uk_lefty

I got offered a great deal on a TE combo (GP7215) 300Watts with 15" speaker, 7 band EQ, etc. and a 2x10 extension cab... off to pick up on Saturday. Very, very excited!! Have played the 2x10 trace combo and figured this would be a very flexible rig... then i searched the forum and noticed a good handful of these GP7215 combos for sale - any reason why, or just the cyclical nature of GAS? I'm hoping this will settle as a versatile gigging and rehearsal rig for whatever style i end up playing next...

I had a German made Warwick Streamer LX lefty: maple body, bell brass frets, gold hardware, active eq, possibly the most beautiful wooden object i've ever seen... Bought off eBay in 2007 for £450 cheeky bid with a hard case... It just wasn't perfect. It sounded great, I even invested in a Warwick sweet 15 amp which complimented it very well. I had to sell in 2009 to fund some training which helped my career progress but regret the sale now, especially at £550. I'm seriously considering buying a fretless warwick pro series in bubinga - to me that *should* be the "warwick sound" but there are many others on my GAS list!! I just can't understand the price hike for the German made instruments recently - is there any explanation for this?

Hmmm... quite fancy the all maple if it will fit on my Westfield body P-Bass project...

That is beauty itself.

Not so unusual... I had two friends who played guitar ok at school, and another who was a good musician but didn't own a guitar. They needed a bassist, singer and someone to write songs. I started off writing some ok songs but after watching the Doors movie decided it would be better to write random nonsense and pretend it was poetic. I even tried to talk the lyrics out and tried to sound like Jim Morrison which was just plain wrong. I was then swiftly elected bass player though none of us had one, got a learn guitar (not bass) book from the library to see how hard it could be. My mum sold our house before Christmas and as we were downsizing I persuade her to buy me a bass. Tanglewood P copy, left handed, with an amp. No tuner until March so goodness knows what I was doing. In the meantime the friend who was a good musician bought a guitar and bass (rich family) and could pick up songs quickly by ear so that band moved on without me. Looking back it was a decent bass, if I still had it I would have a new pup in it and still use it. However a fretless five string Kramer for my 18th kicked the tanglewood in to touch and it got traded in to contribute to a gigging amp.

Batsh!t mental

Where are you based?

Just been on the bassmods site and had a bassgasm. Thank you for introducing me to this, my credit card should run and hide...!

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1416226654' post='2608039'] Wouldn't look good without pickguard. There's an oversized rout for the pickup there. [/quote] 😢

Thanks Conan! Never heard of that retailer before so will look for other goodies later. Lefty J&D Jazz basses for £97 with solid alder bodies is very very tempting, even though they don't do the maple fingerboards sadly. What are they like under the pick guard? Are there big routs out for the pickups and so on? Could be tempted to "Jaco" their lefty sunburst J if it looks ok without the pickguard

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1415914151' post='2605281'] Jack Casady went to Gibson first but they declined - "[color=#000000][font=arial, sans-serif][size=4]When in 1998 I approached Gibson about reissuing that bass they turned me over to Jim Rosenberg, President of Epiphone. They owned Epiphone and they thought that the bass was too much of an odd duck for Gibson to put back out again."[/size][/font][/color] [color=#000000][font=arial, sans-serif][size=4]Admittedly that was a while ago so you never know, but for now you'll have to put up with the Epiphone Jack Casady Signature. Not really a hardship, I'm a big fan of mine and so are the guys in my band.[/size][/font][/color] [/quote] FWIW an old guitarist friend of mine with an incredible collection of vintage instruments will not touch a Gibson, claims Epiphones are as good if not better and great value for money. He doesn't penny pinch on guitar purchases so for me that view has always stuck. I would not feel any shame in playing an Epiphone Thunderbird, Jack Cassidy (if there was a lefty version is already have it!!) but there's a load of basses much higher on my GAS list. All down to personal preference I guess. Gibson did make an effort towards leftys a year or two ago but that seemed very short lived unfortunately. Now looking at basses they don't even figure for me

Where are these available... And can you get them kack-handed? Fancy having a look tonight

Competitive price

I recently bought a cheap Westfield P bass and swapped the bridge for a Wilkinson bridge with brass saddles. Mainly did it for the looks (black bridge now on a black bass) but I do feel it has made a minor difference to the sound and for £12 I'm happy with that. I like having a badass ii on my MIM Jazz but don't know if I'd do that to a USA Jazz in case it lowered the value

Can't remember the topic but there's a thread in here where a guy compares loads of fenders, MIM MIJ and MIA from different eras and with different body and fingerboard wood combos. Well worth a few minutes looking through here for

Thanks for the tip, I shall try to track him down

Long Hot Summer, Style Council Music for Chameleons, Gary Numan (not Alan Partridge)

So far mine has had the knobs changed for black ones, black Fender strap locks (i have Fender straplocks on my Jazz so this makes sense for changing instruments) and the Wilkinson bridge is on. Have to say I think the new bridge has made a big improvement to the sound - its a black chrome bridge with brass saddles that I bought for £11.95 posted on eBay from Guitars Electric - there's more depth and fullness to the sound. Struggling to adjust the string height though and think i need to do a neck adjustment too, but the bass is coming on well. Seymour Duncan SPB3 Pickups should be on the way, I'm looking at all maple necks if I can get one the right size and the right price, black tuners will go on, and I'm thinking of buying a P Bass wiring loom off eBay built to Fender vintage spec (about £33 posted) - anyone know if they're worth it? Comparing this to my Jazz bass its the dark and deep sound i want to contrast with the bright zingy and snappy jazz bass. Add my fretless and i possibly have the full set

I've recently seen more and more buyers behaving like complete barstewards on eBay. Gumtree from now on.

In summary: [list] [*]Some of us will buy signature basses but only if we like the actual bass, the signature itself is immaterial [*]We all like Dee Dee Ramone [*]None of us like Adam Clayton [/list] I agree with all of the above.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1414950031' post='2594973'] Of course this advice applies to any bass, regardless of when it was made... [/quote] Absolutely! I just hate the assumption that all Fenders 25 years old or more will sound amazing, make women want to be with you and men want to be you every time you pluck a string. Some of them just were just so-so.

Make sure you play it before committing. I played a '77 P recently that looked amazing but sounded........ ok. Wasn't worth the very hefty price tag as an instrument to be played, but maybe as an object to hold on to and hope it increases in value.

Boss bass limiter/ enhancer to bring out the "mwaaaaahhhh" - great for my fretless, still got to find a setting on it I like for my fretted basses. Tried a Boss bass chorus and just personally didn't like it so sold it on. Boss digital delay works nicely with it too. I use my fretless for heavier music too so distortion and fuzz (EHX Bass Blogger being the current weapon of choice) does very nicely

I recently played a 1977 left handed Fender P in a shop... it was not inspiring. The neck looked brand new and felt amazing, the body looked pretty cr@p really and turned me off a bit, the pickup was slowly decaying and weak sounding... I just couldn't get the classic P-Bass tone out of it that I have in my head. For £1,500 I'd rather buy a great bass and have change... if that's vintage and it holds its value then it's something to pass down to the children.