neepheid

According to https://bassesbyleo.com/allen_wrenches.html - G&L (USA) went fully metric in 2006.

Yeah, sorry mate, that doesn't look right - this is my 2020 CLF L-1000... 4mm hex iirc.

I don't refer to myself as an artist. P!ss artist, maybe... If other people want to refer to me as an "artist", I won't correct them though

Hee hee, got a borrow of an expression pedal - guess who's having some whammy fun tonight with his XS-1...

I guess right now, it's the Fazley Hot Rod. This is the result of my "£150 giggable bass challenge", and it has quite a story to it. Buoyed by the positive result of buying a bass for £150 (the Gear4Music LA Select bound P bass thingy) and then mucking about with it (replacement pickup, tuners etc., bit of fret work), under the banner of "how bad can a £150 bass be?", I decided to lower the bar further and set myself a new challenge of setting the entire budget of the project to £150 - that's initial cost of the bass plus any remediation required, new parts only, (postage ignored) because I'm quite mad. Back in September 2024 I spied the Fazely Hot Rod on Bax Music and thought to myself, damn, I like the look of that. Surf green, no pickguard, reverse P, single volume control. £84 at the time, perfect as the starting point for a £150 project. It was out of stock but I placed the back order anyway, knowing that it would take several months for a new batch to arrive. It's not like I don't have other basses to play after all. So the ETA begins to lengthen - was initially end of 2024, but the date kept slipping and you probably know why - Bax Music went bankrupt in April 2025. I am in the privileged position to be able to shrug off an £84 loss so shrug I did. In the interim, as I had pickups lying around waiting for basses to go into, I snagged an Epiphone Embassy Special IV locally for £150 and chucked an Entwistle neodymium pickup in it, and very nice it is too, but that's another story. To my surprise, rumblings of Bax Music being bought over and coughing back into life happened, and to my further surprise, I got an email at the end of May saying that the newco was going to fulfil back orders. Despite my scepticism, I played along, answered any questions they put to me (like opting to wait on the goods ordered instead of getting store credit now). It took a few months for them to get around to my order but to my amazement, a parcel was dispatched to me on 7th August and I recieved it a few days later. So it took the best part of a year to arrive - but was it worth it? Oh hell yeah. I honestly don't know how they did it. The only cost saving areas I could find were the comically bad pickup (which I was going to change anyway), the finish is a bit wibbly wobbly in places (like ripples in it if you look really close) and zero cavity shielding. Oh, and the stock strings were absolute thin, rough garbage. But the fretwork is great, it even has a subtle chamfer/roll to the fretboard edges. The tuners are acceptable at the price point, and acceptable as tuners go in general. The bridge was your bog standard BBOT, nothing to complain about there. So, to get it up to snuff, I replaced the pickup with a Tonerider Duke, shielded the cavities, replaced the bridge (didn't have to, but I had a £19 Guyker bridge lying around which has partially slotted saddles and hides the ball ends of the strings for a cleaner look), fitted a triple string tree (because I like them), and the finishing touch - a giant volume knob! Final tally was £144.67. I've only gigged it once so far, but it was great - I'm not much of a knob twiddler at the gig but there was this weird sense of extra liberation when there's nothing bar a volume knob to p!ss about with! I'll shut up now, but TL:DR this is currently my budget #1.

Eh, it just makes me laugh. The more ridiculously unviable it is, the bigger the laugh

Right, I have managed to narrow down my bass list from 15 to 10 based upon which ones didn't get much love at the SWBB. I've got a few definites, but I'd still like to chop 2-4 more. So here are the ones in the remaining 10 which I'm considering leaving behind - tell me if there are any you'd really like to see from these four: Epiphone Jack Casady (20th Anniversary) - everyone knows what these are, right? G&L CLF L-1000 - because of G&L's demise being fresh in people's minds, is it just morbid curiosity now? Yamaha BB1200 - OG neck thru BB Yammy goodness - but maybe just too dependable to be interesting? Epiphone Thunderbird Classic IV Pro - take two Epiphone Thunderbirds into the shower bash? Register your exception to any of these being left behind (or don't) below... What is definitely coming: Epiphone Les Paul Standard bass (Paul 1) Burny (Fernandes) LSB-80 (Paul 2) Greco LPB-700 (Paul 3) Epiphone Thunderbird '64 (purple sparkle) DeArmond Jet Star Spel (with added Peavey T-40 pickup) Neep One

Yes - I use a pitch shifter all the time to cover off singer requests to "do this one x semitones up/down" - I ain't relearning songs, and I'm no getting a 5 string either!

