uk_lefty

I have had that in so many places. I dress ordinarily, but have had furniture shop staff sit around chatting when I'm in there needing a whole two bed flats worth of furniture (Furniture Village, Southampton) and then they jump on the white haired man in slacks who pulls up in his Volvo saloon. My favourite on cars is "you have to confirm you're going to buy it, then we talk about if we can do anything on the price". I have had that in numerous garages. Imagine a guitar shop doing that!! Confirm you're definitely going to buy that vintage bass at a massive price and I'll then see if I can bring it closer to market value and throw in the case". How can you confirm you'll complete a deal before you know what the deal is?!?! Oh, I'm a professional buyer. Rule number 1, always be prepared to walk away. Always.

I had a six briefly. Poor quality bass so got rid, never seen the need to have one since. I have owned a fiver longer than anything else and it does make me play differently to my fours, but is limitation is that it's fretless and it's a pointy heavy metal looking thing. Since putting a hipshot d-tuner on my 4 string jazz bass thats now my one bass useable for any gig if I only want to take one bass. I spoke to a luthier recently about a new bass and enquired about price difference from 4-5. He says he pretty much makes 4s with a hipshot now rather than 5s as it's what more customers want...

I used to find Denmark street a really condescending place to go in my early 20's. Never felt comfortable playing a bass, especially one 10 or 20 times what I could afford. Then some smart Alec would suddenly get the whole staffs attention by name dropping who he is producing for, buy a plectrum and disappear, leaving me being glared at while playing a bass... Happy to say it's not like that now. Maybe I just look like I might be able to afford something now?

I think there's a few things contributing. You can't underestimate the pressure on retailers (therefore manufacturers) coming from the pressure on consumers wallets. People have more bills now than they did even fifteen years ago, everyone has to have a mobile phone, home internet and even bank accounts cost money now. All these are essentials for the majority of people and they aren't cheap either. I think the amount of choice now is staggering too. So many great brands like Cort, Vintage, SX and others producing stuff for £500 and less that would cost over a grand from the established American brands. When I started I had whatever was in my local music shop, a Tanglewood P at £250 in 1999 that now would cost about £80. However, since 2006 a German build Warwick double buck has gone from £800 to £1600. The top end gets further away in price for similar quality while the bottom end gets more accessible in price with improved quality. And guitars are built to last. My 18th birthday present bass is still gigged by me now almost 20 years later. As for guitar music not being popular I have the misfortune of occasionally hearing radio 1 on a morning. There is lots of heavy guitar music in between the pop, "r&b" and hip hop. It's just all detuned 7 strings. My local practice rooms are very busy too. More pubs are playing live music from what I can see as a means to get people in. With fender and Gibson struggling they may just be victims of their price points, and could be canibalising their own revenue streams by creating good quality Squiers. Or it could really be that not only are the luthier taking the tip end costs but even lower end guitars are customisable too, SX offer this service on their budget ranges. So there's just a very complex picture out there on the market for what's on offer and for what people can afford. Sorry that's very long. There's good cheap guitars about, people don't have much money these days, radio 1 still has guitar based music.

I had a parcel left on the doorway of my block of flats. Just when I was living a few mins walk from Leicester city centre. And the parcel force driver forged my signature. I called them and made the person on the phone poo themself by saying "do you know what was delivered?" And when they said no "old family photos going back nearly a hundred years, your compensation does not cover that at all". It was really some sports equipment worth £90 and luckily someone in an office over the road took in the parcel for me and tracked me down, but I just couldn't believe the cheek to forge a signature but also the stupidity to leave a parcel in a doorway in a city centre.

I played a gig with my fretless aged 18 and one of my "mates" is very loud and between every song kept shouting "but I can see frets?!!?!" But he's generally a prick and I think someone else told him where to go enough times he eventually stopped. Other people do ask whether it's fretless or not, if they sort of know something but aren't a bassist. I even handed it over to the barstaff at a gig recently so they could have a look up close, it does seem to be an oddity for "pub bands". Anyway, I think you're right, there is some weird kudos thing in the line debate as we are seeing in this thread, it's just manifested differently to my fat mate shouting "but I can see frets?!" Just for my tuppence worth: mine is lined because it was the only option available. I rarely ever look at them when playing though. If I were commissioning a build I'd probably want the little edge lines because I like the look of a blank board but don't have the confidence in myself above the twelfth, particularly if I'm walking about stage enjoying myself and playing spontaneously.

