lowregisterhead

Maybe he's had a change of heart and taken it back! I'm sure he can't need the cash...

...in The Gallery... but it's not the famous one, apparently! Still quite nice, though. http://www.thebassgallery.com/product_details.cfm?ID=2230&type=Bass%20Guitar

Thanks you for your kind words, folks. As to the possible cost/value, I did a quick calculation, and with the purchase price of the original bass plus the new neck, bridge, tuners, preamp and scratchplate, in total it cost around what a good second hand JO5 or DJ5 would cost. I used it on a gig for the first time last night, and it was great - tonally it's quite a different animal from either of those basses. The only slight downside is the slab body, which makes it fairly heavy at a shade under 11 lbs. I'll try and put up a YouTube clip soon.

If anyone's interested, I can try and stick a bit up on YouTube so you can hear what it sounds like - as I said before, it has more than a hint of Stingray about it...

The old neck, tuners, and bridge were all sold to various forum members for new projects - I believe in recycling!

I said to a couple of people on the forum when I bought this bass that I would post something when it had been altered, and now I've gone about as far as I want to with it, here it is. As I understand it, it started life as a bit of a project, with a spare neck from a Lakland Joe Osborn Skyline that had developed a small split behind the nut from the truss rod being overtightened. A Paul Rose body was added to it, along with a Schaller bridge, a couple of Bartolini pickups, and some rather oversized Korean tuners. It showed promise, but was never really completed. It then passed through the hands of at least three Bass Chatters, and I bought it on impulse on eBay last year, thinking it might be worth investing some time and money in. It had problems - the tuners were huge and heavy, unbalancing the whole bass. The pickups had a nice variety of tones, but were pretty weak. The bridge was just too narrow, with nowhere near the spacing needed for the neck. The split in the neck, although unsightly, was stable, but the first thing I did was source a replacement - I figured that if I was going to sink cash into it and if I ever wanted to sell it, the split would make it virtually unsaleable, at least for the kind of money I'd need to recoup my outlay. Luckily I came across a brand new JO neck online, and asked the wonderful Martin Petersen at The Gallery to fit it, along with a set of Hipshot Ultralite tuners, a new ABM bridge strung through the body, and an Aguilar OPB-2 preamp. Martin finished it off with an inspired 'teardrop' scratchplate to echo the Stingray-like tones it's capable of producing. It now plays beautifully, sounds fantastic, and looks really striking, IMHO. And sorry, it's not for sale. Dave

Good grief. The first piece of new music that's put a smile on my face in quite a while. I'm downloading their album from their website as I type this. £6.50 well spent...

Sold Hedi my Lakland 55-01, and a more charming fella you couldn't hope to meet! Hope you enjoy the bass....

Alan bought my SWR 410, with the quickest turn around I've ever experienced on BC - from the initial PM, he had travelled up from Southhampton and played, paid for and uplifted the cab all in about 90 minutes! A great guy to deal with, highly recommended.