birdy

Love the trans. white body!! Beautiful grain showing through.

I get more happiness value from basses than I do from cars. If I spend £10000 on a car it would make me happy for 2-3 weeks. If I spend £3000 on a bass I get much more happiness value for money. I get more happiness value from a £3000 bass than I would from x million PS3 games, 20 trips to the zoo or whatever so it's what I choose to spend my money on. Thats my justification. EDIT - PLUS I earn all the money I spend on gear from gigging so its a win win.

Great Pics! Made me woozy just looking at the pics as I am not great with heights :-)

I have had some lessons off Steve in an effort to improve various elements of my playing and would recommend him. Steve

[quote name='phsycoandy' post='534102' date='Jul 6 2009, 08:08 PM']Perhaps its only punters who buy Rumours that get a T, Bernie I think ur missing a small but not insignificant income stream IMHO..........[/quote] It's not an income stream if he gives them away which I guess most people who own a GB bass would expect? Or would everyone pay for one?

[quote name='Bassmanc' post='533025' date='Jul 5 2009, 02:11 PM']Are you sure they had active basses in the 60s!!![/quote] I was joking about the battery

[quote name='NickThomas' post='532793' date='Jul 5 2009, 10:08 AM']So is that it Steve? You've found "the one" ?[/quote] As of today yes Who knows what tomorrow may bring. What I am finding is that it's a very versatile instrument that works in a whole range of situations more so than any other I have owned. Whether its the one or not is a tricky question but I would be hard placed to find something more suitable for me!!

[quote name='bubinga5' post='532666' date='Jul 4 2009, 10:13 PM'] ...ive got a gut feeling that a Celinder J5 would be better..i would love to play both to see...[/quote] At this level of instrument there's no better IMO. Celinder's are great basses as are Sadowsksy's etc. All I know is I would not swap the Alleva I have for any other bass. Check out talkbass - there are a lot of serious gearheads who now swear by ACs Steve

[quote name='OldGit' post='531578' date='Jul 3 2009, 12:14 PM']Not all ... [/quote] That will be why they are so expensive then

[quote name='KERMITNT' post='531466' date='Jul 3 2009, 10:40 AM']imagine what you can do with a zoom recorder[/quote] Agreed - but you can't text someone with it I just like the idea of one device that can do multiple things to a reasonable level and thought the end result was pretty good for a c.£6 application on a mobile phone.

[quote name='Tait' post='531544' date='Jul 3 2009, 11:50 AM']i disagree. usually to be happy with something you have, you have to go through lots of things that you don't like to get to the one that makes you happy. you still criticise the ones that didn't make you happy, because if there was nothing to criticise about them, they would've made you happy. or back to the topic of this thread, if i had £3000, i'd be happier with that £3000 than with a boutique bass, and would still think it's ludicrous to spend that much on a bass, probably even more so when i discover all the other things i could buy that would make me much happier than a single bass. think how many PS3 games and visits to Alton Towers etc. £3000 would buy. i'd probably be even more critical, as the £3000 would back up my opinion that boutique basses aren't worth it. my point is, i'd be happy with the £3000, and still criticise boutique basses.[/quote] I would much rather have my bass than £3000 of PS3 games or Alton Towers - to me THAT is a waste of money. Not having a dig just saying that it really is down to what the individual is into. I see money 'wasted' all the time in work and personal situations. Why do people fly first class rather than economy? Why do people pay loads of money for expensive wine? Worth is down to a lot of points as has been said. What made me laugh is when I thought that should we ever have a real catastrophe such as a major war or bombing people would end up burning their boutique basses as firewood if that was all they had to keep warm Without electricity all basses are pretty worthless?

Wow!! [url="http://the88.net/love.htm"]http://the88.net/love.htm[/url] Steve

My point about the car is that I could afford a much better one if I had a lesser bass but I prefer to spend the money on basses as it makes me happier. A boutique bass to me is worth the money. To some people a nice car would be much more important, thats all I meant Steve

