Misdee

As for an all-time favourite Geezer bassline, I love playing Lady Evil, and I'm still trying to get Children Of The Sea and Slipping Away right. I think War Pigs might be my favourite, though.

I'm sure these are top quality basses but I don't think I could live with that headstock shape.

The EMG Geezer model is an undeniably great-sounding P pickup, regardless of genre. It'll do a great job for any style of music Totally agree with what others have said about Geezer effectively disappearing into a mysterious sludge for a few albums following Paranoid. Starts to resurface on Sabotage but quite not enough. Technical Ecstasy is a bit better, as is Never Say Die, but Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules are the benchmark albums when it comes to bass tone and Geezer's playing. Absolute perfection, for my taste anyway. I got to meet Sabbath on the Heaven and Hell tour and it was pretty awe-inspiring. I remember they were all deeply tanned with leathery-looking skin. Geezer had a perm and moustache that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Bayern Munich midfielder of that era, or a male porn performer from around that time.

A Sire V5, new or second hand, would be ideal, it seems to me. I've seen them that are a reasonable weight, too. Failing that, as others have pointed out, this is Basschat! There's an endless supply of quality used basses on the market, with bargains to be had in every price range. If it were my daughter that's where I would be looking for a bass (after the initial shock of finding out I had a daughter wore off and DNA test results ect). I'm sure you can find a cracking bass with a Jazz neck for the kind of money you want to spend, and if for some reason it doesn't suit in the longer term then you can get your money back out of it and start again.

I've heard some whispers that Yamaha might be bringing out a new range next year.

I know what you mean. It sounds like new Rotosound strings played with a pick and a bit of overdrive on the top end. And compression. Pete's a terrific player within his chosen idiom though, it must be said, and that always helps. Like so many accomplished musicians, it's probably more the attitude with which he plays rather than the minutiae of the gear he's using.

I wish someone would resume production of the classic Steinberger models at the quality level of the originals, like Ernie Ball did with Musicman. I've got a Status Graphite Streamline, but it's a very different sound to the Steinberger L2. That was a unique tone, and I've always loved it.

Pete played an Aria around the time of the Fugazi album(1984), and did indeed get a great sound with it. Whether he played it on that all or any of the tracks on that album I really don't know. A lot of it sounds like it could be a Rickenbacker, but equally it could be the SB1000 with a strident EQ setting. Anyhow, I would assume that is the era the O.P was referring to.

You might well be right, but my recollection is that the narrow spacing basses had dot markers, the wider spaced ones fancy oval inlays and were the deluxe model, the opposite of what you describe. I remember oggling SB1000's in my local music shop when they were brand new. They were beautiful.Jack Bruce had one, Neil Murray had one, all the reviews said they were great, I wanted one. Ended up getting an Ibanez Musician Bass instead, which, ironically enough,according to his autobiography, is the bass John Taylor was after until he encountered the Aria.

. The SB100O was an iconic bass in it's heyday (the early 1980's) that really captured the zeitgeist of the time. They had a unique sound, and I can't really think of anything else that replicates it, regardless of price.I've always loved that sound, but they're not necessarily the most practical choice nowadays if the pickups are prone to failure and there's no easy replacement. Also, they are indeed pretty heavy by today's standards. Back in the olden days no one really bothered about how much basses weighed. Alembics were heavy, so that meant their disciples could be too. Regarding the string spacing and neck dimensions ect, I've got some vague recollection that Aria made two versions, one for the Asian market with more slender dimensions and another for ham-fisted westerners like us. I could be mistaken, it's a long time ago, but then again I don't think I am.

These are stunning basses. Arguably the best-sounding Stingray 5 ever. Beautiful finish,too.

I remember going to The Bass Centre at Wapping back in the 1980's and they invariably had a a selection of used pre-EBMM Stingrays. They were always £495, and if you went back to the shop a fortnight later they were all sold and different ones had replaced them. I've no idea where they all came from. Back in those days I had a sunburst/maple 1983 Stingray that was very lightweight. What I remember clearly about that bass was that it sounded distinctly different to the new EBMM basses that were in the shops at the time. It was much more "scooped" than the newer bass, lots of bass and slicing treble with not much in-between. I actually thought the EBMM basses were much better. I preferred the tone and they were much better made. Nowadays I've got a Stingray Special and it's a great bass in it's own right, but it's definitely an evolution of the Stingray sound. It's unmistakably a Stingray tone, but with a new twist. A subtle but tangible difference, and it seems like they've nailed perceived weakness on the G string with the new neodymium pickup. The ergonomics are so much better than before. The only thing I miss from the older Stingray basses is the big bridge with mutes. I never used the mutes, but it looked great and was a characteristic feature of those basses.

