Maude

Are the little dot imprints by each control knob on the scratchplate as matsumoku?

I've got no markings on the bass to say it is Aria to be fair, just trusting others. I think the better ones were through neck and 'Stereosound', stamped on the twin jackplate as opposed to 'Rickosound'. As far as I know all the bolt on neck ones had a single jack output. @Bassassin and @prowla are the font of faker knowledge as far as I know, maybe they could help identify yours. To be honest I'm not fused about it being bolt on as it just gives more room for adjustment (neck shim) if I can't get the action down. Now it's stripped I can see I've got plenty of room for adjustment on bridge (and the screws turn by fingers) and the truss rod turns one way fairly easily and will go the other way but is quite tight. I'll squirt some graphite lube down there as the carrier evaporates just leaving a coating of graphite to lube it, no greasy residue. I'll never use the stereo feature anyway so mono is fine with me.

Yes I saw that on Friday night, well Saturday morning and really enjoyed it. Who knew Billy Idol would've became a wildlife enthusiast 😉

I'll send him a message, I think he got it from someone on the Facebook faker page. If he finds the original and it's in decent shape then this one might be up for grabs. It's mirrored but the scratchplate is white and I can't cope with that sort of craziness 🤪, or maybe I could fit a mirrored scratchplate, gold would be nice on this colour but then I'd need a gold TRC. Anyway I've broken it already 😉

I've been after an older Matsumoku Rickenbacker copy, or something very similar, and I've just picked up this '77 Aria complete with original case. It needs a good clean, both cosmetically and electrically, but it sounds awesome and plays really well, the actions a tad high for my taste at the mo but I'll give it set up once cleaned. The seller reckons he has the origins TRC and pickup cover but is in the middle of moving and can't find them, he said if he finds them he'll post them to me so fingers crossed.

No idea I'm afraid, I could message the seller and ask if you want. I don't know if you can see clearly in the picture but it says Rickenbastard not Rickenbacker. The best 'homemade' versions of the real ones I've seen are 3D printed ones, that way the lettering can be raised as it's meant to be. I'll do a NBD to discuss anything further to save derailing this thread too much. 🙂

Well I never said I was in, and I've lasted until double figures 🤣 I've just picked up an '77 Aria bass that looks surprisingly like something else, complete with original case. It needs a good clean but it sounds the business. Excuse the indoor lighting.

Whatever differences you think your are hearing is obviously the placebo effect of thinking they will sound different, when in actual fact all four sounded identical because they were played by the same person, with the same fingers, and as we all know........... it's all in the fingers.

Just looked that up as I'd never heard of it. My life has not been enriched. 🤨 🙂

Yeah, but apart from four octave vocal range, the Hammond skills and the flute playing, what have the pub bands ever done for us? 😄

Why don't cover bands ever do Hocus Pocus by Focus? I would love to see that, and the look on the average punters face. 😆

My acoustic band has a wedding booked in three weeks and we've been asked to play Tammy Wynettes 'Stand By Your Man' and (bizarrely) Kenny Rogers' 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town', so I've been learning those two. The usual "it's country, how hard can it be" and then you actually listen applies, both songs have structures which don't seem to make sense, and then click. We're also working on a Country/Rockabilly version of Red Light Spells Danger which I'm liking at the moment. BTW the Kenny Rogers one is one of those songs you've always kind of known but never properly listen to, for what at first glance appears upbeat it's one hell of a dark song.

After a little Sunday drive over dartmoor last summer if found myself in Ashburton, the music shop was closed but a guitar in the window caught my eye with it's quirky design. The scratchplate, along with pickups, electrics and controls was screwed to a section of bodywood which popped out and was interchangeable to achieve a strat, tele, Les Paul etc configuration. Hard to explain but it looked really cool and I thought it was a great idea.

I don't know, I've never paid for a set up. It's one of the simplist things in the world to do so I'd never pay someone, hence why I said, "or whatever it costs".

I totally agree, but lots of different types of shops do lots of things that make me walk out without considering buying anything. I certainly wouldn't put an instrument on the wall without it being set up and in tune, with in reason, if I had a shop.

The cynic in me says they're left like that as most folks looking to spend that kind of money aren't beginners and will know a good set up to their preference will sort it, so the shop can then sell a set up for £80 or whatever it costs. The £80 set up is actual money in the shops till whereas profit on the £2k bass might not be much more.

In a similar vein, I think it was Rick Rubin who, back in the 80s, said he would always put whatever he was working on in the studio onto cassette and listen to it in the car on the way home, if it sounded good in the car then his work was done. He said the bulk of people, at the time, listened to music on crappy car speakers, not studio monitors. Nearly everything he worked on back then really did sound good IMO so it made sense to me.

Hmm, you'd think the question in this topic title would be easy, but after looking at the ebay listing I just can't decide.

The forearm carve is not a common style and reminded me of a Curbow, then noticed the satin hardware which is very similar, that was all. Just intrigued.

That Integra body carve and satin hardware look very similar to the Cort Curbow. Are the Arias made by Cort?

It looks nice and light. 💪

Our acoustic band struggles to find modern popular songs as, like said, there's not a lot of instrumentation going on. We're not adverse to changing songs around and actually thrive on doing stuff which 'shouldn't' work on these instruments (doublebass, guitar (12 & 6 string) mandolin, cajon (drum machine on a couple), 80s synth pop works well with the staccato nature of the mandolin as does 70s disco. We will do any music style in our own way but it's hard to find modern pop with enough going on for four different instruments. Dua Lipa's 'Be The One' works well, as does Portugal The Man, although I'm a little tired of that one. There was just more going on in older pop than today, not better or worse, just different, and that makes it easier to find stuff to play. It doesn't always make it easier to play though, Rio is rediculous on doublebass. 😄

Exactly this, if the songs weren't any good we wouldn't be discussing the musicians today. It was just one of those things when all the right ingredients were in the bowl at the same time.

Yeah I've no real idea, I'm not that up on the engineering side of things, which is probably why I found the clip interesting. I do know though that if I play the same bass through the same preamp into my old Yamaha MT8X and my almost as old Fostex DMT8, the cassette doesn't sound as clean a reproduction as the digital. Surely that's the result of digital over cassette.

I've just watched this on YouTube and thought I'd share. Really quite interesting and some useful information, but mainly just enjoyable and the sound they got in the end was almost bang on, if being critical it still sounded too clear and modern/hi-fi but maybe that's just unavoidable with today's digital way of recording and consuming music, computers rather than tape/vinyl. 🙂