Woodinblack

Things can just die. Are you sure it has phantom power?

Last night we were playing at a social club we hadn't played before. It was quite a lot of space but the band was round the corner from the bar which wasn't ideal. Not a huge audience but a couple of people came from the end to sit in sight, so that was nice, and some people danced at the end of the first half. At the half time, the drummers parents came in and his dad said 'oh busy weekend for you guys then, you are playing the foresters tomorrow I see'. Me and the guitarist looked at each other confused, no we aren't - well, you are on the board there. Checked calendar, nothing, looked for singer (who controls the calendar bookings), couldn't find him. The guitarist rings up the pub 'Hello, do you have a pub on tomorrow, oh good, what time is that? Yes, we will come and see them!', sure enough, we are there tomorrow (today) at 3:30. The singer came back, couldn't remember but later on admitted remembering organising a gig, but on searching the calendar couldn't find it! Rest of the gig was good, crowd were friendly, a few people asked for cards on the way out. So not much point unloading the car today! -- Next day - glad we found out about that, it was a good gig, seemed like it was a bit small and we would have to be quiet, but turned out we didn't, they liked us and booked us again for april at the end of the gig!

Bath wood is one I hadn't heard before! You would be surprised. Some can be nice, some can be bad. If you are prepared to do the work on it, and the neck isn't fundamentally fendered, you can get a nice guitar out of it.

Almost agreed with you there. I recorded my B string, and the fundamental was several dB down on the 2nd harmonic and similar to the 3rd (much higher than the others). Then I thought about it, and dragged the scope out and looked. The fundamental was about the same amplitude as the 2nd harmonic (I also found out that my fireman is clipping - need to do something about that), indicating that the device I was using as a computer interface was filtering more on 31hz than 62 (which bearing in mind it is fundamentally a guitar interface which doesn't need anything below 80 is reasonable). However, this is a derail really, the clarity of a B string isn't really affected by the presence or absence of any even harmonic. Ibanez 5005 bart pickup Ibanez 2605 Nord pickup

Please tell me more - not sure what you mean about effective flexibility. Do you have a link or a paper I can look at?

Like any bass. I never found a P bass with a decent neck, but people seem to like them.

Of course it can. They are fender, mass producing necks. They hardly attach a neck to a body and then cut it by hand before shipping them new do they?

Mine is up for sale at the moment. And in my gig bag ready to go out. And I am thinking, well, it isn't really worth selling, might as well hang on to it!

I would also say that fodera and those sort are a different market to Maruszczyk. I would put them more in a fender custom sort of market. I love my Maruszczyk but it is not without its quality problems. I have never had a fodera and to be honest never will as I don't find them very appealing, but if I found the same issues with one of those that I have had with my Maruszczyk I would be at their door asking to talk to the MD!

Indeed, if you want 'the best', with whatever the best means to you and you can afford it, why would you go for the 'almost as good' because it is a fraction of the price. Some people are happy with that, some people aren't. That is why there is always a market for hand built stuff / craftsmen / Tailors etc.

Thats all good for basses worth many hundreds to thousands, I would use a hard case too, but if the bass is £100-200?

Really? That was the best neck he did at fender.

Girth Yeh, it is a bit wide, but I can live with it.

Spooky, I was looking at things for the gig tonight and I thought, oh I will take my thunderbird out, haven't done that in a while. I will mess stuff up as it has a string missing, but I figure I will look cool doing it.

Nope, it looks like it was an intentional design choice. OK, fender headstocks with 3/2 don't like quite the same as the shorter ones, like the G&L 5s, it sort of accents how odd fender headstocks are, but the 4+1 really looks like they only realised at the last moment they had nowhere for the 1. I too prefer the ibby 5 headstock (and I prefer the ibby 5 to 4, even though my first was a 4). The Fender headstock looks wrong as a 4+1, regardless of whether you are used to it. At least 3+2 looks like an attempt at balance. I have a B2V, and before that (and for a while at the same time) had a B2. I would say the B2 was nicer to play than the B2V, I just wanted a 5 because I play 5s, but its B string isn't great and with the bigger neck I am not sure it is as good - I sold the B2, because there was no point having 2, and I don't really mind as it is only a backup, I hardly ever play it, but if I did, I think I might miss the B2. So i suspect from you description, the B2V neck is similar to the XT25.

Yeh, did one of those, it was €2880. I don't think I am getting that any time soon!

Absolutely not. Whether you want a B string depends entirely on your personal preference. Same probably as if you want a C. Some things are made easier by a B string, but nothing is not doable, you can always have a BEAD 4 string.

Don't mind 3+1 too much, that looks like trying to solve an issue, 4+1 looks like an afterthought. 3+2 is fine, which is what I have on pretty well all my 5s, but spec'd my Maruszczyk with for weight.

He is talking about Gibson using smaller sections of mahogany to make a body then capping it both sides, which is what they did in the 70s. They didn't use MDF.

Might as well, he got his free!

That is totally irrelevant, the fact you had to shell out to replace their defect makes it worse. Unfortunately at that point, having been in similar places, you have to turn into a bit of an a*se to get stuff done. Fender are very big on social media with their 'fender play' adverts and the like on twitter and facebook. On all of those adverts you see like that, reply to the post with 'How can I play this as my 2 year old £900 fender flea bass neck warped and it appears they aren't expected to last over a year' and similar. And on their page, comment on any post where people ask about their basses with things like 'Be careful, the necks are only supposed to last a year until they break' and the like. do that and you will find that their response speeds up drastically. For some reason (and I think it is a shame), customer service of many modern companies is entirely driven by their social media profile, the person who waits and shows them respect appears to get nothing. I hate doing it, but it works very well.

Same here - its a 'well, we are going to throw a tuner here, its the only place spare' look

Luckily not quite as big as a P bass, so I can live with it!

A detuner sounds like a good option for you though

Well, that is the thing, even when I was playing the P bass all the time, I was still not able to play some things that I could play on other basses.