Rayman

I’ve also told Paypal Lesson learned

I’ve been scammed. He sold the exact same bass in February. Same photo, identical. I’ve asked eBay for a refund. No idea how long that takes.

PayPal. So hopefully I’m safe.

So having purchased a bass yesterday afternoon via the bay, I messaged the seller to make arrangements to collect the bass later in the week. So far there’s no response. I’m of a mind where if someone has paid you for an item, you should drop them a message to say thanks and to acknowledge the transaction. How long would you leave it before getting worried? It’s been almost 24hrs at the time of writing, and there’s nothing on their page to say they’re away or anything. I’ve bought hundreds of items on eBay over the 24hrs I’ve been on it, and I’ve never been blanked before, certainly not on a bass purchase.

Today, I shall be mostly playing: An Aria IGB68 Integra 5. An absolutely stunning bass, and one that gets overlooked a lot here at Rayman Towers. However every so often I pick it up and play it for an hour and I’m reminded of what a fabulous thing it is. Massively versatile, lovely neck and very powerful output and tone. They shouldn’t be as good as they are, with a factory fitted “Neck” MM pickup fitted as standard (which doesn’t quite line up correctly with the strings), the sound is modern but awesome. You can pick them up for not much money, but they don’t come up often. What’s your choice of bass today?

Too late. Already sold 😞

I literally just messaged the guy, just before reading this!!

I’m pretty handy, and not afraid of repairs, but I’m used to electric basses. This is a whole other thing. What I don’t want to do is buy a piece of junk. I mean it’s only £300……… but it’s 300 quid I can’t afford to throw away. It’s way too far North to take my mate, I’d have to tie it in with work, but it’s a hell of a long way from Manchester.

I did wonder what that flattened area was low down (high register) under the D and G strings?

👍🏻 thanks for that. I wasn’t sure, so I needed to know the truth. Possibly worth giving this particular bargain a swerve.

I do know one actually, but I saw this thing pop up and thought, it's maybe worth a punt as something to start on?? I don't know.... I have no idea of it's origins I'm looking for a Stentor 1950 primarily, but at 300 quid, I thought that this might do for now

https://www.gumtree.com/p/double-bass/double-bass/1479216763 There it is.......

Ok so me and Mrs Rayman are looking for a modest upright to learn on, and a cheap option came up on gumtree. A black painted thing for £300. I know nothing about upright basses. Is this thing junk to be avoided? Or a reasonable starter bass? I’ll try and figure out a link 👍🏻

Absolutely. Maybe folk have read some of the threads I’ve written, I don’t know. I haven’t paid more than 150 quid for any of mine. My first one was £50!! £400 is madness.

lol….. I wondered if I’d be asked that!! Absolutely not! I’ve never seen one go for that price. I’m sensible enough to know my limits and that exceeded them by some margin. I do wonder if I’ve shot myself in the foot by raving about them so much 😆

Anyone going down a similar road…. I’d highly recommend 500K pots, they’ve definitely brightened up an otherwise quite dull sounding set of pups. I actually went 500K for the two volume pots and 250K for the tone. Having spent a couple of hours on the bass this afternoon, I’m super happy with it, and the tone is really excellent. A greatly improved instrument indeed.

Dressed and polished frets…. Lovely and smooth to the touch now, and a very attractive bit of rosewood actually… and we’re done…… An old set of Rotosound Monels fitted, very happy with the end result. Pickups?…. Mehh I’ll leave them in. Pretty low output but I do like the tone, kind of old school. So there it is.

Fun with foam A bit of old school funk

I really like this one, although I hope the upgrades will help it along a bit more.

Neck/frets is next….. Check out the neck pocket 😆, Chinese craftsmanship at its finest. This thing is not a high quality instrument, but, it looks cool and it sounds really nice albeit via the low output pickups (which are truly low budget). It was a birthday present from Mrs Rayman a couple of years ago, so I’m happy to spend the time making it nice. Actually the neck is very comfortable, but the fret ends are sharp, so they’ll get filed and polished. A fun thing….. keep you posted

I’ve had this a while, and have already put some Gotoh GB707s on it….. but I decided to pull it apart and improve the frankly nasty Chinese electronics…… Absolutely appalling crap comes out…. and in goes, basically a Jazz loom, 500K volume pots, 250K tone pot and a paper and oil cap….. Don’t look too closely at the soldering, I’m still learning, and I’m impatient, which isn’t ideal when you’re working on electronics.

To be fair, I could make a nice raised bed for my garden out of those planks.

Ace idea….. wish I’d seen this a couple of days ago 🤦🏻‍♂️