Ed_S

No probs at all answering questions! My local is Rich Tone in Sheff, and they’ll generally give 2/3 of whatever they expect to sell something for, which is heavily guided by what that thing is going for on eBay at the time. Then you’ll often see them advertise it for a bit more than they said they would, which I assume is to cover postage and packing, plus all other overheads. It’s certainly not the right way to get the most back if you’re selling as little as possible because you’re short on cash, but if you want to get rid of a load of stuff very easily, don’t want to do any of the work, and the money is not ‘unimportant’ but secondary, it’s worth consideration.

I've been doing a lot of selling over recent months (to my local shop as it supports them staying in business and I'd rather lose money than deal with selling directly) purely because I want less stuff hanging around the house. My taste in instruments shifted slightly over the pandemic, and I also realised that when the band resumed I just wanted to play, not be responsible for providing spare parts and technical services. So all the clutter associated with being that guy, and all the basses that didn't fit the new model shipped out. Maybe alongside those sadly being forced to divest for economic reasons, some others have just come to similar conclusions as myself and are likewise clearing house, thus bumping up the available stock?

Always confuses me (in a "I know why, but still..." sort of way) when I see a guitar or bass that's of a certain vintage being advertised for sale, and it's clearly survived quite happily in one piece for many tens of years, so the first thing that happens to it in the shop is that somebody dismantles it completely to prove just how left-alone it was until they tore it apart. But they have to be able to say with confidence that it's all original.

I dunno.. 35 foot scale length - that's got to weight a bit?

I found the Digitech Drop pedal works well on 4 string bass in standard tuning.. not quite so well on the bottom of a 5 or an already down-tuned 4. It tracks a bit better if you can put a HPF in front of it, but it's not the end of the world if you don't have one. I found it good for up to 3 semitones down, beyond which the very slight chorus-ish thing that it introduces started to make me feel out of tune. I play by ear, though, so maybe you could go further down if you can play to the numbers and not let it put you off. It was great for live work to avoid swapping bass or retuning, but I wouldn't record with it - it's not that good.

It does rather fit the vibe of the instrument. I always fancied trying the 'stealth' all-black-hardware look on it, but the thing is, it's spent most of its life in storage (because it's an impractical damage magnet) so it's never been worth sourcing the parts. I really wanted the more expensive one (KBX?) with proper sharkfin inlays and better pickups, but all I could order over here at the time was the cheapo KB1 with dots.. and then fit my own EMGs.

Definitely cool, and great props for photoshoots, but totally impractical.

I'd try to find another Blacktop. If I had to go back to playing a 4 string Jazz as my #1 bass then I think that was the one I liked the most, and tonally, having two P pickups would be the way forward.

I don't have a Ray 5, but my P and J 5s will technically fit in the Sleeve. I wouldn't use it to take them out, though, as I don't think there's enough clearance when you have 4+1 elephant-ear tuners. I actually had a 4 string P come out of the Sleeve with a bent tuner and I honestly can't remember it taking any knocks between the venue, car and house, so I retired the Sleeve to dust-cover duties and bought a pair of Vertigos for gigs and rehearsals. I have much more confidence in their ability to protect, they can accommodate wide and angled headstocks.. and the carry handle is on the correct side.

I actually can't think of much.. if anything.. that fits either criteria perfectly. I can think of plenty of music that I grew to cheerfully accept due to an overriding requirement to fit in with the company I kept at the time. To the outside observer it might look like a -180 on some stuff, but in truth it was just that as we all got older and some people moved away, the dynamic changed and the music I no longer 'needed to like' in order to be involved simply fell off the radar. Most metal bands with screamed vocals, for example.

The 1305 is my main gigging bass, a slightly modified 305 is my backup, and my old 655 is the one I'd save from a fire in the studio and leave the others to the insurance. So I'm in broad agreement, but with an extra string! 🙂

If it's not specified I'd generally assume any measurements being discussed are taken at the 12th, but personally I eye things to look right and then tweak them to feel right, rather than checking measurements. Out of curiosity I've just taken a ruler to the ones on my stand, though, and it seems I consistently arrive at about 3.5mm for the thicker side and 3mm for the thinner, give or take 0.5mm depending on whether it's a 4 or 5 and whether the strings are a generally heavier or lighter set. Going by that Fender guide, I also like more neck relief and lower pickups than they'd recommend. It's why I tell shops that try to offer a setup as some sort of value-added not to bother wasting their time; they'll inevitably drop it to the deck, and then I'll have to put it back plus a bit.

Oooh... fair play - that's nice. I mean, I'd swap out the gold hardware for black, but that's no big deal. Hopefully they bring out some more along those lines at some point!

I don't think I've seen any Premium or Prestige SRs in high gloss poly - have I missed a beat? Or do you mean just in general I should buy other basses that do come in the finish I'd prefer? Or drop down to the 300/400 series SRs to get the shape and the gloss finish but lose the niceties? Or something else entirely like have a body refinished?

