Bassislife16

Location?

Is this still available?

Autoglass repair, Autoglass replace...

Long time follower of SBL here, I had a chat with Scott over Instagram about him putting his Moolon neck on his Fender CS body and the reasoning why, if he liked it etc. 

In my honest opinion, it seemed he had attitude behind his very short replies, sort of “you don’t deserve the time it takes to type this” attitude. “lol”

Maybe it’s just me but all the YouTube stuff etc is all smiles and nicey nicey for the camera but to a small time player like me, he seemed very egotistical and abit up himself.

I never considered joining SBL because it always seemed abit of a con to me, although followed him on Instagram and Youtube, but now I unsubbed etc. 

I mean, sod $147, I wouldn’t pay £20 for 30 minutes of talking and 10 minutes of actual lesson.....plenty of other fantastic teachers around on YouTube and other platforms that teach for free, or there’s also the step above like Janek Gwizdala available for 1-1 Skype lessons etc.

I followed SBL for a good few years, though I too was a victim of the many emails and after a while, got sick of the persistent “GIVE US YOUR MONEY!!”

So thusly, unsubscribed.

10 hours ago, karlfer said:

Sadly nothing of the Warwick persuasion 

It’s a right looker too, I don’t know if it’s just me but the the double P Warwick’s seem to be getting rarer and rarer 

1 hour ago, karlfer said:

Oh dear God, party in my pants ❤️

Blair is open to trades Karl! Seen you’ve got a nice collection yourself too!

This bass is gorgeous! Sounds amazing too in Blair’s hands. Anyone who grabs this one will be very happy !

8 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

@TimAl could do one which looks like carbon fibre. It won’t be anywhere near as expensive as CF and then if you don’t like it, you’ve not wasted vast amounts of cash?

As long as it’s not a plastic pickguard with vinyl wrap bound to peel off it I reckon that’d be brill

Ok, so I’ve been pondering on this idea for the last 2 days, So I have a Sadowsky NYC Satin Deluxe 4, with a Mint green/off white pickguard which is my beloved. 

Obviously Sadowsky have their own unique pickguard shape so retrofitting & sourcing some form of Fender replacement is a no no.

Sadowsky pickguards are are insanely expensive and hard to come by, not to mention expensive to import, I’m not a fan of the whole carbon wrap/vinyl idea but  I’ve been mulling over the idea of a carbon fibre pickguard? Was wondering if anyone knows where/who could make me one and what sort of price I’d be looking at roughly? Local to Derbyshire if possible? 

Alot to ask ask I know! 

That’s a corker! Don’t suppose you’re travelling south of Scotland anytime soon?

4 hours ago, goblin said:

It's all a matter of opinion I guess... I know which one I prefer

It’s lovely man. Welcome to the Alpher family! How are you getting on with it now you’ve had her a few weeks?

It’s nearly as nice as mine!

Pm’d

3 hours ago, Grahambythesea said:

Did you remortgage the house or sell a kidney?

I wouldn’t say The Satin Series are overly expensive, especially considering the Quality & craftsmanship you get for the money

Great little Phase Shifter. 

Still with box. Need gone for my car to be serviced!

2 hours ago, Heathy said:

I like the idea of a passive Stingray, but the absence of the tone knob and the oversized volume knob just turns this into a novelty item IMO. I'm sure that the 50 will sell, though.

More people should go control-less. Not a knob to be seen on my Alpher!

You’re going to be one happy chap! 

*COUGH* “Alpher....”

Im just going to say outright that Sei, Goodfellow, Shuker, Enfield etc etc make some beautiful basses. But none do anything as unique and special as what Alpher Instruments are doing with wood nowadays. You want a one in a million, unique bass made specially to your taste and to shape your sound? I’d have a chat to Chris and Al, you won’t be disappointed, trust me. 

Maaan I was looking at trying one of these the other week, yet nowhere had any in stock!!

45 minutes ago, bassfan said:

I’ll play. Picked this one up from Status today. 

 

My lord!! That’s the nicest Status I think I’ve ever seen....

23 minutes ago, goblin said:

Exactly, you can't rush perfection! I spoke to Chris earlier as he was asking me about cases, and he said it should be going for final setup this week... so not long at all! 

Mine was around a year too, worth the wait though.

Stunning !! Where is the bass located?

So having owned over 80 different basses over the years trading & selling etc, I have a few I can think of:

Ibanez BTB 1606 - Recently acquired in a part ex trade off here, needed the cash. The bass was just saddening. Weird body shape, neck heavy, ugly finish to the Mahogany back and the thing was just cheap feeling. Sold to Martin at the Bass Gallery for £400 on Gumtree, it’s now on The Gallery website for £975! Cheeky. 

https://thebassgallery.com/collections/all/products/ibanez-btb1606-premium

Dingwall AB1 -  Flame Maple top, maple neck and Wenge fretboard - I’ve discovered over the years I have a love hate thing with Dingwall. I owned a £7500 Z3 model with X grade bubinga top, was a lovely bass build quality and playability  wise and active too, Glockenklang pre was alright but the pickups let it down.

Anyway the AB1 I had was the worst of the 4 I owned, it played meh. Adjustment required me to go out and buy a set of imperial Allen keys because the guy who traded it me refused to give me the Dingwall adjustment ones, THANKS BTW!

