Bassassin

Sort of looks like a Soviet era manufacturer's take on angular 80s styling.

Kinda like it.

Aria Pro II CSB, not sure what model, probably 300 or 380.

On 20/09/2022 at 22:16, AndyTravis said:

Fender aren't new to acrylic - they made this (designed by Roger Rossmeisl) for Carl Wilson in 1972. Would love to see a bass version!

https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/lot-445324.aspx

Awesome - I do love a see-through bass, can't wait to see the finished article.

I put together a cheapo acrylic P a few years back, picked up the body from an Axl-branded bass for a few quid & a maple/blocks neck:

Any excuse...

The Ars Volta

Cünting Crows

Lice Cooper

Astodon

System Of A Don

Lipknot

Anel Witch

You are MDP and I claim my £5.

That's a better-looking bass than the real thing - more Dolphin-influenced than a straight copy.

Shame they put the fakey logo & inlays on it.

I read the name of the P copy as 'Pacemaker'. Slightly disappointed when I re-read it correctly.

Also disappointed I don't need a P or J at the moment, these look good for the money.

Pricing here is predicated on the notion of older = better, which given that they're both Fujigen basses, is nonsense. And FWIW an MIJ 'E' serial isn't specific, it's 85-87, if you want to split hairs.

My opinion - maple looks better, lighter is always better, and the £75 saving buys you a black/white/black pickguard and cream pickup covers to transform the aesthetics from generic P bass to ultimate rock monster P bass. Which you should definitely do.

4 hours ago, lowregisterhead said:

 Whaddayamean? Henry Thomas used one on Rock School on the telly in the 80's! 🙂

And all of us ignorant little brand-snob scrotes went - "What??? Westone are cheap rubbish!"

Looks like there are 5 members pretty close to me, one of whom appears to be literally around the corner from where I lived a few years ago.

So now I know where they are, I can pop round and rob them. Which may, in the broader scheme of things, prove to be something of a flaw in the concept.

2 minutes ago, Frank Blank said:

Always worth running it past @Bassassin...

Already on it, & I'm pretty sure it's not any of the Fernandes or Kawai Alembic clones. Looks a bit hand-made & (dare I say it) a tad crude to be anything coming out of Japan in the '80s. Fernandes catalogue here, check p. 18:

https://www.fernandes.co.jp/fer_wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1981_vol1.pdf

And conveniently, a BCer is selling a Kawai version:

I'd be inclined to think it's a luthier-made one off, and possibly (although people on here will know better than me) a very early Jaydee.

There's very little info around about the '00s SB basses. Yours appears to be some sort of halfway thing between an SB303 (which looks to be much the same apart from having big SB-Elite/SB-R type inlays) and an SB40, which has a different bridge & control layout.

The whole range is probably in a catalogue somewhere but I can't find anything later than mid '90s, which is too early for these.

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

Sorry Jon, but I'm still struggling to get past the ... erm ... well, it's where a headstock would normally be. 😂

 

For (originally) a £99 bass the rest of it looks seriously fit for purpose, mind.

 

Can't please everyone! In fairness it's a necessary compromise (IMO, anyway) because the sticky-outy tuners mean I won't be able to park the bass in a corner or on a rack/stand, so it's gonna have to hang by the neck. Possibly until dead. If not for that, the headstump would've been a lot more minimal & just big enough to accomodate the string retainer block.

Worth keeping pics of this just in case you need an image to demonstrate the concept of 'just because you can, it doesn't mean you should'.

Been a while since I posted a bass so it may have changed, but the big problem with ParcelFarce was that they were always delighted to upsell you insurance for the value of the contents, while carefully omitting to mention that PF insurance did not cover musical instruments.

2 hours ago, Pea Turgh said:

That do be nice.  Are you doing the same to the front of the body?

The front's properly lacquered - thick, gloss poly over a flamed veneer. Decided to leave it, but seeing how nice the back's ended up looking, I'm not sure that was the right choice. I doubt I could have removed the poly without destroying the veneer though.

A month since my last update, and progress has been, let's say - incremental.

After applying a couple more coats, the plan was to give it a week or so to let the layers of Danish Oil harden off, after which a final (or so I thought!) light sand to smooth it, before one last thin coat of oil, which should have resulted in the expected lustrous, satiny sheen I've achieved from this process before.

The hardening phase was rudely extended by (having successfully dodged it for 2 & a half years), me finally being afflicted with The 'Rona, which was thoroughly horrid. So that basically added another week, and once I'd recovered sufficiently to be able to perform basic manual tasks (whilst still being a brain-fogged snot factory), it got a gentle and thorough wire-wooling, then that last coat of oil.

To my surprise (and mild dismay, considering how long this was taking) the finish on the body wings set to a very varnish-y looking bright gloss, quite different to the expected satin finish on the neck & centre sections. The oil itself was also slightly gummy to the touch, not cured properly hard.

However, after various pissings-around & experimenting, I found that, quite counter-intuitively, T-Cutting the shiny bits seemed to remove the top layer & restore the expected satin finish, and also seemed to encourage the stuff to harden off properly. So after a lot of buffing, coughing, sneezing and sniffing, this is where we are:

And I think that's a finished finish, apart from removing some little bits of Danish Oil residue from the top & fretboard edges. Then just a couple of little aesthetic jobs to do, and I should be able to start welding & nailing all the bits back on.

Inclined to agree the missing word was probably Maya, simply because they often used that same 'Electric Bass' suffux & most other Japanese brands didn't.

However! The bass is the same thing as numerous others made in the mid/late 70s by Chushin Gakki, and sold with a plethora of rebrands. Maya, Grant/Grantson, Columbus, Cimar, CMI, Avon & a whole bunch of others I can't currently prise out of my post-Covid brain-fog. Thinking about it, CMI sometimes used that 'Electric Bass' suffix.

Having found that pic, I'm leaning towards it originally being a CMI.

Should be a decent bass, body will probably be butcher-block or ply - the big oversprays on the contours indicate it's not solid timber. That bridge, as others have said, is a German-made Schaller 3D - which would cost you about £80 to buy new. Steal for £29, then.

1 hour ago, danweb22 said:

One on Reverb at the mo!

 

 

 

At about 3x what I was going to pay. Excluding postage. That one's getting into leccy bill type money.

No recent ones but I have been kicking myself for the last 2 & a half years. I've always had GAS for a through-neck 2xP Precision type. If it was vintage MIJ and had a Jazz-width neck, then it would be perfect. Essentially, one of the 2-pickup variants here:

Rarer than a Brexit benefit, never marketed outside Japan - in fact something I'd never seen outside of a catalogue.

Came within a fag-paper of buying one from @Beedster, who IIRC imported it from Japan but didn't get on with the narrow neck. Bailed at the last moment because... because... I DON'T KNOW WHY!!!

Didn't even save any pics of it. Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger.

I did this in October 2013, according to the file info:

W&T obvioulsy trawling BC for inspiration!

While that's obviously a cheap Jazz copy that someone's hacked around and slapped some Dulux on, the rest of this guy's listings (and there are a few!) appear to be ambitious-but-rubbish bitsas with home-made bodies, probably Chinese necks & random, sometimes quite decent quality components. A lot of looks-OK-from-a-distance finishes that make your skin crawl at close quarters, and it looks like he's been doing this a lot, and for a while. This is maybe what MDP aspires to.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/graeme7760/m.html

His sold items consist of a pickup.

53 minutes ago, neepheid said:

Where is all this guilt coming from?

Only guilt I have is that I'm not gigging these days, so the FreakBass Circus doesn't get out to play!

4 minutes ago, msb said:

Sweet jumping Jesus! You’ve got the same pair, and neither is common.

Took me a while! Wanted a Unicorn since the first time I saw one, in 1984 - waaay too much for me to afford back then but I finally got this one from a member on here about 18 months ago! Looks great from a distance but it's had a refinish & needs a bit of fret work. I always fancied a pink one...

The SBV500 came from here too, maybe 15 or so years ago - one particular member actually had a collection, not sure how many but for some reason he decided to try & collect every colour & variation - and there are a lot! He ended up with some duplicates, one of which I kindly relieved him of. Calling it a 'Jazz on steroids' is right on the nail, despite looking like a 60s surf bass it's a proper growly rock monster.

You probably already know this, but Riverhead 'borrowed' the Unicorn body shape from the early 70s Burns Flyte.