Lovely bass. EBMM make such good instruments. Quality American-made guitars. May you get much pleasure from owning it. Personally, I prefer the original knurled chrome knobs; it's part of the Music Man livery and they match the chrome hardware.

I've been looking at these '66 reissues since they came out but I've never found one that's a reasonable weight. They tend to be the wrong side of 9 pounds, and I can't abide a heavy Jazz Bass. Probably because of the offset body shape, to me a weighty J Bass feels particularly ungainly, more so than some other styles of bass. It's a shame because I really fancy the green one, albeit that I would have to swap the tort scratch plate for an off-white one. Fender are in a bit of a cleft stick when it comes to reissues (and all their other American-made guitars and basses) because they don't want to make them so appealing that they are taking business away from their own Custom Shop. So when Fender seemingly detract from what could be a much more attractive design it's usually a deliberate decision to do with stratifying their range of instruments.

The only difference is the colour choices.

We've all got our own preoccupations, and some folks get hung up on dead spots, particularly on Fender basses. (Quiet G strings on MM Stingray basses is another pit some people fall into.) I've got plenty of neurotic obsessions of my own regarding basses, many of which have tormented me for decades, but dead spots haven't been one of them, except on my old Status Empathy. Got rid and bought a Zon. The Zon didn't have dead spots, but it did have bad karma so I sold it. And so it goes on...

A reverse P pickup would have made all the difference for me. I like everything else about it apart from the colour. A Spector rock bass with that overall styling has great potential, but, for my taste, they needed to do something to give it some uniquely-Spector DNA.

The worst problem I ever had with dead spots was on a Status Graphite bass, which theoretically is immune to such problems. With Fender basses I've never had deadspot a problem either, and I've had loads. Maybe with Fenders it's just part of the sound. If everything was even and consistent, it wouldn't sound like a Fender.

There is a school of thought that vintage Fenders were never intended to have neck pockets with a super- tight precision-engineered fit like a lot of modern basses have nowadays. That's because at the time it wasn't consider a priority; that's a much more recent preoccupation. Also, Fender thought that some space was necessary for the neck to be easily removed for truss rod adjustment and repair ect. They thought that if the neck pockets were too snug that the shoulders of the neck pocket would be prone to cracking or even breaking due to bumps in transit, expansion and contraction of the wood and general wear and tear over the years. As others have alluded to, at the time no one anticipated Fenders becoming holy relics with people agonizing over the fine details. They just wanted to make something that worked okay. They were pragmatic. I've had boutique Fender- style basses that had neck pockets so tight that it was a struggle to detach the neck when all the bolts were removed. I've also experienced cracking in the paint finish on the sides of the neck pocket on one of those basses exactly because it had such a tight-fitting neck join, just like Fender sought to avoid, so maybe they had a point.

What kind of shop plays Killing Joke(in dub)? What are you selling, methadone? Bondage equipment?

I know what you mean about the neck pickup position on some MM basses that have the bridge pickup in the Stingray position, and I totally agree about the Sabre being an overlooked classic. I would point out though, that the Bongo HH sounds great on the neck pickup and with both pickups on full. Obviously, the bridge pickup being closer to the bridge probably helps change the sound of them combined. That's bass is an an integral design, just like the Sabre was. Also, I've got Reflex HH and yes, the combination of both pickups on full in parallel is pretty scooped, but it's a very usable tone for me. And the neck pickup being in the mudbucker position gives access to some very good tones if you use it in passive mode combined with the tone control, or active in series mode, which makes the mids a bit more prominent.

Lovely bass Geoff, sounds great. I really fancy one of these myself.

Is there even much of a market for vintage PA gear? Unlike guitar and bass amps, general consensus of opinion would be that modern PA equipment sounds much better and is much more practical to use. To be fair to the seller, he appears to have been open and transparent about the amount of renovation to these cabinets, and you can't blame him for testing the waters regarding potential buyers. I'd be surprised if someone bought them at that price, though.

I would say 1973 going into 1974 was a watershed year for Fender basses, the last year that they were stylistically mostly similar to the heyday of the earlier basses. Fender revamped and "modernised" the production in 1974, and things went downhill from there. From the livery of the instruments they were turning out (black plastic pickguards ect) to poor fit and finish, pickups wound with whatever old wire that could be sourced cheaper, wood so heavy that the basses were practically useless, production quality nosedived.