Cato

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

I was thinking the other day that Ed Sheerhan was the new Coldplay and has been for some time. The best selling artists will always be someone reasonably bland and inoffensive that appeals to the widest posiible audience Metallica have never been that. They are doing some heavy promotion right now and have picked up some new younger fans via Stranger Things, but they still peaked 30 years ago. You can argue about which album they peaked with, but most fans will name one of the first 5.

That may be my favoutite subtitle error of all time.

I saw these, I assumed that they're replacing the simarly priced Affinity range. There are some interesting colours and pick up configurations though. I'm tempted to get a purple single humbucker tele as a modding platform.

When I got into Led Zep as a teenager I bought the 'Song Remains the Same' live video, only to be simultaneously horrified and bored senseless by the interminably long version of Dazed and Confused featuring Jimmy Page doing awful things to his guitar with a violin bow. I never watched that video again. I completely understand that it gets boring for bands to do the same version of the same songs night after night, tour after tour, but as an audience member there are definitely limits to what I'm prepared to put up with and as a rule I reckon I'd always prefer to hear a shorter version of a classic song than one that's been spun out way past it's original play time.

Case in point I saw a lad playing a Music Man Bongo in a pub covers band a while back. The bass sounded great in the mix but while I was sitting round the corner just listening, before I actually saw him, it never occurred to me just from listening that he was playing something a bit out of the ordinary.

I think a few years ago Fret King were doing a couple of more quirky models. The current range seems very much based on Fender and Gibson body shapes albeit with a few unusual pickup combos which give them a sort of retro 'pawn shop' vibe. There only seems to be one bass in the current range, a sort of skinny jazz bass with humbuckers.