Maude

Everything I've ever read of his has been truly fascinating. I'd been after a copy of The Monkey's Tail for years now but only had a quick browse of the Internet every now and then and could only find beaten up old copies for far too much money. Your post jogged my memory and I had another quick look, a copy is now on its way from the good ole US of A for a fiver all in. Thanks @Frank Blank

Mine doesn't 🥺

Surely to a degree all basses of a certain type/style sound the same, ie a jazz sounds like a jazz, a P like a P, a MM like a MM, you get the drift. They should all have that certain characteristic the gives them their trademark sound. Then all the usual things that change the tone will come into play, strings, construction of pickup, tone controls, wood type, (yeah right 😁), etc. You could take ten different Jazz basses, or P's or whatever, and make them all sound extremely alike with strings, pickups EQ, etc, or you could take one Jazz bass and give it ten different sounds with strings, pickups, blah, blah, blah. Take a Rickenbacker 4001/4003, they're all clanky and aggressive aren't they? Roll the tone off, fit flats, play with your thumb and hang on, it's gone all thumpy. Not at all like that aggressive Bruce Foxton tone on a lot of The Jam recordings. What's that? A Precision? But they're those thumpy things on all the Motown and Stax recordings. All basses sound as alike, or as different, as you want them to.

It sounds like a real shitty thing to do to you, but you should rise above it. But before you do you should get another band together, ring around and cancel all the previous bands gigs, then step in at the last minute with your new band and watch the stunned look on their stupid little faces when they arrive to find your new band set up in their place. Ha! Then rise above it 😁

I killed my first bass with fire. ☄️💥👍 It was some sort of terrible EB0 copy

PM returned. 👍 That's very good of you @stewblack. I've said I'll have it but it's starting to look like it's just too difficult to pin down a time when he's happy to meet up.

The bodies and styling are totally Precision or Jazz. The J has a J style offset body with the J arrangement of knobs regardless of control/scratchplate or not and the P has a P style body with P knob layout and scratchplate. They both have P/J pickups and, from what I've read, possibly the same necks, some are saying the Aerodyne P neck is slim like a traditional Jazz, but I'm not sure about the necks.

The Suitcase is the same size as the 4b, from the front they look identical. Every now and then a bargain comes up that you just have to take. I got the Suitcase (barely used) the 4b (second hand but unused) and the stupidly thick PJB speakon cable that comes in a blue satin lined case (also unused) for £560. Some people say they're too sterile but I love it. You can add pedals for extra growl if that's your thing.

Are we talking about the same basses? I've never seen P aerodyne without a scratchplate, a lot of J aerodynes don't have a scratchplate but they are a lot more common as they were produced for longer. I definitely want a P style one as I prefer the shape and trans finish.

I spoke with him about it before Christmas but couldn't get up there until new year. I was going to message him today about going up tomorrow but, and it's a big but, a week ago he wanted £650, we'd agreed if he still had it after Christmas I'd come and get it. Since then he has upped it to £750 which I'm not paying on principle. @stewblack if you are in talks I'll leave you to it as I'm only going to offer him his original price of £650. In all honesty is was going to offer £600 as it's been for sale for a while and the £50 saving would've covered petrol.

Yes but once we've treated them atrociously they soon clear off. 🥺

We're not the mandolinista.

Lipsticks go on the Dano fakers surely.

I see all these Chinese counterfeits as a bass shaped lump of wood with some rather nice templates for where the hardware goes screwed on. On arrival, pull the hardware templates off, give the body and neck a quick rub down and finish in your preferred colour, give the frets a quick tidy up and choose your new hardware to your chosen price point. If you can't do this then maybe Ali express isn't for you. I see it as buying a house or car from auction, you'll get something that is similar to what you eventually want but it will more than likely need a bit of work. If you're not prepared to do the work (or sub it out) then a standard retailer is where you need to be. On the plus side if you do expect to do the work, you might get one that doesn't need as much as you first thought and that's a real win. Once all done it might not represent value for money but that's the risk with all these ways of buying things cheap. You pays yer money, you takes yer chance. 🙂

I can't believe the bridge can cause such debate when the Rickenbacker bridge is IMO such a poor design. Sure there will be people that will say "I've had no problems" but it has to have the worst way of setting intonation I've ever come across, and the tail lift problem is a real problem, for those that don't know, the rear of the bridge is not secured so bends up over time under string tension where the weak point on the bridge is, eventually your have to raise the saddle height so the strings will still sit on them. I like Rickenbackers and am not trying to rubbish them but arguing that a Chickenbacker bridge isn't as good as Rickenbacker bridge seems pretty futile. Unfortunately for what is worth, the HB bridge does look like it's copied the Rickenbacker bridge enough to have incorporated the risk of tail lift, from the pictures it appears that the last rearward fixing is way forwards of the string anchor point, unless there's a fixing I can't see at the back. Also my opinion only but, on an expensive genuine Rick I'd be annoyed, but a £150 bass, I'd just put a couple of fixings neatly down through the rear of the bridge and get on with life.

Merry Christmas everyone, and may I take this opportunity to apologise for a years worth of waffle with very little useful content. I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow whatever, or however you celebrate

What about choking? 🤐

Take that bloody Takemine TB-10 out of my Thomann basket before I do something silly.

I managed to snag a fretted and fretless for £30 a pop when they were shifting loads of 'Dekos' a few years back. They're great fun.

I didn't comment earlier as I don't have either of the items in your first post, and I only have the one PJB amp so nothing to compare to, but, I picked up a used Suitcase with an unused 4b with it (so 8x5 in total) about 5 years ago and I have no reason to go looking at amps now or in the foreseeable future. Extremely happy with the little rig. Also, I don't know what it is but my Yamaha Bex4 with half rounds on, straight into the PJB sounds absolutely glorious, better than my more expensive basses. It just works.

I've got an Aria STB P which cost me £40 the same but a J which was £38. Both brilliant, maybe not American Fenders but brilliant all the same. The P now has a Quarter Pounder and flats and the J Entwistle Neos with a series switch and rounds. Two seriously useful basses for very little. There's so many great basses for such small amount these days, it's great.

I can think of some on here that would seemingly happily argue with themselves, but now's not the timr......... time, I meant time, definitely time 🤣

Just leave the bridge as it is and play the damn thing. 😁👍

That would fix 'sellers regret' I suppose. "I really wish I hadn't sold that bass........... but look at this one I've just bought!" 😄

I'm far too simplistic to even consider more than one account. I didn't realise this forum stuff was a game you could win by having a team to get your point across. I just say what I feel (within reason) and if people like it then all very well, and if they don't then never mind. One view I have repeated is my one on Internet arguing, "where no one wins and everyone looks like tw@ts", so why bother or worry about it. 🙂