BigRedX

As someone who has built solid electric instruments (in the late 70s and from scratch when there was virtually no information available on the subject) I would offer the following observations: If you are intending to use it as a first step in a bass building "career" then then I think it makes an interesting and useful starting point. However from my experience of building and modifying instruments it seems to me that thesis are kits very much of two parts. The basic assembly appears to offer no more challenge than assembling a simple piece of Ikea flat-pack furniture. (I know people joke about how hard that is, but in reality it's easy if you work carefully and follow the instructions, and if that is beyond your capabilities then I despair.) You don't even need to be able to solder, as the main wiring loom is pre-assembled and the pickup has a plug-in connection. However if you want to do something interesting with the paddle-shaped headstock, you will need the appropriate tools, some degree of skill in using them and somewhere appropriate to do it. It's going to be the same with the finishing of the neck and body if you want to do anything more ambitious than a simple oil finish. I know from personal experience that even a simple solid colour finish requires significant expertise and skill to even get close to the standard of a budget Chinese instrument, as well as a well ventilated and temperature controllable space to do it in. And I also know from my experience that anything less than near perfection is going to seriously bug you. Also as other have said it appears that most of the hardware is pretty poor, and if you do end up making a decent job of the build, you'll most likely want to look at replacing all of it. So you may well be better off just buying a basic neck and body and sourcing decent hardware yourself. Overall this would be a more challenging experience and you'll learn a lot more about building instruments in the process and you can create something to your own spec. On the other hand if you just want a cheap bass, there are plenty of ready made ones to chose from.

Cheesy Guitars is what you are looking for

There was a whole discussion about this at various levels of quality and expense on the Sound On Sound forums. I'll see if I can remember which forum it was in...

No that's not right. When you say the volume doesn't work, is is stuck on full or off? I'd be looking for something on the harness touching something that it shouldn't. Is the control cavity screened?

Both were mostly made of metal and one was under £50…

When they were called "Lightwave" I owned a Sabre FL4-string semi-hollow body with both fretted and fretless necks. I like the Lightwave idea a lot. However one of it's main selling points that you can use lots of different strings was a bit of a non-starter when I discovered just how much set up adjust meant would be required every time I made a major change to the string type, so once I found a set I likes (the first ones I tried after the set that were on mine when I bought it) I stuck with those. Setting up was both a mechanical and electrical procedure - firstly you had to align the pickups with the strings and then tweak the output of each individual string via trim pots inside the control cavity. However once you'd get this right the tonal response from one string to another was very even, so well worth the effort. I didn't much like the action and intonation adjustments thought as they both requires slackening off the string to perform. By the time I'd got my bass set up how I liked it, the stings had been tightened and loosened so much they might as well have been secondhand! However I believe that the bridge/pickup mechanism has gone through at least one more iteration since mine (I had on the Mk2 version) and may be a lot more user friendly now. The version I had also had piezo pickups (called ice-tone IIRC) which added an extra dimension to the tone but also on the hollow body a lot of handling noise, so when I did use this I kept the level low. The final thing to consider its powering it. Again this may have changed with the new models, but mine required an external PSU to charge the battery inside the bass which connected via a non-standard socket. Also because I imported mine directly from the US it came with a 110V charger that required a step-down transformer to make it work. However you could play the instrument whilst charging it so even if you forgot to charge regularly so long as you had the PSU you were OK. Having said all that if I found myself in another band that need fretless bass and I could find a 5-string that looked as nice as my 4-string did, I would definitely get it. If you have any specific questions post here and I'll do my best to answer, bearing in mind that a lot of the quibbles I had with my bass may well have been addressed by now.

I've bought at least two basses that were brought to my attention by threads in that forum.

I would suspect that very few people buy a modelling system just so they can have the sound of one particular amp and not have to use the "real thing", but like me the bought one because it offers a multitude of sound shaping facilities in a single box. As I've said before I don't care how "authentic" any of the models are, and TBH I don't have enough experience of any of the amp models provided to even be able to know. All that matters to me is whether they help produce the sound(s) that is in my head.

At one point I owned nearly 50 guitars and basses not to mention numerous synthesisers, samplers and other studio hardware and loads of audio software, as well as amps cabs and effects both pedals and rack mounted. I'd also spent a serious amount of money transforming a room in my property to house it all in. Today I am down to 9 guitars and basses and I only have 3 of those because I haven't got around to listing them for sale yet. All the amps cabs and effects have gone, replaced by a Helix Floor and an RCF745 FRFR. The studio hardware and software has also gone apart from Logic (a desktop and laptop to run it on) a Focusrite audio/MIDI interface and a single 3rd party instrument plug-in. I don't need any more gear, however when I get around to selling those surplus guitars and basses I'll probably also sell the Burns Barracuda and replace it with a second Eastwood Hooky. Ideally I'd like to have both my Bass VIs replaced with instruments made by Gus, but that isn't likely to be affordable any time soon. I enjoyed "collecting" but now I'm over it and concentrating on just having instruments that will actually get used.

