Bassassin

Interesting and very strange-looking, certainly. But £850 for what is by any measure cheapo communist-era East German tat? Contender for the most spectacularly ambitious overpricing yet seen on Ebay, surely!

Don't have any nagging GAS at all really - but I just know something will turn up & I'll end up pulling the trigger. If I have any New Year Resolutions, one will have to be to sell more basses than I buy next year!

They are, yes.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1482540158' post='3201413'] Doing a bit of googling, it looks like there was some legal interaction between Gibson and JHS/Vintage last year over their SG copies. I haven't waded through the details of it all, and it doesn't look like Gibson actually won, but I can see how that might encourage smaller companies to reconsider whether doing Gibson copies was really worth the bother. [/quote] That's a fair point - thinking aout it, many of the "post-lawsuit" era MIJ LP derivatives tweaked the body styling, thinking about the likes of the Aria Pro PE series and Ibanez Performers. I think SGs are a bit more of a niche design than LPs, so the prospect of Gibson getting shirty might lead manufacturers to just drop those models, rather than have the hassle.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1482536306' post='3201389'] Have you ever considered building a body to take either neck to give a fretted or fretless neck? [/quote] No - I think it would be a shame to cannibalise a unique instrument like this - besides the fretless half's perfectly easy to play - all the time you're sitting down!

I was never a huge fan tbh, but Quo were the first "big" band I ever saw, with a bunch of my longhair school mates, at Wembley in 1980-ish. Also - and probably more importantly - stuff like Down Down & Paper Plane were the first songs I ever played outside of my bedroom, when I started jamming with other musicians. Sad day. RIP.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1482515165' post='3201259'] I recall they had some nice looking SG guitars a couple of years ago, but they're not doing them any more. Did Gibson have a word with them? I've noticed that several brands of SG and Les Paul copies have moved to slightly tweaked outlines in the past year or two, which makes me wonder if Henry J has borrowed a leaf from the John Hall playbook... [/quote] I would have thought it was way too late for that. Gibson designs have been freely copied for so long that if it ever was a registered trademark (which I doubt) it would have long since slipped into the public domain. The whole deal with so-called "lawsuit" copies in the 70s revolved around Gibson's then parent company challenging the use of the "open book" headstock - and nothing else, which suggests they never claimed ownership of the body designs anyway. They didn't get far challenging PRS over their singlecut, if I recall.

There's a guy on the Rickenfakers FB page who does very good custom trcs with any design or text you want. Sure he'd happily do a Shafty one. Nice bass btw, these were very good quality.

Wasn't the T-Bird a custom order through A. N.Other forum? They got a certain number of member to commit to a purchase so Bach got them built, as far as I remember. I'd be very confident Bachs aren't made in the Czech Republic but from what I've read the quality is very good indeed, considering the price. Their range isn't quite as exotic as it used to be, but glad they still do the RB - one of the few modern-day Fakers I have GAS for, for the reasons Meddle states.

Either ply or veneered butcher-block - I've seen both types on Columbuses. I did have a Cimar Jazz 10 or so years ago (which is one reason I know this isn't one!) and it was ply. [sharedmedia=core:attachments:74442]

I have this: [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Gordy%20Blueshift%20DoubleNeck/gordy02_zps4dzlqpiz.jpg.html"][/url] [url="http://s1276.photobucket.com/user/LanterneRouge/media/Gordy%20Blueshift%20DoubleNeck/gordy01_zpszuvp8til.jpg.html"][/url] Which is a Gordy Blueshift Custom, from 1985, bit more info [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/266670-twin-necks/page__view__findpost__p__2831705"]here[/url]. The band I was in at the time is on indefinite hiatus, so in a sense it's surplus to requirements now (if it was ever needed, really!) - but the fretless neck's the nicest I've played, and the bass is a genuine one-off. Or should that be "two-off"?

Oh right, it's this one again. It's worth considering that the descriptions attached to items listed on Ebay might occasionally turn out to be a pack of lies.

