Misdee

To be fair , Warwick are a special case. For a long time now they have been trying make their basses more valuable by increasing the prices. Their reasoning is that if they charge the same as Fodera or Wal ect then that will confer equal status on the instruments they produce.

I bought a mint 1982/3 Stingray in 1989 for £340. The chap even brought it round to my house for me. The Bass Centre at Wapping had a selection of used Stingrays for £495 a pop for a typical example. You could buy a new Wal for about £800. I had girls who fancied me and a bright future to look forward to. If anyone invents a time machine, please let me know.

Is a new mass-produced bass ever worth more than £1500? Yes, of course a new mass-produced bass can be worth more than £1500. I would go so far as to say that even ten years ago some factory-made basses were worth that price tag. It just depends on what bass you mean. How can I be so sure? Well let me put it to you another way. If the binary opposition is "Are handmade boutique basses worth over £1500?" based on personal experience my answer would equally be that some are, some aren't. You pay your money and take your choice. I've had Fenders and I've had boutique Fender-style basses. Both were great basses that I enjoyed, but in use the differences between them were negligible. Whatever I paid for on the custom-made basses, it wasn't really important when I was actually playing them and making music. Whether a bass is made in a factory or a workshop is not a reliable indicator of quality or indeed value for money. The very best handmade instruments offer a level of quality and attention to detail that most factory-made basses cannot. However, most handmade basses are handmade primarily because whoever makes them cannot realistically find a way to produce them on a grander scale, not because the builder is fanatical about quality or because objectively that is the only way to produce a satisfying instrument. Boutique basses have their own pitfalls and provide no real guarantee of ultimate quality. You can handmake disappointing basses in small numbers, just so long as someone buys them for whatever reason. A lot of handmade basses are great in certain respects but let themselves down in others. As someone once said, no one ever came up with a brilliant idea in a committee, but a lot of bad ideas were.killed off there. A lot of smaller bass builders would benefit from their instruments going through the committee process. Often custom builders are preoccupied with offering solutions to problems that in reality bass players don't really have. If mass produced basses are overpriced and boutique custom basses are overrated then where do we go from there? Three grand is indeed a bit steep for a new Stingray, but EBMM aren't responsible for the pitiful exchange rate. Also bear in mind rising production costs in manufacturing and inflation on both sides of the Atlantic. It's primarily those factors which are driving up prices. That said, EBMM turn out basses that in many respects are just as good as handmade boutique basses, and in some respects better. In my opinion, all they need is a quarter sawn and/or graphite reinforced neck and their instruments would be as good as anything handmade. They sound great, play great, the pickups and electronics are top notch, beautifully finished ect, and are fairly consistent in their quality control. Their design concepts are top notch too. If a boutique builder had come up with the Stingray Special or the Bongo would we still balk at the prospect of paying three grand for one? Similarly, the Japanese-made Yamaha basses are just as good as any comparable boutique basses you care to name in terms of sound, build quality and overall design. The reality is that prices are going up, and I don't really foresee them coming down. In a world where a tin of Heinze tomato soup costs £1.70 (!), a Music Man bass is going to cost three grand or more. Anyhow, soon playing the bass will increasingly be the prerogative of the wealthy and privileged. Don't be surprised if in a couple of years one of Jacob Rees Mogg's many kids appears on TV aristocratically knocking out Louis Johnson-inspired slap licks on a BFR Stingray as a way of grinding his heel in the face of the undeserving poor while his dad looks on approvingly.

Just let me clarify, I don't mean to denigrate the P34/35 in any way. They are superb professional quality instruments, just as you would expect from a Japanese-made Yamaha. If you've got one I can totally understand why you enjoy it. I didn't keep mine in the end just because it was a bit weighty, I didn't like the colour when I saw it in the flesh, and I knew I wouldn't use it. If I see a new vintage white P34 that weighs 9 pounds or less I might well buy another. When you look what a lot of comparable quality basses cost nowadays the P34/35 look like a bit of a bargain. I prefer the 20 Series because of the unique tone of those basses, but the P34/5 have got their own sound too. Like I said, they are very tight and focused with great definition to the notes. I agree that they sound more modern than a Fender-style PJ, but just because they have got conventional PJ pickups that doesn't mean they are necessarily supposed to have that old-school sound. Yamaha basses have got their own sound.

I bought a BB P34 when they first came out and didn't keep it long for very similar reasons as yourself and the P35. It was indeed meticulously made, and it had a perfectly acceptable tone, very playable,but the 2024/2025 were/ are something a bit special. I don't know about you, but I find the tone of the P34/35 very crisp and focused. There's plenty of bottom end but there's a definite focus to the overall sound that makes it seem a bit lean. The 2024/25 by comparison have got an big bottom end but retain a very appealing bite in the upper mids and treble. Whatever you do with them, they sound big. I totally take your point about the disparity between the P and J pickups on the newer model. It's an inherent problem on traditional Fender-style pickups in that configuration. One of the great things about the classic BBs was that somehow they had solved that problem. The P series have opted for more conventional pickups and has lost something in the process, in my opinion.

The BB3000 was/is indeed a very good bass. Usually substantially lighter than the BB2000,too, for some reason. I remember the reissues. I seem to remember Yamaha found some old parts in storage at the factory in Hamamatsu and made as many basses with them as possible. I wish I had bought one. The funny thing is, back in the 1980s when they were in production I wouldn't have entertained the idea of buying a BB3000. It was all about custom made boutique basses in those days. With active electronics. I know that Yamaha custom shop in Japan went out and bought a couple of used BB3000s to customize for Tony Kanal. That would suggest to me that they don't have any plans ( or the means,maybe)to reissue that model anytime soon. The later BB3000s were made in Indonesia, if I remember correctly. If I was buying a used one I would make sure I was buying a Japanese-made example. A 2024 would be the closest recent offering from Yamaha, I suppose. They are still fairly easy to find on the used market in the UK and they are very nice basses in their own right.

