Stub Mandrel

I can't resist it; I've been playing my Performer on and off all day. Here are some photos and comments on my Fender Performer, this is the made in Japan version, alledgedly the American ones were superior but it's hard to see where they could make improvements.

It sounds great, feels great and looks great. Despite being standard scale length it looks like the neck goes on forever.

A radical makeover for the Fender logo may have dented sales.

The headstock was shared with the even more unconventional Katana guitars and basses.

The body that was radical in 1987 now looks ace and is super comfortable.

Controls are deceptively simple, three-way selector and two volume controls but the tone control is a Fender TBX so the range of sounds is wide, but always lively.

Unique appearance of the pickups; I suspect they have a split-coil like a P-bass inside the assymetrical lozenge-shaped case.

Open back but very smooth tuners.

Micro-tilt neck and note the tiny cover for accessing the jack socket - not a battery compartment, this is not an active bass.

A fully sealed jack socket, rather than the usual skeleton socket.

The neck is thinner than a typical Telecaster, compared here with a Hohner B2.

I'd love to see or hear about other examples of these beautiful instruments!

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

I never actually noticed the headstock looking like a can opener but that's handy.

To be fair, I think it's a trick of the light.

1 hour ago, md54 said:

I'm not interested in 'Chat.'

Err, the clue is in the name...?

Bacuase I love the Bowie original, but this somehow makes everything about the world better:

My feeling is that the USA tends to focus more on the individual than the band, lots of famous signer/songwriters who get a lot more profile than admittedly great bands - from Dylan and the Band down.

The UK tends to have more profile for the band than individual songwriters. For example, the Beatles and the Stones, despite their songwriters being well known, are still better known.

If you want to get partisan about it, you could debate Birmingham and the Black Country vs. Detroit or Canterbury vs. Haight Ashbury (I think Seattle versus Manchester was covered above).

45 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

This is the shop pic. Should be delivered next week tho.

 

A veritable Swiss Army Knife of basses.

Precision, Musicman and the headstock works as a can opener 🙂

Actually, very nice but what are the four dots above the neck joint? Just a logo?

Excellent post @Frank Blank

1 hour ago, EssentialTension said:

With roots, octaves, fifths, your intonation needs to be more exact. With thirds, especially if you are playing blues or related music with another 'fretless' person, e.g. slide guitarist, it can get spicy, maybe in a good way. I'm not sure how this is real but it is my experience that you can take liberties with a third that you couldn't with a root.

Probably because in just temperament some notes are quite far off from even temperament (e.g. fretted instrument). This is particularly true of thirds while the fourths and fifths are close in both approaches.

19 hours ago, md54 said:

There's a world of difference between a bedroom fretless YouTube virtuoso and a proper working musician. I don't kid myself. If you cant play the whole instrument in tune without your eyes glued to the fretboard.....you're not a fretless  bass player. 

That's a bit unfair. There's clearly a continuum between dabblers and virtuosos. I guess most people who have played a bit are like me, they can cope eyes off while playing in a position, but need a look when shifting it. I don't pretend to be anything more than a basic fretless player, and really don't want to put in the vast amount of practice to build up the muscle detailed muscle memory but that doesn't mean I shouldn't play the thing.

I've always gone for Rotos or Elites. These days I buy Elites direct from http://www.basscentre.com/bass-centre-elites-strings.html

Confession, I have a 1990s Elites long-sleeve t-shirt 😲

1 hour ago, uk_lefty said:

But it does say "in Birmingham they love the governor. BOO BOO BOO" which doesn't sound very supportive of the governor to me. I'm happy playing it every gig and if I felt it racist (or enough people pointed out racist things I wasn't aware of) I'd go nowhere near it.

Most people miss that...

2 hours ago, ezbass said:

Pino would be a massive score for SBL

All the best bass players come from Barry. there's Pino, me, my brother... 😎

Wow, this makes me cringe.

The guy has a product that, clearly, plenty of people like and pay for.

He's built it up from nothing and clearly put in vastly more work than people who make bigger fortunes from streaming crappy videos of their children or pets misbehaving.

It's clearly absurd to assume that buy buying a specific product you should assume the right to a slice of everything he produces.

I enjoy the videos I've seen, but buying into something like this is probably not for me, just because of the way I learn and where my interests lie, but the pricing and product seem fair from where I'm sitting.

Must say I am impressed by his response; most people would have just walked away and waited for the fuss to die down.

