Cato

I'm no afficionado, but it looks like a Thunderbird to me, presumably you did this on the configurator and chose the exposed pickup poles?

Whilst slightly put of step with it's predecessors I'd argue that You Only Live Twice was one of the very best. The villains secret lair in the volcano, the piranha pool, the gyrocopter. The ninja army. It's got it's own subgenre of subsequent action/comedy movies that were directly influenced by elements from that film. Agree the theme tune, while decent in it's own right, is below par for a Bond film.

I think one of the problems with the last 3 Bond themes, Adele/Smith/Eilish is that they've all been written to incorporpate more or less the same elements of John Barry's original score. Which, to me anyway, has had the unintended consequence of making them all sound pretty much the same, I've got various sections from all 3 in my head and, apart from the choruses, I'm hard pushed to say which bit belongs to which song. The result is to make all unmemorable in their own right.

I didn't watch the show but I heard the UK entry a few times on the radio. My take was that it isn't awful. It's just very generic, like someone asked an AI to write a pop song based on the most prevalent UK chart music trends of 2022-23.

Like many things the market will decide if crowdfunding the album is a viable proposition, nobody is getting their arm twisted. Either a person wants to donate money or they don't. Personally I don't think £10,000 is overly ambitious for this kind of fundraiser. I hope he gets there.

I've always been fascinated by the moving concept, simply because IMO pickup placement has the single biggest affect on how a bass sounds. The Verso is interesting but the I would consider selling an internal organ for the 2 moveable pickup bass Warwick built for Guy Pratt. I'm not sure that they ever did a production version or whether it would even be available as a custom build, but for me it's a dream bass.

I've used 14-59 strings on acoustic guitars, although normally I favour 12-53. The obvious difference is that they are much higher tension than the 9s or 10s you usually find on electric skinny stringers. It's difficult to do string bends, even more so than on a bass. I've never done anything that could be described as a scientific test but my perception of heavy gauge strings on an acoustic is that they are 'punchier' and also louder, but the real benefit for me personally.is that the higher tension makes the more complex barre chords a bit easier because the strings don't bend out of pitch as easily. None of which is an obvious benefit to an electric bass guitar,even one downtuned a tone. Maybe Mr Sixx decided he needed as unique USP for his strings?

Another Felder bass line, 'I Wan't You Back' is a joy to play. Also Stuart Zender's 'Too Young to Die' line is also one that always makes me smile.

It's a lovely looking thing.

Difficult to say for sure. The pole piece arrangement on the covers is how fender traditionally package their humbuckers. This is my 72 Thinline tele from c2000. Regardless of what the pole pieces might indicate there's a traditional double coil humbucker under there. I think they started doing it with the Tele Deluxe in the early 70s, maybe to diffentiate their humbuckers from the standard Gibson PAF type. That's not to say it won't eventually turn out to be a split coil in humbucker housing, but we won't know until the specs are released. Edit: Note to self, clean tele pickups at next string change.

I'd have to go proper top end, stuff I probably wouldn't feel able to justify even if I had the spare cash, so Alembic, Fodera, maybe a particularly high spec Ritter. I'm intrigued to find out what the additional outlay gets you. I kind of get that much like Wal, nothing sounds quite like an Alembic because of their unique electronics, but with Fodera and Ritter, aside from body shapes, the differences between them and other basses are less obvious.

I have the techinical ability and dexterity of a drunk Koala and I managed to do it. You'd be fine.

If the bass has the standard Fender 5 screw bridge arrangement and spacing then it's one of the easiest mods you can do, there are many after market replacements that will drop straight in at price points from £20 or less to upwards of £100. I put a Baibicz on a Squier a few years ago and it really was as simple as unscrewing the original and then putting on the new one, maybe a 20 minute job to make the change including taking the strings off and putting new ones on. Obviously setting up the new bridge takes a bit longer. If it's not a standard 5 screw fitting then finding a drop in replacement may be a bit more difficult and the choice will be more limited.

16 years old. A group of six formers at school had a sudden explosive falling out with their bass player about 2 weeks before they were due to play a local village hall. Someone told them I owned a bass and an amp which immediately made me the most qualified person they could find to fill in at short notice. Learnt all the songs off a C90 before a single full rehearsal the day before the gig. It was an eclectic setlist of stuff the guitarist/band leader liked from Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell to Birdhouse in your Soul and Walk This Way. I was playing my Axe Bass through a Hartke 350 watt head (which I still own) and a Carlsboro 4x10. Ended up staying with them until they all left for Uni about 18 months later, long after they'd resumed their friendship with the original bass player who went on to form his own band who we regularly played gigs with.

I'd be very interested to hear some clips. If this does a decent imitation of the Gibson shortscale neck mudbucker thing I may find it difficult to resist.

I was gassing for the orange one but these pics of the Pacific Blue look much nicer than the official promo pics I've seen and are making me think again.

I think the answer to 'Could I just have bought a better bass for the money I've spent on this project?' is almost always 'yes'. I spent considerably more modding a Squier VM 70s bass with new pickups, loom and bridge than the bass itself cost me and in all honesty it was a decent bass before the mods. I changed it but I'm not sure I improved it. But I enjoyed the process immensley, which is why I'm thinking about doing it again,

I think I'm done buying expensive instruments for a while, but I am starting to get the modding bug again. When the new Squire Sonic range starts turning up s/h I may well crumble.

Sounds like the sort of territory multiscales were designed for. Without buying a new bass you could try contacting Newtone for a custom set of strings. https://newtonestrings.com/products/?v=79cba1185463 Never used their custom service but I guess there probably are limits on what they can produce.

I don't see anything on BC I would describe as pop ups. I see banner ads at the top of the page, which I find completely unobtrusive, but nothing that intereferes with using the site. I would define pop ups as those ads or vids you get which open in the middle of a page, usually obscuring whatever it is that you're trying to look at. I've never seen them on BC. Tbh I have no problem with the people that own and run the site trying to make money off a service I use everyday. Which reminds me.......(Finally gets round to renewing supporting memebership)

I've been having impure thoughts about getting an Aria FEB for home noodling for some time. I've never tried one but I'm incredibly drawn to the aesthetic, how it actually plays is almost an irrelevance. For under £300 new I'm definitely tempted to roll the dice.

I've had nothing but joy from the Squier Bass VI I got a few months ago, to the extent I've been ignoring instruments that cost more than 3 times what the Squier did. I'd confidentally take a punt on any of the Squier ranges.

I think it's a very niche market to be honest. I can't see many people wanting to install a fancy neck on a bog standard Jazz or Precision type bass and most basses that have exotic grained body woods that might suit such a neck will already have one. Good luck anyway.

I understand what all these words mean individually, but....

It looks like all human musicoans may be at risk. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65298834