Why are you looking to replace the tuners? Not being argumentative, just trying to get an idea of where you're heading with this.

Bought it on the way down the road to the SW Bass Bash on Saturday. Tried it out in the Guitarguitar in Birmingham and really liked it so I decided to carpe that diem - not getting any younger! Was too busy to do anything with it until I got home on the Monday - played around with it on the Monday night, put it on the board (replacing the TC Electronic Brainwaves) last night so I thought I should issue this update in the thread where people care about such things

Pedalboard iteration number who knows...

Fairly short list, but here goes... Behringer BDI-21 (overdrive/EQ/DI) Behringer BLE100 (limiter/enhancer) Boss TU-2 (tuner) * Boss LMB-3 (limiter/enhancer) Boss ODB-3 (overdrive) Boss XS-1 (pitch shifter) * Digitech Bass Synth Wah (envelope/synth) * EHX Bass Soul Food (overdrive) Fuzzdog Fat Furry Freak (fuzz) Hotone Harmony (pitch shifter) * Joyo Monomyth (overdrive/EQ/DI) * Mooer Bass Sweeper (envelope) TC Electronic Brainwaves (pitch shifter) TC Electronic Spectracomp (compressor) * TC Electronic Mojomojo (overdrive) Yamaha CO-10MII (compressor) * indicates currently on the board, correct as of midnight tonight - I will be swapping the TC Electronic Brainwaves out for the Boss XS-1.

Oh damn, I have bad news - I've just checked and unfortunately I already see a gig in the band calendar on the 10th Oct 2026 so it looks muchly like I will not be able to attend next year. Sorry, folks

Attending the SW bash last weekend with all 15 basses in tow (plus all the associated ironmongery and amplification) all the way from Aberdeen, whilst fun, was a right old faff (mostly the decanting of gear from the car in and out of lodgings the night before etc.). I'm not getting any younger and I've got no roadies so I vowed to be more... editorial this time. Would it be tw@tty/attention seeking of me to start a thread which lists what I have and invite people to tell me what they want to see? Or should I just make an executive decision and take what I consider to be the most interesting 5 or 6? I mean, there are so many thematic possiblities - the G&L mourning tour of the UK, the anatomically incorrect T-bird shootout (you'll enjoy that one, @NancyJohnson), LesMore Pauls (as if we didn't have enough already...), triple pickup madness, the projects I've done this year, cheapo basses with big knobs, I mean the list goes on. Got a few weeks to think about it, I guess.

Depends how much you want the money or the pickups and your levels of patience. I had an outstanding order with Bax Music when it went bust at the start of the year, honestly I had written it off but newco Bax decided to honour the old orders and I did get my stuff in the end. Took months though while all the corporate turmoil and upheaval was gone through. That's just one example - I like you are keen to hear what the official word is on the fate of G&L. After you get that, at least you'll know who to start your enquiries with. I don't know anything about chargebacks on credit cards, whether there's a time you need to wait before you can issue one, if you have to provide evidence that you're not getting your goods etc - you'll need to look that up, sorry.

And finally, my entry for "bass face of the bash" is...

I set out with the intention of photographing every bass I played, but I got sidetracked...

I have made it home in one piece, and all the basses safely stowed in the house. Thank you to all involved in organising the bash, thank you for the delicious lunch, and thank you to everyone who turned up with loads of amazing basses. Great to chat to you all, sorry to anyone I missed. I had a great time! I have photos, will post them up after a well earned cup of tea!

Preliminary rounds, you won't be missing much.

Ahh, the chrome bit is separate, I thought it was part of the pickup. Never mind then

If anyone does swap out the split pickup in their Starfire and is willing to sell me the stock one, please let me know...

Well, just to add some balance to the discussion (or maybe just stir the pot ) - I think the natural Z7 is the worst looking one of the bunch. Last year when the Z7 was introduced I got my first choice (burgundy) and my second choice would have been white - because I wanted the ebony fretboard.

How are you getting on? Any news?

Check what any prospective pickup uses for pole pieces. If it uses blades instead of individual pole pieces then it won't matter a jot if they're intended for 4 or 5 strings.