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.

They didn't - as I think I mentioned, slab boards were phased out in '61/62, and didn't show up again until 1984. That neck is in no way authentic. I'd guess Warmoth/Allparts with Fender Pure Vintage tuners. Actually, thinking about it, one of my statements is inaccurate- slab boards would have featured on the original Fullerton reissues, so 1982 was when they came back, not 1984. The neck in question is not in any way a Fullerton reissue however.

When he shows the headstock. Clearly a slab.

It's not an original neck in any way. That's a slab fingerboard, not a veneer, which it should be on any Fender from 1962-1983. Those tuners are the Fender branded Schallers that came out in 1976 and are still used in Fender's '70s reissue basses today. The guard is a clear repro. The body, electronics and bridge could be real, you'd need to a closer look inside to verify.

Fender Precision Bass comparison USA vs MIM vs JAPANhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgzD3vcrExE Check out the '77 in this video - by far the most aggressive sound.

Great sound, although the white pickguard would probably date that precision as an early '70s model - could well have been changed of course.

Personally I wouldn't change a thing on it unless it was necessary. Unless you fork out the money for a Spitfire or something the tort pickguard won't look right. Those S series sunburst finishes were quite bright, something like the target burst you used to see earlier, and along with that S series logo a tort guard would just seem out of place - they just look better/more authentic with the black guard. As for changing the pickups, I suppose it depends what you want. If you want something like an EMG or Bartolini because you like their particular sound, then go for, as long as you keep the original. Personally though, I think the late '70s S series basses are some of the best sounding P basses - they have a lot more treble/upper-mid than '60s or early '70s basses. Honestly, if you want a more vintage P, hold out for an early '70s one and sell this one on. You can find refinished ones for not much more than an original late '70s one (Andy Baxter sold a refinised 1970 with original tort guard for less than £2,300 recently).

I think a lot of Sadowsky's success is down to the time and place they were in. New York is full of session/theatre musicians who were mostly using Fenders. No doubt a lot of them had reliability issues, or became too valuable to play out, or didn't have a low B. Sadowsky was able to solve all these issues locally while still giving them an FSO that was familiar/comfortable to them and their employers, so it's no wonder they became successful. That said, there's nothing inherently pioneering/groundbreaking about them - B strings and active electronics had been around for a while when Sadowsky started making his own basses - he just put them into a package that appealed to a lot of people, and which also happened to be a high quality product. I'd guess that a lot of the hype about the Sadowsky preamp is less due to the fact that it is unique and special in some way, and more due to the fact that it was the first active preamp available on a traditional looking/sounding bass.

Wasn't this event being organised by the same guy/team behind Bass Review magazine? The one that has taken people's money for 16 issues and delivered 12 (there's a separate thread on it on this very forum)? I hope that both Bass Day and the magazine were started with the best of intentions, but it looks to me like we're moving into Letts Bass/Darrin Huff/SGD/Dr Bass territory here. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I have to wonder if the cash he raised from Bass Day went towards keeping the magazine afloat. Robbing Peter to pay Paul perhaps. Good luck to all those who are owed money back.

It's far more likely to be a pickguard swap - the ad states there are two sets of holes drilled for two different pickguards - the original probably went bad and it's been replaced with another that didn't quite fit - hence the extra holes and gap at the neck. I may be wrong, but by 1969 Fender's tort was a bit darker - this one is very vibrant/red, it could be from an earlier instrument.

Unfortunately, outside of Spitfire, Avant Guard, Lava Guard, Reptile Guard, you're not going to find anything like that. There is nothing mass produced that looks like that. If you want something off the shelf rather than spending a lot on those aforementioned companies, I honestly think you'd be better off going for red pearl material rather than tort. It won't look right close up but from a distance it'll look good. Something like this attached pictures: