MichaelDean

It looks like you had good supervision at least! 😸 Seems to me like it came out nicely. How does the bass sound now it's done?

A bit late to the thread, but I just got my new pickguard from Brian about an hour ago. Really helpful over eBay messages and just what I wanted to hide the neck pickup hole after moving the pickup on my Combustion to NG2 pickup configuration. I'd recommend his services. https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/earlpilanz I did email Tinytone about what I wanted and they never got back to me.

I've had hankerings to try a P-Bass again recently and was wondering what walnut and roasted maple would look like together. Very classy! Enjoy!

My first planet waves cable lasted 15 years, the second, not so much... I'm a fan of Lynx Cables now. For their guitar cables, they're cheaper if you get them on eBay versus their website. Doesn't quite make sense to me!

Just reading some of the other replies reminded me of a guitarist I used to play with. One day he turned up to practice with a Helix LT - decided that it would be simpler to have a fancy multi FX rather than patch cables that break. Sounded great, his peals before were fine too though. One day, he decided that he wasn't making the full use of the Helix, sold it and set up a traditional pedalboard. Turns out he had some faulty patch cables and spent the first 20 minutes of band practice tearing apart his pedalboard! I feel like I hear people saying that they're not "making full use of the thing" as a reason for selling their Helix products a lot as well. I think as long as what you're using the thing for is comparably priced to a similar set of pedals and it performs to a standard where you're happy, keep it to do those things. You don't have to use all of the bells and whistles all of the time, but they can be useful every now and then.

The plugin is called Helix Native, just scroll down the page a bit: https://line6.com/helix/helixnative.html

If you've got an audio interface, you can also get a free trial of their helix plugin on the Line 6 website to try out the sounds a bit before you buy.

It's the other side. Between the trem block and the strap button end.

Whoops - double post...

I love my ABM 600. I've got it paired with a Zilla neo 212, and they seem to work really well together. It's got all of the mystical heft you could ask for and more than loud enough for any gig I would ever play. Reminds me of a better version of the Trace Elliot combo (Commando 12) that was my first good amp, but wasn't quite loud enough to gig with.

Amazing! Free set of new strings for my Mustang! Thanks for the heads up!

It'd probably be a Mustang: - Pickup modelled after the one in mine - 40mm nut - 7 ½" radius - neck shaped like a little p bass - maple neck, rosewood board (maybe ebony...) - gloss neck - mother of pearl inlays - vintage size stainless steel frets - 500k pots, 0.047uf capacitor - Hipshot ultralites with a drop tuner - Ash body with tummy and forearm contours - black grainfill on white cerused body, white grainfill on black cerused competition stripe - black three ply pickguard - thumbrest in 70s position - mustang bridge - thru body strung with D'Addario nickels It'd probably have to be a bit more than the JMJ Mustang because of the finish, but I reckon it'd sell well...

Ugh. Payment/invoicing portals are the worst. When I was working in an invoicing role, we were invoicing a company in Ireland for certification. No VAT applied as they're EU. Took months to get it right on their portal and get paid. They couldn't get it right at their end. These things aren't suited to one off/weirdy-beardy transactions. Can't imagine having to jump through these hoops for a gig!

I was pretty annoyed when the Mikey Way Mustang came out (due to the band affiliation!), it would have been my dream colour scheme but with a regular Mustang pickup and the same neck profile as my 70's one. Still kinda fancy picking one up someday but they don't come up much. Nothing else signature wise really floated my boat, but never say never!

I can totally see that side of it too, but programatically speaking, it shouldn't be hard to categorise them as bass or guitar effects. Then you know you have a set of effects that are optimised for bass and then you can try out some guitar ones if you feel the need later down the line. Like: Overdrive Bass X Y Z Guitar A B C

I messaged John about a loom for my Mustang bass after I butchered the electronics with my cheap soldering iron (now in the bin...). The mini Bourns pots feel really nice and it's a very reasonable cost and an excellent product! Screw terminals are just so convenient. Why aren't they standard practice?!?

