molan

I've just ordered one of the new Aguilar P bass pickups - wound to sound like one of the founders of Aguilar's '64 P bass - and I have a '64 to put it into so that's one reason for deciding to try them out

I've played one of Mike's new basses - a Funkmeister. It was great to play, super-low action. BassGear have one in stock at the moment.

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1329052483' post='1536459'] If I hadn't been to London before and only had a day I wouldn't want to spend it looking at bass guitars. I'd check out the tourist things - pick from Tower of London, Westminster Palace, The Eye, Tate Modern, South Bank, Borough Market, Museums of all descriptions - the list goes on of really well presented, top class places to go and see. London is an absolutely wonderful city with a long and diverse history often taken for granted - I know I do as it is on my doorstep. [/quote] There's a really great day out to be had if you follow some of these notes above. Kick off in Borough Market just for the atmosphere, plenty of places to stop off nearby for a coffee or home made cake (maybe even start at Monument station & stroll across London Bridge to the market) Walk through to the river & see the Golden Hind & maybe Clink Prison Museum Head down the river to Tate Modern It's too far to walk to London Eye but a short cab ride or walk to Southwark Tube & 1 stop to Waterloo. If you've still got any energy / time left then stroll across Westminster Bridge to see Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey etc. Alternative route might be to start in Westminster, across the bridge to Londen Eye, tube it from Waterloo to London Bridge & lunch around Borough Market. Then walk across London Bridge & round to the Tower of London. This route misses Tate Modern but if you're not into strolling around art museums then it's maybe best avoided anyway. One other nice day out is Covent Garden, Soho, Leicester Square & down to Trafalgar Square - really not far to walk to see the heart of all of this & loads of places to eat & drink. Would allow you to do Denmark Street as well.

Have you considered something like a Zon? Would be very different to anything you already have and would give you all sorts of options for plain or fancy tops, nicely ergonomic bodies and a graphite neck. Alternatively, if you've got £3K to spend then you're on the edges of a classic 'vintage' Fender as well. Unlikely to get 100% original for that money but certainly you could pick up a pre CBS P bass with a refin body (like mine!) or a later 60's J. You're also well up into the 'boutique' J basses from people like Sadowsky, Lull, Celinder or a custom build from Martin Petersen or Jon Shuker etc. Choices, choices eh. . .

[quote name='Higgie' timestamp='1328994381' post='1535901'] Awesome site! Just downloaded all the Steely Dan backing tracks to make transcribing the bass lines a bit easier. I didn't know Anthony Jackson played with the Dan...Do you know what tracks, just out of interest? [/quote] Only ones I know of offhand are Glamour Profession & My Rival on Gaucho. May be others but might need a bit of serious Googling!

I've both and much preferred my Spectors to my '86 Warwick. Very different basses tonally - certainly the ones I've tried. My personal favourite is the 5 string American Spector - some of these are fabulous to play

Welcome Marc - whereabouts in Berkshire are you? There's quite a few of us in the Berks/Bucks/Hants/Oxon borders area

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1328959083' post='1535258'] Character! We all want our stuff to be individual, yours clearly is. I think the relative cost of gear (ie as a % of typical income) is a fraction of what it used to be in the 60s-70s, well good gear anyway. Things have changed. [/quote] Absolutely - when I bought my first Fender Musicmaster in 1979 it cost me £110 - my gross income at the time was £2,500!

Thanks guys, I thought I could see a washer under there - wondered why it might be there but I can see Stacker's comment would make sense

I've had immense fun today picking out bass lines from some of these & playing along

I recently bought a new RI '62 stacker body for a project I'm working on. The twin tone controls are heavily ratcheted - is this normal? Obviously they weren't like this on an original Stacker.

So Marco Mendoza has gone up in my estimations after listening to some live Whitesnake tracks

Apologies if this has been posted before but I've only just come across it: http://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/author/OrangeGoblin.htm This is a huge collection of songs with the guitar parts removed. Some are really cut back to just bass & drums, others still have vocals & keys. All are claimed to be album cuts or direct from the board live mixes. The bass seems pretty high in the mix for each of the ones I've listened to so far. Band list goes on forever but to give you an idea of variety Steely Dan - this is how I came across this site whilst hunting for some Anthony Jackson stuff AC DC Alice in Chains The Beatles Jeff Beck Black Sabbath Bon Jovi Carlos Santana Chicago Eric Clapton Deep Purple Doobie Brothers Doors Dream Theatre Eagles Fleetwood Mac Foo Fighters Foreigner Hedrix Iron Maiden Judas Priest Albert King Lenny Kravitz Led Zep Megadeth Metallica Muse Nirvana Pantera Pearl Jam Pink Floyd Judas Priest Porcupine Tree Bonnie Raitt Queen Chili Peppers Stones Rush Slayer Snow PAtrol U2 Van Halen Whitesnake Yes ZZ Top Plus lots of others - 507 in total!! The tip is to make sure you click on the song rather than the band in order to get the Orange Goblin uploads. The majority of this site is, as far as I know, just midi backing tracks but Orange Goblin seems to have all original stuff. Right - back to listening to Anthony Jackson with the Dan

