James Nada

And there's one for sale BC right now. Not mine, but I've been tempted by it.

Any idea what gauge strings are on these?

Shadows - Man of Mystery - Jet walks his way around the chords through the whole thing. Shadows - Apache - tastefully, musical and interesting (certainly for 1960) Jet Harris & Tony Meehan - Diamonds - though not a bass track. Jet on lead "Barritone", actually a guitar tuned to DGCFAD by all accounts.

Jet had some interesting, obviously jazz influenced lines on those Shadows records. Sounded great with both Shadows drummers he played with too (Tony Meehan and Brian Bennett). Apparently had the first P Bass in the UK too. A couple of his solo/duo (with Tony Meehan) tunes are pretty good too, lead instrument is often a Fender Bass VI or downtuned guitar.

@Natexxo I recently had the chance to play the Harley Benton side by side with a Squire VI, both strung with LaBella Flatwounds. IMO ... ...Build quality, and playability are equal. The Squire sounds sounds better, not necessarily more or less low end, mid or treb, just a more pleasant, more vintage sound. Apologies if that's useless, I really struggle to describe sound. It's worth noting the comparison was made through a guitar amp (Fender Reverb) and I was in a "VI as a lead instrument" mindset. As a "bass" instrument through a bass amp the HB does a decent job. More on the LaBellas, these strings really bring the HB and Squire to life, if that 60s tone is what you're after. However, the LaBellas are not a good fit for the HB, due to the shorter string length requirement due to the lack of vibrato system.

This may or may not help, but Squier produced a Jaguar bass with a humbucker a few years back. https://www.gak.co.uk/en/squier-vintage-modified-jaguar-bass-special-hb-silver/44292

Yes, plug one into the other and be careful with the volume level. There's nothing to stop you plugging a 450W head into a 200W cabinet, just be careful with the volume. I'm assuming the head has a speaker output. If not it would be a simple job to add one.

It's ironic that during that Unplugged show Kurt mocked the estate of Leadbelly for offering him a guitar for half-a-million dollars.

Very cool and quirky looking bass

I'm not sure I have the tech to this @rOB, sorry.

Sure. Nut:42mm E to E at nut (centre to centre): 34.5mm E to E at bridge (centre to centre) 52mm Thanks for the heads up on Newtone strings. I've found a Fender set 24-100 which I'll give a try: https://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/strings-c1/string-sets-c865/bass-guitar-c34/bass-vi-c819/fender-super-nps-250-bass-vi-strings-24-100-ball-end-p14790 Though I'd like some flats, but they ain't cheap

This bass is currently in stock. I ordered one last week and it arrived here this week. I'm seriously impressed with this instrument for its price (~£177). The only tweak I've made is to switch the way too floppy .084 low E for a .100 actual bass string I had in my parts box. I've not had to adjust anything other than intonating it- The truss rod, string height and nut are all just fine out of the box! EDIT: I have had to file the nut slots a little

You can't deny that Adam Clayton's root note bass playing must have been influenced by the Ramones 😆

Punk, New Wave, Thrash Metal, 00s Boy Band Pop, Hardcore, U2...

I wouldn't say Dee Dee Ramone played a bit part in punk. He wrote at least half of the tracks on the Ramones debut album and similar on the rest. It's undeniable that the Ramones were an extremely significant part of many new genres, not just punk.

I'd be all over this if I had $40k going spare https://www.rrauction.com/bidtracker_detail.cfm?IN=9229

Thanks for taking the time to listen Lozz, cheers

It's official that Cliff was knocking off Jet's wife. Well, it's explicitly discussed as fact in this official Shadows autobiography.

My band, The Spiratones, have recently released a surf-stained garage rock scorcher - Bustin'. https://youtu.be/9a15vnhlHJs You can grab a free download from Bandcamp here if you're keen. Given this is a bass forum I should mention it's recorded on a 1992 Fender MIM P Bass, through an Orange Terror and DI'd. Not that we put any amount of effort into the bass tone, plug in, press record and use the drummers best take was very much the order of the session.

Dee Dee used ESPs on his latter Ramones years, with some pretty 80s looking colours and shapes (one was Thunderbird ish shaped). I've read that Johnny Ramone hated them as he felt they ruined the band image, which probably just encouraged Dee Dee to use them

I had success making an 8 string bridge by modifying a classic Fender type bridge. I just cut slots for the high octave pair. I only did it to put on a prototype but I was surprised to find it intonated ok. Possibly because the position I cut the slot was such that it made high octave string length longer than the fundamental.

Schaller 471. I think they are similarly priced to the one you've linked but it might be worth searching. There's a second hand one on Reverb (it's not mine).... OEM Schaller 471, 8 String Bass Bridge, Gold, Top Loading, Intonation/Height Adjustments https://reverb.com/item/33250093-oem-schaller-471-8-string-bass-bridge-gold-top-loading-intonation-height-adjustments?_aid=pla_uk&utm_source=android-app&utm_medium=android-share&utm_campaign=listing&utm_content=33250093-oem-schaller-471-8-string-bass-bridge-gold-top-loading-intonation-height-adjustments

Also gutted. I'm a big FoW and Tinted Windows fan. A talented guy. He was an Emmy award winning songwriter and renowned producer as well as being 'just' a bassist.

It clearly knows that 4 strings is enough

La Bella Deep Talkin' Bass for Beatle Bass sound great, if you want thumpy. I've had my set on for 4 years, and they still sound great. You can even here them here: https://open.spotify.com/track/5cHjmjA5cY22kswjwuZOcy?si=yjQguQXKQdO9FLmglJxnMA