Small rant... I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, it's nice having products built with a bassists needs in mind (A/B inputs, XLR out, etc.). On the other, I don't quite understand why Zoom still insist on doing a bass version and a guitar version. The extra bits on the B6 has would, I'm sure, also be very welcome on the G6. All of the other manufacturers have combined the guitar and bass units and then been able to sell to both markets straight away, reducing on manufacturing/tooling costs, etc. Then they make sure the product works well before expanding the range with variants on the theme. Plus, it always feels a bit like hand holding to have a reduced set of effects like reverbs and delays vs the guitar version. Almost like they're saying "No! You can't use a shimmer reverb on bass! Fool!". Can't they just give us everything and let us choose what's a suitable effect for bass?

I got my B4n to do delay and reverb for lush volume swells, as it's cheaper than two good pedals of either flavour and certainly sounds good enough to my ear. Plus I made a mean squelchy synth patch for "Toxic" when I was in a covers band. Now I've used that programme to load the extra guitar effects on to it, my pedalboard can do double duty for the guitar I bought a few months back. I'm very happy they're a thing!

I've also used and would recommend Flight Case Warehouse. It was a few years ago, but they made a custom case for my Mustang, turned it around in a couple of weeks, including me posting them a tracing of my bass. It protected my bass perfectly while flying to Japan and back 👌

I got a Harley Benton Tele (TE52) earlier this year. Great value for money, really pleased with the purchase. Based on that, I'd feel pretty happy trying just about any of their stuff. The SC550 II Les Pauls are a bit over budget (≈£240) but seem to get great reviews (have a look on YouTube) and have some great features including stainless steel frets. If I could sneak another guitar into the house, one of these would be on my shortlist!

I've never had a d tuner, but I've been in a originals post-rock band where swapping from drop d to regular tuning was required. I just turned on my tuner and retuned between songs. Didn't seem like a big deal at the time. I also spent time in a hip hop covers band and a function type band where a 5 string made a lot more sense. It's all horses for courses. If you picked up a second hand 4 and have a hunt for a d tuner, and it doesn't work out for you, you could probably pass it on again without losing much. Just don't necessarily get rid of the 5er straight away. Or at all. I like having different basses around that inspire me differently. I feel like sometimes the limitations of a 4 make me play a certain way. Other times, I want a 5 to expand my options.

Link to the listing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Mustang-Bass-vintage-1973-1974-matching-serials-on-neck-and-body-plate-/133850670529?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0 For context, I've got a 76 Mustang I refinished about 10 years ago. I think it's had a refin on the body and headstock at some point. The logo looks all sorts of wrong. Based on the pictures, the paint doesn't look thick or shiny enough for the poly used in the 70s. The type of wear on the poly looks odd to me too. For that year, white is the correct pickguard colour. Seems very white to me, but there do seem to be age related marks on it. Like someone has tried to adjust the trussrod without taking the neck off and some discolouration around the screw holes. Might be an oddly well preserved pickguard. The pitting on the tuners looks authentic to me and the bridge has the mute bars that reissues don't have. It also has the brass shielding plate in the control cavity, which are only in vintage instruments. The wiring looks familiar to me too. All in all, I'd say it probably is a 70s Mustang.

About 10 years ago, I bought an older version of this from ACS. They were awful. Sound quality was terrible (harsh treble, crappy bass response) and the cable was super microphonic. I'd hope they would have improved by now, but I'd buy proper IEMs everytime.

Another vote for the Polytune Mini. Great tuner.

I'd second trying to play a few different options now that you've made a start playing bass. You'll have an idea for what might fit your hands and trying different necks/pickups might reveal something tonally you haven't thought about. I reckon that the best bass for you right now is the one that makes you want to pick it up whenever you look at it and feels good in your hands, whether that be the Ibanez, some P Bass or a Bootsy bass!