neepheid

Aren't all basses just another wheeze to relieve us of our hard-earned?

Priced up all the misc bits and bobs - everything except pickups and bridge, just a smidge under £100. Keen to get going but I must wait to see if the car passes its MOT at the end of the month. Adulting sucks

Can get them in brass, might be a close enough match to gold hardware...

I was thinking about multiple M8 washers but these would look better, if I could either get them in gold or get them electroplated.

Right, phase one complete - complete hardware and electronics removal, truss rod slackened off (god knows how long it'll be unstrung) and fingerboard cleaned and oiled. Mmm, grotty. The rat's nest Empty! Bye bye EMG

I've gone away and done some scheming. I've decided to go full hardware swap to gold for those Lotus/JPS vibes. Controls will be VVTT with push pulls for series/parallel, then regular three way pickup selector switch. Pickups - I would ideally like a pair of DiMarzio X2N-B (DP125) - they're not listed as a regular item but can be ordered from the DiMarzio Custom Shop. I have heard some pleasing footage of these pickups in GIbson-esque basses in a few YouTube vids. Going to get them in black with gold rails, I think that will suit the whole black and gold theme nicely... Probably going to be expensive and difficult to get a hold of though. I've already made some enquiries directly to DiMarzio and they're not geared up for direct international sales, so I'm either going to have to throw myself at the mercy of the UK distributor (or whichever retailer they paw me off to) or find a willing US based co-conspirator to act as go-between. Gold bridge is also going to be an issue - Gibson/Epiphone turned down my offer to buy a gold three pointer from them as it's not an officially listed spare part (BOO - God knows what you do if your Rumblekat has an issue then). Can't find a gold one for love nor money, only chrome or black. Currently there's a chancer in Australia wanting a ridiculous amount for the quite used looking bridge/tuners/knobs from a Rumblekat - I'll pass thanks. It'll either be a case of getting lucky on eBay, or resigning myself to buying a Babicz or Hipshot then have to deal with mounting that on a curved surface (where the curve is a lot more pronounced front to back than say a Jack Casady). Anyway, while parts acquisition may take a while, I can get busy with gutting the existing gubbins and giving the fretboard a good clean.

Nah, there's always something that can change - most of all yourself. A bass I was 100% satisfied with 10 years ago will probably not suit me quite so well now because tastes change, and hopefully I've developed a little as a bass player in that time also!

14 years, 11 months and 30 days later, is that a BC record for thread resurrection?

I will be honest with you - as long as I'm loud enough and bassy enough, I couldn't give a damn. The minutae of bass tone is lost completely on me when the rest of the band kick in and I'm too busy not effing songs up to give a monkey's about my tone beyond that basic ballpark mentioned in the previous sentence. I doubt I'll ever get good enough to have the spare capacity to care

Lightweight gear is the way forward. When I think of the Ashdown ABM410 I used to lug around when I started, my back pseudospasms.

Welcome, and as a resident of NE Scotland, I appreciate your qualification of which NE you're talking about

I expect my obbm cables will outlive me.

It could be, or it could be an EMG-HB, which is a rail split P in a guitar humbucker sized casing. I have two of them in my Epiphone Les Paul "Standard" bass. They evolved from the EMG-SS which were designed for Steinberger basses (SS = Steinberger Sound).

Furthermore, the preamp in the L-2000/2500 is simply a signal booster and the only tone shaping it provides is a non-adjustable treble boost. The 2 band EQ is passive, cut only regardless of whether or not the preamp is engaged (in either mode)

Furniture, innit? Doesn't count in my book.

And even if they did create what you desire, would you trust them to do it right? It is "different", by the dictionary definition of the word anyway. Have they issued a bass with this pickup before? No, ergo, different. No-one's saying it's a radical deviation from the programme, or a game changing, epoch defining, historical cornerstone of the development of our instrument...

This will disappear without a trace. Keeps on happening, anything that deviates from the "norm" - take your pick - Dimension, Cabronita P, Starcaster, Coronado, I could go on. The Meteora will be next, followed by this, most likely. I personally applaud them for trying new stuff, but they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. The majority of Fender's customers just want the classics. People who want something a bit different don't tend to give Fender a second glance. This is the world we live in.

Stranger things have happened, but that sounds like a niche inside a niche, which companies rarely do - one level of niche is often too much for them. Back in the day, Epiphone's short scale bass counterpoint to the Embassy was the Newport bass. Who knows, maybe they'll have a mad turn and reissue that.

Just put your own preferred strings on it. What colour did you get?

Yup, we sometimes play Tail feather and it always goes down well. It's almost the law that you should play something off the Blues Brothers soundtrack if you've got horns and keys in your band, no?

I am loving the early 70s font used for the "PRECISION BASS" decal. I don't care that it technically predates Squier's existence (as an instrument brand) - the fact that they've taken the time to replicate that detail instead of using any old Letraset they had lying around is evidence to me that someone put some thought and care into these basses.

When flicking through my parent's vinyl when I was a kid, I flicked quickly past this: The decision was based purely upon how boring the cover looked. Thought it was church music or something. Only realised what I had missed when the Halifax ads started using "Our House". Needless to say, opinion duly revised.

Tricky. I think it would have to be properly "broken" in order to be considered a repair. You've kinda outed yourself by alluding to the fact that there's a degree of personal preference to this issue - I would have neglected to mention that if I was pitching this I think the KiOgon loom would fall foul, but ironically, directly replacing the preamp wouldn't, IF the existing preamp was demonstratably faulty. The hardcore among us might argue that if it's useable in passive mode then you should just soldier on as it's still able to be used as a bass, but I'm not a total meanie...

We (covers band) do it in a fairly straight ahead rock style and it goes down pretty well. How well a complete change of style/genre would go down really depends on your audience. I personally think that unless there's a famous cover of it in the new style/genre then I wouldn't bother. Additional - the opposite is true of my originals band - we have a style so if we cover a song, we do it as us. Guitar-based songs without guitars? The few people who know us know what to expect

Some songs are truly timeless, and surprisingly so. I still can't get over how many young 'uns dance enthusiastically to "Bad Moon Rising". Was it featured in an episode of Stranger Things or something?