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You're right. That does not make a lick of sense.

Lovely!! This is my collector grade '71 Jazz.......

Got one arriving tomorrow. I blame @Jonathan Bee for breaking my gear abstinence resolve.

Things have moved on since then! I'm not saying the £500 Indonesian bass was bad but mine was virtually unplayable as received with a stupidly low action and nut slots cut way too shallow. I could have fixed those things myself but the bass turned up in a Fender Squier box with internal polystyrene packaging that didn't hold the Vox securely and had virtually disintegrated in transit. As if that wasn't bad enough, it was obviously a dusty ex-display model and the advertised gig bag wasn't there! Basically, I just didn't feel like PMT deserved my money so I returned it - at a cost to me of £12!! I was so disappointed that I decided to phone Vox UK for a whinge and they ended up offering me a twin pickup active MIJ Artist at a massively discounted price. With a RRP of nearly £1400, this is in a completely different league. The differences are subtle metallic finish rather than solid black, premium Gotoh bridge and lightweight machine-heads, gloss maple neck, maple fretboard with mother of pearl square inlays, brilliant Aguilar AG 4J-70 pick-ups and OBP-2 pre-amp. It arrived today and it's the best s-s bass I've ever played.

I had a a stingray Special 5 of the first run as my second bass (a treat after years of guitars and acknowledging bass is where my heart is)… back then I wasn’t playing as much in bands, only a project, and whilst saving for house, wedding and other misfortunes, a SR5 Special felt a bit too much bass for me - sadly I had to let it go...: Drop dead gorgeous in Cruz Teal…! Some 20 basses later I still miss a Special and now I play in 2 bands, my 35th bday is approaching and got a new job/promotion so it all lined up for this beauty to happen 2nd hand from Kev in this forum: I am so excited about this - it’s jumped right up my #1 bass, feels like meeting with an old friend again, as you can see it is in perfect nick! I’m struggling to play any of my other 2 basses to be honest…! Having said that each will take the stage for the dingy gigs hehe Surprisingly the Stingray can do a great P sound with the bass maxed out and the treble zeroed… This Last preamp is super versatile, of course jazzy and slap/pop sounds are pretty easy to pull but most times I keep it all flat with minor changes. The whole family:

It’s not often I read the Sunday e-mail from Bass Direct. I kind of scan it and rely on looking at the photos of the used section on Monday to see what’s new. Well, I’m jolly glad I did read it Sunday just gone, because there was a Ken Smith BSR 4WT mentioned in the list that wasn’t on the site and I've been after one for a while now. I quickly e-mailed Mark and said I would have it subject to seeing photos and getting a bit more info on it. He came back to me quickly saying it was due in any day and that it was a 2015 build and in excellent condition. A home use ungigged kind of deal. A day or so went by and Mark sent me a couple of photos and it was exactly what I'd hoped it would be. There was a bit of confusion at one point when I received and e-mail addressed to someone else saying it was on hold. Apparently I was not the only one who was after it, so if anyone here was enquiring and lost out, I do apologise. Anyhow, I paid for it yesterday and it arrived just after lunch today - that’s under 24 hours folks! What a bass this is. Lovely weight and balance, plus the neck is just spot on for me - very Jazz like and not very deep either. It's set up quite low, possibly too low for me even, so I'll have a little adjustment session later. I haven’t had a chance to plug it in yet, but so far, so excellent. I know there are some here that don't like coffee table basses, but I think this one is quite understated compared to some.

At this point, i'd say he is. Many of the vast amount of popular bridges have customer feedback, which Sid doesn't have right now, and how many of those manufacturers brought videos out on how they improve on any previous designs ? They might be out there but i've never seen one. So buyers are buying on the manufacturers say so. So after Sid sells some, then feedback from buyers is where its at.

I've experienced that a lot, starting with Ringo/Sheila E/Greg Lake 20 odd years ago. It wasn't their fault, it was the PA FOH engineer. The EQ was so AFU that whenever Greg hit a note from C on down it drowned out the entire band, but when he hit a higher note the bass disappeared entirely. When Ringo went for a stint on his kit the kick was so loud that even back on his riser he felt it, and told the engineer on mic in the middle of the song to turn it down. Gosh awful. There should be a special section of hell where idiot sound men who have no idea what bass and kick drums are supposed to sound like should spend eternity: polka music 24/7/365.

I've a lot of love for the Schaller but have you checked out the Sandberg design? Many of the principles of Schaller inc roller saddle but it also has quick release string retention.

Ibanez just released a unique range of 50 one-of-a-kind custom shop guitars and basses to commemorate 50 years of Hoshino USA. Some are made in their LA custom shop, and some in their Japanese shop. Most are guitars, but there are some basses among them as well. They won't be available outside the US, and there's only one of each but I thought they were too beautiful not to share 😎 Each one of them has a story, and several detailed pictures. https://www.ibanez.com/usa/special/50th_Anniversary/50-guitars.html

I may be a fan of rack mount pre’s too

I've been able to work a bit more on Mark's bass. Here are the latest update pictures.