99.9% it was a Columbus before it was refinished & had its logo sanded off. Columbus was an incredibly common UK brand but Cimar is very uncommon. Seller seems to be making stuff up in order to pretend it's got an Ibanez connection. Which it hasn't and wouldn't really, even if it was a Cimar. Which it's not.

Very nice - some lovely atmospheric, melodic playing there. Thankfully free of any of the frenetic clattering or anaemic blooping that typifies the average bass solo!

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1482262034' post='3199076'] I suppose it's partly my fault as I was only an occasional buyer of 'Prog' magazine [/quote] Likewise. Plus I stopped buying it altogether after they got in touch with my band & offered us a slot on the cover CD. Only after we excitedly clamoured "yes please!" did they mention the £1000 it would cost. Unsurprisingly, we declined and I don't feel guilty about that - but it's a damn shame this has happened.

I doubt you'll find a more miserable song than this: [media]http://youtu.be/SzaflC73iTk[/media] Even more miserable these days than when Peter Steele wrote it, too. I guess it's what he would have wanted.

Very nice, always liked these. Makes me wonder about prices of Yamahas from that era & actual differences in the model range. I had a BB400S which, apart from being fretless, lacking a scratchplate and being a few years later (83, I think it was) looked pretty much identical, build & components-wise. These sell for about £150 - £180, on a good day & don't appear to be much less scarce. Wonder why there's such a massive difference in value?

[quote name='Leonard Smalls' timestamp='1481466282' post='3192454'] I feel that those who shout loudly about how crap vinyl has always sounded have only ever heard a 20s hand-cranked gramophone with hawthorn needle and large horn, or at best a Dansette! Once you've experienced a really good vinyl system you'll know what all the fuss is about... Now I'm off to oil my beard and sculpt my man-bun. [/quote] In fairness I'm sure an eye-wateringly expensive audiophile setup playing high-end pressings would doubtless sound immeasurably better than the cheapo Amstrad separates system I deafened myself with Motorhead on when I was 18. But the bottom line is, no matter how superlative your system might be, you are listening to the sound of a pin being dragged along a lumpy plastic trench. There's only so much you can do. Now you mind how you go on that fixie. Not good for the knees.

Maybe, but I suspect it'll just end up hung on some Shoreditch hipster's wall.

[quote name='jimdolore' timestamp='1481310052' post='3191468'] I know this is an older post, but I just stumbled upon this. I still have my first bass, which I bought in 1991 and it's a white Fenix by Young Chang Jazz Bass. I just checked the serial number and it is E737650! Who knows how long it had been sitting at the store before I bought it new, but I'm guessing it was made in '90 or '91. [/quote] Dating these things is a bit unclear. According to some sources the serials are the same as MIK Squiers that were made in the Young-Chang factory. YC apparently lost the Squier contract because they were selling identical guitars off the same production runs under the Fenix brand. Doubt Fender were that keen on the name, either.

It's a lovely-looking bass and that's woodgrain, not a blemish or imperfection. I really like that finish, btw.

Agree 100% with BRX's post. Had a massive vinyl collection as a yoof (the alternative was cassette) but when I finally got a CD player & decent system in the mid 80s it was a revelation. I did miss the 12" sleeve artwork & presentation, and coloured vinyl was fun, perhaps for about an hour or so in 1979 - but I'm not a big wearer of rose-tinted specs. Vinyl was always crude & crap - now it's trendy hipster crap.

Performance-enhancing drugs?

That Jazz looks like a bitsa made using a [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Half-Paddle-Maple-Rose-Fretless-4-string-Bass-Guitar-Neck-NK26-/131919547486"]blank headstock neck[/url] & that's presumably the best the builder could manage. Now this, on the other hand, is what you call a fugly headstock: And this isn't far behind:

Bloody hell. Someone dragged that piece of scrap out of the cut & flogged it for £160. And I though[i] I[/i] was a gyppo...