Doctor J

[quote]"it'll really change the sound, much more than the pickups do or the electronics"[/quote] So how come an ash bodied, maple fretboarded Stingray doesn't sound like an ash bodied, maple fretboarded P which doesn't sound like an ash bodied, maple fretboarded J? Is the bad man lying?

The P sound comes from the P pickup. Anything I've ever played with a P pickup in the P position, regardless of neck size, body material or size, has sounded like a P.

If you're surrounded by dudes talking about your technique after a gig rather than the ladies, you're doing something very, very wrong.

He bought this from you in the UK and now all this crops up now he's back in Argentina? Tell him to sod off. If he had any issues he should have notified you before he exported it. Caveat Emptor. Edit -> Just looking at the pics, it certainly doesn't bear any of the usual signs of forgery that appear on a lot of the Chinese fakes doing the rounds at the moment, for example correct 2 screw truss cover, frets which are finished within the binding, usually the fakes have frets which go over the binding. If it is a fake, it would appear to be a very good one. If this guy has issues they're his problem, I reckon. I call a scammer.

[quote name='Fat Rich' post='1089437' date='Jan 14 2011, 03:21 PM']Much thicker and slightly stiffer neck on the P bass probably makes most of the sound difference since the theory with graphite necks is that they make the biggest variable in the guitars tone consistent.[/quote] So the P pickup on this yoke will sound like a J, given there's a J neck on it?

Have you got pictures of the guitar in question, plus can you provide what he suggests what makes it a fake? Even fakes usually have serial numbers, so it's no evidence one way or the other.

I shall show them disregard for their disrespect of laws of physics by boycotting their instruments!

[quote name='chris_b' post='1088952' date='Jan 14 2011, 09:20 AM']Yes! Check out 3:00. Fender thinks that the wood makes more of a difference to the tone than the pickups!!!![/quote] How come P basses and J basses made from the same wood sound different then?

Cool video, very different roles for each gender. [quote name='daz' post='1087811' date='Jan 13 2011, 12:09 PM']lots of things done by eye in those days[/quote] Lots of things done by eye these days too

[quote]Features include an alder body, lightly tinted quartersawn maple neck with a 1960s Jazz Bass® U shape, rosewood fingerboard with 10” radius and 20 medium jumbo frets, [b]Jazz Bass pickup in the 1970s Precision Bass position[/b], three-ply tortoiseshell pickguard, Badass™ bridge, vintage-style paddle tuners, black hard-shell case and certificate of authenticity.[/quote] Help me out here... is this just Fender's attention to detail again or have I slept through an entire model line?

Why are people scared to phone people anymore? Call the guy, ask what the sitation is, problem solved in minutes.

No corpse is safe with Dean around. The amount of junk Darrell Abbot has somehow released through Dean from beyond the grave is a farce.

I had Christopf make me a set of humbuckers for my Ibanez SR3006 6 string. I told him the sound I wanted, he recommended an alnico humbucker for me and made them with Rosewood covers. They weren't cheap but they were a huge improvement in sound on the US Bartolinis which came as stock. He's a nice guy, easy to deal with and has good English, just send him a mail.

Might as well introduce [b]Acrid Nebula[/b] - we're plying a trade in original heavy, riff-laden Metal. Probably more of a 70's and 80's influence in our sound, the drummer and I have been in bands for almost 20 years each. We're not too concerned about sticking rigidly to one style of Metal, we've been described as doom, death and thrash metal in equal measure, even death 'n' roll though I don't know what that is. There are no screechy vocals and no dragon slayings here. We write the music we like and that's all that matters. Despite being a bassist first and foremost, I play guitar in this band so I can guarantee it being free from guitar w*** We've got everything we've recorded available for free on our website - [url="http://www.acridnebula.com"]http://www.acridnebula.com[/url] - there's an mp3 player up there to for those who just want a casual listen and our previous demo and E.P. can be downloaded for free. This year we're going to put out an album and continue gigging around the country, hopefully get over to gig in the UK this year too. We'll be playing with fellow Basschatters - Castero - in Nenagh on the 28th. You should all come along.

Yeah, always open to hearing new things. Jost 'N' Roses

Good to see others had issues with the E strings, wasn't just me then

Very cool. Here it is in Dublin in 1983

Some day... some dark, dark day... Fender are going to run out of tiny changes they can make to repackage 60 year old designs. I'm going wait until they take the modern P bass scratchplate design and stick a single coil in it. 70th, 80th anniversary? I'll wait.

Got a studio at home so hear it all the time. I used to worry about being ultra clean and ultra precise but now I really don't bother. It's amazing how much a bit of crap can add to a recording over being really clean.

Used to get this a lot with Rotosounds, stopped using them and haven't experienced it since.

First has to be [b]David Ellefson[/b], simply because it was during a Megadeth concert in 1988 that I had the epiphany that bass was the instrument I had to play. [b]Troy Gregory[/b] from Flotsam And Jetsam/Prong for the filthiest, grindiest finger plucked tone on Prove You Wrong which still thrills me to this day. [b]Jaco Pastorius[/b] and [b]Colin Hodgkinson[/b] - Around 1992 I was given a tape with Heavy Weather on one side and Back Door's self titled on the the other. Both were mind blowing for different reasons and both really opened my eyes to the advanced role a bassist can play while never neglecting the groove. Finally, [b]Bernard Edwards[/b] - for stylish playing which never descends into w***, for always serving the tune with flair, for some of the greatest basslines ever, Bernard was [i]the[/i] man.

Yeah, saw those Groovelines a few months ago, I rather like the look of them for sure.

The smaller switches are serial/parallel switches for each pickup and the bigger switch is the pickup selector - bridge/both/neck. It's most likely a coil in your humbucking pickup is dead and when you switch to serial you're forced to go through the dead coil and that is why the output is disappearing. It seems to be fairly common with old Arias and it's almost impossible to get original replacments. Kent Armstrong will make a replacement but they sound nothing like the Aria pickups, so you either get two Armstrong pickups and live with a wildly different sounding bass or wait for a working original to appear. Try tapping around the face of the pickups with a screwdriver and see if one side is louder than the other when moving through the different selection options.

That is one seriously beautiful instrument. Well done!

Mark's a gent. I ordered a Nordstrand J5 and MM5 for a bass I ended up selling before I installed them. Some time later I aquired a Godlyke 5 and decided to install the Nordstrands, only to find the routing for the mounting screw lugs on the J were wider than standard and it wouldn't fit. I asked Mark if it would be possible to get a cover to fit the Godlyke's non standard sizing. Sure enough, he got it from Nordstrand and sent it to me gratis. Can't say enough good things about the man's service.