Doctor J

I can usually, but not always, find someone to come along. I have different friends for accompaniment to different genres, but definitely no-one else who'd go to all the different kinds of stuff I listen to. I don't mind going to gigs, alone, though. It's a little like going to the cinema. I want to concentrate on the band, so solo is ok.

Another vote for Elixir stainless steels. They sound exactly what you're looking for.

Unless you can hear it I wouldn't bother. There are pleny of blade and dual-rail strat-style pickups out there. You are spoiled for choice.

Former 3006E owner here who never had this issue, too. I wonder how close the pickups are to the strings, on the basses having this issue. Could magnetic pull be causing an erroneous string vibration? I experienced this many years ago.

The VTC works in active mode too, it's essential with the Sadowsky pre, IMO.

Ehhh... not quite 😂

The day they give up booze and drugs and find god instead.

Buy Glarry. Feel sorry.

That's a used bass. It looks like the nut has been filed, crudely, and it is a little too low on the E string and someone has put a slip of paper in there to raise it up a bit.

There is a teeny tiny difference between a Stradivarius and a Fender, even one where Leo grew the tree himself using only Holy Water.

A genuinely terrible vehicle by any benchmark.

Is it worth £9000 as an instrument? Of course not. Is it worth the money as an antique? Of course not. Is it worth the money due to the celebrity connection? Of course not. When you combine all these things is it worth the money? Of course not. However, we live in the age where the very worst 70's and early 80's Fenders sell, utterly amazingly, for two grand and above. Old Squiers fetch one and a half grand. Amazing. However, all it takes is one poor soul to believe in it and have the cash in their pocket (or the credit on their card) and there is great profit to be had. These are heady times for opportunists. Make hay, etc. The next old POS will be listed at 10k 🙂

https://www.thomann.de/gb/hercules_stands_gs_415b.htm

This would get my money.

That 9k allows the new owner ride a wave of kudos earned by the original owner. "I bet that bass could tell a story or two." Yeah, but we'll all have to guess what they are because the new owner wasn't there.

Those pics don't show a bass with low action. I would walk away. Lots of jibba-jabba with no actual evidence of any of it.

With the bass plugged into an amp, tap the pickups lightly across the top with a metal screwdriver to identify the architecture and make sure both coils are working in both pickups. You should hear a hearty thump where the magnets are located and the coil is live. Are the bottom of the pickups open or sealed with epoxy. The Aria pickups from this era are well known for coils dying but they're epoxy sealed and un repairable. It's worth having a look and seeing if the problem can be fixed. The original pickups look like they're passive, there is no direct connection to the battery.

Black is Pickup earth DPDT are serial/parallel switches Brown is north coil start White is north coil finish Green is South coil start Yellow is south coil finish If you've only got two wires on the new pickup then the two lugs on the right side of the DPDT switches as the pic is orientated, your signal and your earth heading to the volume controls, are relevant. The DPDT switches are no longer in the circuit as the new pickups don't facilitate coil tapping. Edit -> Actives usually have at least three wires. Signal, earth, and one which gets connected to the battery to power the active part.

Well done, gents!

Not looking for philosophy or rented quotes, thanks, just righteous anger set to music.

I suppose by recently, I meant within the last year, a reaction to the world as it is right now. There has been a lot of great music over the years, much of it still very relevant, but I want to hear the voice of the youth of today. Bob Vylan very much hitting the spot so far.

In Winters of discontent of olde, a tradeoff was usually the generation of some great, angry music. A mate sent me a link to this earlier and I was struck by how little other protest/socially conscious music I've heard recently. Has anything else good come out recently?

In Soviet Fender, Custom Shop customises you.

Guitarists have double-locking, floating vibrato bridges, trans-trem bridges, countless active pickups, modelling and profiling amps. On the amp side, they're probably more developed than bass whereas bass is really only ahead when it comes to onboard EQ, something which hasn't really been embraced by guitarists. For every solicitor peddling fake blues on their Strat, there's usually a lad plodding away on a Precision beside him. That stuck-in-the-50's knife cuts both ways.