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Christ, ignore me AGAIN, I was trying to edit someone else's comment... I am going for a lie down.

I’m in Dallas with work for the next 3 months and spotted a Guitar Center on my drive back from the supermarket today, so thought I’d pop in. They didn’t have a huge selection of new basses (although there were a couple of nice vintage P and J basses high up out of reach in their Premium section), but I sat down and grabbed a few to try. First one was a Yamaha BBP34. I’m a big fan of Yamaha basses and this is one of their relatively high end models (I think it was $1499). Played it for a couple of mins and it did absolutely nothing for me - I was quite disappointed. I couldn’t have told the difference between it and a $250 bass to be honest. Finish was fine but the setup was lousy, and it just felt disappointing. Next up was a Fender American Professional II Precision. This I absolutely loved, and it instantly felt comfortable. Great sounding too. Neck was very comfy - slim front to back but traditional P bass but width. Setup nicely straight out of the box and surprisingly light. This was up for $1500, and if I was in the market for a P bass (haha, which is pretty much all the time!), I’d definitely be considering one of these. Finally, and probably the most surprising to me, was a cheapo Sterling by Stingray SUB. Sticker price was $299, and I had very low expectations from it. Bear in mind that I’ve owned a couple of “proper” Stingrays in the past and have never really got on with them. Well, I plugged this in and was blown away. Build quality was great, it was setup nicely and neck was slim and frets were very well finished. No dead spots, 2 band eq worked perfectly, and it sounded great! All for the equivalent of £218, in a choice of a few colours (including a really nice powder blue which is actually called chopping blue for some reason). Quite taken with it, and I think I might grab one for the time that I’m out here for, and then donate it at the end of the trip to a local music group or something. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have given a cheapo bass like that a second look. Just goes to prove something we probably all know - you don’t have to pay a fortune to get a decent bass.

Someone got AM and PM mixed up fml, good start

Thank you mods for everything you do.

Was in Bass Direct today and had a little noodle on the OW (fretted) Jazz. Hugely impressed. Looks great, sounds great, plays great. The finish and overall craftsmanship is right up there. I’ve a CS Jazz that I love and, being honest, this is just as good, IMO. If anyone is in the market for a really good Jazz then this is definitely worth checking out.

Thanks folks, now bear with us as we fine tune this badboy

Oops, sorry *tip toes out*

My latest

Maybe the update is taking longer to get to those of us north of the border

I know it's standard but it still feels like a flaw in design I've had the bass open and of course it's easy to flip the wires, but still...

shocking. Send them Here for scrappage… I’ll send you a brand new Ibanez premium SR in return - you know it makes sense…

Just taken a group shot of my p basses

Slow slow progress this. It is still going

It should default to the new theme but if not make sure this is selected at the bottom of the site. We're working on a dark theme but it takes agggggess to do something as simple as that because Invision don't tell you what any of the buttons/areas are actually called!

Well that’s all that practising I was going to do, out the window 😉

Just checked, he said Thursday, but not which Thursday. Even better. He can control us through fear.

… yet another reshuffle of the Nano Max. I’ve taken off two larger pedals, a Markbass Compressore and a Cog Custom Dirtbox. In their place I have put a MXR Carbon Copy (love these), a TC Electronic Mojo Mojo, a Boss OC2 and finally a Seymour Duncan Studio Bass Compressor. I’ve also switched from the normal Evidence Audio SIS cables to some Squareplug/Mogami cables. These are quicker, have a slimmer width and tbh are a bit easier to work with as I seem to be changing so much. I guess we’ll see how long this setup lasts then 😁

isnt this the right vid? 😁

It's getting there 😊

Johnathan Richman - Abominable Snowman in the Market - he's down by the peas and carrots, apparently..............

An Avon (Rose Morris) EB0 copy in a sort of dark wine red colour. Played and sounded ok until the tension of the flatwounds, literally pulled the whole bridge out of the body. Fixed it and last heard it was in Canada of all places. Here's proof it existed from 1975

Loving the new look, fab 👍

Anyone else check the classifieds to see what they’d missed and then quickly realise there is obviously nothing new?

...and the "likes" under our usernames have disappeared

We seem to have lost the bump function on the selling pages.

Looks like velvet now...

Christ, now you’ve done it *settles down to knit a jumper*

Clear as mud.

