's been for the past 8-9 months. That's one of the problems with having so many great basses. Firstly I need to thank Andy, again, for the work he did rescuing what was, in effect a bass shaped collection of wood and turning them into a very playable instrument. Balance is spot on, neck profile lovely, finish exceptional. The SimS pick up system is an amazing bit of kit, (somebody has 2 pick ups available for sale here, I just wish that I had something to put them in) and though relatively expensive (£225 each IIRC), I think that you get your money's worth. Getting used to the SimS system is fairly straight forward - you basically have a H/J/P in two positions which can be used individually or in combination with any of the others. This means, for example, that you can play with a P as a neck or bridge pick up, as can the H and J. If you want to try a H in the neck position you can - you can also mix this with a P in the bridge position. Not a combination you'll find on too many other basses. Tons of variety basically but TBH the only people who will care are Bass players. Check out any of the many YT videos relating to the SimS system. As to the tech specs (including the length of wires) you might want to contact Andy but I suspect they aren't any longer than they need to be, such are the magical powers of Mr Rogers. I'd have to say that the p/ups are pretty much noiseless using any of the 15 settings, plenty of volume with no discernible hiss or buzz . I can't say that I've noticed any "pollution" in the noise level TBH or had any comments or complaints from anybody who've tried it. The bass has had a couple of outings where other BCers have played it, namely the SE and Herts Bashes - you'll have to ask those who tried it for their impressions. I know there is no such thing as "the perfect bass" but this is pretty much without fault, well certainly free of any faults that I can't live with. I'd recommend both the SimS system and the work of Andy Rogers to anybody looking for something outside of the box (or not).

That's how i feel about mine - unlike anything I have owned or played, the zoot feels like it comes alive when I play it. (Zoot Boudicca 5)