hiram.k.hackenbacker

Oh, you’re a happy pair aren’t you 🙄

39,321 registered Basschatters and the most we've had online since the conversion is 986? We can do better than 2.5% can't we? Let's set a time and date, a window of 5 minutes on a Sunday perhaps, and smash that figure well north of four figures. Just for the hell of it 😀

One thing’s for sure, if all I get out of them is a replacement neck, I won’t be putting it on the bass 😬.

Ah, love that album. Overlooked IMHO. Shallow Be Thy Game is my favourite.

Yes, that had occurred to me. My counter offer would be to save them the bother and ask for a contribution to the graphite replacement.

Having had a think about how I was going to word my reply to Fender, I sent an e-mail off to them and have had a further response from them today. Thankfully they seem to be taking this matter a little more seriously now and have offered to have the bass collected so that it can be inspected at Fender UK. Although I haven’t mentioned what has happened to the bass since the start of this thread, my plan is to negotiate the return of just the neck. Having spoken with Rob at Status, I think it should be fairly clear to anyone who knows a bit about guitars that the neck is shot, without it being attached to the rest of it 😬. I’ve tried taking a photo of what the neck looks like. It’s not a great picture to be honest, but it’s the best my phone will do. I’m not even sure what a neck like this should look like when it is unstressed, but I'm fairly sure it's not like this!

Your wife has good taste. Miele are really good machines.

Yes, I saw that. It looks great. I would say that if you’ve found a Rickenbacker that you’re 100% happy with, don’t get rid of it unless you’re completely done with the brand. I’d still buy the Stealth tho 😀

There is a nice looking Series 2 for sale at Bass Direct at the moment 😀 http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Status_S2_4_Cocobolo.html

You may have a bit of a wait 😀

Yes, I think you’re right. It could give it a more open sound, but I don’t think you would know for sure unless you bit the bullet. Yes, plain white dots on mine 👍

Yes, I don’t think it would work quite as well for me with new shiny tuners and a pristine shell pink body. Bit of an odd contrast going on, which I like 😀

No need to apologise mate. There are loads of people who didn’t like the Flea in its original spec 😀. I’m just happy I can play it again.

Well, that neck wasn’t made to my spec, it was one that they already had, so no Luminlay’s. The bass always was passive and it just seems to me that the difference between the limits of tone fully on and fully off seem to be wider. Difficult to say really without another Flea Jazz to compare it directly to. If you’re going to go to the trouble of converting an active bass to passive, personally I would seriously consider adapting it so that you can have both active and passive switching options. I have a couple of basses wired like that and they’re great.

Thanks for the offer and you may well get a chance to look at it, but I’m going to have to hang onto it for the time being, just in case Fender decide they want to get actively involved 🙄

I asked Rob on your behalf and the answer is ‘No’. They just make graphite necks now.

I didn't think it was worth doing a 'Kinda New Old Bass' thread (or K.N.O.B. for short 🙄), so I'll just add to this instead. As you know, I went up to Status HQ late last week to drop off the Fender Flea. Dawn and I discussed what would be the best neck option for this bass. My initial thought was to get a maple coloured graphite neck as it would go with the exposed wood in the relic paint job and would keep the whole thing quite light. There was also the choice of blocks, dots or plain as well as having a black neck with the same options. I'm hopeless when it come to choices, especially when you can't actually see them attached to the bass. A deciding factor was that Rob had a black neck which had been commissioned by a mystery artist. This neck hadn't been used for whatever reason and after some enquiries it turned out that it was no longer required. I hadn't actually seen it prior to agreeing to have it, but I was sucked in by the fact that it was blank like ebony fingerboard on my 'Starry Night' Stingray. I visited Status HQ this morning to collect my Fender Flea. I was greeted by Dawn who showed me through to 'that room', which if you've been in it, you will know that there are more than a few things to look at in there! The 'Fleatus' was in the rack by the work bench, along with a myriad of other bodies, necks and complete instruments. Dawn removed it from the rack and laid it on the bench and said 'I really think the black works'. On seeing it, I could only agree with her that it had been the right decision. There was a little residue left on the headstock, so Dawn went to get Rob who came through and removed it. We had quite a chat about the old neck which was basically firewood at best. Looking down the old one you can see a massive bow in the last few frets at the nut end. Probably more than any truss rod could cope with. The new neck is very slightly deeper and as a result, is very slightly heavier, but the whole bass is nicely balanced and plays beautifully. I have no plans to replace the tuners with lighter ones as it sits very nicely on the strap. The sound is definitely different and this was to be expected. It's a bit difficult to describe, but overall it's less warm than the wood neck, but has more bite. Also, the tone controls seem to offer more flexibility in range than they did before. It also sustains forever. I haven't had the chance to put it through my gig rig yet, but from what I've heard through headphones on my Bass Buddy, it's going to sound great. I might even swap the pick guard back to the original and use it with my 80's band at the gig on Saturday. I'm super impressed with not only the neck, but the level of fabulous service I received from Rob and Dawn at Status. The only downside is that I now have massive GAS for another Status. They sure do make some incredible basses. Just to avoid the emoji's....

A sneaky peek as I haven't had a chance to play with it properly with it yet. There's something weirdly satisfying about a new highly polished neck fitted with reliced vintage tuners 😀

Yes, quite. I’m going to get the old neck back from Rob and tackle Fender again once I have it back in my possession. That looks fab. Yes, I’m just about to head up to Colchester to collect it. I must admit I’m curious as to how a passive bass will sound with a bright new graphite neck on it. All my other Statii are active, so I don’t really know what to expect.

Yes they were. I managed to restrain myself from firing off an immediate retort. I’ll respond tomorrow once I’ve had a think about it.

Surprise surprise, Fender have followed up their automated reply with an actual human response! “Thank you for getting in touch and glad to hear you've been loving your Flea Bass up until now, looks as though that will have been caused by a dramatic turn in temperature or humidity and which has caused the neck to warp - thus resulting in an unplayable action! I'd get the bass over to a tech or local shop to get it tweaked back to it's former glory. Please let me know if there's anything else I can help with. All the best.” i quite like the ‘let me know if there’s anything else I can help with’, like they’ve been soooo helpful so far.

Yes I read that thread. Very interesting process. Bit beyond my capabilities tho.

All noted. I’ll give them another nudge at the end of the week.

They sell maple coloured graphite necks, but I don’t know about wooden ones. I certainly don’t have any. I’ll ask when I go up there on Thursday if you like? I will report back with an assessment of the Status Flea.

An update, just in case anyone is interested..... No reply at all from the Fender dealer/point of sale. Automated e-mail reply received from Fender UK (stating they would get back to me in due course). Dawn at Status has contacted me to say that my bass is ready for collection.