dougieb

.Not quite a wall but a portico. Actually part of an abandoned mill in Selkirk. Blues band called 'Medicine Hat', I'm the one kneeling

Just bought a Fender Aerodyne from Skezza a fellow traveller on this board. Very smooth transaction, absolutely no hassles, top man!

My go to bass for years now has been a MIM 70's reissue Jazz Bass. I have three and this one is just the one that plays and feels right to me. The only issue I had was the bridge, which was totally rubbish, kept collapsing! Simple swap out with a Gotoh bridge solved that.

[attachment=234699:IMG_5727.JPG]I got a "Gibson Les Paul" from aliexpress last year for the princely sum of £120.61 delivered in 10 days. The finish was beautiful and the guitar was playable out of the box. The horror stories are now appearing to be a thing of the past with these guitars and the QC issues are not as bad. I know a few folks who have bought guitars with no problems at all. The sellers are generally highly attentive to what you want and will do what you want done. In respect to the one I bought, it needed the electrics seen to. The pots were 250K which I upgraded to 500K and I swapped out the playable "Epiphone" pups for Iron Gear, I have done nothing else with it at all. That is my experience with aliexpress. Also the seller does not get the money till you receive and are happy with your purchase.

Hawkwind Space Ritual.

Hello, My Wife and I have bought quite a lot of stuff from Ali Express and have had no problems at all. My Wife got jewellery stuff and I have bought 2 Chibson Les Pauls. The guitars were surprisingly good and played well. They are generally well set up and the finish on them is beautiful. The electrics on one were crap and the other was at least Epiphone level. I rewired both, 500 K pots and Iron Gear pups and they are great guitars and I have a genuine Gibson to compare them to. Message me if you have any specifics, more than willing to help.

Barclay James Harvest at the Glasgow Apollo 1975, so dire and boring I fell asleep.

Hi Calum, Scottish Borders here, originally from Hamilton

Lemmy and Simon King, Space Ritual era Hawkwind, some amazing stuff there!

I use these guys in Dundee, great selection and quite eclectic stuff. http://www.cd-services.com/

I have found the quality to be very good in respect to the construction and quality of build. The Chinese are getting very good at this, also I think they concentrate on the build quality as they know we are going to yank the electrics. I think the ones I have a superior to the guitars you mentioned, but only after I redid the electrics and pups on them, that is my own subjective opinion obviously.

I have got a couple of 'Chibson' Les Paul's and I can assure you that they are not sh*t. You get what you pay for. They are very well made and finished off, the main areas to be ready to address are the electrics. The pups may be of Epiphone standard if you are lucky and they put 250k pots in them. A friend of mine who is a luthier was well impressed and said the wood was mahogany and it was a proper maple cap, not photo film or whatever. I also got the Chinese to chamber the guitars to drop the weight as I have Osteoporosis, which they did. I got them as projects and rewired them and put good pups (Iron Gear) in them and they play and sound great. I know they are not basses but I have attached a couple of photos to let you see what they look like. I also have no intention of passing them off, I have the real thing and when standing side by side anyone with half a brain can see the differences. Cheers

China Guitar Sceptic's website has gone but look him up on Youtube he has a load of videos.

Check this guy out http://chinaguitarsceptic.com/ , he has a good info on the guitars and what to watch out for. No basses on his site only guitars.

Yip, great book for repairs, set ups etc. I got mine for less the £10 on Fleabay, worth looking around for a copy.

hello!

I have one of these in white and it is a very impressive bass for the money. The Gibson USA pups deliver an awesome bottom end, good luck and good playing times!

Looks stunning as it is, what a beautiful colour. If it were mine all I would do is change the control knobs to black Fender ones.

I live in Scotland but do not agree with this. I know the area well from my youth and it would be a sorry state of affairs if it goes. Petition signed.

Really saddened to hear this, a truly great and innovative bassist. I think we were all influenced by his playing in one way or another. Rest easy Jack.

The 77 P bass and 2007 J Bass for me.

I have one of these and they are superb basses, lots of low end growl. I use a 3" strap and it balances fine, positioning the strap button at the back of the neck has helped . I use it as a back up bass as its sound does not suit the Band I play in, I usually play Fender Jazz Basses. Here is a picture of mine resplendent with hand tooled leather TRC and scratcher!

I used old pieces or carpet and cable tied them together, not pretty but does the job. Carpet pile to the inside!

Hi All, The strap is on its way to Stuart, posted yesterday. I have been suffering ill health recently and got delayed in posting on. I apologise for any hassles. Cheers, Dougie

Okay, strap arrived safe and sound from Ed. First off the smell, wonderful! Very well made and beautiful leather, stud poppers made adjustment very simple. I tried this strap out on a Thunderbird and a Jazz Bass. I think as has been stated before that it could do with being a bit narrower at the shoulder and across the back, although this will vary dependent on your build. Otherwise it is the most comfortable strap I have every tried, it distributed the weight across my shoulder and had absolutely no slippage. I am 5' 11" and a skinny dude, due to suffering from severe Osteoporosis (brittle bone disease) and this strap is great for someone like me. It ticked all the boxes for me. I got the good lady to take some photos of the strap on the guitar as well as one of it next to the straps I usually use. Pity it arrived today, if it had been Friday it would have got a test run through a 3 hour gig! I highly recommend this. Off to Stuart tomorrow. Thanks for letting me try this out. Ps Karl, the truss road cover and scratcher on the Thunderbird are hand tooled leather on a thin metal plate too.