Maude

You have to sacrifice your right arm anyway if you play fingerstyle. Is @Ricky 4000biting yet 😉

You've got to admire Mr. Cleartone Clouded Mind's persistence, then again I generally produce a bog log a day and don't plan on easing up on production anytime soon so fair play to him I suppose.

I have to confess I have a blue 4003 sat in my living room right now. Our guitarist, who has more Rics than you can shake a chainsaw at, has a bass, which after playing my home set up 4005 replica, declared I should work my magic on. I'm covered in cuts and bruises from all the sharp bits and it still won't fit in the woodburner. I'm just having a cuppa and then back at her, I won't be beaten.

Even the sexiest looking bass ever produced can't make a geography teacher look cool.

I noticed that bass when played Glastonbury earlier in the year.

We grow tea down here in Cornwall too. But your point stands 🙂

Just had a quick look as I hadn't seen the newer S locks. Strings Direct do just the strap parts, £14.99 a pair.

I've found a picture but Thomann photos made it look sexier. It was a 60th anniversary edition in a natural dark wood of some sort.

And although I've no experience of that bass it looks nice and being Cort it should be good value for money and a decent playing instrument. 🙂

Your English is far better than most English people's Indian.

Wasn't there a Thomann 50th anniversary Fender P with a sexy dark brown finish? I seem to remember having lustful thoughts at the time.

Haha I told you I didn't know about six strings. I've just looked on Bajaao and they have some very nice looking six strings in your budget. I've never played any so can't comment on them individually but as a rule, I don't think you can go far wrong with Ibanez or Cort. I love Yamaha stuff and Ibanez always seem very similar in quality for the same budget and Cort make a lot of guitars for other brands and are equally as good. If you're used to Ibanez or Cort then it's a pretty safe bet. If you wanted a four string in addition to the six then the Aria STB Series Jazz on there is a very good instrument for very little money, they have nice necks. Or the Harley Benton PJ is another which deserves to be double the price. You could get the Ibanez GSR206b (6 string for Necrophagist ) and Cort Action PJ (4 string for Opeth and Maiden) for your budget. Probably better to spend all your budget on one better bass but that's the decision you have to make.

I don't know a lot about two of those bands, Maiden yes but not so much the other two. The dilemma you have is that the bass players used very different instruments, well one of them anyway. Maiden is all Precision bass, Opeth (from pictures) is all Jazz bass but Necrophagist (again from pictures) uses a six string. I would say a P or J (or indeed a PJ) style bass would be good for either of the first two bands and you will get a decent new one for your budget but it obviously won't be suitable for Necrophagist, if he uses all the range. So that means you will have to buy a six string, which you will be able to play all three bands music with. I'm not into six strings at all so have no idea what's available but I'd guess you're going to struggle to get something decent new for your budget. Sorry I can't be more help.

It depends on the bass but I am sucker for vintage white/cream. I don't like natural wood yet I wouldn't want my 4005 in anything else. I don't particularly like sunburst yet my Bex4, which I love the look of) is tobacco burst and I have a matching P and J in 3TSB. I don't really like black, it doesn't stand out on stage, yet I bought a Club bass in black as it looked so much better than the classic Hofner burst. I do really like retro pastel shades yet don't any. Basically I have preferences but if it suits the bass then I like it.

Totally. It's all to easy to get some subs and suddenly have this amazing bottom end and get carried away. I'm sure the trend for too much bottom end (that bass drum overpowering everything) is because it was always the thing everyone chased and is now relatively easily attainable. In home hi-fi, car stereo, personal walkmans 😉, band equipment, etc the cheap stuff always had plenty of mid and high frequencies but the bass was always the stuff of expensive equipment, but not any more. I think this has lead to systems suddenly having all this bass available and over using it. Reign it in and subs are amazing, overdo it and they'll ruin your sound completely.

If you want to buy new then Thomann have an excellent return policy, will be able to buy a few of the ones you mention and return the ones you don't like. But I have found that using a bass for a decent amount of time is the only true test, sometimes a bass I didn't like with a little adjustment here and there and a different type of string will become my 'go to' bass. If at all possible, second hand would be your best bet, even if buying blind, as you can use it for few months and if it's really not doing it for you then you can shift it on with no loss, and if you buy wisely you could even make a profit.

Nobody seems to ever mention them but I really like the Fender 9120m black tapewounds. Really bright for tapes, more like rounds with the tone rolled back slightly rather than thumpy flats territory, almost feel slippery with the glossy tape and you should be able to pick them up for around £25. On one bass I swapped them for D'Addario half rounds as the Fender tapes were too bright, I've had LaBella white nylons on the same bass and they had less top end than the D'Addario half rounds.

Totally, but some are more right than others 😉 I agree it's personal preference, if you want fretlines then have them although I personally don't see any advantage of them over just having side dots in the fret positions, and I like the look of a clean board, but each to their own. But who in their right mind wants side dots in the same position as a fretted neck, it's just all kinds of wrong

House Of Tone Pickups are in Chester, they were very helpful when I had to contact them about pickups they wound that I bought second hand. https://www.houseoftonepickups.com/

The raven has flown. Rendezvous point B at 18:00hrs. I repeat, point B.

Don't do it. I was caught out this way but I was returning an item. My son bought something from a company abroad. It needed returning and they gave me the address of their UK warehouse so the postage fees were less. It was tracked, it arrived and was signed for, and then they denied it ever arrived. PayPal wouldn't refund me as it wasn't the address registered with them. Lost the item, my payment and the postage cost.

@Donnyboy That one looks lovely and I bet it plays and sounds as good as some more expensive ones. I realise I sound like Harley Benton fanboi but I haven't come across a bad one yet.

I really the Mono GS1 Betty. It's wide, soft and well padded but the bit I like the best, but makes me odd as everyone else seems to want the opposite, is that it's not grippy at all. I hate a grippy strap that ends up dragging your shirt up your back and bunching it up on your shoulder. I like to play my bass in different positions, sometimes it's horizontal, other times it's angled up high and others down low, I like slippery 😀 It's also meat free!

My on stage sound (always use a monitor, no amp behind me) is always very light on bass frequencies, if it means anything my controls on the monitor are set, bass 9 o'clock, mid 1 o'clock and treble 12 o'clock. The drummer's monitor is set the same. I can turn the volume up louder without causing problems front of house by using these settings as there's little low end booming around to upset the FOH mix. It's a very clear sound and far less tiring than a wall of noise behind me. Any missing bass frequencies in my monitor is supplied by the FOH subs anyway.

The joy of plucking properly is that when your forefinger is blistered you can still play electric bass with the unblistered part in the normal way 🙂