Happy Jack

So Pete is in Hobgoblin Music in Cambridge and has stumbled across an all-original Maya which - from a distance - is the spitting image of Macca's later bass. You couldn't make it up. And the shop want silly money for it. As in seriously silly money in the right way ... it's like stumbing back into the 1990s. What did I say? I said BUY! BUY!! BUY!!! Bridge pickup cover is still in place and doesn't bother me at all. I can play the bass perfectly happily with that in place. Someone has clearly tried to differentiate between the V/T for neck and bridge. Somewhere along the line, they've mixed up the knobs so that neck volume and tone are the wrong way round. There are no grub screws and the knobs don't just pull off so I'm not sure how to swop them around. Original trc is utterly horrible ... but it's authentic. This is a very nice piece of wood. No boxwood or ply was used here. And the tuners are quality items.

I was, and remain, happy with the price I paid for this bass. On playing it I found it perfectly set up and totally playable from the first note. It's strung with rounds, which aren't my favourite but match the rounds on my Rickenbacker 4003/s5 so hardly a problem. It doesn't sound "like a Rickenbacker" but if you analyse what that phrase means, it tends towards the very distinctive 'clank' associated with players like Chris Squire and - of course - that's not at all what McCartney has ever sounded like. The bass just sounds great. It's a really nice, highly playable, very comfortable bass which weighs a little more than 8lbs. At which point I received a WhatsApp from @pete.young Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. Oh dearie dearie me.

In truth, it didn't start with a Spanish name. I recently joined a band that does an awful lot of Beatles stuff. It's a weird thing, but I grew up listening almost exclusively to The Beatles (essentially until I was about 15, which was 1971), they are and will always be my favourite band and the most important band in my musical life, yet I've played a ridiculously small number of their songs in all the years I've been gigging. So this band could be very important to me. I already have a 1964 Hofner 500/1 Violin bass (yes yes, I know it should be a 1963, but have you seen the prices?) so what I needed was a Rick. Do I go for an early version of Macca's bass (1965 Fireglo) or a later version (natural refin)? That's what sparked the 'Wanted' post for a decent Rickenfaker, and that produced a very nice bass from @Thor which - from a distance - is the spitting image of Macca's early bass. The hand-drawn trc in sharpie is a thing of wonder, the rather more professional fake jobbie has to go and will be replaced by a Shaftesbury trc. Bridge pickup cover has been replaced by the perspex bevel preferred by most Rick players. Reasonable amount of wear to the body, and it's the real thing rather than a pathetic 'relic' job. Tuners are much cleaner than you'd expect - usually these are covered with rust spots. Only major flaw is the nasty crack where the wing is glued to the neck-through. It's been stable the whole time that @Thor has owned it, and it doesn't worry me. Even if it gets worse it's an easy fix for any competent luthier.

A Japanese bass with a Spanish name which bears an uncanny resemblance to an American bass with a German name ... what on earth could it be? Personally, I blame @pete.young

These were mine (over the years): SB310FL - cylindrical black plastic with a distinctive top, mainly flat but 'chamfered' down on one side. SB320 SB320 SB325 - lousy photo but these were the same knobs as the SB310 (above) SB330

Maybe ir's a Made In Japan / Made In Korea thing?

All of mine have had chromed, knurled, dome-top knobs in some sort of metal. I've never had/played one with tapered plastic knobs.

No - not even close.

They're using a single engine to provide the "magic description" for everything. If you're selling something with many many minor variations (the example they use is trading cards) then this AI stuff is genius, picking out all the details it needs from your uploaded photos and then doing the websearch for you to get an accurate description instantly. If you're selling something rarer or more obscure, then not so much. I find AI-generated text as irritating as the next Basschatter, but it's here to stay and it will very rapidly improve to the point where it will be far more irritating to see descriptions that are inaccurate, illiterate, and downright fraudulent (which we humans manage to do quite successfully without external assistance).

I rather assumed that this was a Game Of Thrones reference ...

Huh? Where did that come from?

Some very variable reviews on Amazon ... are these strings actually suitable for 34" scale basses?

I've been using this stuff (when blistered) for years ... really excellent, and mine came with a pair of folding scissors.

Kinell mate ... you like a challenge, don't you?

You need to get out more ...

Interesting to note that this very unit now costs £39 ...

Y'see, to me that implies that Lennon's guitar now has two Bigsbys on it ...

My covers band has started every gig for the last 15 years with the same song. All three of us sing, so we take a verse each. Three minutes into the gig, our sound engineer @Silvia Bluejay has heard all three vocal mics, guitar, bass and drums (usually with everything going through the PA as well as backline) and our sound is sorted for the rest of the set. The audience (pub / club / festival / whatever) has no clue that they just heard our soundcheck.

Just to re-frame the question, why would it have to be a 4-string P body? Wouldn't a 5-string P body make the neck pocket issue pretty much go away, Shirley?

Worst rattle/buzz I ever had was on a 1965 Precision, where it sounded as if the trussrod was about to leap clean out of the bass every time I played a fretted G#. Spent ages fiddling and faffing with everything nearby until I gave up and took it to a luthier. He put a drop of superglue on the E-string tuner, where the cloverleaf meets the shaft. End of.

My only concern would be where to rest my thumb. I can see myself adding an ashtray to that ...

OK, things have moved along pretty smartly and the Kolstein is now GONE. I was contacted by a long-time lurker, a pro bassist who prefers to keep a very low profile so I'll mention neither his name nor that of his luthier, and his plan is to do as near a complete restoration to original as possible. He can then consider what mods - if any - he wants to make. I've given him the bass (as in no money changing hands, although he did offer) on the agreement that he'll keep a photographic record of his work, what he discovers, what needs to be done. Since he doesn't post here, the plan is that he'll send his photos to me, and I'll post them here. Sad to relate, his very first photo is desperately unhelpful ... I had no idea that chunk/shard/splinter was missing and Thwaites didn't mention it when they inspected the bass. ☹️ I can only assume that it went 'ping' at the gig and was swept up by the cleaners the next next morning. Ah well ...

I took the debris back to Thwaites in Bushey. When they'd finished laughing, they said their preliminary estimate for repairs would be £2000 but that might well increase depending on what they found. At which point I went off in a different direction. So here I am with all the parts I need to make a broken, unplayable Kolstein Busetto. What to do ... what to do ... I see three choices: Chuck the whole lot in a skip and walk away quickly, whistling tunelessly and looking unconcerned; Break for parts and sell them individually - there's some good stuff there for them's as wants it; Try and be at least a little imaginative. So here's my Starter For 10. Everything you see in those photos (and nothing you don't see) is free to any Basschatter who has a genuine use for some/all of the parts, perhaps for the repair of DBs, perhaps for some weird EUB project (who knows?), but above all someone who will make sensible, constructive use of all this stuff. I don't have a Jiffy bag large enough to take all this, so we're talking either collection from Harrow HA1 or a sociable beer somewhere not too, too far from here.

Once upon a time there was a bass, a happy bass, a bass that enjoyed being owned by Basschatters such as @bassace and @Clarky. It was a fragile wee thing and needed a reasonable amount of upkeep and maintenance, because it always looked as if it was about to collapse into (as @Owen puts it) a bunch of matchsticks. But I loved it to bits, played hundreds of gigs with it, and asked myself, "What's the worst that could happen?". And then, one day, the worst happened. Are you familiar with the expression an exploded diagram? You are? Excellent! Here are some exploded photographs ...