Belka

Quick update - so yesterday the neck arrived from Musikraft. Very happy with it - the quality seems very good and it feels very comfortable. I was stung for around £60 import duty however. I am thinking I agree with those who posted here that it would be a shame to cover up the nice grain of the ash, so I am planning to probably do it in a cherry burst.

Personally from my experience I would not necessarily agree with those talking about the benefits of much thicker strings. They tend to sound thunderous when playing the open B, but the further up the neck you get, the more unusable/hollow/warbly/out of tune they become. You can get great sounding Bs at 118/120. Scale length is part of the equation, and given equal materials a 35" scale and above will give a tighter B, but by no means do you need a longer scale to get a good, tight sound, and some manufacturers these days can get great sounding Bs out of 32/33" scale basses. I find it very much comes down to the actual manufacturers. I would agree that exposed core/tapered strings tend to sound good: the old LaBella slappers and Deep Talkin' roundwounds had much better B strings than their current offerings. Dunlop nickels (the Super Brights and especially the standards) have a very good B despite being low tension. Overwater have started doing strings and their B strings sound great. One more thing - I've also had a great low B sound when using roundcore strings (especially Fodera nickels and the sadly discontinued LaBella Deep Talkin' rounds) - could just be coincidence though.

The first two definitely sound more StingRay. The other two sound more like a P bass I would say. None of them sound like a Jazz to my ears.

It actually all looks ok, apart from the fact it's not a 1967. 1967 would have had the smaller transition logo and either lollipops or the older reverse gear tuners. Most likely 1968 at the earliest.

It all looks right but I'm not 100% sure on the bridge - Wouldn't 1972 still have the longer G string saddle? The holes for the grub screws look a little small too - like they might have an allen key rather than screwdriver adjustment. Could well be a replacement bridge.

I dealt with Andy recently - sold two basses through him and bought one. I have no complaints - communication was good, payment was prompt with no chasing required (he actually had to chase me for my bank details) and his place really is a treasure trove of great basses. He does have some expensive items - people say if you're going there to be prepared to spend a lot of money , but that is down to a lot of his stock being very rare/valuable. His prices, in my opinion, are fair for a vintage dealer and more or less comparable with Bass Bros and Bass Direct - it's the Gallery, ATB and Vintage Bass Room who tend to price their items a tad more unrealistically.

I saw Rod Stewart at Ashton Gate in Bristol a couple of years ago. The bassist was using a vintage sunburst P bass. You couldn't hear it at all. I saw Donny Benet this Saturday. Again, P bass. the mix was better but his bass was noticeably less audible than when I saw him previously using a PJ F Bass. The snare and Bass drum were incredibly loud - judging by how softly the drummer was playing he seemed to be aware of it too. The best sounding gig I've seen recently was Mike Stern with Hadrien Feraud on bass and Dennis Chambers on drums. Hadrien and Mike just went through their amps with no IEMS - great sound - everything was crystal clear. Of course I'm aware how such a set-up wouldn't work on a bigger stage.

This might be a bit tangential but I have noticed from attending gigs over the last few years that P basses really tend to disappear in modern mixes (I'm talking decent sized gigs with a professional PA/soundman, not how bad your own P bass sounds down the Dog and Duck before anyone takes offence). I don't think this is a fault of the P bass but of the way everything is mixed these days (all subs/bass drum, very little midrange). The whole reason the P sits in a recorded mix so well is due to its low midrange presence, and when these frequencies are not given enough prominence the sound turns to mud. Of course, while we should aim our ire at the soundmen or spectators who actually think that kind of mix sounds good, an easier solution would be to use a bass with a bridge pickup. Even with a rubbish mix you're more likely to hear some of the bass come through.

The next thing to think about it colours. The white scratchplate was used in the early '80s on the International colours series. Below are the options I'm considering all with white pickguard and maple neck: Monaco yellow, Capri orange, Sahara taupe, Cherry burst. The others don't appeal so much - Cathay ebony and arctic white look too much like regular basses, albeit with white pickguards instead of black. Morocco red is nice but a bit too close to Dakota red to stand out. Maui blue is great but I have another Jazz in that colour, and Sienna burst just doesn't look as good as cherry burst.

Next step was obviously a body and neck. I decided to go '70s for a couple of reasons - I always liked the late '70s 'S' series basses, which most other people seem to think are the very worst in terms of Fender QC, but I really like the aggressive tone. Hence, I decided to go ash and maple. This is very much a tribute to the era rather than something 100% accurate - so although I managed to get a northern ash body (from Guitar Build), it's a '60s version without the channel cut between the pickup cavity and the control cavity. It'll all be under the pickguard anyway so no problem there. I went with one piece maple for the neck. I pushed the boat out a bit and ordered from Musikraft in the US. Allparts and Warmoth don't do the correct 7.25 radius on their repro necks. It's currently in production, not sure when it will arrive. An era correct decal has also arrived.

So, I've always wanted to do a P bass made to my own specifications, and recently after selling my Nate Mendel Precision, I found myself in possession of parts I'd modded it with (I brought it back to its original state before selling it). Basically, the bits below: Duncan Antiquity 2, Kluson bridge, pickup covers and white pickguard.

Those look like re-issues to me - the '50s'60s ones had a much shorter/wider thread pattern on the barrels - yours have the longer thinner thread typical of re-issues.

Do you mean heavy metal style? That would be minor/diminished tonality with the prominent flat 2 and raised 4/flat 5, not major . The only way I can imagine it used in major tonality is when playing over a first inversion of the V chord, for example B/G if playing in C. Even then emphasising the Flat II/V degrees of the mode wouldn't really be necessary as they wouldn't work as chord tones (technically the flat V would be a chord tone if it's a dominant 7, but again, Dom 7 chords are rarer these days in most popular music), just scale passing tones. To be honest I know very little about contemporary Christian music so I may be missing something here.

I think that the above scenario is extremely unlikely, unless your band leader is a mode obsessed lead guitarist. IME the real value of modes is not applying them as degrees of a major scale, but knowing how to apply them over certain chords. Lydian for example, can be used over maj7 chords functioning as the I chord, not just the IV. You also shouldn't worry about using all the notes in the mode, but know where to apply the key degrees, in this case the raised 4th, to provide the colour. Locrian would hardly ever be found in modern music in a major key - it's far more likely to be used as the II chord in a minor(major) key in Jazz, where it would be thought of as min7b5 rather than Locrian anyway. What I'm trying to say is that until you have an understanding of the function of a chord (I, IImin, V, etc,), what its chord tones are and how it can be extended, 'knowing' the modes won't really give much benefit to your playing

I think whoever did that has moved beyond the realm of supplying a semi-vintage bass at a more affordable price into out and out fakery, no matter what they say. Luckily they don't really know what they're doing - I may be wrong but I don't think any '60s necks had employee name stamps on them - that was a '70s thing.