Bassassin

I think "classic" is the term we're looking for rather than "vintage" - for example, look at the nostalgic appreciation on here for the old Westone basses - particularly the Thunder 1 model - a budget starter instrument at the time, but becoming more sought-after because it happened to be a damn good instrument. I think many of us would consider it a "classic" of its era, no matter how modest it might have been. It's probably reasonable to generalise & call anything pre-1980s "vintage", much as the term's used for anything pre 1930s by petrolheads. "Classic" doesn't have the same age connotation to me, and could be applied to any bass that's considered iconic, and representative of a particular era. Jon.

£250 and it'd be competitive. As it is, at that price you could have the pick of vintage Japcrap, or a real one if you drop lucky. At least it's a more realistic looking copy than the similarly priced Indie - which is a piece of junk, to boot. J.

One of these: [url="http://www.bachmusik.com/en/p100205/bach-rb-1r/"]http://www.bachmusik.com/en/p100205/bach-rb-1r/[/url] And for £145, I can think of no compelling reason not to... Just need to have an Ebay blitz of some of the dust-gathering trash I have hanging around first. The Eternal GAS List still includes: Early70s Rick 4001 (FireGlo or MapleGlo, full-width inlays, toaster, checkerboard) Gibson Victory 80s Status, don't care which model [quote name='paul, the' post='5645' date='May 24 2007, 12:17 PM']A '60s/'70s EB-3 copy (long scale, mahogany bodied, wood finish, I don't know if such a bass exists)[/quote] They definitely exist - most were medium-scale but there were full-scale copies too. Keep watching Ebay! [quote name='BlockInlayMan' post='5738' date='May 24 2007, 01:46 PM']I forgot to say a Washburn B20 [/quote] You mean one of these? I had one - wish I'd never sold it. Maybe I should add that - or a Washburn Force 8 - to my GAS list... Jon.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='5355' date='May 23 2007, 08:38 PM']I see the Bass Centre are selling Rick copies now. But at £599 i think i would rather get the real deal.[/quote] £599? For a copy? Joke. Real ones come up at £600ish if you watch Loot & Gumtree & the like. J.

No real difference, I'd say, and to echo what Acidbass said, it's great not to have your clothes & hair stinking of smoke afterwards. Bit of a culture shock when we play over the border - although not for much longer. I still broadly disgree in principle to this level of nanny-stateism, but on a purely selfish level, it's great. Jon.

[quote name='slaphappygarry' post='4567' date='May 22 2007, 07:03 PM']Edinburgh is the same.[/quote] You're so right, Garry. We don't really bother with Edinburgh much any more - we're making more headway organising gig swaps with out-of-town bands, & have just come back from a weekend in Northern Ireland, where we played in Derry & Belfast with an Irish band. We'll be bringing them over to Scotland in July - and not playing in Edinburgh. We've used Myspace for networking with other bands - so far it's got us as far as Prague for gig swaps. You obviously have to be willing to rough it, and use another band's backline, and be prepared to loan yours when they come to your town. Edinburgh's a pretty small town, really, but it has a ridiculous concentration of venues all within spitting distance of each other. Obviously they come & go, but at one point I calculated you could gig every night for a fortnight & not play the same place twice. And that, of course, is the problem. "Local" bands really only appeal to their mates - and they'll get fed up with paying to see you playing the same set pretty damn quickly, considering they're only there in the first place because they know you - not because they think you're any good. Harsh, perhaps, but true. Other bands (with a few notable exceptions) will really only show interest & support if they think they have anything to gain. For 5 years, the singer from my band & me organised live music at a local community festival (the Meadows Festival - you'll know it if you're from around Edinburgh. It was Scotland's longest established community festival, running from 1974 - 2005) and we had bands falling over themselves to try & get to play. We would get in excess of 200 demos - predominantly from local bands - and a constant deluge of phone calls, emails, people showing up at our gigs & the fundraising events we organised, only interested in being one of the 20 bands to play over the weekend - and often being quite hostile & abusive if they didn't. The Meadows was a volunteer-run registered charity, we only got involved in the first place to try & get ourselves a gig. We also organised our own monthly & fortnightly gigs in Edinburgh for nearly a year - again, the idea was to try & get out-of-town bands in for gig swaps, and to try & get some kind of community thing happening with local bands too. We had a few gigs back from bands from outside of Edinburgh - but the local bands would play it & then forget it. So the upshot is that we're pretty disillusioned with the whole "local gig" thing - besides, I far prefer to play to people who haven't heard of us, and have no idea what they're going to get. Far more rewarding. And of course, what this means, is that anyone in a (good) band reading this, who could offer us a gig & would be willing to come & play somewhere like Livingston or Perth (or even Edinburgh - if you must) should stagger over to [url="http://www.myspace.com/maya29band"]http://www.myspace.com/maya29band[/url] - have a listen and then get in touch with Karen, who does all the organising stuff. Jon.

Ask them to price match. Sound Control Edinburgh have done it for me (got about £40 off a multitrack recorder) and have knocked a few quid off several other items, including a 5-string and an SM58 mic, just because I brass-necked it & asked. Definitely ask, take in the URL of the online shop so they can check it. Even if they don't take the full £40 off, they'll likely come down a bit. Jon.