Good spot. That wasn't in the bass guitars category so took me a while to find it through the app

Home of Sei bass you say..... Oh god that's not helping me keep my money in my pocket at all!!

Fender flats are good and cheap but Ernie balls are a step up. My favourite flats are Steve Harris signature rotos but they are massive and will put serious stress on your bass neck, and not so cheap. Thomastik flats... Jury is still out for me. Not so keen with them on my p bass but think they'll be better on my jazz.

There's some good YouTube tutorials on the song to learn quickly if you need to.

I'll probably offload mine for the £29 I paid for it to a BC'er. I think the EHX Bass Clone was more up my street, unless anyone can tell me how you get the "wobble"/"shimmer" in the Eden

Nice bass! Would love a Rick but the cost has almost doubled in the past few years, can't justify it at all

I mention it quite often but my five string fretless Kramer from the musicyo days was a steal at £300 shipped and import tax paid in 2002. Second hand the right handers from the same range seem to go for £150 now which is a great deal. I gig mine every now and then and it's a great lightweight bass. The pickups are best fully on, i.e. not coil tapped to single coil, but it's a full and rich bass sound with a great feel to the neck, very lightweight and comfortable. Ok, it's a bit pointy and metal looking but that's ok

Graphic EQ just leads to drawing weird facial expressions. When I got a three knob amp that settled it for me, all flat then tweak as needed. I'm now on a five knob amp so I ignore two of them and tweak the other three. A decent amp and decent bass will sound good with flat eq I think.

While dressed as Lemmy for a gig in summer I was necking a bottle of JD on stage... Well, a jd bottle full of red bull (I was driving). I often have a beer on stage but our last gig was a function where my Japanese p bass went face first off its stand into a pint of cider and needed a damn good clean, also some drunken hoons fell on to the stage and spilled the singers pint and it nearly hit the power pack under my fx board. Our singer is a big lad and a pub landlord, these drunken idiots very quickly lost all colour from their faces as he picked them up off the floor by the scruff of their necks! We might rethink beers on stage for this reason alone.

Sorry to hijack, does anyone know the UK distributor for Spector? I'm keen for a try on a Euro model but can't find lefty ones anywhere.

So tough... Either NIB with Black Sabbath, or Good Times with chic.

Congratulations on beating the illness! You and your wife deserve as much treating yourself as you can muster and then some! All the best!

Didn't they also get really bad press from artists signed in to signature models basically saying that they don't care and do a really half-@rsed version of their instruments? There was saying huge article with a guitarist saying ESP actually asked what his tuning is, what type of strings etc. Whereas Gibson just wanted to stick his name on any other LP or whatever.

Strange, people say they never knew of their basses or don't want them. I noticed the new SG basses are available in lefty, as well as the new Thunderbirds. I am twitching for am SG Bass in walnut, even though it's got absolutely nothing I want or "need" in a new bass.

64 jazz bass. Said to be all original but I'm skeptical. And the photos on the ad are 6yrs old. Seems like the ad has been deleted.

Genuine? https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F162907767151

I got one and sold my hartke chorus for it before it arrived. While it's a slightly better built pedal it's not giving me exactly what I was after, a nice shimmery chorus. However, I think my idea of what a chorus is has been tainted by using multi fx units in the past where I think theres a big dollop of reverb in there too. The Eden does a great job of doubling the sound and it can shimmer a bit, but I can see why they aren't asking £99 anymore, I'd be disappointed if I'd paid that much. It works very well with other pedals though, I have it almost last on my board so I can feed it on driven signal and flange and it works nicely. I need a reverb anyway so I guess adding that I will get exactly what I want from it eventually.

I usually play different stuff to see how the bass responds, so some double-stops up the dusty end and also seeing how comfortable the bass is to play. They never have straps on them, which I find annoying cos I rarely play sat down. Last time I tried a bass in a shop I played Pump it Up by Elvis Costello over and over and got some funny looks from the sales guy. I then found the same bass cheaper and with a hard case on eBay and bought it (I know, I'm going to hell just for that).