robocorpse

I'm down to my last few Jim Dunlop "Riffs" plectrums in bright red. I have NEVER found any since, they were discontinued in the UK, and most shops have never even heard of them. Anyone got a source? Must be the really lairy scarlet red or bright green ones in .73mm

[quote name='Josh' post='566446' date='Aug 12 2009, 02:00 AM']Yes, you are wrong. I like boutique basses, sue me. Me having a preference over a Jazz bass makes you laugh? You telling me to get a Rickenbacker makes me laugh just as much.[/quote] Don't take me out of context! You said: [i]"I think maybe all I need is just one high end Jazz and that should be it[/i] Agreed, I think the Jazz is a GREAT choice, the Rickenbacker comment was only to wind you up, lighten up! What made me annoyed was: [i]"Not necessarily boutique but still rather sought after"[/i] Which I can only take to mean you don't want to be seen with anything that isn't going to make someone else jealous. Why don't you stick with this magical Squier you were banging on about? It sounds like a damn fine instrument, and you aren't giving it a chance. I have played some Squiers in the past that have absolutely sh*t all over the equivalent Fender instruments for feel, playability, tone, weight, everything and 1/5 the price. Put some gaffa tape over the logo if it makes you happy. I used to collect, I have owned many of the "greats" (Status, Pedulla, Lakland, Zon, Alembic, Jaydee etc) and still I keep coming back to this tatty Epi Thunderbird because it is an absolute demon of a bass. If I want high fidelity, I bring out the Steinberger, which is also a joy to play, it looks like crap and is bashed to pieces but its a KILLER instrument.

[quote name='WHUFC BASS' post='568770' date='Aug 14 2009, 10:53 AM']Personally I'd go for the Spector - the Epiphone Thunderbird is just nasty.[/quote] I disagree. I spent a couple of hours setting mine up, and it plays like a dream, and handles as well as the Gibson T-Birds I have played, with the added advantage that I don't give a flying toss if I bump it during the gig, its the perfect hard gigging bass, and I want another one if its the right price. True, the pickups are a little uneven, couple of dead spots, but I'm using that particular bass for high energy NWOBHM, so it's all a bit academic really, and I'm slinging EMGs in it at some point. Having said that, do NOT buy a Thunderbird without trying it on a strap for at least 10 minutes (as testified by the number of "1 month old" T-birds on Ebay) loads of people bought them on a whim, then found they can't handle the position and the neck dive, despite the killer looks. PS: Yamahas are great but extremely unfashionable. Spector might be your best bet off that list especially if you want to keep good resale value.

Repost from a while ago in the vain hope any of this has turned up... some of this is very recognisable. All this equipment was illegally removed from premises in Willesden a couple of years ago. There was a lot more, but these are the main bits. If any of this appears (quite possibly smelling heavily of tobacco/skunk, not mine BTW) then PLEASE contact me urgently. Reward offered if I can find the druggy bxstard who ripped it off, his mobile number miraculously doesn't work anymore, but he was well known as a brilliant but extremely lazy technician in the amp-repair world until he did a runner with everyones money and equipment, now he is just a c..t who owes me several thousand quid of vintage gear and a big fat apology. INSTRUMENTS: Tempest (Greco) Electric Guitar (double cutaway, natural finish, maple/walnut thru neck, like Alembic, extremely rare) Selmer Clavioline (late 1940s, black covering) EFFECTS: Alesis Microverb 3 + PSU Grampian Reverb unit, 1960s, grey casing. TLA Ivory Valve compressor Great British Spring Reverb tube AMPLIFIERS/SPEAKERS: Sound City '67 DR103/105 Valve Head (S.no 0198) Watkins Custom 15 guitar combo amplifier Ekosonic 2x8 guitar combo amp (extremely rare, only a few in the country) Nolan Valve guitar Head (blue panel, silver Vox type knobs) Traynor YM3 Guitar Combo Amp Selmer Zodiac 100 Valve Head with rare built in effects Orange PA Head, transistor, but in valve-type case. Kelly 50 Valve Head Lafayette 12" Dual Concentric speaker (very rare) 3x Reslo mics HI-FI: ART VPL valve preamp. DD Audio valve preamp Thorens TD160 + ADL arm and cartridge Ariston RD80 Reference Turntable, BOXED

And some poor bastad has bid on it. Of course, with ebays new "protection" rules, it is now impossible to alert the buyer as all details are hidden, not that it would have made a difference because the seller listed it as a private auction. I despair of some people, I really do.