[quote name='simon73' post='4355' date='May 22 2007, 02:08 PM']Its a lovely bass, looks like it has been look after. I would prefer the iiia, but then again I know lots of people who would.[/quote] The only difference is the pickup configuration. 2xP might be interesting. J.

I wondered why it hadn't been mentioned - by [i]anyone[/i].... :ph34r: J.

You Westone fetishists will likely be interested in the Thunder II on the Bay at the mo: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=019&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=290118528587&rd=1&rd=1"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...p;rd=1&rd=1[/url] Jon.

[quote name='Musky' post='4076' date='May 22 2007, 12:31 AM']So do you reckon the bass in that auction might be an El Maya, or maybe another brand? It's kind of a shame that there's no identifying marks on the bass, as it might have added another piece to the jigsaw that is IDing Rickenfakers.[/quote] There's really no sure way of telling, considering how little of it there is. Realistically, this might not even be Japanese - we've now seen Rick copies from Italy, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Korea as well as the land of the rising sun. And it's anyone's guess how many different Japanese factories there were,and how many different models & variations there were over the course of the production of these things. And that's another question, too - copies largely stopped being made for export by the end of the 70s - but they still build them for the domestic market. That said, I'd put money on it being Japanese, and from the mid 70s - it has wavy Grover copy tuners, which usually appear on Matsumoku - built ones (Aria etc) & the body is a sandwich construction, very typical of the era. The neckplate's plain, which I wouldn't associate with Matsumoku. Ant - the only thing I'd say don't bother with, would be those medium-scale Kay things that turn up from time to time. The low-end of the 70s stuff that pops up on the Bay would be Hondo - Korean-made, very obvious ply body, and they generally look cheap & tacky. However, if you got one for a bargain price (say less than £100) it'd be ok. The other common varieties are all broadly similar quality-wise, there's no real advantage to the through-neck ones - in fact they seem more prone to have a suicidally high action you can't adjust. J.

That's one of the Bach copies, from a Czech importer: [url="http://www.bachmusik.com/en/c100082/retro-bassguitar/"]http://www.bachmusik.com/en/c100082/retro-bassguitar/[/url] Spotted these yesterday: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=270122334297&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=017"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=017[/url] A rather ordinary Shaftesbury, and... [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=180120258098&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=008"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=008[/url] A rather not-very-ordinary handmade fretless 4005 copy. Not something you see every day. Or any day, for that matter. Musky - there were some twin truss copies - according to a poster on RickResource, some of the high-end El Maya copies had them. I have no idea if any others did. I think a bolt-neck with twin rods seems a bit odd, though. Jon.

None of the above. No category for ancient JapCrap, for shame! Don't really have a "main" bass, but my CSL custom Jazz probably gets the most use - it feels more "right" than any bass I've played. Jon.

ta for that, much appreciated. J.

[quote name='stewblack' post='2885' date='May 20 2007, 02:40 PM']Anything [url="http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/fyfeholt/aria.htm"]here[/url] that helps?[/quote] Apropos of nothing, the guitarist from my band was in a previous band with Graeme Fyfe. Nice guy & a good player, as well as being a JapCrap geek. The LEBs were from about 85-86, which was about the time Aria transferred production from Matsumoku in Japan (which went on to make Singer sewing machines. And then burned down, in what was presumably an act of shame-motivated [i]Hara-Kiri[/i]) to Korea. The build quality of the Koean Aria Pros was still good, but they're not as sought-after as the Japanese ones. Sharkfinger - does yours say Made In Japan on the neckplate? If so, ask the Aria Pro board at www.matsumoku.org - someone might have some info. I had a look at their catalogue scans but I can't see your bass. Jon.

Did they quote you for the actual shipping cost? I'm seriously GASing after the Rick 4004 copy they have... Jon.

[quote name='Mrs Tinman' post='136' date='May 17 2007, 01:47 AM']Ummmm, Bassassin, are you sure those pics are all of you, or are you in fact triplets with different hairstyles so people can tell you apart? There is something [i]very[/i] wrong with the middle triplet, he appears to be wielding some kind of ghastly orange plastic thing, it clashes dreadfully with the lovely bilious green logo on his T-shirt [/quote] Fortunately my mother had the decency to only inflict one of me upon the world - but a regrettable incident involving a centrifugal chamber, a turnip and an agitated dwarf left my head with an embarassing tendency to spontaneously mutate. But in a very strange way, it was somehow worth it. I know what you mean bout the orange plastic thing. I was [i]so[/i] upset it wasn't available in pink. Geek bonus: Can anybody identify the lovely bilious green logo on the T-shirt? A clue: He's saying "Frrrggg rrrrfff yrrrrr crrrnnndddzz". J.

[quote name='Mrs Tinman' post='134' date='May 17 2007, 01:38 AM']Phwoar! :wub: :wub: :wub: *Mrs Tinman goes for a lie down to recover* [/quote] Funny you should say that - directly after quaffing those two litres of Hofbrau, I felt the need to [s]pass out[/s], I mean lie down. J.

The horror, the horror: Geek fact- all Ibanez basses. FAO Terri Tinman - gay orange plastic bass, that wrong enough for you? As requested by the aforementioned Ms Tinman: Sweet dreams! Jon.