Chiliwailer

If only we could them all, that 55 would have stayed for sure. Yeah, I’m addicted to Fralin these days!

Remember that 55 black over sunburst you got from me? That was an incredible example of a CS bass, brilliant. I totally agree, there are some pretty average CS basses out there too, but the stand out ones do stand out. Currently I’ve got a CS 64 Jazz and a great example of a Mexican 50s Precision with a Fralin pickup. The Mex is wonderful, and easily keeps up with the CS, and doesn’t make me want to get a CS P Bass (well, just yet anyway 😂). I bought the CS Jazz on a 0% card, and will see how I go before committing - it’s an excellent bass, can’t fault it, and feels reminiscent of an original 64 I used to own, though I can’t say it’s ‘worth’ the extra £ spent on a decent Mex 60s Jazz. But it’s fun to own right now, so there! 😝

Good score Chris 👍 I have a tiny bit of history with this bass - I remember when one of the big stores had it new (GAK or Coda, or was it actually BD maybe? Can’t recall). It had a Pearl plate that made it look hideous so they couldn’t sell it and the price went down to an absolute steal, I was very tempted. I saw it sell again after and kept interested, then a very good mate bought it. He came over on Sunday, and I was keenly waiting to finally play it, but he reluctantly p/x’d it earlier in the week when he saw a bass he couldn’t refused. So I still haven’t bloody played it after stalking it for years! He says it’s lovely - enjoy pal 😊

Just sold another item to Brian, friendly and easy sale as always and a pleasure to hear from. Cheers @briansbrew

Nice one pal, should get me a few quid in the classifieds then 😂

Hi folks, I’ve got some flats with a bass recently and have no idea what they are. The silks at the tuner end are a burgundy type red, no silks on the bridge end. It’s a very smooth string, but I’ve not heard them on the bass as it came with my preferred TI’s. Any ideas? Cheers

It happens a lot 👍

I’m with you there. It’s a great remix, and sure loads of folk will love it. I’m just so used to the warmth of the original that this version spun me out a bit! (Listened on headphones)

Bought a pedal from James, perfect comms, excellent packing and super smooth deal. Thanks pal 🙏

Years back I did this to a 95 Ray, though I now have it back as a single H. At the time I had a standard EBMM Stingray pickup in the neck. IMO the aftermarket MM style pickups are quite different to your original pickup, so they won’t technically be ‘something identical’ as you mentioned. The newer pickups tend to have a different tone and better string to string balance, including the G string pole position being corrected. I now have an Aguilar in mine, which is more compressed than the original, sounds sweeter, and feels ‘tidier’ to me… just my opinion. (It also has flat poles, so not raised on the A and D like the original). A potential issue of using 2 different pickups is they may now blend well when on together. This happened when I once tried the Aguilar with the standard MM pickup. It just sounded wrong to me, compared to a usual MM sound with 2 pickups on. Not sure if that helps regarding going traditional or not, that’s about all my experience right there 👍

It’s the neck profile, or perhaps the myth of it being a more ‘comfortable’ profile if being cynical. But there is a difference between the years, 59 is narrower. The next factor in price for a 59 is usually the depth of the flame top, more pronounced flame being more desirable and costly. Not sure where the prices are at now, but I remember one hitting £250k about 15ish years ago. That gap of Gibson not producing LP’s for a period during the 60s being to blame.

Was a pleasure to finally meet Jo after some friendly emails prior to a bass deal. Deal with full confidence folks. Enjoy the bass pal!

A pleasure to start this thread because Seva ( @realmasslove) sold me a bass tonight and made the deal super smooth and easy. Bass is just as described and it was nice to have a chat during the meet up too. Buy with confidence folks. Definitely wasn’t expecting to get a bass this week, but glad I did now. cheers Seva 🙏

Absolutely, I have TI’s on my P Bass too, the tension is so low that the gauge is deceptive. Your Smoothie will be a low end beast when they break in 💪 And now back to the porn…. Loving the East preamp on my ‘95 Ray, which was a 2 band. With the middle at centre, the middle gets taken out the circuit so it’s like a 2 band in terms of the depth compared to a 3 band. The high boost switch is very handy too.

They sound great with fists. I’ve had Thonastik, GHS, and EB Group iii and iv on mine, all sounded good but the Group iv have stayed on for ages now. Such a killer bass.

Yeah, typical Ray tone is parallel. The latest Passive Rays have a high output neodymium pickup. The USA short scale has a 500k volume and 100k tone. The Joe Dart has just a 100k vol pot. I put an alnico pickup in my short scale, with 250k (audio) for both (like my P Bass) - my supposed logic being that the albino is not as bright as the neo, and on the USA short scale 500+100 is 600, so my use of 250 + 250 is near that 600 total but less bright perhaps. It was good, but I found the 100k seemed better for hearing a difference in tone when adjusting through the sweep. For me, the 250k needed to be much near the end of the sweep to be useful. Just food for thought rather than advice.