Things go round in circles, I play bass and guitar in equal amounts, always have, always will. I bought my first ever electric in Denmark street in the early 80s (black Washburn A20) for 100 quid, loved it until someone knocked it over and broke the head off. I sold it to a mate who reckoned he could repair it, he did a crap job then sprayed it metallic blue. 20 years later, I found myself back on Denmark street buying a damaged bass with a blue refin that I am gonna restore. Very odd, but very underpriced. I win

Seriously, if this thread wasn't 5 pages long, I would have thought it was a late april fool. Theres no telling Josh, he needs to work out exactly what he needs from a bass, then STICK TO IT. Josh: Buying all the gear in the world aint gonna improve your technique, or get you the ultimate bass, you have already played your ultimate bass or something close to it, and have set yourself impossibly high benchmarks which you are very unlikely to match by throwing money at new instruments, even if you break even on the deals. I totally agree with the earlier post about you getting yourself a £100 beater with a crap action and forcing yourself to play it every day. You will really appreciate your gear then, and not make comments like "[i]I think maybe all I need is just one high end Jazz and that should be it. Not necessarily boutique but still rather sought after[/i]". I nearly lost my cuppa when I read that. Despite what you keep saying, I can't help thinking that having "envy-basses" seems to be more important to you than a playable one. Am I wrong? PS: Buy a good 4001 and have done with it

I go back occasionally because I can still catch them out sometimes, and I am very happy that I have made several thousand quid on resale of stuff I bought from Andys and Wunjo, simply because they didn't know what they had, or priced it wrong, and I made them cash offers they couldn't refuse. Also, I looked for, and subsequently found the bailiffs/liquidators auction of Andys remaining stock when they cleared the shop, and got in on the action early enough to get a couple of cracking vintage instruments for less than the price of a Squier. Lose some, win some.

Should be a piece of cake. Once you have set the bow with the twin truss rods VERY carefully and slowly (1/8th turn at a time with a little backwards pressure on the neck), just turn the 2 allen screws on each side of the saddle to drop the action, theres nothing else to it on a Ricky, unless one of 2 rare but nasty Rick faults show their face. a ) The tailpieces sometimes warp, this isn't usually a problem, but it can throw the break angle of the strings as they hit the saddle, and the only way to compensate is to raise it, therefore raising the action. Remedy: replace tailpiece. Easy but expensive. b ) Pray it isn't this one: Look at the back of the bass where the body wings join the heel of the neck "joint" (so to speak). Check the finish for two parallel cracks in line with the neck blank. If they are present, it means the wings have started to separate from the neck, and it has just lost 30% of its strength, and can now bow forward more than the truss rods can adjust. Bass is now firewood unless you want to pay someone a ludicrous amount of money to fix it, which might involve removing the wings and a refinish once its back together. I have had two 4001s do this to me now, it is not funny.

Had an unfortunate incident a few years ago when I bought some strings for my Thunderbird, and the G was a bit too short. I have run out of all the Picatos I bought a few years ago, and need some new 40-100 strings. Are there any long scale strings that you know for a fact will NOT fit a Thunderbird?

I realised early on there are 2 standard types of people working in Denmark street shops. A ) Very very knowledgeable people who will lie, cheat, scam and do anything possible to make maximum profit from minimum effort, including forgery, misrepresentation, bankruptcy scams, burning shops down, "ringing" guitars between pet dealers in the red book to up the prices, selling guitars on commission then waiting 6 months to pay the owner etc etc etc. B ) Talentless students with practically zero knowledge of guitars who will work for peanuts so they can brag they work in a London music shop. And nobody in between. This way, Joe Public walks in, gets fed up with the ape serving them, knowledgeable guy gets called over, then they take Joe to the cleaners. Seen it time and time again. Honest people are very few and far between and usually have the morals to LEAVE the job after a while before they turn evil. Life is too short. Can you tell how much I hate the culture down there?

