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After 90 minutes in the O2 presale today, all that was left were two "ultimate side of stage experience" tickets. A mere £2932.50 each. Sadly I'd already decided to set my spending limit at £2930. Yeah, I know... tightarse.

Just grabbed this from my local Cash Generator, spotted it at the weekend and had a half day off work so decided to snag it as I need a boring trad bass for some upcoming dep gigs. Was £110 and they wouldn't shift on price as it had just been discounted from £140. Not sure what's original, I think the pickup, scratchplate and knobs might be replacements as they look too new but the bass overall is in superb condition for an old cheap bass. It's missing a thumb rest and pickup/bridge covers, assume the covers would have been stock. It also has a large silver sticker running under the strings by the bridge, assume this would have been disguised by the bridge cover but not sure if it's stock, had a poke and a prod and it doesn't seem to be hiding any naughty routing mods. Can't find much info on these, most CMI basses on the internet have a different logo, tele bass style pickups, cr@p tuners and that horrible forearm overspray which hides a butcher block body. This has a 3 piece body, brass nut/saddles, good quality tuners and seems very well finished overall. Truss rod adjustment is at the body end with a wooden plug at the neck and a skunk stripe. I thinksome El Maya branded instruments had the wooden plug and brass nut but not seen them on many MiJ basses. Is this 70s or 80s? Looks to have a standard sized neck plate so thinking later. Also any clue about the factory? Seen Chushin Gakki linked with CMI a bit.

I love MIJ guitars and basses I couldn't resist this, I was after a 75 reissue but you don't always know what you want until you see it

Pff.. I can hardly name all of my group and there are only 4 of us

You can expect a visit from the BTP (Basschat Thought Police) sometime soon 👍

My lot at the SE Bassbash a while ago . Love ‘em!! X

Doesn't make me a better bass player sticking my nose up or looking down my nose at what other people are buying/playing...

Older people in the 1960s were probably saying the same things about the change from big bands to 4 piece pop bands. ..."declining society, the youth of today are clueless, media control, not proper musicians - can't even read music, record companies, commercialisation etc"

The other brand I've really been turned onto is ACG. Received a Krell 4 string custom off Paddy777 in a trade on here in March of last year and I've since bought a RetroB 5 string as well as a new Graft 5 string direct from Alan at AC guitars. I've now taken the plunge and ordered a custom 5 string from Alan which is something I've never done before but I'm really happy to be doing and can't wait till the day comes I drive to the ACG workshop to pick it up. Fantastic basses. Can't speak highly enough of them.

I reckon you should buy my ACG Finn (Yes they are humbuckers, honest guv!)

Nine Loops for Nine Pedals. Edit: the mothership 2 lives in the loop of the T70. So it’s 10 for 10… 🎈 A Splash of midi, but mostly straight forward stuff for Improvisation and Jams.

After more than 7-8 years, going back from big to smaller board

Mid/late 70s or very early 80s - beyond that there were very few MIJ copies (outwith replica-level stuff) being exported, as Japanese manufacturers moved to original designs for export, & budget instrument production went to Korea & Taiwan. Anyway - this is nice. Looks like a solid timber body (not ply or butcher block) and a one-piece neck, and a total steal for £110. CMI, as I expect everyone knows, was Jim Marshall's spinoff brand, originally set up (iirc) as a way around a restrictive distribution deal Marshall was tied into in the early 70s. Most CMIs tend to be fairly budget-level, but this looks pretty high-end. It's interesting this one has the block logo, rather than the Marshall-ised italic version with the large 'M', which I'd tended to assume was used on later instruments. It's not Fujigen (the factory which made Ibanez & many others) but I would say it's the same factory that produced most Cimars. There's some debate about that but from what's currently understood it was likely Chushin Gakki or Kiso Suzuki. Those tuners appear on lots of Cimars and also many late 70s/80s Tokai Fender clones. A variation, with a cast key rather than a clover leaf, appears on practically every Yamaha BB bass from this era. I'd be inclined to think it's only the knobs that may not be original - you'd expect a replacement scratchplate to have needed a few new screwholes, but from what I can see, these all match up. Unsure about the pickup, unlike a lot of Japanese units I've never seen a P or J type with any identifying marks.