Nah, they're bolt-on. I much prefer a solid colour finish on the top and around, if not over, the neck joint. That said, I picked a 1305SB up genuinely cheap in the 2021 Black Friday sales and it's been a very nice bass feel/sound-wise, but the best I can say about it aesthetically is that it should be quite forgiving when it comes to repairing any gigging dings with a bit of felt-tip, nail polish or superglue! The finish on the majority of SRs does seem to be quite soft, so I'm taking that as a legitimate bonus. That's the thing that concerns me about the new 1355B - I like the mocha finish, but I bet it will be an absolute damage magnet... and show it.

Would have to be a Masterbuilt Vampyre NT 5.

I own both and I like them for different reasons, so it's a tricky one. Actually that's a good call - a USA Pro II Precision V would be a cool free gift. Olympic white and rosewood for me, though.

Nah, I think the best I could ever hope for is some kind of break-even where I only spend money from sales of existing stuff on new stuff.

Bought 3, including a Harley Benton which may be the cheapest bass I've ever owned. Just. Paid for 1, a Warwick with an ETA of early 2024, which will easily be the most expensive. Sold 9, plus a stupidly heavy valve head, a load of empty cases I was tripping over and some studio bits. I don't know if that's legally -6 until the order arrives, or morally only -5. I'm actively thinning things down, though, so there's at least one more bass to go, and further review of amps, cabs and pedals.

For me, it all comes down to finite available space. If I'm out of space but still want to try new things (which I invariably do - it's a definite part of the hobby for me) then I have to let something go, and if I get to the point where nothing can go, then nothing can arrive either. If I'd kept every bass I've ever owned then I would have been out of room a long time before I got to try any of my favourites, and if you put every bass I've ever owned in front of me in exactly the same state as when I sold it, there are only a couple I'd actually want back.

Perhaps a post better suited to the psychology of collecting thread, but I'll pay about £1k-£1.5k of new money and/or theoretically any amount of recycled money. So if I buy three basses at £1.5k each but subsequently then sell them for £1k each, then in theory the only thing stopping me from spending up to £4.5k on the next one would be the voice in my head saying "you'll never take it out of the house". At present, £3.5k (4 trade-ins plus £250 of new cash) is the actual maximum and it's not even going to be built and delivered for at least another year so I don't know how I'll feel about it when it arrives. Most of the 'money' was never in my hand, though, and at that point it will have been gone for so long that I'm hoping it'll be a "meh.. just get on and use it" reaction.

Was there something different about the HA3500 compared with the others in the series? I can't remember what, but I'm sure I read something years ago about that being the odd one out somehow. I had a HA2000 and VX410 as my first separates rig, and later a HA5500 which I put through Ashdown and Markbass cabs, and they were all great rigs. I've played a few HA3500s belonging to venues and other bassists, though, and I never got quite the same feeling despite knowing the controls really well, but I always put that down to it being possibly mistreated kit and an unfamiliar room.

Ah, sorry, wasn’t referring to anything in particular that anyone else had said there - I had a SansAmp RBI from them go faulty on me and literally burn its PSU out after about 2 mins turned on. They really were quite chatty and affable on the phone as they organised a collection and replacement, so I just went on that experience. I guess on reflection I just meant that they wouldn’t deny the request.

Oh I don’t doubt that at all and I’m sure they’d be very nice about it as well, but other threads suggest that the actual logistics of returning big boxes to them is a massive pain at present, and I was happy to accept what turned up since I knew I could sort it out. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining - I’m happy with my purchase - I’m just agreeing that some of these instruments built to tight price points arrive less than perfect and could prove problematic for a less experienced owner.

Yup.. I recently bought a very cheap HB PJ-5 which would almost certainly stop a new player in their tracks. A 1.5mm uniform gap between the back of the neck and the bottom of the pocket, every fret profiled like a wood chisel and really badly sprouted on both ends, nut significantly wider than the neck and sharp on every edge, pickup screws not driven in, bridge screws just spinning round with no bite into the body wood, bottom strap button punched through the gloss by a screw driven in at a very odd angle, tuners loose and rattling, scratchy pots, loose jack socket, no cavity shielding... and amusingly a very well adhered QC Pass sticker on the headstock. After spending an afternoon sorting everything out it's actually a good instrument (the neck is true and has some really nice grain, the fit between neck and pocket is perfect when cleared of sawdust and clamped before assembling, the truss rod works, the nut slots are cut well, the frets are level and reasonably crowned, the pickups themselves sound decent etc.) but it needed to be fully reassembled, fret-end-fettled and rewired in order to be genuinely playable. The skills and experience would be beyond most raw beginners, and the tools and parts would probably equal if not exceed the purchase price of the instrument.