mcnach

The Luminlay ones are particularly good where there's soem kind of blue/UV lighting onstage. Years ago I had a 'nirvana black' Warwick Corvette $$ and I used to play in a couple of very dark venues (well, it was dark on my side of the stage). One day I bought some Glowtech paint and some powder too, and made a paste with it, then applied small 'blobs' at the side dot markers. It wasn't very pretty if you looked up close, but it wasn't that obvious. It glowed brightly for long enough, but I could also feel the 'blobs' with my thumb, so I could find my way even if the glow weren't there. Not the prettiest solution but that worked very well for me. If you want it to look good, Luminlay is great. Just have the little UV keyring-torch in your pocket if you think you might need to refresh the glow, a simple swipe along the neck will get you going. Since I switched to maple neck/fingerboards I haven't bothered with anything glowing.

Not on mine, no. It stays put when I take my hands off.

I can't fault the stock pickups, to be honest.

A video from last week... We're rusty and any semblance of a 'show' is sadly missing, but we'll soon look like we are enjoying being there

Two gig weekend... little by little we're getting busy again.

And that purple pearl in the picture is mine That and an orange one (Halloween )

It is indeed. I sent him my MB-5 plate that he made a template from.

Exactly, at that price you get a perfectly usable instrument, and nothing too precious so experiment at will! Being a Stingray/Precision kind of guy, mostly, I was considering buying another and turn it into a 5-string Precision sounding machine: those pickguards can hide all the routing sins so even I can take care of that. My chisel work is not pretty but it is functional

It wasn't as good on mine, but nothing terrible. Intonation needed adjustment, the nut was a little higher than needed to get the lower action I prefer, but just a little. I took to filing the slots a bit at a time over several days until they were right. The fret ends were pretty sharp, 'though. I got all these little microcuts after playing it for an hour. Twenty minutes with a file, a bit of masking tape and care, and all good. I'd rather not have to do that, but when you look at the price... "ok, fair enough"

I like it just fine. It seems pretty even in volume with the others and it's got good definition but I guess that's in great part a function of the pickup & its position. I'm still on the original strings. I bought a set of stainless steel Newtones but as soon as the original strings mellowed a bit (took no time) I liked them enough to keep them on.

To play devil's advocate for a bit, I think I know where he's coming from. There are too many examples of something cheaper being hyped-up, sometimes ridiculously so, and it's hard to distinguish the good from the bad unless you have direct experience. Even Youtube demos can be very misleading.

I thought I had read 'kittens' and I was very confused. Need coffee...

Glad it made you chortle. Do all Precision style basses sound the same? Not to me, but put a P pickup at the right spot and it's going to be 'precisiony'... and nobody seems to laugh at the notion, try that with a Stingray and it's comedy time 🤪 If Thomann stuck a MM style pickup at the right place on that thing above, it's going to sound more Stingray than anything else... look, they even put the G string falling off the edge of the fretboard, a bit like in a SR5 I know my way around a Stingray and Stingray style basses, and have been for years so I would like to think I know what sounds a Stingray makes. But feel free to criticise without trying them, it's free.

It's got the right style of pickup at the right spot, so it's going to remind you of a Stingray. The preamp gives you versatility, but a passive Stingray sounds very much like a Stingray. These basses are passive, but if you get one and like it enough there are lots of preamps you can try. I am happy enough with the original pickup. I'm a tinkerer and love modifying guitars, but I don't feel the need to change it. My 4-string Stingray sounds nicer, but we're talking an order of magnitude more expensive with a very nice 3-band preamp (John East MMSR). Regardless, I like it plenty.

9.1 lbs this one

It is not very heavy, the SBK series (black satin) seemed to be generally on the light side from comments that I've read from others. I will check when I'm at home.

Indeed I was considering installing a rotary switch for pickup series/parallel/neck-facing-singlecoil, master volume and a tonestyler type of tone control... then I remembered I have a John East U-Retro in a drawer somewhere, so I'm tempted. The semiparametric mids really makes the series/parallel option unnecessary. Not in a hurry, 'though.

It does sound like some flavour of a Stingray. It's passive, with a Jazz style wiring like the old OLPs used to be, where you get a separate volume for each coil. I don't find that particularly useful, although I often play it with just the neck facing coil and rolling the volume down a bit. Nice and fat and funky. I might rewire it so that I get both coils in series too, which is an option I really like on Stingray style basses. The string spacing is a bit on the narrow side, and I prefer wide necks/spacing, but I got used to it.

Good luck finding a MusicMan SUB5, let alone at that price. The 4 string ones tend to go upwards of £450 these days. I used to have one, it was great, and heavy as... Great basses, no doubt. I do prefer the HB. As it's often the case, I had to carefully file the fret ends and the nut could be cut a bit lower, but it just feels right in my hands and sounds great too. The first 5 string bass I feel at home with.

I have one, I love it... and after being unavailable for many months it looks like it's back: https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_mb_5_sbk_deluxe_series.htm

I had that with the Ashbory I used to have. It's a shame, as the rubber strings are a big part of the way they sound (otherwise it's just like a small scale acoustic bass, very different sound), but I noticed there a few different string suppliers now, maybe some are better.

Love it! That bass is delicious, and very nice to see Vai in a different setting from usual.

Brilliant! Thank you, I suspected there would be an obvious place to check.

I bought a couple of Broughton pedals in the past few months, and both times I had to pay (which I was expecting). One was under £200 but the other was well above. I guess you got lucky?

I've been subscribing for years, but I have not been selling anything in ages (you'll see me in an episode of hoarders soon ) which is how I think I was finding that my subscription had ran out. I still intend to keep paying the annual £20, as I lurv the site and I am sure I'll sell stuff again, but I have no idea when my subscription runs out. Is there a way to check, or maybe we get a reminder when it's a bout to expire or... Apologies if that information is already on display somewhere, I'm having my morning coffee and maybe my sleepy brain missed it.