Maude

I'd say anything by Phil Jones Bass would be good. Which one depends on how loud you need/want to be.

How about Danelectro of some sort? My Longhorn is 30" scale, rediculously light, slim neck, amazing access to upper frets so no stretching around, sounds great, especially if you wire in a series switch, and you can get them relatively cheaply.

Slightly different in that the lyrics aren't misunderstood but simply not listened to is EMF's Unbelievable. Several times throughout the song the sampled lyric "What the f*ck (was that?)" is belted out yet no radio or TV station seems to notice. It always gives me a little chuckle that they still get away with it on daytime radio when other far less offensive lyrics get bleeped out.

You can, as with any guitar/bass, tune it how you want but normally it would be tuned the same as a guitar (eadgbe) but an octave lower. The first four strings are tuned the same as a four string bass but usually don't sound the same due to lighter strings. A six string bass, as opposed to a bass vi, is usually tuned beadgc and has 'standard' bass strings to sound like a normal bass with an extended range. A bass vi is great for playing guitar style lines but with more bottom end than a normal guitar. Think of a spaghetti western soundtrack and it'll probably be a bass vi. Likewise, surf music is great with that deep drippy twang of a bass vi. The Cure use one a lot to play guitar lines that sit nicely between guitar and bass. You can play it like a normal bass but the string spacing is usually a lot tighter to lend itself to holding chord shapes down. The second guitar here is a bass vi.

I'd say a lot of the late 70s ska covers 'made' the originals, maybe not better but brought the original Jamaican Ska to a wider UK audience. A Message to you Rudi, Monkey Man, Pressure Drop, Police and Theives, Madness (the song) etc. While mentioning Clash covers, their cover was the first time I'd heard Brand New Cadillac. And were The Jam the greatest cover band ever? David Watts, Heatwave, In The Midnight Hour, So Sad About Us, Move On Up, Taxman (🤣 ) the list goes on🤔😁

I'll stop now 😚

Before it all goes down the drain.

Knocking out some top drawer tunes.

Before long I'd be motoring.

And then 'belt' out some tunes.

I could drum one of them up. 😁

No silks on those 🙂

There's a Stellah 8 string bass on my local fb selling site for £110, j and mm pickup with upgraded bridge. Quite tempted but I'm doing my best to be good at the mo. Seems a bargain.

If there's lots of clearance under the strings then Rickenbacker toaster style pickups are surface mounted, and suitable retro for that style of bass.

Oh wow, in that case I had a bargain. Not sure when I got mine (green) but it was before my daughter was born which was May '97, sure I only paid around the £200 because I traded it in at Mansons a couple of years later for a new BBG5s which I had to add another couple of hundred which seemed a crazy amount to me at the time, young just bought a house and just had a daughter so money was tight. I think those two being my first and second real basses has defined how I like basses to feel/play, which is no bad thing

One of these, or very similar to be honest, was my first proper bass. Mine had a white slab of a neck pickup and the black neck scallops which were printed on, not carved in. I think it was a 'Special'. For a cheap bass it was wonderful. Enjoy 😎

I used to own one and from memory it was volume, pan, bass and treble. Have you got a picture of yours, it might be my old one as they seem pretty rare? They were some bass guitar magazines 'Bass of the year under £500', or something like that at the time. They were really singing their praises. Mine was great but ultimately I don't like fancy woods so sold it on. From memory the only damage on mine at the time was a reasonable chip out of the lacquer on one of the horns, I think, it also had a fairly distinguishing dark 'knot' mark somewhere on the front that stood out. I wonder 🤔

Ooof! I didn't see the prices. Strange isn't it how those basses don't look like £2000 pound instruments and yet I have no idea of the build quality. Absolutely no reason they shouldn't be that price if the materials and workmanship warrant it but they do look like a £500 bass.

Looks like you mix and match what you want 👍

I like the look of the white one, i actively dislike pearloid scratchplates as well and yet that one seems to be working for me.

Absolutely this. I know it sounds clichéd but it really is about the feel. You can play all the right notes in the right order at the right time, but unless you're really feeling it it doesn't sound authentic.

Here's to a speedy recovery and back to playing bass before too long 🍻

I think the one question that matters and hasn't been answered yet is what finish is on it at the moment? To oil it it'll need sanding to bare wood and even if it is bare wood I'd still be sanding it just to remove the layer of dirt that will have inevitably accumulated on it. All this trying to remove the ink and steam the pressure marks out seems pointless. Remove the hardware, a quick sand down and get that oil finish started 👍😎

Had a conversation with House of Tone, they remember doing the pickups (rewinding, not making new ones Mr. Hall) and confirmed that the casing was earthed to the ground wire, so would need opening up and unsoldering and a seperatate ground wire soldering in. Explained that it's very fiddly and said they could do it for me for £20, which I thought was pretty reasonable. I had a look myself and it really wasn't difficult but appreciate that if you're a bit ham-fisted then you would end up needing a new pickup. All sorted now, series and parallel as it should be and relatively quiet. I've just tacked all the connections to make sure it works and there's no shielding so once soldered properly and some copper foil in the cavity and scratchplate then it should be silent. Thanks everyone for any help offered, I got there in the end.

Just as an aside, I emailed House Of Tone just saying I was having issues but did say that I bought the bass second hand with the pickups in and sort of didn't expect to hear back as obviously I've bought nothing from them. I got a reply at twenty past midnight explaining a little bit about the pickups and asking what the problem was. How great is that!? I've just emailed back explaining the problem. While writing my explanation it made even more sense that there must be an internal ground connection in the pickups. If the grounding the bridge pickup doesn't put it back in parallel but the neck pickup does then it must be putting the ground lead direct to earth as in parallel wiring, indicating the casing must be connected to the ground lead inside the pickup. Fingers crossed 🙂