Finally got it adjusted and playing to my liking but plugged in it sounded WEAK. This was a passive version, that some idiot had Modded a Nordstrand preamp into - had a tech look at it and sort the soldering etc, got it back and it still sounded weak and like c**p. I honestly have an avid hate for the FD3 pickups. Dingwall seem to model all their basses to sound good when put through certain pedals (Darkglass hype train, Choo choo) but yet they never seem to sound fantastic without. Just well, weak. So I moved that bass on about a week after.

Last but not least, my most hated brand of all.....

WARWICK. 

I could rant for hours about Warwick, from stealing Spector designs to Status lawsuits etc etc, but I’ve only ever owned one Warwick and swore to myself I’d never own another.

So the bass I speak of was a German made Warwick Corvette Standard 5, Ovangkol Neck, Solid Bubinga body, Wenge Fingerboard.

We’ll start from the top, purchased it for £575 from a bloke in Derby. I inspected it when I met him and thought:

“The action is abit high but I can sort that and adjust the bridge and truss rod” (Boy was I wrong) 

 Got it home, neck was warped, on further inspection, twisted. Went to adjust the truss rod, truss rod was broken. Brilliant.

I was 16 at the time, went to contact the bloke and call him with the number provided but it seemed immediately after our meeting his advert had disappeared and he had changed his mobile number. Again, BRILLIANT. 

So I was stuck with a bass I had paid £575 for, with a broken truss rod and twisted neck.

In the months to come, I removed the fingerboard with a heat gun and sharpened scraper trick, I removed the broken truss rod, I got an apprentice luthier to plane the twist out of the neck, which he screwed up and planed too much, he also refused to cough up any money to compensate for his mistake. BRILLIANT #3.

So then I was stuck with a Warwick bass I now didn’t even want, with no truss rod and an overly planed neck that didn’t even fit a fingerboard. 

SO. 

I emailed Warwick customer service about the situation, they were rude, unhelpful and downright disinterested. I even offered to purchase a brand new neck and they said, and I quote “we don’t make them for broken basses, check eBay or Dana B Goods”

Needless to say I did, even had a long conversation with the people at Dana B Goods who were very helpful but unfortunately had no necks and couldn’t get me one at the time either. 

I had a few more run ins with Warwick customer service expressing my disappointment with them and how little they cared for customers struggling with issues, I’ve heard plenty more horror stories from other BC’ers since about how truly awful Warwick customer service actually is.

ANYWAY, even after all that, I ordered a replacement Warwick branded bass truss rod off their online shop, fit that into my bass neck and started to get to work, I tried evening out the neck to get the fingerboard to fit as best it could, at 16 I had not much clue of what to do, so doing the best I could with my amateur woodworking skills I glued the fretboard back onto the bass, with Titebond, then I managed to get some ovangkol wood dust from lightly sanding the neck. Which I mixed in with mahogany dust and titebond, which made a filler concoction that filled the gap where the neck was overplaned, it looked ugly, but it was stable and made the neck even enough for the fretboard to sit flat. Finally the neck and fretboard were stable, it was fixed - to an extent.

I could get a medium low action and the neck was no longer twisted, however still slightly warped with a slight hump on the bass side, but I was happy it was somewhat better and now adjustable.

So what I truly hated besides the whole ordeal above:

Brass frets - Really soft and awful fret material IMHO

Adjust a nut - BUSTANUT utter plastic c**p, any Warwick you buy preowned is 100% guaranteed to have the sides broke off revealing sharp feeling corners.

Crazy heavy body - weighed around 12lbs. Ridiculous.

Ovangkol neck - unstable choice of wood, it’s an overall cheap wood and looks horrible, not to mention the neck on the bass I’ve spoken about was 3 piece which also was starting to delaminate and create “ledges” between each piece when I bought it.

MEC Pickups & preamp - Worst electronics I’ve experienced to date, most Warwicks have them, besides custom shop stuff I think, never heard of any other company using them, for good reason, sounded overall plain and cheap. 

Two piece bridge - saddles and adjustment was an absolute pain, Allen screws everywhere and all seemed to do jack s**t.

Truss Rod cover - That little flap thing you pull out that gets lost so easily???!! What?!

Sold it to a Scottish chap who I’m still friends with for £120. 

The W stands for Won’t buy again. Or if we’re talking about my opinion, W****rs. 

On 18/02/2019 at 14:24, Woodinblack said:

I just looked back through the catalogues, and I was wrong, all the premiums have them. however i noticed if you look in the EU pages they mention them and on the US pages they don't. So I think they are still there, but just aren't mentioned any more.

Ibanezes website is a bit of a mess for historic things. i tried finding about my 1605 on there, and there is no record of them ever making one. Luckily the rest of the internet remembers, so that has the KTS rods too.

Any Spot run models Ibanez do seem to get the spec etc on their website for a year at most, then the URL’s to said webpages just disappear and they remove them. Strange.

On 18/02/2019 at 08:28, Woodinblack said:

I thought it was just the prestige and a couple of models of the premiums that had them (my new 2605 has them)?

I didn't think it was ever standard on the premium models.

KTS rods have always been standard on the whole Premium line, inclusive of the electric guitars