Fair enough, but it hasn't always.

And a quick reminder that Hurtsfall will be playing the "In The Black Midwinter" festival in Sheffield next weekend. We're on first in the evening on Sunday 18th at around 7.00pm, but if you're into your gothic post-punk music the whole weekend is worth seeing.

Yes you can. Basschat should save where you are in your typing so that when you return to the thread and click "reply" everything you wrote previously will still be there. It's caught me out a few times when I've started to reply to a thread and then something else has come up, several days/weeks later I find I have a useful contribution to make, and much to my surprise my half finished reply come back up. I don't know if there is a limit to how many "drafts" you can have but in theory you could have one for every thread... However what's wrong with opening an extra tab/window or two (or more)?

Once again excellent stuff! Is it just me or is the vocal delivery reminiscent of Howard Devoto?

This is because on the whole UK luthiers have steered away from the Fender copy market, and so they should because IMO it is over-saturated at all price points. Generally UK builders can't complete with the US manufacturers let alone the Far East on price, so they have tended to stick with the custom market. Even those with set standard designs tend to build to order and adjust the specification to the customer's requirements. I'm not surprised that you didn't get on with Sei if it wasn't built specifically for you. When I went to pick up mine, Martin was still making some final adjustments, so while I waited he let me have play on another Sei - also 5-string and fretless - which was very nice but didn't speak to me like mine did when it was finally ready, as IT HAD NOT BEEN BUILT TO MY SPECIFICATION. This is whole point of the custom market; you get your chosen luthier to make what you want, not what someone else has specified and not what someone else might want should you come to sell it. If you are not brave and single-minded when you spec your bass you are unlikely to be happy in the long run. Production-line instruments aren't financially viable in the UK right now. For me the whole point of custom luthiers is that they offer something that the mainstream doesn't. If you are already happy with a production-line instrument why would you want a custom one? If you are not, then you need to be brave and specific exactly what you want when getting your bass built.

The Cure are a difficult band to pin down because there are so many different versions that have covered different musical styles. And while I'd agree that there are a lot of great songs that weren't singles there also a lot of filler on nearly all the albums. So rather than go and buy any particular album(s) stick their entire back catalogue on shuffle on Spotify and see what you like.

Two shots of the Eastwood Hooky in action on Saturday:

And the non-remixed version is out now:

Are you posting that to agree or disagree with my statement? I can't find anything on the website that says how many people work at "Manton Customs" other than they use the pronoun "we" but that could simply mean there are two of them or has been used make an organisation which is a single person sound more impressive.

Also most UK luthiers are small, often single person outfits and don't have anything like the overheads of Alembic or Fodera. I know Fodera bang on about how they are based in NYC when in fact they are down by the docks in Brooklyn (which is similar to saying you're based in London when the reality is that you work out of a unit on an industrial estate in Croydon), but even so I suspect that their rent/rates etc.are considerably more than than having a workshop in your back garden (Gus).

I don't know why anyone would do that. If you slacken off the strings for transit then really you need to slacken off the truss rod by an equivalent amount so the neck remains in equilibrium. I'm pretty certain that they don't come from Squier like that (my Bass VI certainly didn't and IIRC was almost perfectly in tune when it arrived despite having been shipped from mainland Europe).

That is very nice looking. It's probably just as well I find the neck way too narrow or I'd have got one too!

It's also one of those songs that is arranged so that the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. IIRC the bass line on it's own is essentially meaningless in places and it only really comes together when all the band plays the correct parts.

I play in two goth/post-punk originals bands, and one of them is currently working on an original Christmas song for next year. The other has been playing a cover of Greg Lake's "I Believe In Father Christmas" at all December gigs for the last 5 years and which has gone down so well that this year we decided to put it out as a single:

There are lots of options for UK designed and built instruments. I have realised that for the majority of my playing years (almost 50 now) has been done with guitars, basses and synthesisers made here. In order: Self-made solid electric balalaika Self-made solid electric guitar Burns Sonic Bass (original 60s Made in London) EDP Wasp Overwater Original 5-string Bass FretKing Esprit V Custom (from the days when they were made in a workshop behind Musical Exchanges in Birmingham) Gus G1 Guitar Gus G3 5-string Bass Sei Offset Flamboyant Fretless 5-string Bass The only non-UK instruments I have spent any serious playing time with: Kimbara acoustic guitar (my first proper instrument) Korg MS20 Casio CZ5000 with a Yamaha KX5 Keytar Warwick StarBass II Burns Barracuda (designed in the UK, made in the far East) Eastwood Hooky Bass 6 PRO (essentially an exact copy of a UK designed and made Shergold Marathon 6 string bass)

Interesting, when I saw them in 1980 and 81 I'm pretty sure he was playing an Ibanez Musician bass rather than this Fender P.