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1328866631' post='1533809'] I'll check it out next time I'm passing! I think I have pictures somewhere... *rummage* Is this it? (May 13 2006 at the Borderline, history fans) [/quote] No - the one Phil has is sunburst, I think he's had it a while as well so maybe pre-dates this one.

[quote name='mcgraham' timestamp='1328864708' post='1533758'] Well [i]that[/i] has convinced me I need a Fodera, if only to be able to do that. [/quote] You'll need to find an old one then as they don't do this any more

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1328821514' post='1533365'] Caravan are great: check out Waterloo Lily, If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It Over You and their brilliant In The Land Of Grey And Pink. The common thread with these albums is bassist Richard Sinclair - I can't recommend him enough, and his voice is perfect for the band as well. You'll also find him in Hatfield And The North, look out for their eponymous album and follow-up The Rotter's Club. I saw Soft Machine a few times in recent years when Hugh was still with us - wonderful stuff. I once ended up sitting a few feet away from him when they played downstairs at the Pizza Express on Dean St. A big lesson there. [/quote] You have to pop into BassGear & play on his old fretless - Phil is more than happy for people to play it. It's just not for sale!

My '86 Fodera Monarch has volume control for each pickup and master bass/treble controls. I use it in a soul / disco band set up to simply flick the switch forward for neck pickup only on the old solu/funk stuff for a P bass sound & then to both pickups, with the bridge pulled back a shade for the more 'modern' disco material. Works really well for me

I have three tort guards sitting next to me right now, '63 original J, '72 original P & early 70's repro on a '63P. Each one is slightly different with the '63 definitely much more orangey than the later ones (which actually works well on the seafoam green body). I think Jeannie's has two different classifications - red tort & brown tort. I'm sure if you contacted them they could help

So this made me think - I reckon there's a hierarchy by age for each broad type of bass based on model changes. For a Jazz it seems to be: 60-62 - Early 60's stack knobs = holy grail, very big money if all original 61-64 - Post stacker but pre-CBS = still big money if original but more of them around & a lot of refinished bodies so prices are lower 65-66 - Transition era, prices vary a lot & many examples of partly pre CBS / partly post & some completely post CBS 66-69 - Post CBS, blocks & binding, less than the pre-CBS & transition models but a little more than early 70's (simply because they are from a different decade?) 70-74 - Generally referred to as 'early' 70's with four bolt necks, good examples can command a pretty decent price 75-79 - 'late' 70's with three bolt neck & patchier build quality. Some very heavy. Really out of fashion for a while until Marcus Miller started raving about them. Nice ones can be very nice indeed but need to be aware that there's some not so nice ones out there (obviously this is true for all eras!) 80-83 - pretty much the same as late 70's, definitely increasing in value now - considered by some to be the last of the 'classic' Fenders 83-89 - 4 bolt necks with dots and even patchier build quality, New American Standard introduced in 89 = definitely beyond 'classic' definition. So there you have it - classics either stopped in '79 at the end of the 2nd decade, or in '83 when the bound & block models stopped production or at a push in '89 when the American Standard came out (which is already over 20 years old now!) Of course - to a lot of people it's just "gotta be pre-CBS or maybe just 'transition' but then again "the late '60's bound & blocked in custom colours are nice", etc, etc. Repeat ad infinitum until you reach 2012. . . Changing anything from original will damage value eventually - my '63 P bass had a replacement pickguard in the early 70's, to get a genuine article now would cost me over £500!

Phil at BassGear.co.uk has a genuine 'Canterbury Scene' bass hanging on the wall behind his desk. A nice fretless Fender J in sunburst. It was previously owned by Richard Sinclair of Caravan, Hatfield & The North and Camel fame.

Apologies if this has been posted before but I've only just spotted this. Starts off with Wyman on bass but he moves over to percussion about half way through & Keef takes over on a nice old P bass: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcxE_iEDW7k[/media] and here's PArt 2 with Keef up & grooving a bit more: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd3458C-LjY&feature=watch_response_rev[/media]