Cato

Has anyone worked out how to get rid of the little orange privacy box yet?

I don't know why I find such a small thing so irritating and distracting, but I do.

It's definitely a one trick pony.

But it's also very beautiful and I don't currently own any ponies that do that particular trick.

29 minutes ago, Thump said:

I wonder what led them to put the price point as high as it is? greed? Or just that they know some mug with too much money will pay whatever they ask?

It's in the same price bracket as other recent Gibson Custom Shop models.

Also I don't think this is even necessarily aimed at bass players.

Kiss have an exceptionally devoted following, especially in the US, many of them pretty affluent.

The top tier Kiss memorabilia collectors will want this whether they can actually play the thing or not.

Do the "two in charge" have much previous gigging form?

The situation you're describing sounds like one of those projects that never really gets off the ground because some members like the idea of being in a band more than the reality of actually commiting the time and effort to make it happen.

14 minutes ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

"Each instrument celebrates Gibson's legacy through accuracy, authenticity, and attention to detail.”

Given the information on the page about how much the original was hacked about I wonder how "authentic" this recreation is?

Is there an additional pickup cavity under the scratch plate up by the neck in the original position?

Filler/drill holes in the body where the three point bridge was taken out and replaced with a high mass?

For 7k I'd want Mr Simmons breaking out into a sweat if someone challenged him to a game of 'find the lady' with 2 of these and his original being swapped around.

16 minutes ago, RikiB said:

a few tasty basses there. £1100 though for a Mexican 😬

Based on the current top line MiM sig models like the Mike Kerr and JMJ Mustang I was expecting the new Vinteras to come in between £1200-£1500.

So it's actually better than I thought, not much better, but still.

Not really a Kiss fan but that's a nice looking bass.

Not 7 grand nice though.

The current Gibson business model seems to involve a big increase in output of their Custom Shop/Murphy labs range.

An Epiphone model would be cool, but again Epiphone seem to be expanding their top tier models into £1k+ territory on the skinny string side, can't be long before they find a reason to put out a bass in the same price range.

The green Telebass is gorgeous.

I'm interested in the Bass VIs too, but the colour choice of red or blue doesn't really thrill me.

A lot of it's not in yet but the Sea Foam Green Telebass is showing as 'in stock'.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/fender/vintera-series/fender-vintera-ii-70s-telecaster-bass-mn-seafoam-green

I wonder how long that will last?

1 hour ago, KK Jale said:

Looks basically like this one, with different paint and tailpiece and (home added?) fingerboard markers.
 

Can't find a maker, but possibly Russian in origin.

 

 

Outstanding work sir.

I don't think I've seen anything quite like that bridge/tailpiece arrangement.

I reckon the whole bass is likely a home made job.

I don't know what Squire intended with these basses but traditionally the blonde finish on  Fender Telecasters is always translucent.

This is my Baja Tele

Agree with the case above that body should've have been designated for a solid finish.

Oops wrong thread, doh.

For the cost of a pack of new strings and wipe down you'll likely have a very decent Jazz there, assuming the electronics are in a better state than the exterior.

5 minutes ago, Linus27 said:

If they do come in at around a grand then I think they will be super popular. Official release date is rumoured to be the 19th so we might find out soon.

When I looked again at the Reverb link I noticed the seller was in the US, so UK prices still not confirmed.

Fingers crossed though. I want that green Tele Bass.

1 hour ago, Linus27 said:

Starting to appear now.

 

https://reverb.com/item/73213671-fender-vintera-ii-70-s-telecaster-bass-vintage-white

 

I had made my mind up on getting it in green but I'm actually liking the Vintage white more now.

 

That's actually a fair bit cheaper than I was expecting.

Given the current prices on top tier MiM Fenders such as the JMJ Mustang, the Mikey Way Jazz and the Mike Kerr Jag I was expecting these to be £1,200+

There's always something catching my eye.

I've got the vanilla stuff covered in terms of Jazzes and Precisions but anything with an unusual pickup position or feature set always gets me thinking that it would give me something a bit different from what I already have.

I went down a bit of an Epiphone Rumblekat rabbit hole this afternoon, I'm probably not going to get one but it definitely fits the bill of covering tones my current basses don't really do.

Blimey, just seen the video.

It's like something Whitesnake or Poison would have put out in the 80s.

1 hour ago, Schnozzalee said:

Why get whipped up into a frenzy over indian laurel and nato? (Which is probably why they're getting blown out

In terms of aesthetics, which is all that maters to me because for my there's no noticeble difference between different fretboard woods, I prefer Indian Laurel over the pau ferro that Fender have been using for the dark boards on their Player range.

23 minutes ago, neil___lien said:

 

Can we assume that other brands such as Cort, Ibanez, Sire etc will also be affected & will have to lower prices to reach their sales objectives? Or is it just an isolated case due to the fact that those are stamped 40th Anniversary and that the anniversaey year is now behind us?

I think maybe the 40th anniversary guitars are a little more conspicuous than other models/brands and their comparitively low RRP may mean that it's not economically viable to rebadge or tweak the remaining stock so maybe there's a bit more urgency in running down stock of that particular line.

I got the impression from other articles on the same subject that Fender is intending to eventually release the overstock to the market while cutting factory production until that stock is gone.

I wondef if the bargain price is anything to do with this.

https://www.musicradar.com/news/fender-100-million-dollars-sales-cancelled-post-pandemic

The article is about Fender but I wonder if they made too many Squiers as well, after all the 40th anniversary was in 2022 and we're now into the 9th month of 2023.

I'm a big fan of pointy guitars and basses and this is a particularly nice example.

For the Jazz and Precision I'll buy a couple of sets of DR Hi Beams each per year so probably somewhere between £140-£160 a year on roundwounds depending on what price I can find them for 

It was considerably cheaper than that a few years ago when you could get Hi Beams imported from the US on Amazon for between £20-£30.

For me if there's not much point using roundwounds if they've lost their brightness.

As for my fretless Sire I bought a set of Labella Jamerson flatwounds at the same time I bought the bass, but 4 years later I've never felt the need to change the flats it arrived with.

6 hours ago, jd56hawk said:

 

 

Weird video.

OK the volume issue on the G String is disapointing but as far as I'm concerned he completely undermines his complaints about the overall tone of the bass because, g string uneven volume thing aside, to me it sounds good every time he plays it, even when he's supposed to be demonstrating how bad it is, and especially good with distortion.

Even the G string sounds OK when he's playing on all strings, although obviously it shouldn't be getting louder as he bends it inwards.

The tone thing is subjective  but the bass sounds more or less like I would have expected an instrument with a big humbucker in the middle position and a 2nd pickup right up against the bridge to sound.

5 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

Huge fan of Rob Trujillo, and his previous band(s). But not Metallica!

I've been a fan of Trujillo since his Suicidal Tendencies days.

On the one hand it's great that he's now got the recognition and financial security that comes with playing with Metallica.

On the other hand I suspect he'd be making more interesting music in a wider variety of genres if he wasn't with them.