XB26354

I agree. Thanks for listening. It was nice to try something different but I too would have missed the for sale forums in their current form. I'll be sure to donate every time I sell something in future!

Of course, the market here has a lot of basses for sale, so if you're selling a common bass, especially if there are others for sale at the same time, if you advertise it at a price way more than comparable recent sales and what's currently out there you're likely to get no interest or lowballing. It becomes more difficult when an item is less well known or the used price fluctuates a lot. Warwick is a classic example. Their (German made) basses retail at very high prices but the used market doesn't reflect that. You can pick up a Corvette for £300 but some have been advertised and sold on here for £500. This isn't usually a problem, but a lot of makers have been massively hiking the price on new instruments. From Fender, EBMM and Ibanez to Dingwall, Roscoe and Sadowsky, prices have rocketed in the last few years. It's partly exchange rates, partly cost of manufacture and a bit of raw material costs, but the end product is no better, just pricier. That's why the marketplace here has so much for sale!

It depends on the definition of lowballing. There are plenty of people on here that advertise on the high side with no offers. Unsurprisingly their thread becomes a desert of no activity. As others have mentioned, Fender have really hiked their prices over the last few years. So you bought an American Standard Jazz in 2008/9 (when they could be had for just over £800) and want to sell now. They're now going for someone near the £1100 mark yet there's been plenty of ads listing at £850-£900, which is MORE than they paid for it! We're not talking about anything vintage here, just bog standard Fenders. Personally I try not to lowball anyone and have normally only replied to ads that are reasonably priced, and almost always paid the asking price. Doesn't hurt to ask if the price is negotiable though - in almost all examples of selling you advertise at a higher price than you expect to get, in order to get the price you wanted. If someone is advertising a used bass at above the price it costs to buy a new one then they're just asking for trouble, frankly. I have occasionally sent a PM to let them know but I don't bother any more as they'll work it out from the lack of interest.

This is not intended to mean any kind of exclusivity. Just that it's nice if there is a reasonable percentage of people on here that we can recognise!

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1354528389' post='1886898'] But this is a huge aspect of it. Passing traffic drives the growth. Without it, it'll stagnate. [/quote] But how many users does a site really need? I can think of hundreds of people that post here regularly, and probably up to a couple of thousand people whose names I at least vaguely recognise. I feel that there are already plenty of people on here and enough turnover of users to prevent stagnation. How much real value is there to either us or BC if someone joins, posts a for sale ad a very high price and then vanishes, never to be seen again?

[quote name='ted_manzie' timestamp='1354529153' post='1886912'] I don't have any problem at all with people with no posts joining just to put something up for sale, or joining just to buy something without posting in the rest of the forum. And in fact this is a very important plus side of the [i]old[/i] forum sales section as it is has a large amount of self regulation going on - eg. [i]other members[/i] will comment "you need to state a price" or "this thread needs photos" or "where are you based" etc and you can often tell by the buyers communication skills and responses whether they are worth dealing with. [/quote] Neither do I, but, just like with eBay, if someone joins, has no feedback and lists something for £2500 the alarm bells ring immediately for me. I agree that self regulation is good, but I have always found it irritating that you see a thread on something you like, then you get into the ad, everything's great until there is no price nor location. It's fine to ask where someone is based but not on every second ad. Some people are fine buying from abroad or the other end of the country but I like to try first, and there's nothing more frustrating than having to ask or PM, only to find out they're hundreds of miles away! It is mandatory to state a price but most of the casual sellers didn't bother to read the rules and posted anyway.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1354525812' post='1886860'] The problem is though, regardless of whether the new system cuts down on the issues you've mentioned, the activity and traffic is going to plummet. ...unless the devs have something under their sleeves. [/quote] I'm not so sure. People still want to flog stuff and it's clearly a buyer's market at the mo. My only worry would be a reduction in activity from those that post outside the classifieds and contribute. I'd be happy to lose the one line from a phone listings with no location, price or photos!

Maybe it did, but having not bought or sold for a few months, I started looking in earnest again recently, and was surprised by a ) the apparent large rise in non-UK sellers and b ) the large number of ads by people with no posts who have just joined to flog something, either with a link to an eBay listing or a one liner posted from a phone. It's also surprising, in these difficult times, with the for sale forum awash with so many ads, that people are expecting a wholly unreasonable price for their item, usually accompanied by a "I paid (current rrp + 10%) for it 5 years ago". The above goes some way to explaining why the majority of instruments are ending up unsold. I'm not really a fan of the classifieds approach but my main gripes at the moment are no photos, having to look in two places for ads while the switchover happens, and a lack of discussion on the classifieds. There is a Questions option but I haven't yet seen a single question posted. Once the photos are appearing and the old forum closes to new posts and replies I'm sure we'll get used to it. Personally I'd be happy to pay a fee to list something for sale here because I think it is a superb resource for bass and far more pleasurable to deal with BC members than eBay or Gumtree.

