funkypenguin

I'd say keep the 1-2 basses that have the most sentimental value and move the rest on if they're sitting in their cases. This way, as and when you get the desire to play more again (whenever that may be) you'll still have the basses that mean the most to you  

7 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

If we're being honest, if a professional person working full time can't afford £3k as a one-off luxury item, then we really are in trouble... 

 

+1

24 minutes ago, Boodang said:

Just because a bassoon is expensive doesn't mean the price of a Fedora is justified. I can see how an acoustic instrument could be expensive but I'm at a loss, given the materials used, to see where the money on a solid bodied bass guitar is spent when they're pushing the prices that Fedora charge. Am I offended? Only mildly as people will pay what they are willing. Is it Fedora value for money, in terms of what it cost to make I very much doubt it, in terms of what it brings to the person who bought... well, if they love it then yeah.

Incidentally I'd love to know how much it costs for Fedora to make one of their instruments. The £12k bass in the SBL video, what do we reckon? 2 to 3 k tops? If that, it is a solid body after all. That's a 9 to 10k profit, quite a mark up!

Fodera make a 10% profit margin on any instrument they build, one of the partners did a fairly detailed breakdown of why they cost so much over on talkbass a few years back. They're based in NYC, only use the best possible materials, pay their builders a decent wage and look after their pension/healthcare, both of which are expensive in the US.

8 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

It could be advanced that, if it can be accepted that 'a bass is a bass is a bass', the difference in price could have been spent elsewhere to benefit some less-well-off person or persons on the planet. It's true that there's no legal law against spending on oneself, but... 

You can apply this to virtually any item that isn't necessary in ones life, whether it be a car, a bass, a watch, a home..... That kind of thinking applies far more to the corporate giants who make enough money to end world poverty than the bass player that has worked to be able to afford a top end instrument.

Ben

4 hours ago, Rayman said:

Here's a question.....

 

Have you ever felt guilty, or that you're really not good enough to own that expensive bass?

 

I mean, I'm ok, I'm a decent player, but I'm no vertuosso.... and currently, after a handful of years away from playing anything at all, I've started to re-accumulate a modest collection of decent gear, but in the past I've owned Sadowsky, Overwaters etc, and wondered if

 

A: Do I really need a 2K bass?

 

Or

 

B: Am I good enough to justify it?

 

Am I really only worthy of sub 1K basses? Am I destined to stick with the Corts, Ibanez and Yamahas of this world? Or balls to it, I'll have what I want?

 

Thoughts?

My question in reply would be this. how exactly would you quantify being worthy of a Fodera? what do you have to be able to do on the instrument in order to have one?

When all is said and done, music isn't a sports event. its not about the numbers and presenting a rational justification for the gear you own. if you love the instrument and you can afford a Fodera/Alembic/et. al., that is all the justification you should need.  

Ben

9 hours ago, Boodang said:

If I remember correctly, Schack guitars used to do a neck joint which was a 'tongue & groove' design, so it was held together by the tension of the strings. I could be imagining this but I always thought that this arrangement would make it easy to disassemble the bass by just releasing string tension. Not sure how well it would work though.

Does that work something like this??

Ben

On 21/11/2021 at 21:22, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Kind words thank you @AndyTravisand you do have an insight into my motive for selling - nothing to do with this bass folks as it’s a superb instrument.

I do have my eye on something else which, if it becomes suddenly unavailable (read ‘sold to someone else’), then this will be coming off the market.

I'm honestly curious at to what that something else might be Hiram because that is absolutely fabulous. Not my thing as basses go but incredible nevertheless!

ben

30 minutes ago, ambient said:

Just to add that Fourscore isn’t just for scores or charts, it’s anything you put into it as a pdf.

 

You can move stuff around easily, and organise everything into set lists.

I'll second ForScore, you can use the scan function to take photos of those cheat sheets and it will save them into the app as a PDF, you can then create setlists and put them in whatever order you choose, then all you have to do is tap page right to scroll through the set. If you have songs that segue one into the other, you can get a relatively inexpensive page turn pedal that Bluetooths to the iPad so you never need to take your hands off the bass.

Ben

The whole bass is made from Ebony? That will make it heavier than the sun, surely?!

