Bassislife16

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!

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I think this one belonged to @Kev ??

Also on this topic of Relic, remember buying a brand new shiny bass is a hard thing, the first “ding” in that new pristine instrument is always gutting. - Which is another good reason to buy a pre relic’d bass. A. Because relic’s look badass B. To the crowd you’ve played that bass more than eaten hot dinners C. Because even if you ding it or dent it, it will all blend in, you will be no sadder than when you bought it, because the dents won’t look out of place unlike on a non Relic version.

I’d say Sandberg are about the best at the Relic business, it says a lot that Fodera employed Sandberg to Relic the Limited Edition replicas Of Victor Wootens Bass.

I am! 13 years as a bass player now, done all my own restringing and adjustments for a long time. I’ve took on quite a number of repairs too from headstock breaks to set-ups, even had a friend come to me with a bass neck he bought off eBay with the truss rod hanging out the back, wasn’t perfect but I sorted it and made it functional. I LOVE making custom Ramps for basses aswell and have a number of exotic pieces of wood I’m hankering to carve up!! Ive also done repairs & set-ups for quite a few of the local musicians around Burton On Trent and Derbyshire, I’m out in Clifton, not too far from Ashbourne, Belper, Buxton etc, in the Derby Dales, If anyone has any issues and needs someone close by, give me a shout! Happy to help