Who told you that? Let me guess: a guitar player. 🙄 There's a common trait among the bass players who have the highest reputation, be it Jamerson, Sir Paul, The Ox, Bogert, Geddy, Stanley, Sting or whomever: they're heard.

If you decide to go down the route of a custom build with them I highly recommend. I’ve ended up with a bass far superior to a Fender at a similar price and I was able to choose the spec how I wanted (even though I went pretty standard)

Totally dependant on type of music and also particular songs. Some have a signature bass line/part that needs to be heard. I like myself, the band and audience to be able to hear what I’m playing and have my own space in the sound.

Best valentine's comment ever.

This is just a quick post regarding a new (to me) bass. Recently did a deal for my lovely xotic in exchange for a rather tasty looking overwater (which I believe used to live in this forum). The shop dropped the bass to my place and collected the other whilst I was at work. I got home to find although the bass is lovely, it has fret buzz on open A+B strings due to worn nut, and the truss rod nut was partially rounded. I contacted the shop who are going to pay for me to have repairs carried out. I also contacted Overwater and a few emails back and forth with to order some replacement parts, Chris and the team sent me the parts I needed completely free of charge! 😁 🤘 To say the bass is 15 years old and they are still happy to help me out like this is really above and beyond what I'd have expected. Great customer service like this is what keeps people using certain brands! Keep up the good work Overwater 😁

So. Tomorrow the nice man in a van collects my bb1500a from the wonderful @tredderswho collected it for me from the seller who wouldn’t ship. I’m even more excited with the reports that it looks basically new, and plays perfectly. Worth the wait? We shall see…😋

I like the look of the bridge, just i would never pay that much for one, ever. I wince at the the price of Schallers 3d 3 way adjustables, and i love those bad boys

After 7 years as a member, you should have known by now. Plenty of other bridge designers also dont solve any problems, but sell in their thousands. Dont be put off. You're only mistake was designing it on here for all to see.

That's why I suggested a demonstration to avoid that argument. I'm guessing you and I would be in agreement on that subject but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

I'm trying to bite my lip, I don't really want to derail this by opening a discussion on whether transmitting vibration to the body is desirable in an instrument equipped with a magnetic pickup.

As a consumer: A nicely designed 12" album sleeve and all the other associated packaging is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately the lump of plastic inside which contains the important part (the music) is more fragile and sonically inferior to a properly mastered CD. Vinyl is a lot better quality these days than than the crap we were being sold from the mid 70s onwards, but I'd still rather have a CD from a musical PoV. As a musician: I will make my music available in whatever format my audience wants. Last time I looked (about 5 years ago), for an album, vinyl wasn't significantly more to produce than CDs (for quantities of 500+) but the lead times were fairly horrific, and from what I have seen they have only got worse.

Dear Friends, a short update, the X5 Bass is finally back from my painter...

This is true, and has always been true for anything bought outside the EU. I'd love to buy all my gear direct from the US where prices are cheap but have always had to pay import duty and shipping. It's never made a lot of sense to me that the RRP of products in some countries of the EU is cheaper than it is in the UK (AFAIK we are still charging the same duty we were when we were in it). The big problem IMO is that VAT should not be applicable on 2nd hand gear (whether imported or not) on a private sale.

What... because I question your design's misgivings (IMHO pulling strings through a bridge is an awful design principle and tweaking string spacing is an advantage), then you profess that I know better than you! Rather than give a reasoned response to my comments on your design you expect people to just agree with you out of sympathy and not speak out? As far as business acumen goes you may need to step up to the mark as I'm hardly the worst obstacle to any success!

He got it right eventually with the Stingray.

Dear Friends, a short update.. attached a few pictures of my prototype Bass neck ( Wenge wood) ... next step Graphite Stiffening Rods installation ...

It's a good idea to wire the ground to the sleeve AND the ring. This way it will power on pedals and active basses etc.

I watched countless videos of single coil and double coils Ps and what sounded nicest to my ears were those with the Seymour Duncan SCPB-1, so that's what I went with in the end. No electric funny business after all, which is quite unlike me. The Warmoth stuff has been good to work with. The neck pocket is snug, though would have been too tight if I had sprayed the neck with lacquer instead of an oil finish. I've rolled the fretboard edges and had to slightly widen the output jack hole but that's the extent of the woodwork, pilot holes aside. Fret dressing and polishing was straightforward. It's coming together nicely. Schaller tuners, brass nut, old Gotoh bridge leftover from a previous upgrade to another bass, SD pickup and shielding done. Just the pots, output jack and associated control plates left to do from a functional perspective before I string it up. I'll add a bridge cover and Cabronita-style mint scratchplate for the sake of aesthetics too.

Bedroom amp for my son Weird trade.

Finally some SWB-1 and SWB Deluxe Images :

Then UK made CHB-2 & CHB-1 semi-hollow bass images: