CameronJ

I totally agree with you in principle, but at the end of the day it’s still Roger’s name on the headstock and the consumer will still associate these basses with him. He can’t not intervene personally. Doing so at least tells us he has a vested interest in these new basses holding up to his standards. It makes more sense from a PR standpoint for Roger to publicly get involved than if it were a Warwick representative.

Glad I’m not the only one!

Same to you buddy!

That’s actually a BTB1606 - https://www.andertons.co.uk/bass-dept/bass-guitars/modern-bass-guitars/ibanez-btb1606-dtf-6-string-bass-in-deep-twilight-flat It’s my favourite of the recent BTB models simply because of the finish. It’s almost identical to the one he used last night on the Hootenanny, but the 1606 has Nordstrand pickups whereas the 1906 from last night has Aguilars.

A Lakland Skyline Darryl Jones (DJ4 or DJ5 depending on how many strings you want) is a smaller, slightly reshaped Jazz style and can regularly be found used for under £1000

@chris_b 100% agree with you.

This. The Cabronita is a cool bass for sure, but you’ll get a way broader palette of tones out of the Jazz. Also, when you do eventually join a band and find yourself needing to transpose songs for whatever reason (into a more comfortable key for the vocalist, for example) you’ll find the 5th string to be a life saver.

Nice work, @ltgobis. Though I suspect the average person wouldn’t have the parts or knowledge to perform that fix themselves. I certainly wouldn’t!

+2

I should add that I left the arms in the box so I can play bass unhindered

I’ve just picked up and assembled the “Markus” chair from IKEA, as recommended in this thread. What a massive upgrade over my previous chair! It’s really comfy with a thick padded seat, nice tall back rest and a good range of adjustment. £150 well spent I’d say. If it suddenly falls apart I’ll edit my post

+1 on both counts. Took the recommendations right out of my mouth! For what it’s worth, the Elixirs will hold their tone far longer than the D’Addarios due to being coated, but they are of course more expensive as a result. Potentially worth it though if you’d rather spend less time changing strings.

This. And to the untrained eye of an audience member, the visible part of the clip could easily be mistaken for another tuning peg.

All of the above suggestions are a million times better than the stock square jazz pickup Fender have been using!!

Big upgrade, then. Thanks for clarifying!

I do wonder why Fender have insisted on using a full sized Jazz pickup on some of their Mustangs. It just looks out of place. You’d think they might try to be a little bit clever and try something like a single coil Precision pup at the bridge. I reckon it would look pretty badass! Certainly more likely to fit the aesthetic of a Mustang, in my head at least. Anyone fancy throwing a little photoshop mock-up together?

Ooh. What improvement does this give you over the stock bridge?

Yeah there are definitely lines where bouncing between the open string and fretted notes on the same string just makes sense! In those scenarios I’ll begrudgingly concede defeat and use the open notes, usually after spending some time attempting to do it using fretted notes only and failing miserably

When’s your first gig? Just so I can be sure to stock up on Imodium in advance

Funnily, I was never taught this (I’m 99% self-taught) but I always avoid open strings if possible. Unless using open strings makes playing the line significantly easier than fretting everything...but that’s not very often.

I play 5ers pretty much exclusively as, for me and the music I play, it is an absolute necessity. I listen to a lot of Neo-Soul/R&B etc which frequently utilises notes below an E, plus I play covers with friends that often need transposing down from the original key to be comfortable for whoever’s singing. While the guitarist does mental maths for however long it takes to transpose the chord structure, I can simply shift the whole line down by however many frets and quickly get back to the enjoyable part of actually playing music. With this in mind, a 5 string isn’t just a “want” for me. It’s a necessary tool.