[quote name='Tait' post='531271' date='Jul 3 2009, 12:01 AM']ahh, it seems i didn't understand your point at all then! true, the playability is another factor, but tbh i pity you if you can't get along with anything thats out there. and ok, maybe you can get along with whats out there, but these expensive boutique basses are nicer in your eyes, but it leads back to the original question, is it worth it? i wouldn't have thought so. if you like a stingray neck for example, im sure jon shuker or RIM basses (as the two cheaper examples of boutique basses given earlier) would make a bass with a stingray neck, with a much better build quality than a stingray, and it can make any sound you like, if you want it to sound like a jazz, i'm fairly sure jons good at making basses sound like jazzes, or precisions, or have whatever tone you want them to have. most of the cheaper boutique bass builders are good at making necks how you ask them to, so yes, maybe a £3000 bass might end up with a nicer neck than a £1500 one, but if the £1500 bass is playable and has a nice neck anyway, is it really worth it for that neck thats a little nicer? i suppose i'm arguing pretty much the same as i argued for sound, that if a £1500 bass is nice, but a £3000 bass is nicer, whether that be for sound, playability, build quality, looks, anything really, i personally wouldn't be able to justify all the extra money that some people play for a "nicer" bass when you could pay much less for a "nice" bass. i don't think i'm making my point very well, i have a tendacy to ramble a lot, but i hope im making my point. really it doesnt matter what i think, what you think, what anyone thinks except the person buying the bass. if they think the extra money is worth the extra quality, then thats fine by me. i don't think i could ever spend much more than £2000 on a boutique bass though, when i can get a perfectly nice shuker for less.[/quote] It's precisely because in your head you have set a £2000 limit to what you would spend on a bass that you question why anyone would want anything above it. If say you won the lottery and had £10 million I am sure you would buy a £5000 if it was 1% better than the £2000 one and you liked it more. My car is worth about £1500-2000. My main bass is worth £3500. I prefer to do this than have a £10000 car because I get more enjoyment from the bass than I would from a car which to me is just a mechanism to get from A to B. Steve

[quote name='Tait' post='531247' date='Jul 2 2009, 11:38 PM']i guess, but is it really worth it? don't we make music so that others can listen to it? whats the point in spending an extra £1500 when none of the listeners will notice the difference, really? i dont know, i understand your point, and its natural for a player to want to sound their best, even if no one else is going to notice, but i just don't see that its worth the silly prices some pay for a boutique bass, to sound that little bit better when no one other than the person playing it is going to tell the difference. especially as i see the point of making music to be solely to please the listeners, i see music as entertainment. but i know others see music as much more than that, and i guess it may be more important to them, but even then i think its difficult to imagine that i could ever spend that much on a bass.[/quote] My experience is it's not just the sound. When you find a great great bass for you personally then everything about the way it balances, feels in your hands, responds to your touch is as you would want. It's irrelevant whether anyone else knows as long as I smile every time I pick up that bass in my opinion. Music is for yourself as well as the listeners in my opinion.

I think they are worth the money. All of the high end basses I have owned have been exceptional quality instruments and I am not sure why I sold half of them. How expensive something in depends on your income and outgoings ultimately. If you are unempleyed then £500 is a lot of money to spend on a bass whereas if you have a top job in the city you could maybe earn the £3500 for a Fodera in a week or two. Bass is my main hobby and I pay for all my gear from gigging so if I drop £3500 on a bass so what as long as I want it and don't go into debt. If I was into speedboats or motorbikes etc I would spend way more money. Certainly cheaper basses can get the job done very well but you do generally get what you pay for.

[quote name='51m0n' post='529387' date='Jul 1 2009, 10:02 AM']New Berg HT115 in the house Strickly speaking this is Plux's rig (my eldest). But he never gets around to posting (far too busy playing) so I thought I'd share. Got the HT115 of Birdy, and here is the full stack including the HT210, sounds fantastic![/quote] Thats neat that the cabs match in terms of look and size!! I can imagine how good it sounds! Steve

Yes very sad news.

I think it's definately a mental problem in my case. Not so much how many I have got but how many I get through!! I like to try different stuff however and you only live once. I would personally prefer to have 2 or 3 basses that were exactly what I wanted than spend the same amount of money and have say 20 basses. I do think there is a lot to be said for settling for a bass and playing it exclusively however. I also think that a decent strategy would be too have one or two keepers that you play all the time and then have another bass or two that you can use to sell to then buy other gear to try. Thank God I am settled on my Berg Stack!!

Thats gorgeous Nick!! Is it the 1600 model? Now that you have had it a few? months how are you finding it? Steve

Can't find a thread for Simon so I will start one! Simon bought my Berg 1x15 cab off me and drove a long long way to pick it up!! Turned up as promised with the cash and took it away. Lovely guy and a pleasure to deal with. Steve

Yea looks lovely, I really like the colour!

[quote name='DanOwens' post='526545' date='Jun 28 2009, 10:13 AM']Wow that P looks great. Is it in a burst? It looks like a subtle antigua! Dan[/quote] I'll answer for Flanker as I have seen and played his bass and yes thats spot on - a lovely subtle antigua. It looks loads better in real life and plays and sounds superb also!! Steve