Because the low end market has been irrevocably damaged by all the chinese rubbish like "Shine" and "Lindo" thats been shipped over the last few years, and nobody is prepared to drop decent money on a higher grade Epiphone now, why spend 400 new when you can get a better LOOKING instrument for 99 quid on ebay, or a used Gibson for 600? The gap in equipment between serious players and beginners is widening, theres very little really good gear in the midrange anymore unless you look secondhand IMHO.

If you can't get a good Metal sound from a P-Bass, you either have a very different idea of the definition of "Metal", or you have a sub-standard P-Bass to start with. A good one should still have loads of cut and top end if its well built and matched. Steve Harris gets a great choppy sound even with 50-110 flatwounds and no pick! However, if you want to tune down to A and play Technical Egyptian Progressive Vegetarian Deathcore, you might well be better off with something else. I always thought Warwick Corvettes had an amazing and very tweakable sound for many types of Metal, but not everyone likes the feel of the necks.

I have been goin to Denmark Street on and off for over 25 years, and have many horror stories from all the shops, but the most annoying thing that happened to me personally was the '67 Ricky 4001 they had in the window for 5k "no offers". DREAM BASS = MUST BUY. I saw it in the window over the weekend while they were shut, so I went in 10am Monday morning and offered them 4000 cold hard cash, they refused, but within a week it went onto ebay for 4k or best offer, I phoned again and was told "its on ebay mate" and they allegedly sold it a matter of days later for 3500 to someone else. I phoned them up, asked it it was still there, reminded them I had offered a firm 4 grand, they said "tough its sold" and put the phone down on me. Or the time "B......" had a '61 Gretsch 6120 in the window for £2k (this was a looong time ago). I asked about it, played it a little and said I'd think about it. I went back the weekend afterwards with money on the hip and tried to buy it, and was then told the price was now 3 grand. Or the time I phoned M.... G.... after another 6120, and was told they had 3 of them, one with bad laquer cracks, one with changed pickups, one with something else wrong, and they offered to swap the parts around to make a good one out of the three if I paid extra. I'm presuming at least one of them was on commission... The funniest thing was having the "USA Charvel" argument with one of the paid troglodytes in Wunjo, who spent nearly half an hour telling my how the XL series (toothpaste logo) Charvel he had up for 995 was a "real, handcrafted instrument by John Charvel himself" I nearly wet myself laughing! W*nkers the lot of them.

An aquaintance of mine tried selling a totally original 60s Telecaster "on commission" in Andys a few years ago. They phoned him up about 2 months down the line saying "Great news, we've sold the neck"... Obviously some practical joke, but he went up there and sure enough, they had actually removed the neck without his permission and sold it to someone, they offered him 200 quid for it, then had the cheek to ask to hold on to the rest of the guitar as it "might be worth parting it out now" That was a 2 grand guitar even then. Words fail me...

Yes it does. However, Jaydee and Wilkes both made fretless slapping basses in the 80s that had little metal plates at the end of the fingerboard, and they are bloody brilliant. If you don't like the metallic sound, I spose there would be nothing to stop you replacing them with slivers of ebony, and replacing them when they start getting too grooved?

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='126971' date='Jan 24 2008, 03:12 PM']Total feedback of 8, with no activity at all since May'05, and he pops up selling an expensive bass with a single, poor-quality photograph. Oh yes, and his Pay-Pal (sorry, that should be "Pay-Pall") has been hacked. So he gets your dosh long before you see his bass, unless you happen to live close to Norfolk, though he doesn't actually mention [i]where[/i] in Norfolk, of course.[/quote] Haha, a mate of mine has been talkin to the seller of that fake 4001, and the seller reckons its "real", but wont email any more photos and got insulting when he was told it was fake. God help the winning bidder if he isn't within driving distance of norfolk, and more importantly, god help the seller if he is!

[quote name='simon73' post='6989' date='May 26 2007, 05:29 AM']I was looking at blx80 on the bay last November. They were going for £120 to £180![/quote] Right, so 150 should be about right? thats what I was thinkin... Thats still cheap money for such a nice combo.

A mate wants my Trace Elliot BLX80 off me. Im tempted to sell, but what price should I be askin him for it?