hiram.k.hackenbacker

30 minutes ago, Dood said:

You'll need the plectrums too:

http://www.deaky.net/bass/pickE.html

If you can find any out there!

Another point of compromise I think. I've seen the correct picks, but not in the right colour. Probably go with these as I know I like them....

4 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

I dare you to get the shirt!!

Which bass have you ordered?

I think I'm going to have to compromise a little on the shirt. Goes against the grain, but I don't think I have much chance of finding that exact design unless I go and raid the Bohemian Rhapsody wardrobe dept.

I've ordered a Limelight - '68 Precision body with rosewood jazz width satin finish neck, big TV logo on head stock, natural finish on body, tort 3 ply pick guard, vintage reverse tuners, threaded saddle bridge, light relic, tug bar in period correct lower position.

Officially out of the 2019 Gear Abstinence Challenge and not in a way that I ever foresaw 😂.

There's always next year 🙄

4 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Schaller

I really must get my eyes checked. I thought they probably should/would be, but thought they looked like they were sticking out a bit too much and there was some black ring in there. Trick of the light maybe. Thanks again.

Sorry to bother you once again @AndyTravis, do you happen to know what strap locks he's using here. They don't look like anything I've used before.

I've sourced the Fender strap and the bass is ordered, so I may as well go the whole hog 😎

1 hour ago, martthebass said:

H......I've got a JD wig that I'm not using in Glam Fever - It's seriously hideous.

Well, that’s a very kind offer and I do think we need to see it 😂

EDIT: Being worn by you obviously 😜

1 minute ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

I'm hoping he's going to get a tobacco burst Stingray with a white pickguard just for another one bites the dust, be rude not to add it into the set? 

Now Stingray’s I’m not short of 😂

Just now, bassfan said:

Where will you find a wig like that H? From memory you have as much hair as me! 😂

Gonna borrow one from the Hair Bear Bunch 😂

1 minute ago, AndyTravis said:

I do try.

now.

find a 2nd gen highway 1 pbass. Sand it down, shell pickguard and a reissue bridge...sod it, limelight will be cheaper

Having spoken with them, I do think a Limelight would be the better option. Don’t need the silverware to go with it and no custom paint job either, although I would expect a degree of relicing 😀

4 minutes ago, HazBeen said:

Just so I get it right, you are going to have a bass built for 1 gig?

Love it

Well, it’s more like I’m using the opportunity to get a Precision built that I will actually get along with. It will have Jazz C profile neck, but the rest will be all Precision 😀

1 minute ago, AndyTravis said:

It was the 68, big tv logo 

Fabulous. You’re a star 👏. Thank you.

1 minute ago, AndyTravis said:

You’re looking at minutiae...

if it’s a Fender logo in the centre of the headstock and the precision bass is small and underneath, it’s the 65 and will have spiral/threaded saddles and you’d want the 62/63 American vintage bridge.

if it’s the big “tv” logo where the Fender is under the e&a and the precision bass logo is big and goes across the remainder of the headstock, that’s the 68 and will have pre grooved saddles (I think) you’d get away with the Mexican standard bridge or 75 American vintage reissue bridge.

i will have a look and report back.

OK thank you. 

17 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

John was, for most of his professional career, a Fender Precision bassist. He was given a 1965 sunburst model by the record company in 1972, and by late 1974 he had another one, which was made in 1968. The two basses are almost identical and they sound 99.99% alike. The only slight difference is on their logos: the 1965 model has a grey logo, the 1968 model has a black logo. John used both of them interchangeably for most of the 1970s, and then mostly the 1968 model from then on. Those basses underwent several changes on their finish: in summer 1975, John stripped off his 1965 model and left it natural, one year later he did the same with the 1968 model, and by the time the Magic tour began in June 1986 he had his 1968 bass refurbished and painted black.

Again, I know little about vintage Fender, but wouldn’t the earlier one be the black ‘spaghetti’ logo and the later one be a gold ‘transitional’ one possibly? Seems the above suggest the other way around.

5 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

John was, for most of his professional career, a Fender Precision bassist. He was given a 1965 sunburst model by the record company in 1972, and by late 1974 he had another one, which was made in 1968. The two basses are almost identical and they sound 99.99% alike. The only slight difference is on their logos: the 1965 model has a grey logo, the 1968 model has a black logo. John used both of them interchangeably for most of the 1970s, and then mostly the 1968 model from then on. Those basses underwent several changes on their finish: in summer 1975, John stripped off his 1965 model and left it natural, one year later he did the same with the 1968 model, and by the time the Magic tour began in June 1986 he had his 1968 bass refurbished and painted black.

Mmm. I need to try and see if I can identify what colour the logo is then. Would there be any difference in bridge/saddles/tuners etc between a ‘65 and a ‘68?

EDIT: Great piece of info by the way. Thank you 👍

12 minutes ago, Cato said:

I seem to recall that @Dood had his own Deacon tribute bass at some point.

Might have dreamt it though.

Maybe that was the Nash bass that was mentioned?

3 minutes ago, lou24d53 said:

I hope you're going full on cartoon shirt and stone washed denims too...

Or you could go for the Wembley outfit with the yellow short shorts and the Hilda Ogden T-shirt...?! 🤔🤣

Yep, pink Hawaiian shirt, stone washed denims and baby blue plectrums on order 😀

Just now, Cato said:

I seem to recall that @Dood had his own Deacon tribute bass at some point.

Might have dreamt it though.

Ooh, that’s good news. Hopefully he will be along in due course 😀

Here is the bass he used on the day.

So, the charity gig that I’ve mentioned elsewhere on Basschat (The Last Resort) is happening again this year in November and I’ve been asked to return.