I found the truss Rod on the 424/425 to be a bit hyper responsive to adjustment, unlike the 414… I’d adjust the rod 1/8th a turn and wait 24hrs to see what that does - might just remove that relief a tad…

I can't remember the exact tale, and probably no one in the band tells the truth about it anyway, but The Cure were signed to German label 'Hansa' in the 70s. The label wanted to promote disco and tried to steer the band in that direction, also the band were contractually obliged to record another single so they recorded this little nonsensical gem as two fingers up to the record company, so the story goes. Who says Robert Smith doesn't have a sense of humour. I actually really like it.

Thats the sort of missionary zeal we need! Tell them that the strings are named Evangelists Also Do Good, that faith without action is meaningless, so they had better start Doing Good!

My moneys on Al

Plectrums not allowed, and no hitting below B.

It does seem to restrict the amount of cabs that can be connected. Sure we can all use our ears to make sure that cabs aren’t struggling but I like to have my cabs at least equal to the power rating of the amp, just makes me feel that bit more comfortable.

I had an early-mid ‘80s Vox 3002 Custom that my dad bought from the guitarist in his band. Learned to play on it then got my first Precision and didn’t touch it for years. Then, about ten years ago, I sold it here to fund an Ampeg SVT. Sounded decent, from what I remember. Weighed a ton though!

Very nice Si… looking forward to hearing how it sounds.

I'd have kept my first decent bass, a Framus jazz bass, until I could have afforded a jen-you-wine Fender and definitely would not have bought that Guild 301. I did keep my first decent amp (Selmer T&B 50) and cab (homemade 2x15) for quite a while. If had all the money I've wasted on unsuitable basses over the last 45+ years I'd probably spend it on unsuitable basses - I'd need a personality transplant to behave any differently.

Nothing, so with all the money I've not spent, we would have our house in Tuscany by now.

I'd probably spend more on a first amp with hindsight. And know not to get too attached to the bass as a load more would be coming along all too soon! 😂

I’d start off with a Precision rather than trying to get a Precision sound from so many other types of basses, I wasted so much time doing that it’s laughable.

TL:DR - It's great, can't wait to try it in a gig situation. I bought this cab from @wayne58 of this parish a couple of weeks ago. Always loved the look of them and this one was dangerously close to home, so I took the plunge. Cameron was a pleasure to deal with and the cab is immaculate. Lovely bit of oxblood cloth too, it's a looker. I've had the chance to try it out at a couple of rehearsals now. The Polished Knob (no, really) in Todmorden should have been its gig debut tonight but extended restrictions meant we were two days too early and the pub had to cancel. So it's rehearsal room only impressions with my rootmaster 500 head and Sandberg tm5. So far it gives me the sound I've had in my head for years. Fat without booming, clear without harsh treble. Deep without mud. I got it because I wanted to move more air without turning up. I was after more presence, if that's the right word, and it certainly does that. Happy boy.

Hmm. Shameful this. Japanese Yamaha BB300, in red. Don’t know why, but I did something to it. Eventually I sold it on. A mate still has it. About 3 years ago, I got a beautiful Taiwanese version, which made me realise I’d done a bad thing… And then I sold that one too 😩

My third bass was a Maya, still got it. I like it and have gigged it loads.

My First bass was one of these. I still have the neck, pickups and hardwear but the body has disappeared into the mists of time.

Before I bought my first bass, my band which was a writing and recording only project would borrow one of the two bass guitars owned by people we knew at school. One of these was a home-made thing put together by someone who'd seen a photo of a P-Bass once and then had tried to make their own from memory using only what was available from the parts box at our local musical instrument store. The other was Mosrite-influenced "Woolies Special". Neither were really worthy of the description "musical instrument". We'd got by with these for about 4 years until I actually went out and bought one myself in 1981 - a very battered and heavily modified Burns Sonic Bass which had appeared in the afore-mentioned musical instrument store. It cost me £60 including the OHC and the shop chucked me in a Fender-branded strap. For a while I wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't also home-made as there were no logos on it other than on the Tri-Sonic pickups. However I was able to get hold of "The Burns Book" by Paul Day which confirmed it was actually a proper Burns Bass guitar made in either 1961 or 1962. And that's what I used in my first two bands and on the demos my second band recorded that got CBS records interested in signing us (they decided to go with Wham! in the end), and them for writing bass lines in my synth band, until I bought my Overwater Original 5-string in the early 90s. I still had the Burns Sonic bass until 2 years ago when I had a ruthless pruning of my musical instrument "collection" and got rid of everything I wasn't using. Here's photo of me playing it live in 1982...