Happy Jack

That remains one of the nicest (modified) examples in existence.

Nowhere near as-new condition, needs some maintenance that it's never going to get from me, but still fully-functional and working pretty well. Even got the original box, By God! Pickup only from HA1 3RG.

The real sacrilege would be to sign a modern bass.

I routinely switch (on EB) between 35" scale and 30.5", and I occasionally pick up a uke-bass. Each instrument / scale length has a slightly different technique, of course, but it's all electric bass. The only thing that could be affected by routinely practising on short scale before gigging on long scale is muscle memory. I don't own a 1/2-size DB so I can't be certain, but I suspect that the same is true.

I'm not convinced that I even knew there were two flavours at the time! It was this one: Note the lack of a battery compartment.

Passive bass with a graphite neck for extraordinary punch, Precision on steroids and without the OTT elements that a Seymour Duncan 1/4-pounder can bring. Relatively lightweight, drop-dead gorgeous in red/black, not hugely ergonomic with a fairly sharp slab side to it. In the truly enormous pantheon of Basses I Rather Wish I Had Never Sold my old GP Artist ranks much higher up the pecking order than you might imagine.

The correct answer is, "Yes, but I'm WAY better than him".

I always take at least two basses to any gig, but I wouldn't now describe any of them as 'spare'. If I take multiple instruments, then I'll play everything I've taken. In all honesty, though, this started out as taking a spare to every gig, so I suppose I should really fall into that camp, if only for old times' sake.

Totally agree about the string spacing. When getting started, you can easily treat the Low B as an extended thumb-rest, which actually makes the bass very easy to play as a 4-string. Once you start using the B-string 'properly', don't get carried away with playing really low notes ... think instead about playing across the neck rather than zooming up and down it. If you're playing in E, for example, make your foundation E the 5th fret on the B-string rather than the open E string. You may be surprised how much more versatile you become.

It's in the fingers, Mark ...

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Well originally I didn't know that Chas Hodges was a bass player (and a bloody good one too), what wiv 'im always sittin' at the old Joanna and 'avin' that Dave bloke playin' bass an' all. Finks ain't wot they used to be.

Or a keyboard ...

Traffic mainly, horns honking (usually a taxi), distant sound of a siren, occasional outbursts of yelling. The New York sound hasn't changed in the 45 years that I've been going there.

Things happen fast around here ...

What are these "chords" of which you speak?

To Lazarus thread, or not to Lazarus thread ...

Good God! The last one sold here on Basschat was FIVE years ago: That was a horribly heavy example of an SB320; it had the temerity to weigh over eight pounds! Disgusting. @basskit_case sold it for £250. Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!

A week today, and it will be 13 years old. Only it's older than that, because I originally posted it on Basstalk (one of Basschat's precursors). Hugely under-rated and under-valued basses. Personally I didn't get on with the 5-string SB325, but that turned out (over time, and a ridiculous amount of GAS) to be because I'm actually a devotee of the 35" scale when it comes to 5-stringers, not that I knew that in 2007. My own fave was and remains the SB320. If another one came up for sale tomorrow I'd probably buy it, even though I have no possible excuse for doing so, simply for old time's sake!