Burns-bass

Maybe I’ll treat myself when work picks up. 
 

I’ve got to say, Geoff does some really incredible content. 

This isn’t cheap but might be of interest…

https://courses.discoverdoublebass.com/p/chris-wood-masterclass

(Still one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to)

My kid once hit my Bryant double bass with a toy car and took a chunk out of it.

It was my fault. 

Just remembered we had a wonderful chat when he bought my Stentor bass from me. Good half an hour discussing bass and life. Such sad news. 

Sad times and my thoughts are with the family.

Oh, and the knobs aren’t original, the screws on the plate are changed as were all the pickup screws and I had the jack socket replaced. 

If people wonder why I’m skeptical, I’ll use an example. This is an old one of mine. It was built by Steve at Electric Ladyland in Bristol who sold it for £1000 in 2001.

There’s a route under the bridge that’s visible (and was previously covered by a Badass bridge). The neck and body were joined in his shop, the electrics are all rewired and the pickup cavities enlarged. The pickguard was previously an original 70s one, but has been swapped again.

I sold this for £900 in 2005 and told the buyer all of this. It’s now £2600 with only a few of these things mentioned.
 

https://www.vintagerareandretro.co.uk/store/1974-Fender-Jazz-Bass-4-Bolt-p553279599

43 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

The vintage synth market is over-priced and the actual instruments are failing because they were never designed to last this long. Custom ICs that were in a lot of synths are getting harder and harder to source. Working vintage synths have so many replaced parts that you might as well have bought a Behringer re-creation.

 

As someone who owned a lot of these synths when they were new, I really can't see the attraction. None of the synths I owned (some are now extremely desirable for reasons that totally escape me) were irreplaceable from a sonic PoV. Each time I "upgraded" to something "better", I never bothered about trying to recreate the sounds of the old synth I had just sold. I created new ones with my new synth that worked equally well for the songs we were playing.

Same as most vintage Fenders. The “experts” either ignore changes or are ignorant about them. Charlie Chandler is selling a 65 jazz with the wrong bridge, for example. I’ve seen two of my old basses selling at the moment with changes I told the buyer about but the dealer has either missed or ignored to mention.

4 minutes ago, Geek99 said:

Because other people do. They continue to buy and so drive the price up and arguably feed the perceived desirability. I see only antique value myself. 

It’s all good. I think these are vanity purchases by asset rich boomers that will hold much less value for future generations. I have one (bought when cheap) and I love it, but most of these sit on stands and do nowt. 
 

My gran used to collect vintage pottery that was hugely valuable at the time and now is pretty much worthless and fashions have changed. 
 

If I were to invest in stuff for a return I’d be buying vintage synths and electronic music stuff. 

1 minute ago, tegs07 said:

Probably because the likes of you and me don’t have 20K sat gathering dust in a bank account or bedside cabinet knowing that it’s losing purchasing power every month it sits there.

 

Vintage investments and crypto may just collapse in value. Cash is definitely doing so.

I could afford one (if I didn’t invest in a pension) but it’s an illiquid and very fragile asset class. Guess wine or whisky is worse, but they’re in the same ballpark.

2 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

I can’t see them going down any time soon myself, the big jump I noticed has been over the last 3 years or so and I think the more desirable all original ones seem to be selling well in Europe, collectors maybe, I don’t know, 

theres 2 I’d like at the moment , a mint 68P at Walt Grace Vintage but crazy price, and a 64 jazz at ATB but at 20k , no thanks 

You (like me) have the capital to pay for one but you won’t as you don’t see the value - yet you believe it’ll continue to rise? Not sure how that works.

14 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Just my own point of view, with nothing other than instinct to support it:

 

More vintage instruments appearing on the market could just be down to the grim reaper coming to claim the ageing owners and their estate divesting the asset. All the time notable players are picking them up and telling the community how great they are (the basses, not the artist), the market will continue.

What’s interesting is that culture moves on so quickly. We revere a period of culture from 1960 - 1976 (approx) as somehow when the worlds of music and musical instrument mass manufacture peaked. Neither is true of course, as there’s no real objective criteria On which to do so. Cultural gatekeepers continue to tell us this is the case and it’ll prop up the market until these people are gone and there’s a critical reappraisal. 