8 hours ago, thebassist said:

What a great specification - I’m excited to see this when it’s ready.

I have a relatively similarish Fodera myself - a 33” scale Emperor 6 Elite and the B is thunderous - I was a little nervous about buying a 33” scale initially considering the B but it’s amazing …I’d really like to play the Tony Grey 6 which is 30.75” scale to see how good the B is.

I've played one other shorter scale Fodera and the B was indeed thunderous  Having listened to Tony playing his new headless, the B seems pretty rock solid to me! 

Only a few months left to wait!!

Ben

4 hours ago, eude said:

Oh wow, that's a really cool spec.
Love to see more and more shorter 6 string basses out there too.
Since I moved to 31.5" I've never looked back.

I hope you share a lot of pics etcs when it finally lands!

 

Cheers,
Eude

Thanks, I'm really excited for her to arrive so I can start getting to know her! A lot of stars unexpectedly aligned to make this build possible, and I've got very high hopes!

It'll be sometime between Jan and March, depending on Fodera's build schedule, and yes, I'll be sharing pictures and some sound clips once she's here!

Ben

2 hours ago, eude said:

Wow, I guess these things are worth whatever people are willing to pay.
What specs have you gone for on your Fodera?

 

Eude

I love Warwick, I've used mine for 10 years and its a bass I'll never part with, but seeing the quote from them for something that would have relatively minor alterations really surprised me.

Heres the spec for my Fodera

Monarch 6 string Elite

32" scale

26 frets

16.5mm spacing

walnut body, alder tone block

3 piece white oak neck, thin profile

ebony board (side dots only)

solid flame koa top, matching peghead

Duncan dual coils

custom shop preamp

Garrison control layout and pickup spacing

Ebony ramp and pickup covers

black hardware

Ben

On 14/09/2021 at 12:32, eude said:

Wow! Seriously!?

I know they'd topped €10,000 but that is a crazy jump!

I remember buying Thumb BO 5er in the late 90's for £1300, hand made in Germany, roughly the same thing now would be £3700!

They are incredible instruments, and I'll bet their custom stuff is out of this world, but again, wow!

 

Eude

I've got a Fodera on order right now (due for completion early in the new year) and before I pulled the trigger I looked at what it would cost to spec something v. close with Warwick......and it wound up costing more than 2K more....

Ben

17 hours ago, STU-SBL said:

This is a gorgeous bass and the new owner will be a very lucky! 
 

I know Jim (the seller) very well and he’s a great guy - get it bought!   

+1 for this, Jim is a great chap to deal with!  

Ben

Johns customer service is absolutely top drawer in my experience. When a part broke on my U-retro he had me over to his place and sat me down with a brew while he fixed it for me free of charge even though the unit was out of warranty  it also helps that his electronics sound amazing (IMO of course).

Ben

All of these less well known players influence different facets of my playing  

Scott Ambush

Munir Hossn

Damian Erskine

John D'Ercole

Evan Marien

Tony Grey

Nick Blacka

Rich Brown

Me'shell N'degeocello

I've not gigged my Warwick Hellborg rig yet, the first gig can't come soon enough!!!

13 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

If you register on the Warwick Forum you'll find various threads to Thumb history.  The 6 string is a whole other beast to other Thumb basses as they weren't around when you are talking about the skinny neck period in W history (when many of the truss rod issues were happening).  Oddly I can't recall the Thumbs ever having these issues with truss rods which could be due to the multi-laminate construction and certainly 6 string necks would be solid.  

Pups - Early days (pre W 6 string bass) you could get virtually any pup you wanted just by asking the dealer that stocked Warwicks; Bartolini, EMG, Seymour Duncan, even Alembic; at this point no MEC.  In fact the early basses had way more EMG pups than Bartolini or any of the other brands, Alembic being the least common.  Warwick then bought MEC in the late 80's and produced their own pups to drop into Warwicks but you could still order your Warwick with other pups if you paid the premium.  Differences between the different brands get discussed regularly and everyone has their own take on favourite.  I personally reckon there's very little in it between most of the brands (Bartolini maybe have a different characteristic) and I once did a blind test between EMGs and MECs in the same bass and me and another guy could not have said which was which.  I've owned 4 string Warwicks with all of the flavours (except Alembic) and I find that there is more tonal difference in changing string brands than there is in pups.    