I have to admit, comparing old with new, where people have posted the same ad on both, the old is much nicer. Am I right in saying that there is no ability to "bump" classifieds, so once listed you end up in a Gumtree situation, where you ad is on page 40 after about 7 days? I also really value the interaction in the old format.

Havin briefly owned one of the new prestige models (SR5006), I can safely say, that for over £2K, they're not worth it. For a "prestige" instrument it felt like a tarted-up cheap bass. Some basic details are flawed in both the design and the build. For example, the bridge units are tiny and only allow a very small range of intonation adjustment, which meant that I couldn't get the A-string spot on - unbelievable! The small headstock combined with the tuner arrangement meant that the c string has a very sharp bend over the nut. Don't try anything wild or it'll snap. The eq is total crap - it uses a 3v circuit that is so subtle that I couldn't hear any difference in the whole range of the mid control, and all the treble did was add a bit of hiss, and no clarity. The choice of woods makes for a very rock-like tone that simply doesn't work on the top C string - in fact this was probably the worst 6-string I have tried in that the C that sounded totally different to the other 5 strings. The whole tone was clear but really nothing special. The other weird thing was the very dry acrylic type lacquer finish - it was brand new but the neck felt very slow. IMHO with this type of wood they would have been better advised to have used an oil finish. All of this may mean that the SR1206 may well be a much better value bass - just make sure that you can intonate it. I'd lose the circuit immediately too as it is the weakest part of the bass (all too often the case with Ibbys).

It looks OK, or will do when photos appear. I've not been buying for a few months and when I went back to the marketplace it seemed to be full of people I've never heard of just joining to sell something. Most of these new ads are lazy and lack the important info. the best thing fo me about the new layout is that there is now a location field. I like to try basses before I buy, and there is nothing more irritating than sending a PM, only to find they're up the other end of the country, or somewhere else in Europe. It amazes me how many people on here think someone is going to shell out £2K+ based on a one liner and no photo (or one camera phone job taken at night after a visit to the pub). I'd hope that the new layout will force sellers to at least provide basic info (like the price). I'd be happy to pay the fee for a premium ad and also donate once a bass is sold. Keep up the good work!

Years ago in music college we got several drummers to whack their snare drum and got a very high-end sound pressure monitor to gauge the level from 6ft in front, and to each side. We didn't ask them to hit it as loud as possible, just at normal gig volume. The quietest came in at just over 130dB, the loudest 152dB. That's enough to damage your hearing in one fell swoop, so prolonged ear bashing next to cymbals and the rest of the kit will definitely do it. Didnt Tony Levin say he'd been using earplugs for decades but still had tinnitus and quite a bit of hearing damage? Not sure how much of the latter is due to age as you naturally lose the top end anyway.

Is it even physically possible to reach the bottom three strings or do you fret from the top instead of the bottom? If it wasn't a spoof I'd be mortified posting that, frankly. I'd rather listen to the drummer

If you take the example of a Fender, then the vast majority sold on here are nowhere near £500, and a lot of the cheaper ones are 10-15 years old. The American Standard series could be had for about £800 when it first came out. they now go for close to £1200 - a price hike of 50% in 4 years. This means that people that bought them in 2008 can now flog them for the same or more than they paid for them, because Fender have hiked the new price up by so much. I've not seen this happening with most other brands on here, though. There are always people that have bought something new and decided that they don't like it, but advertise a very high used price because they hate the thought of losing so much money on a newish bass. It's understandable but it's also a buyer's market, and unless it's particularly desirable the thread gets little interest, other than "that's a great bass", and "I'd buy it in a shot if I wasn't skint"

It's not at all. When it was released in 1960 it was groundbreaking harmonically because of the use of key centres shifting by a major third. On the original recording you can hear the piano player, Tommy Flanagan, struggle to solo after Coltrane has done his stint. You'll find as you go deeper it's not anywhere near as complex as it first seems. Coltrane spends most of his solo on the original recording playing triads or pentatonic scales too. For any beginning improviser it appears to be a nightmare because a) there are so many chords, mostly two to a bar, although there are II-V-I sequences they're not inside any obvious sequence until you delve deeper into the tune and c) it's very quick. I don't particularly like the song itself, played at any tempo, and have yet to talk to a jazzer that does. Matt Garrison does/did have a nice split screen video on YouTube improvising over it in 7/8 time

Surprisingly good bass, but having tried both it sounds better with a maple board than a rosewood one IMHO. The B string is naturally quite dark so it needs the extra clank. Seems to be the case with most Fender fives.

I had a good look at some of the Pro series Corvettes close-up when they came out. Woods, electronics etc look to be the same, there was a slightly different lamination pattern for the neck, but otherwise they looked identical. The only hints that they weren't original German models were that the pickup routs were nowhere near the size and shape of the pickups and looked as if they'd been done in a hurry - still a few chips of wood sticking out of one corner. That's being very picky though, and may have been restricted to the first run as "proper" Korean-made basses usually have excellent fit and finish. As has been mentioned above, you can pick up a used German original for the same price or less so why not go used? Even better, find a late '90's wedge-necked model. Same price, lots of character and growl.