Some internal shots, looks original to me but not sure about the pickup, mainly because I don't know much about old MiJ stuff in general. No extra holes though. Tuners have been stripped and cleaned, truss rod moves fine (was set with barely any tension when I got it) so I've flattened the neck out. Will see if it needs a shim at all when I put it back together. That reflective sticker came off easily, nothing underneath it.

Just paid £50 for a Hawkwind ticket (after fees and buyer protection). Felt that was STEEP!

I thought Fender's luxury brand was G&L 🙂

Give it 40 years and people will be talking about early Indonesian Fenders the same way they talk about Japanese Squiers.....

plenty of people spend hundreds of pounds on sports clothing that have been developed for elite athletes only to shuffle down to maccy d’s.

Another vote for the Lakland Skylines. I've played and owned Musicman, G&L, Fender, Warwick amongst others but I never owned a Skyline until 2021. I've owned five since then and they've all been really great basses. I sold on the four strings but kept the fives as they are now my 'go to' brand for band work now. I have a quilt top 55-02 Deluxe, a 55-60 with East J Retro preamp and a flame top 55-AJ. I want to pick a winner but I can't. 55-AJ (Active Jazz?) 55-60 55-02

...so I heard banging and commotion, came downstairs and lo and behold my Trace 4x10 had given birth to a healthy baby 2x10, a £40 lovechild from Facebook marketplace - I didn't even know she was pregnant and now have to find room for another cab to feed! I'm guessing blaming my 4x10s infidelity isn't an excuse to still be in this?

Oops, 2x10 also came up for £40 on facebook yesterday, right off my commute home... just need to come up with a suitable excuse for the gear abstinence thread... but I didn't know my 4x10 was even expecting a baby?

Afternoon all. Name’s Chaz. Based in Leicestershire and play in a local covers band The Stop Startz. Perennial G.A.S. problem but currently rocking a Sterling Ray4 alongside a host of 6 strings. Co-Founder of a hot sauce brand. First round dropout on Masterchef. Looking to chat gear, chat sauce (been recommended to an hot sauce thread by a co-worker) and potentially look a sub-in’s for gigs around the Leicestershire area. Hope everyone is having a spectacular Tuesday!

My weak link. As I play a lot of blues, mixylodian comes naturally to me. Other than major/minor ionian/aeolian, I use harmonic minor. I suppose the really interesting thing about mides is each one changes the selection of major and minor chords available.

Not sure if this counts…..

No problem.This is only from my experience. Modes offer more harmonic options. If your band is jamming in C major you can spice things up by choosing a mode within C major and experimenting with a fill. D Dorian (for example) has the same notes as C major but starting on the 2nd degree. Therefore it contains the same notes but offers a different flavour. I see a mode as a different "flavour" of the parent key. I'll stop now before I make things worse 😆

I'm sure its not that at all (No I'm not)

Yes I remember it. David Shields and John Vannerman ran it and did indeed have a Wall of Wals. Many years ago (April '98)I'd somehow found out that John was selling his matching pair of fretted / fretless 5 string Wals he'd had made and he was asking somewhere between £1500 and £2k for the pair! The next weekend I travelled down from Huddersfield with the intent to buy them.....but they had been snatched up just before I got there. I do remember John showing me a pair of Sei fretted / fretless 5 strings (never heard of Sei at that time) but I ended up trading my Pre EB MM Sabre in for a JD Calibas my gateway drug into 5 strings! 🤣

I learnt modes 30 years ago in the way a few have described where it all relates back to C major but like others it didn't click until someone said while showing me a phrase at a rehearsal, "it's D mixolydian, which is just D major with a flattened seventh." That was my moment of truth and then I just went from there. Looking back, I was taught a lot of theory but wasn't taught much about how to apply it in practice. An example would be that I could fill white boards with the theory but when given a chord progression, would be lost on how to apply it. The two teachers I had were great at being talking textbooks but weren't great at seeing my needs. My homework would be learning to stack thirds through two octaves of each mode along to a metronome rather than what I would do later myself, taking a mode and playing improvised phrases over two chords to get used to using and hearing just one mode before moving on to the next. Having learned Spanish as an adult to a fluency level where I was giving seminars and professional presentations, it's made me realise that my music/guitar teachers were going into the equivalent of advanced grammar before covering intermediate conversation skills. On rare occasions where I'm having a conversation about modes, I think it's important to start by explaining how they sound and what classic examples are, like the Careless Whisper sax mentioned earlier, that Phrygian sound in some Metallica songs. Then explain how it's achieved by changing scale tones and then going into the theory, if required. To my mind that is the way to generate interest and understanding in the student.

