mcnach

Pretty sweet looking! Now drop that pickguard (🤮) and put a black one, or mint/parchment, and it'll look really classy.

To be honest, I don't choose a bass because it has certain pickups so that it fits with a particular sound... I just look at a bass and if it does the sounds I like, that works. This means that I have P, PJ, JJ, Jazz, MM, double MM, P/MM... It's not about output, but the combination of a type of pickup and its position just gives a certain type of sound, and with so many variants it's hard not to succumb to GAS and acquire a few different ones. A bass with a MM at the same position as the Precision pickup does not sound like a P, but it does have some of the vibe as I found out. So you can think of basses like that as variants of the Precision sound, some of which you may like more and some less than a Precision. You're right, single coil vs humbucker is super easy to tell apart on guitars. On bass it's not quite as clear cut, but sometimes it's very obvious, with the single coils generally having a treble profile that's quite telling... but there are exceptions, it's hard to make a hard and fast rule. Humbuckers are not muddy, you can make them muddy, but they don't have to be, it depends on the actual circuitry.

Sandberg and Warwick make small bodied Jazz-configured instruments too. Sandberg in particular would be where I'd be looking at.

I find them similar to Fat Beams and Sunbeams, presumably because all these are round cores. Flexible/compliant but not floppy. I've got Pure Blues on my Sandberg VM4 and I think they suit it well.

The Pure Blues have a more pronounced midrange than Sunbeams, so they can sound a bit more aggresive to start with, but they're also mellower in the higher frequencies, a bit as if you had been using those strings for a bit, and they have less oompf in the low end. Just a bit. I like them on Precisions, I think they suit them helping them getting a tighter low end, and I 'tame' the aggressive midrange with the tone control as it's mostly the high mids that -sometimes- needs taming, for my taste.

This. If anything, music education should give people tools to better use their creativity.

I think the butterscotch ones were always pine?

SQUIER

I really liked mine. It was an early butterscotch ones. The neck a bit chunkier than other incarnations as far as I could tell, but not in a bad way. It was not light, 'though.

It's probably easier and cheaper to just change your name...

I know it doesn't answer your question but... just try anything and everything. I find that different materials can work differently and give you a slightly different vibe. You may like more than one type!

Really like what he's done, very RHCP-esque indeed. Grab him before he goes away!

He made me a MMSR 3-knob 3-band with a bypass switch on the volume control (pull for bypass) at my request. I'm sure he'll add the passive tone control if there's a good way to add it to the existing layout of a Stingray ... and then I'll be very envious I didn't ask for that myself

A friend of mine's labrador discovered that guitars make noise when you hit their strings, and loved it. In that house guitars need to be kept hidden.

Judging by the amount of instruments kept hanging by the neck (in homes and shops) and held in stands and cases, for so many years, and we don't have a clear indication that any option is bad... I'd say that it doesn't matter much. Whatever is most convenient. Needing to adjust the truss rod from time to time is not unusual. Some of mine I never touch, but there's a few that *ideally* I'd tweak twice a year or so, although the difference is so tiny that I sometimes don't. I don't go for super low action, so that may be a factor too, as the basses can play buzz-free if I increase or decrease relief a little, so seasonal changes don't matter to me so much. I wonder if hanging them, being higher in the room, makes them more exposed to higher changes in temperature and humidity. But in normal circumstances I can't imagine it's a drastic change.

There are no real 'new rules', yet, but some people have always been reluctant to ship abroad because of perceived (real or not) potential trouble dealing with the aftermath if a parcel goes missing (insurance etc). There are no customs fees, yet, within the EU and the UK is still working on EU rules pretty much.

I should have said then GREAT optimism

First of all, those SX Telecasters are really nice. I've recently bought one like the one below (in candy apple red, but otherwise the same) and I can't put it down. However, new it cost me £139, including delivery. Here we have one at £159 plus 20 delivery, used, and with a bit of 'relic' going on. I can't understand it when people don't do the most basic homework. https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/203038523996?campaign-id=90001&run-date=20200707023500&templateId=0bff632b-c44d-4b26-aa5d-5d92d3981176&templateVersion=237&co=11&placement-type=mfe.piyi2P&user-id=43174985341&instance=1594114500&site-id=3&trackingCode=16TE75002_T_ALL_CT2_ORM&placement-type-name=mfe.piyi2P&mfe-Id=101242

ok, I won't show you the black pickguard and hardware then

other colours available...

Another +1 for Gordon Smith. My first decent guitar was an '86 Gordon Smith GS1 that I bought used in 1993. It was a fantastic guitar that I regret selling.

well, it's nearly lunch time 😛

I had one, and mine worked well, but I heard of quite a few reports like yours. I sold it because at the time I had a bunch of other octaves and there were others I liked more. I love the EBS Octabass, which a lot of people just go 'meh' at it and ironically I do not have one right now. I've kept the MarkBass Octave (the original large footprint one) for 'cleaner' octave sounds, and the Valeton OC-10 for the dirtier types (and for guitar, it's great with guitar). I think I'll probably buy again one day the Aguilar one, it was a funky octaver that one... should have kept it, but none of my bands needed me to use one then

Indeed, but it's also easy to see why some of the feeding frenzy surrounding certain instruments/brands sometimes look a bit ridiculous too. I love my SX guitars, I've got a couple. The SX Telecaster I got a few weeks back, I can't put it down. I keep commenting how much I love it to anybody who is near me But I'm aware it's not the best Telecaster, it's just a perfectly decent instrument that punches way above it's £129 tag and that's pretty much what I needed: a decent Telecaster to have around the house which would make the right sounds when recording some basic demos. The problem comes when people start talking about how they are comparable or better than brand X costing 10x as much... and I'll call that 'hype'. I'll still prefer to listen to that than to nay-sayers that have no personal experience of the instrument in question. We haven't had much Behringer bashing lately, but it was a great example of this kind of thing, as invariably you'll get people chiming in to say how rubbish Behringer was all while admitting they do not use their gear. It used to mildly annoy me and amuse me at the same time, for I used a LOT of Behringer equipment when my income was a lot lower than now and while it was not the best, it worked perfectly fine and gave me a chance to play which I would not have had otherwise. I still have a small mixer which works just fine almost 20 years later, and my first bass head was a BX-4500T which was, ahem, inspired on the Ashdown MAG series, and it actually sounded pretty good and did the job without fault while I had it... I'm also a little of a reverse-snob I love it when I use some 'lowly' gear but get good results out of it, however I still like nice gear so I mostly use that, but not based on a brand name, logo etc, just based on my experience with it. I can't deny that the stuff I like best tends not to be found in the lower budget ranges, even if I find some great cheap gear too.

No offence whatsoever, don't worry, we're allowed to disagree... Although now that you expanded it we probably agree about a lot more than I thought at first, just not everything I am someone who is willing to sacrifice a little (a little!) for the sake of convenience, so I enjoy my small and light Mesa D800+ and a pair of compact and light Barefaced Two10 immensely. If I had roadies and bulk/weight were not an issue, I will probably be using something else, but I am really happy with my sound and when it comes to packing up/tearing down, I am extremely happy I chose this gear