Bassassin

There are Chinese copies of these - there's at least one owner on the Rickenfakers FB group. I don't think the one in the pic's a knockoff though, it doesn't have the generic hardware & pickups a copy would come with.

Temu Special Edition. Pretty sure the Cats Protection League will have no idea it's not genuine.

Fair point. But it's a quality defret job, if it's not factory.

Gold or red pearl for me. Bit sick of tort.

B-Bass lined fretless 6? I had no idea such a creature existed! That has two more strings that I've ever found strictly necessary & 24 fewer frets than I would normally favour - but even I'm borderline tempted! That's (literally) a lot of bass for not all that much money. Those Strat knobs would have to go, though.

Never had one but always thought it was a good-looking bass - they used to come up quite regularly but haven't seen one for ages. Crafter as a brand's pretty decent, a guitarist mate has a Crafter acoustic, which plays & sounds way better than the price tag suggests Just had a quick look & there are a couple of CX100s going for £135 & £115 respectively. If this one's the same ball park - go for it!

I think if I wanted a pointyhead 80s hair-metal bass, I'd find a real pointyhead 80s hair-metal bass. It wouldn't be £1400, it would almost certainly be MIJ, not Indonesian, and it would probably have one of those amazing multicoloured crackle finishes. That said, I didn't want one back when they were current & I certainly don't want one now. Not sure who the target market for stuff like this is in 2025, tbh.

Aside from my first gigging band when I was 19 - which already had a full set of original songs written by the guitarist - I've been main composer or co-composer in every original band or recording project I've been involved in. I suppose I'm reasonably prolific & have for the most part put bands together, rather than joining them. I've always been open to other people getting involved with writing - but maybe for some musicians it's just easier not to!

For fear of it getting a bit specifically political (but not in a partisan way), them's the consequences of a polarising system, & the New Bosses being essentially the same as the Old Bosses. Fwiw I'd contend the Guardian hates Corbyn & whatever his new party's called (and probably the new ultra-left Greens) just as much, if not more than they hate Reform.

Rick & Stick? 😲 You are Nick Beggs & I claim my £5!

Quite. I tend not to read or contribute to threads I find uninteresting, or downright boring.

"Virtue signalling"?

Just for the record, assuming I finish this before the inevitable lock - no. Racists, homophobes, transphobes & hateful, bin-burning bigots of any faction can do one. Not in my band, not in my life, if I can possibly help it.

It's a sad reality that every time there's an excited-sounding thread title naming a bass brand I'm unfamiliar with, I have a little bet with myself it'll be yet another bloody fake Precision. I probably owe myself around 20 grand by now. Although it'd be 25 if I occasionally took a punt on it being a 15-string singlecut coffee-table.

A quick Google image search suggests it's a Sandberg Bullet Booster. Which is a really rubbish name for a nice-looking bass, in my (admttedly valueless) opinion. https://bassbros.co.uk/sold-basses/2012-sandberg-bullet-booster-fretless/ There are people on here who know a lot more about Sandbergs than me, with luck one wil be along soon.

@casapete beat me to it - Fujigen (the factory which made it) 2407, branded Antoria for UK distributor J.T. Coppock & Sons. We had one turn up a couple of years back & I contributed what little I knew back then. There's a serial number on the bass neckplate - can't quite see it but the second 2 digits are the year, likely '76 or later.

Hey Steve, that mystery was solved upthread. The bass is a 70s Japanese copy, made by a factory called Chushin Gakki, and it pre-dates both the Chinese guitar industry & the advent of high-quality Korean-made instruments. Here's the translation:

Thanks - it will. It'll take about 4 months to work it out, though...

I look at the pics every month in the hope of inspiration, but... My creative process (if you can call it that) is incredibly unspontaneous, slow & laborious, ideas can take months to develop & just as long to record satisfactorily. It's very rare that any composition is 5 minutes or less, and although I dislike them, can't play them & obviously have never used them - unfortunately I can't guarantee no bagpipes. So maybe next month...

Three connected songs currently in progress, in varying stages of completion/disrepair. Today, we are mostly trying to work out what the hell the guitar's meant to be doing during the verses of Song #2, which may or may not be called Hourglass, or Seventh Season, or something we've not yet thought of. I will be consulting the Parasaurolophus Of Prog (currently working out a synth line for the instrumental intro) for advice but I'm pretty sure he'll tell me it's going to need a guide vocal before everything falls into place. Which is tricky as Lovely Singer has a horrid cold and is croaking more than talking. Never mind singing. The real mess is, as ever, in my head.

This is sort of my specialist nerd subject. Basically, it's quite a collectable bass - Japanese instruments from the 70s & 80s are sought after, yours dates from between 1984 & 1987 and was made by one of Japan's most respeted factories, Fujigen Gakki. Despite Squier being a budget brand, it's a very high quality bass. The fact you've had it since '95 and haven't played it means it's almost certainly in original condition & that's important in vintage instruments - it's 40-ish years old so that's what the market considers it to be. Condition looks pretty good, with a few cosmetic knocks & chips, and it probably doesn't have a great deal of play wear. I did a search to see if I could find any examples for sale or sold - there weren't many but what was interesting was that those that did appear (a couple were in Japan) seemed to be 32" scale. That's not a standard scale length for a Precision bass, which is typically a standard 34" scale. The scale length is the open-string distance between the fixed points (bridge & nut) at either end - it would be useful to know which yours is, as a 32" is uncommon & may make it more interesting to purchasers. Do bear in mind that if you hang around here, you may end up remembering just how cool the bass is as an instrument, & decide to start playing again. If you do - that's a pretty damn good bass you've got there. Might be a shame to flog it. 😎

Cool - that's why I didn't speculate about value.

Weird. There was a thread in Bass Guitars about this (which I assume was posted by the seller), looking for info & advice about the bass. I do know a little about MIJ Squiers so I contributed, but the thread seems to have vanished now. Hope the seller didn't accept £43 for it...

Bands that make me question why I ever thought I could write music No. 537548684748t57475 (not really) Lowen, a London band fronted by the daughter of Iranian refugees, who describe themselves as 'crushing progressive doom steeped in the history of the ancient middle-east and the empty vistas of space'. My description - the most gloriously apocalyptic, emotive, powerful, ethereal & downright beautiful music I have heard in a very long time.