The theme this year is ‘tributes’ and being in a Bowie tribute, I was originally asked to play the Bowie set. Obviously I said yes, but I now have the opportunity of doing the Queen Live Aid set as well, which I’m super excited about as I’m a big fan. 

I thought it would be a nice touch to play the set on a bass that looked the part and I’ve been having a look for some information on the bass John used, which seemed to be quite a favourite of his, a stripped Fender Precision with a 3ply tort guard and rosewood fingerboard. There are many photo’s of him playing it and it seems to be distinguishable by a dark blemish below the bridge. However, I can’t seem to find any specific details about it, what it used to be finished in, it’s vintage etc.

The thing is, I don’t get on with P necks. I did find a Fender Artisan Precision on Thomann which had a Jazz neck, but it’s €4,400! It also has Fender Jazz on the headstock, even though it has a Precision body 🙄. [I should add that I’ve always wanted a P bass that I could get on with in the arsenal, so I’m not searching for something I would only use once. I did have a Pino CS, but I just couldn’t get on with it and I did try].

I came across some information this afternoon that suggested that Nash Guitars once made a John Deacon tribute bass. Their web site makes no mention of it and I don’t even know what it looked like. Maybe it was a one off? I then had a moment of epiphany - a Limelight Custom Build.

So I rang Limelight today and had a chat about the aim of the build and I found myself being asked questions I couldn’t really answer, like what vintage JD’s Bass was, what it might have been finished as prior to being stripped, what saddles it had etc. There are pictures, but they’re not great and I can’t find specific details about this bass.

Surely the Basschat Collective must be able to assist.

10 hours ago, tauzero said:

Put the replacement neck on the body, then get another body and put the graphite neck on that?

I’m kinda loathed to tinker around with the Flea really as it’s just perfect as it is, not to mention just a little bit different.

8 minutes ago, miles'tone said:

Yes looks a bit thinner to me too. I prefer those to be honest!

Yes, me too. Shame I can’t play it at the moment 😂

Another thing I noticed was that the edges of the frets are finished ten times better than the original.

It really is a nice looking neck.

I found some photo's of it from when it was delivered. Am I imagining it or is the new neck fret wire slightly thinner?

14 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

1 or 3 

if you do 3 the main things I guess is working out what you want before you spend anything. You could have another jazz... the same or would 70s PU positioning be nice? What pickups? Active/passive? Heck stick a P pup in, or MM ... 

the problem with building something is that cost wise it can all add up, and bitsas almost never make the cost of even the secondhand parts back if sold as a bites. If you do your sums, and depending how much work you do yourself vs paying someone... but it might be as cheap to sell then neck and buy a secondhand bass you want. 

Yes, you’re right. I guess the value of the end product (bitsa) matters less if you’re guaranteed to end up with something that really floats your boat. Since I’ve not done this before, there’s no real guarantee of that. What struck me when I opened the box was that how wonderfully well finished this neck is. Obviously, I don’t have the old neck to compare it directly to, but it does seem to be very nice indeed. Again, I might be imagining it, but I’m sure the frets on the old neck were larger. The frets on the new neck seem very thin, almost like the banjo frets on my Dingwall (Lee Sklar).

I’ll post a picture later. Can anyone confirm what the fret wire looks like on their ‘61?

I now have a brand new Fender Jazz neck (with cut nut). After the last rather curse e-mail exchange, someone a little higher up the food chain decided it might be a good idea to give me a call and apologise personally rather than batting this back and forth. Sensible move and good on them for making the effort.

So, I'm now thinking what I could do with the neck:

1) Sell it

2) Leave it in the box. Should I ever decide to move the '61 on, I can then keep the graphite neck and sell the bass with the neck it should have.

3) Build something. When I sent the defective neck back to Fender, it was stripped of hardware (it's now on the Status neck). The new Fender neck came loaded with relic'd tuners and string tree, so all I really need is a decent four bolt body.

I've never put a bass together from parts before, so this is what I'm leaning towards at the moment. What are the potential pitfalls of doing this?

1 hour ago, drTStingray said:

I suppose you need to think about what would happen if you wanted to sell the bass. I think I would insist on them sending a replacement Flea Jazz neck from the factory. 

At least then you can reassemble the bass and sell it as original with factory replaced corrected neck if you ever want to. I'd certainly want to keep that Status neck. 

If they insist on you sending them the broken neck I'd copiously photograph it and send it them - but only on condition it's replaced with a factory OE serviceable one (needs to be Flea spec including relic job). 

Just my ten penworth - you wouldn't expect Ford to replace your broken Focus RS engine on warranty (there have been loads of recalls) with a partially complete different version? So why Fender. Frankly it'll cost them virtually nothing except shipping, if the UK distributor/retailer can be asked to get their fingers out.

Its called aftermarket customer services - something most firms (Lakland was mentioned) do well. 

You get the feeling Fender is just not geared up for this. I have heard of broken truss rods on CS basses - it appears to be the vintage spec that sometimes causes them an issue. Thank goodness this wasn't an original 61 Jazz..........

Sorry, I probably didn't explain the chain of events very well.

Fender UK collected the faulty neck back in September. During the initial flurry of emails with Fender I decided I needed the bass back in action quicker than it looked like it was going to take dealing with Fender, so got Rob Green to fit the graphite neck.

I've never had to replace a neck before. Would they need the body back? Can't the nut be cut without the body?

In respect of batch nimbers and when my bass was made, here is the serial number. I don’t know how Fender’s number system works, or even if they have a system, but if it helps anyone who is worried about their bass, here it is.