Blocks but no binding, from what I can see. Blocks need binding!

The legendary status of these basses is due in part to John Entwistle saying that these basses had a raunchier, more growly sound than his regular P Basses at the time. And the fact that he played them during such a fertile era of The Who's musical development. I remember back in the mid-1980s Andy Rourke had one of these slabs when he was in The Smiths. I was chuffed because I had a Olympic White P Bass with a black pickguard at the time. I've never played one of these basses but I have a hunch that if I did, it would sound like a Fender Precision Bass. I am also pretty sure that if John Entwistle played it, it would sound like John Entwistle used to with the Who back in the day, i.e amazing. The prices of instruments like this is speculative, based on the notion that there are buyers who want to "own a piece of history". I personally just want to own a bass to play. Interesting to look at though.

Wasn't Lenor the original singer who Kajagoogoo unceremoniously sacked after the first album for having too much teenybopper appeal? Anyhow, I remember coming home from a night out in the late 1980s and putting the t.v on , probably to watch The Hitman and Her(best t.v show ever) and coming across some middle of the night music show featuring Ellis Beggs and Howard live in concert. I vividly remember Nick was playing a beautiful Warwick Thumb 5 string amazingly well, and he was absolutely everything I wanted to be as a bass player at that time. He's so inventive and busy in his playing, but his bass lines are so well constructed that they are never obtrusive or overbearing. A very, very clever player.

They only look young and happy because they haven't realised the amount of fret wear they are going to experience.

Great singer, great songwriter. Lived a full life, that's for sure! I'm sure he's at peace now.

Pangbournes are indeed rare and still sought after basses. I remember them well. The components in the preamp may well just be knackered due to the passage of time. A boffin might be able to fix it and enable you to keep the bass original, but failing that it might well be worthwhile contacting someone like John East to revamp the electronics. John's preamps are wonderful pieces of engineering and they sound terrific. That would be my choice if it were my bass( I should be so lucky...)

Reminds me of pictures of myself at that age around the same time, except I was much uglier.

I really liked Nick Beggs as a bass player as soon as I first saw/heard Kajagoogoo. Superb and inventive bass lines that really captured the zeitgeist of that time. There were lots of fancy dan bass players back then, but Nick Beggs had real substance to what he played. I've always thought Nick has a very distinctive tone, too. Lots of top end but mids to the fore as well. If Kajagoogoo had chosen a different name for the band it could have been a different story, daft as that may sound. It's difficult for a band to mature when their name embodies infantilism.

I like the strategically placed pack of Rotosound Swing Bass as much as I like that bass, and I like that bass an awful lot.🙂

Jeff Beck was a phenomena, a one-off. Like when Aretha Franklin died, there is no one comparable to take his place. I once heard Malcolm McLaren describe Jeff as the Paganini of the electric guitar, and I wouldn't disagree with that. Special talents like that don't come along very often. Jeff had his own unique voice on the guitar, and it was beautiful. There was always something challenging and edgy about Jeff's playing. All the way through his career that distinctiveness set him apart from most of his contemporaries. He will be sorely missed.

I think Rickenbacker have been using the aforementioned Caribbean rosewood for the past few years. Before that I know they had dabbled with jacaranda and bubinga for fingerboard wood, as well as traditional rosewood. I saw that Rickenbacker have recently stopped lacquering their fingerboards. That's a bit of a deal breaker for me. My experience is that to lacquer a board makes much more of a difference to the tone of a bass than the choice of wood. Maple boards with lacquer sound much brighter than those without. I expect that the lacquered fretboard has been a significant element of the Ric tone we all know and love.

I had to look twice at that ,too...

Well I never knew that!!🙂 I would have presumed Geddy was a low action kind of a guy. Then again, he did play Rickenbackers for years, so he probably had to adapt to a slightly higher action.

Laurel is a bit of a budget option in lieu of rosewood, but pau ferro is a completely different proposition. If I recall correctly, "Bolivian rosewood" was traditionally the preferred fingerboard wood for USA- made Spector NS basses, and "morado" is Roger Sadowskys' preferred choice for fingerboard wood paired with an alder body, in preference to rosewood. Some folks think that in terms of tone, pau ferro is an excellent amalgamation of the warmth of rosewood and the brightness of maple. I can't comment, never having owned a bass with that wood for the fingerboard, but I'd definitely be up for trying it, even on a high-end bass. I like the pinky colour and I'm sure it would sound fine on most basses.

I think bass players worldwide would like to hear you unleash this beast in a video! The bass looks good too, by the way.

Stunning example. If it's an Empathy it will have a sweepable mid control with a three way toggle switch, from what I remember. I had a headed Empathy from this era and I remember it fondly. I remember playing a proper Status Series 2 like this one for the first time at the Bass Center at Wapping and being surprised that it wasn't as light as I had expected. For some reason my youthful self had assumed that all graphite basses were lightweight. Not so. Not that these basses are excessively heavy, by any means but they are usually over 9 pounds. And yes, they do look the business with that two piece brass bridge.

I probably watched this the night it was on! Great band, excellent bass player, lovely bass. Paul Webb was/is a tasty player, for sure.

Funnily enough, I remember Fender basses being much harder to come by in the 1980s. New Fenders at the time were not very nice and ones from the Seventies and earlier were not as numerous as they are today.