bassaussie

I thought you'd enjoy that.

You've forced me to make a horrible confession to legitimise my comment. I ..... I ..... was thinking of guitars! Zemaitis springs to mind. Amazing instruments - but 50k or 100k amazing? Maybe not. Your comment about Tool, do you mean in relation to Wal basses? I think it goes beyond him, although his influence is undeniable. I might be wrong, but I always thought Flea's use of one of BSSM had a huge effect on their value.

So it's a lawsuit bass? Sorry - just winding you up! Couldn't help myself!

I think it's more that his work was never associated with some name player. With a lot of the brands that pull big money, at some point, some famous player took one and gave the brand street cred, then all the fans of that bass player had to get one as they needed to reproduce that sound. I'm not suggesting those instruments aren't great instruments - they are, hence the reason the famous bassist picked one up. But I do think that some of the crazy prices we see with certain instruments is more related to that connection with the famous player, rather than any real superiority of it compared to a Wilkes.

The flame on the neck is really pretty. Amazing how often you see stuff like this, old "cheap" basses that had beautiful pieces of wood on them.

The name on the gigbag is probably closer to the truth.

All?!!! That's the main reason I bought a TE!!! To be honest, I don't have the technical knowledge to completely follow all you've put there, other than that it seems someone decided to hotrod the thing. I guess if it's working well after a year of use, that has to be a positive sign.

Given that the TE stuff from back then is quite modular, could you not extract the amp part, and put it in a road case, then just use the remaining cabinet as a speaker box? At least that way you can put it back together if you choose. I just noticed you had another thread on this amp. I was always under the impression that the internal speakers in those combos were rated at 8ohm, as the brochures always suggested you could add another 8hm cabinet to give full power. This would also make sense given that the AH150 at that time delivered (I think) 90 watts into 8 ohms, and 150 watts in 4 ohms. Sorry, should've added that the AH150 is the actual amp in the 1110 and 1115 combos.

One of the things I always liked in those early brochures were the suggested rig combinations, which a few people above have commented on. It might be fun to comment on any sightings of some of these combinations. The one I always remember was Doug Wimbish when he came to Australia with Living Colour. His rig was 4 AH500s (or AH600, I can't remember which), 4 * 1048 (4*10"), and 4 * 1518 (1*15") - so basically, 4 stacks. I saw them in concert, but he also did a presentation at a local music show, and it's difficult to explain how loud he was - I'm pretty sure Sydney Airport probably rang him up to ask him to turn down a bit as the Jumbo pilots were having a hard time telling if the engines had started up or not!

Brilliant thread DiMarco. Thanks for sharing it with us. I remember that Mark V catalog, I had it and probably read it 1000 times before I eventually got a Mark V AH250. TE were really difficult to get in Australia, and insanely expensive, but the sound - wow! I kept the amp for years, gigged it for years, and never had an issue with it. Just the best kit for bass.

I think you're being generous. Obviously he's believed that there's something very special about the instrument for a long time, and he's not going to be swayed on that point.

Same price.😂 Ultimately it's his call, he can ask what he wants. But you'd think a person who wanted to sell something would at least check what the market is valuing an item at.

This instrument was commented on a few months back. I'm really surprised to see it didn't sell. 🤣

Fair enough. Ultimately it's about enjoying yourself. If that's not happening, then it doesn't make sense to continue.

You seem a little dismayed with not achieving much with the Joe Hubbard course. First, I have to preface what I'm going to say by saying that I have mad respect for Joe Hubbard, he's an incredible bassist, and really, there's not much more needs to be said. But I think his courses are aimed at a fairly specific genre of music, and fairly specific skills. There are a lot of good, successful bassists out there who can't do the stuff that JH teaches, and that's OK, because they don't need to. Not trying to talk you out of pursuing guitar - I love guitar as well. But more saying that a course like JH's shouldn't be some benchmark that determines if you're good enough on bass or not, because I don't think that's the case at all. You could reel off a who's who of bassists who can't touch JH, but are still incredibly influential musicians, because they use the bass to speak the music they want to speak. I'm the same as you, always played both, and at present, same as you, I'm more focused on guitar. But I'll regularly pick up bass because it's what I feel at the moment.

That was the first thing I noticed! At least it's in a straight line.

Do you have any idea about the origins of the TBird body? I've never seen anything like that before, but the woodgrain top really suits the body shape.

Shaggy, with all due respect ...... I think you should be banned from this thread. All I see above is three basses that tell me how inadequate I am! I was already amazed by the fretless, which is an incredible looking instrument, and then you top that with the Thunderbird.

You read my mind. I see these low priced parts from time to time, and I'll think "mmm .... very tempting". But then you add it all up ..... 80 for a body .... 80 for a neck .... 80 for all the parts ....... suddenly, you're competing with a Squier, only you have no idea what you'll end up with, and the resale value is going to be negligible. So I can see that patience and slightly more investment in a brand name would benefit the end result.

Question for Beedster (and others in the know). When you're looking on Ebay, Reverb, or wherever, are there particular things you look for? Brand names, particular woods, anything else? And on the other side of that, are there specific things you avoid?

The most obvious answer for me would be Paul McCartney and his Hofner bass. He's stated for years that there were two reasons he bought the bass. The first was that it was symmetrical, which helped with him being left handed. The second was that it was significantly cheaper than other options such as Fender. George and John were willing to get loans to pay for their more expensive American instruments, while McCartney wasn't willing to do that.