It's all brand and marketing strategy, and less, as has now been discussed extensively, about product quality. I think of Fender's product stratification as more akin to Fords and Vauxhalls in the 80s-90's. Basically the same cars but with different seat coverings, the addition or subtraction of various bits of plastic. So you had a bit extra cash, you got the GL or the GT over the base model or whatever and went off happy that you'd got a "bit extra" that maybe looked a bit better, felt a bit more comfortable, the 1.8L got you to 30 MPH a moment before the 1.6L. Alloy wheels == premium string tree. Ibanez is another great example of this strategy. There's no "falling for it", it's just what does the brand mean to you and what are you prepared to pay? I look at Squier as good value, punching above their weight, a fun brand that isn't afraid to experiment. With Fender, a bit more traditional and "authentic", good but not boutique quality, like buying into a lineage. Full disclosure - I have two jazz basses.

I didn't say I was a Taylor Swift fan (or that I wasn't a metal fan), just that she is popular and rock music (or 'band' music) in general is getting less-so. And I didn't say people in an orchestra wouldn't know their fellow musician names, I'm saying that that a general audience won't know their names - but they will know the conductor/composer or the 'star' of the performance, similar to a Taylor Swift concert.

I know that folk had complained about the original power supply, but I didn't know that Neural had upgraded it, that's brilliant actually. Good on ya Neural! I've been building a few new presets recently that, when done, I'll put up on the Cortex app.

i don’t think they scorn the gear just the people buying it. if your a dentist that wants a £4000 custom shop fender for your 30th anniversary and can barely play then there are worse crimes out there.

i don’t have any data to back this up but i would guess that a sizeable chunk of people buying new instruments every year are parents. they possibly know nothing about the instrument they are buying but unless they have been living in a cave have probably heard of fender. japan was a cheap manufacturing destination 50 years ago, mexico was also very cheap until relatively recently. i would guess that the production of this bass is to make a budget fender to fill the gap in the market left by increasing costs in mexico.

This simply isn't true. Initially MTV wouldn't play any videos by black artists. It was when the president of CBS records threatened to pull all his company's videos from the network that Michael Jackson's Billie Jean was eventually aired. Sad but true.

Yes I’m not saying that it is logical but people pay less for a Skoda built with identical parts to a VW so it’s not just fender

Not true I’m afraid - of the seven studio albums released by Macca in the 21st Century, some or all of his band ( Abe Laboriel Jnr, Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson and MD Paul Wickens ) appear on six of them. ( The 2012 album of old covers & standards is the exception, featuring many guest players but not his band). Saw them at Manchester in December and was blown away by their talent. 😊

@neepheid is undercover. You think he is a mild mannered Scot from Aberdeen but actually it’s an elaborate masquerade planned by your wife to keep tabs on your spending. As long as I don’t blow her cover by telling anyone … Mums the word

It says “Stage Tuner” - guess it can be used as either.

So glad I got my Mk 1 back in the early 90s (personal ad in the back of Guitarist) and my Pro2E back in 2001 (randomly turned up in a local guitar shop - both for about 500 quid) before the prices got silly!

Having had my £350 Wal in the 80s, I knew I was never getting one of those again, since prices went into the stratosphere. That's why I had this homage built, which bears a vague resemblance to a Wal, late last year. With the multi coil pickups and LPF based preamp, it nails that sound.

Not quite the same thing, but if I gave any concerns about a gig... lighting, pressure to deliver, feeling under the weather, I make life as easy as possible for myself and take my Flea Jazz bass for maximum playability. My Sire P10 gets close.