On 12/03/2024 at 07:56, tegs07 said:

The price of vintage instruments has diverged hugely from the earning power of your average person. Logically it should correct but the economic system appears to have also diverted from all logic over the last few decades. Instead of big recessions we have seen epic borrowing at unprecedented levels in peacetime. Whilst most of us are getting poorer for every £1 we owe someone else has that £1 plus interest. There is a lot of money sloshing around still looking for assets and investments.

 

Central banks and governments are just itching to rinse and repeat so I would not bet on prices going down. They might if a recession is allowed to let rip, but until then I will look at a vintage Fender bass priced at £10K plus and think that’s crazy in the same way I look at a 500K+ average home in a leafy suburb and think that’s crazy but they still appear to attract buyers.

I can understand banks wanting to prop up the housing market, but I can’t imagine the price of Fenders is on their list. (I see air fryers are no longer considered an essential commodity either.)

My view is that we’re at dangerous bubble territory and you can see the demand is dropping. I’ve never seen so many up for sale in the last 20 years which suggests either they’ve discovered a rare cache of them, if collectors are divesting themselves if these assets when the going is good.

The old 59 burst is a fair bellweather as arguably the most desirable guitar in the world. You’d almost never see one for sale but in the last year there have been about 7 in the UK alone. That’s a warning sign.

Basses are less desirable than guitars so the money is less - and so is the risk - but at the top end you could see quite significant drops to levels of a few years ago.

Just now, peteb said:

 

I wouldn't go that far. But, what they are, is vastly more consistent. I've owned a great 70s Precision and played several really nice ones, but I've also owned and played really bad 70s Fenders. 

 

It's not a discussion we need to have here and I shouldn't have raised it. Opinions vary, what I like others may not, etc.

My original point was that there are reasonably priced older Fenders out there if you're happy to wait and search. I just hope this one goes to someone who wants it not an online dealer. 

1 minute ago, ossyrocks said:

 

I have a 1987 MIJ Fender PB-62 RI which I bought from Bass Bros. It was immaculate and only £850 I think. The neck is almost identical to my '73 P bass B neck, lovely neck.

That is an excellent price. 

I am a fan of BassBros.

7 minutes ago, soulstar89 said:

what! what store?
 

I have a folder bookmarked with sites but it’s always Bassbros with the lowest price. 
 

the fender pb-70 mij in 90’s goes for around that price. Even these are so hard to find. 

It was on Gumtree. It's not a bad price. 

If you factor in the cost of a setup, new strings and postage Bass Bros would do then £1500 not a bad price. 

Possibly bought by a flipper (there's a notorious one in Bristol who spends his life on Gumtree). If it were my money, I'd buy a recent US Precision. These are infinitely better instruments (but I appreciate that's not the context here).

There was a 77 Precision in Bristol for £1500 this weekend with a Marshall amp. I think you can still get reasonably priced stuff if you’re patient. 

4 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Hopefully the tip isn’t lodged in your MacBook or you could experience some challenges removing it.

I just asked a friend at work and he has had the tip break in a MacBook. To retrieve it, he used the ink tube from a Bic pen (with the ink out and cleaned. After sliding it into the slot and applying a tiny bit of pressure it came out. 
 

Obviously o can’t be held responsible for damage but it sounds like a good tip to me.

Hopefully the tip isn’t lodged in your MacBook or you could experience some challenges removing it.

I reckon it's going to be about 3 months time until you're looking to buy a real DB.

41 minutes ago, JPJ said:

I use reverb on my NS EUB but you need a reverb with an eq as you really need to try to emulate the ‘abbey road’ technique of cutting the hi’s and lo’s on the reverb channel.

Excellent point.

It's also worth considering a reverb pedal to try and mimic the acoustic resonance of a DB. It's not foolproof, but used judiciously can add some lovely character to an EUB.

Just looks absolutely amazing,

19 hours ago, SurroundedByManatees said:

Personally I would enlarge the holes in the control plate a little to accommodate the new pots. Or get a replacement control plate that would fit the bill. There should be enough around I think.

This. You won’t devalue the bass.

Please take me away…