Jean-Luc Pickguard

3 minutes ago, Old Horse Murphy said:

Smurfs aren't cheap to milk. You need specialist equipment or farmers with very small hands. The cost soon mounts up

And there's only one female smurf, unless they're ahem, 'milking' the males somehow?

I've just had a horrible thought. If they can do the JC in gorgeous colours, they might decide to do a run of vintage pro thunderbirds in similarly lovely shades. I already have a white one and a sunburst and I'm running out of places to hide new basses

Am I imagining things, or does a member of the audience call out a request for Wonderwall at 1:27 in the video?

it might be easier for people to work out what case this is if you can post some pics

The studio iv I played had a slightly more radiused edge than thunderbirds usually have, but I wouldn't call it a forearm contour

2 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

As long as it can record the BJ faithfully...

Do any thunderbirds have a forearm contour? I don't recall seeing one on any I've owned or played.

15 minutes ago, 6feet7 said:

But what's it like? as I only play 5 stringers it's this or nothing. I'm more into how it looks and feels and am not bothered about how it's made.

I tried out the four string version of the studio. It was okay but not in the same class as an epiphone vintage pro.

There's a five string epiphone pro-v at the Gallery at the moment which does have a thru neck: https://thebassgallery.com/collections/all/products/epiphone-thunderbird-5-string

I would have loved to have one of those if I had owned a strat when I was 15

The 5 string gibson version from that time is not a 'classic' style thunderbird with the usual neck thru construction but is designated as 'thunderbird studio' model. instead of the neck-thru construction of nine-ply mahogany/walnut neck with mahogany wings it has a mahogany body with a mahogany set neck, and a different bridge.

I think this (or some of it) might be easier to sell parted out than as a complete bass. The neck would look great on a precision body and the mustang bridge, pickup, neck plate, tug bar and control plate would be attractive to someone doing a mustang restoration or maybe even a bronco to mustang conversion.

damn - I’d have had that if I had seen it before it went.

I remember liking the look of  these when they came out & the blueburst is a great looking finish.

I'm not surprised to find out he's a right whinger

That finish should be called 'technicolour yawn' -- It looks like someone threw up on it.

Based on the shape of the plates, I'd suggest that the tuners are Gotoh GB2

56 minutes ago, bassace said:

The drums make you tap your feet, the bass makes you swing your hips.

That's a good one - who is that attributed to?

Does anyone have any favourite quotes from well known bass players?

The same ones keep coming up when googling but some of ones I like are:

• "The gunk keeps the funk." -  James Jamerson
• "I like to believe that I play bass like Dusty Hill, and that's something nobody else can do as well as me. I'm the best Dusty Hill I know." - Dusty Hill
• "The bass should be the note of the bass drum, and then you've got the engine of the band that everything else builds on. Everything else, the guitar, the keyboards, is a colour." - "Suzi Quatro"
• "The bass is the link between harmony and rhythm. It is the foundation of a band. It is what all the other instruments stand upon." - Victor Wooten

44 minutes ago, barrycreed said:

Epiphone bolt on t-bird worth a look at all?

I used to have an alpine white bolt-on one. It was a decent bass but my vintage pros are in a different league altogether in terms of playability and tone.

The warning comes up when https://www.basscentre.com/ is accessed

But the non-ssl version http://www.basscentre.com loads up with the usual 'site not secure' indicator in the address bar.

Its a little concerning that following the 'secure checkout' link after adding something to your basket takes you to another non-secure page to enter your your details. I'd hope the credit card info is taken on a secure third party site.

Really in 2020 to avoid losing customer trust all sites that do ecommerce should be 100% HTTPS as modern browsers throw out so many warnings when browsing with HTTP. Adding a secure server certificate is not difficult or expensive.

bty - my head isn't pointy

I like to have music on while I work (web dev), but I've found that most music and in particular just about anything with a vocal causes my train of thought to get supplanted with the bus replacement service of discombobulation.

My favourite album at the moment to help me concentrate is Roger Eno & Brian Eno's 'Mixing Colours Expanded'

I also like Moby's long ambients I & II which have a run time of 7 hours and 43 mins, and are available for free download from his website https://moby.com/la/

Anyone else listen to this kind of thing when doing brain work?

The embossed numbers on the knobs of my starfire bass only go up to nine. That just doesn't seem right as its 'one less'

I had great service from Musik Productiv when I bought a fairly pricey bass which ending up needing to be replaced.

I'm not a fan of the stealth look - or black hardware in general. The only thing I would change on that bass would be to swap out the pickguard for a mirror one.

To go full stealth you'd need a Status graphite neck and an EMG pickup.

I was setting up my guild starfire bass and found that it had a dual action truss rod so I've been able to set the relief for lowish tension flatwounds that enables me to prevent string buzz without needing to raise the action. I've never encountered a dual action rod before so I wonder why in 2020 this isn't the standard for all basses? being able to add relief when the strings don't pull enough on the neck to add relief is a real game changer and I'm impressed that Guild didn't stick to the original 1960s spec by using a standard single action truss rod.

Who else is a fan of the dual action truss rod?

I don't think this is a rumbler, the case, tortoiseshell binding, black strings and toad inlay point to it being a more upmarket solid mahogany model probably the SMHG-FS