 

Thats interesting WH as far as the pickup types vs string types is concerned  The thing that made the biggest difference to my bass was having an East U-retro preamp put it, it totally transformed the bass. To my ears, the MEC pickups/preamp have a thin top end with a harsh edge to it, the East pre really sweetened it a lot while still retaining the Warwick growl.

I'd never heard of a Warwick being fitted with alembic pickups before, they must be a rare beast indeed!

Ben

1 hour ago, krispn said:

Would he have actually played that whole bass part on the track or was this just a look what I can play type video to sell SBL's? I mean I'm not knocking the chops and he's in no way 'gauche' but he's stepped on just about everyone else parts from Chaka to the horns. The MD would have a fit 😫

Thats Andrew Gouche. And he was the MD when he was playing with Chaka Khan....  If you want to find out what the actual show was like, the record is called All The Hits Live. The band is absolutely smoking IMO.

Ben

3 hours ago, Bigwan said:

 

Tell that to Billy Sheehan who's been using his P pickups as ramps for YEARS... Or maybe Gary Willis who's a fan of them... But different strokes for different folks!

Edit: I see somebody beat me to the Sheehan/Willis comment, but I think it bears repeating...

I'll add Hadrien Feraud, Matt Garrison and Tony Grey to that list  not people that need any sort of crutch whatsoever for their technique

Ben

On 07/05/2021 at 17:33, TheLowDown said:

If you think a 6er doesn't add complication to navigation then maybe there is still a lot of work to be done on fretboard awareness. 

Thats what you're saying here.....

10 hours ago, akabane said:

It's incredible how much ignorance can be spewed in a post and touted as facts

+1.....

2 hours ago, BassedinBucks said:

From all of the comments, this is clearly a Marmite thing! I have two different experiences. I have run lots of beer festivals and usually put 8 local bands on including the band I'm in on each day, with 20 mins turnaround time between them, 50-60 min sets. I supply the full back line and it is all my own good quality gear, even cymbals and snare if drummers want to travel light, and I have never had any breakage or damage ever (a valve went on one of my Fender guitar amps once, that's it). All bands play for free because these events are fund raisers, but they get as much free beer as they want, so can go home in a taxi with minimal gear. And they all ask to come back year after year because the events are so good with very appreciative large audiences of up to 1,500 and a superb PA, stage and light show. I provide a Berg Forte HP amp and two Vanderkley cabs for the bass and always set the gain for each player so that it won't clip, and ask them not to adjust it which has always been respected, but the amp does have protection overrides built in. The PA is massive and does all the work.

I have also run sound and stage at several very large festivals (up to 40,000) where we put a top quality full back line on stage hired from pro outlets; the bands there are famous and get paid highly, some have surprisingly little respect for the gear and complain about everything, others are absolutely charming and grateful for everything; the charming ones tend to be the older stars and celebs, some of the young ones have a very unrefined attitude to stage crew, equipment and the crowd; I wouldn't ever want to lend my personal gear to them.

If you get the kind of bands from situation A, thats fantastic and I would be very appreciative of you setting up a Berg/vanderkley rig for me to play through if I were in that situation. Unfortunately I've come across a lot of situation B (younger) in the past. I think its fair enough that I don't want players like that anywhere near my Hellborg amp.

52 minutes ago, TheLowDown said:

You don't think it complicates it at all going from a 4 string to a 6 string? Take any root note on the fretboard, compare the number of major 3rds between a 4 string and a 6 string.

If you just want to play within a box on the fretboard, then I would agree with you.

Practice is the simple answer, The more you work on it the more second nature fingerboard navigation becomes. Personally I find it harder to go back to 4 strings because I'm used to having more options in each direction on the 6er. 

I would also second what Doddy already said, you can do everything on a 6 you can do on a 4 but not the other way round. The additional weight can be compensated for with a wide padded strap.

Ben

They can be addictive, I switched to 6ers full time in 2008 and have never looked back, though I still own a P bass for teaching and when I need a passive sound. John Patitucci, Anthony Jackson and John Myung opened the door onto another world of possibilities (and later Tony Grey, Damian Erskine, Oteil Burbridge and Bjorn Meyer) that I don't think I'll ever tired of exploring  

Ben