P.S. Scott you are bit of a waffler but so am I.... 🙂

48 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

I won't play Sweet Home Alabama because it is explicitly racist and I won't play Brown Sugar, I'm not sure it is actually encouraging us to 'whip the women, just around midnight' or that raping slaves means we are 'doing all right' but you can form your own judgements. I wouldn't sing it in front of my daughter so why play it in front of anyone's daughter? For each of us the lines are different of course but music has the effect of normalising things and I don't think we have no responsibility. fortunately we have thousands of songs to choose from.

I used to think that too.

I was wrong; Sweet Home Alabama was aimed at NY for stereotyping all southerners as racists in Southern Man and Alabama.

In his autobiography (which I'm reading at the moment) NY says " "My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue."

By the way, Clydie King, one of the two black ladies who sang backing vocals on Sweet Home Alabama died earlier this year.

One thing I found REALLY weird.

At school I was useless on violin, even with little plastic markers taped on the fretboard.

After learning fretless bass I can play violin in tune, not very well because my bowing technique is absolutely shite, but pretty much in tune!

I used to know a biker with a dent like that in his head...

2 hours ago, paddy109 said:

I watched The Idles being supported by The Crows last night in Cardiff’s Tramshed.

Two excellent bands that put on a great show.

🙂

Good venue? I've got tickets for Phil Campbell there in November - he should be good on home turf!

1 hour ago, SpondonBassed said:

Will it fit a tenor ukulele?

🙂

My brother keeps on encouraging me to buy a cheap 3/4 classical guitar and a 'ukelele bass conversion kit'.

I saw the ideal guitar today in a charity shop for £15.

Unfortunately I'd just dropped my car off for its post-MOT work and I just didn't have the balls to walk through town carrying a bright pink 'Barbie-style' guitar...

19 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Build something. When I sent the defective neck back to Fender, it was stripped of hardware (it's now on the Status neck). The new Fender neck came loaded with relic'd tuners and string tree, so all I really need is a decent four bolt body.

I've never put a bass together from parts before, so this is what I'm leaning towards at the moment. What are the potential pitfalls of doing this?

Buy a Squier Jazz, swap necks and put the Squier neck on the bay (or send it to me as a reward for such a good idea).

My Squier Jag has rolled edges to the fingerboard (if I am understanding what that means properly)

This mention of lemon oil got me thinking. It seemed weird to me that a vegetable oil would be used on fretboards.

Why?

Vegetable oils oxidise, thicken and go gungy over time. Mineral oils don't.

So I looked up the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for few a popular brands. They are typically >90% white mineral oil or 'heavy naptha' (which is the same thing but longer molecules so a bit thicker for lemon oils used as a 'lacquer'), the 'lemon' bit appears to be just a touch of essential oil to add fragrance.

What's the cheapest and most easily obtained source of high-purity white mineral oil? Sewing machine oil, which is thin, hardly smells and is specifically chosen not to go nasty and gungy when used in a very challenging environment.

Just happen to have a bottle too!

Tried it on an old no-name neck - worked great. Tried it on Hohner rosewood - great. Tried it on Laurel - spankin!

I also found an MSDS for pure lemon oil. Slightly toxic if taken internally, hazardous (irritant) with skin exposure. In other words, don't put pure lemon oil on your fretboard, just drip it in your new-age oil vapouriser and use it to summon unicorns.

I suppose you could add a drop to sewing machine oil and make your own 'lemon oil'.

<edit> found this which seems to agree with me! https://www.guitaranswerguy.com/12-lemon-oil-debate/

🙂

On 23/02/2019 at 10:38, Andre_Passini said:

Thank you Geek99, I have to improve my english

Better than my Portugese 🙂

I think it looks great... I wonder how they get the 8R impedance with three drivers, they must be non-standard wind?

length should be pretty much standard, but there are 6mm and 1/4" (6.35mm) shaft diameters out there. Also some guitars have splined shafts (in either diameter...) My Jag has splined shafts and that same style of knob, but the ones with lock screws in your pic are designed for plain shafts with a flat on them. You can also get push-on knobs for shafts with a flat.

So in short, no, there are at least six different styles...  splines, screw fit and flat push on in each of two sizes.

Actually.. a bit of digging, add coarse or fine splines to the list.

And 5mm EMG pot shaft diameter.

And long or short (~3/8" or ~1/2") shaft.

Not to mention 3/8" or 10mm fixing nut.

I'm boggled...

You can also get collet fit knobs for plain shafts, but they are probably too push for basses...

It's been done before, truckloads of aluminium necks out there, but alloy bodies as well, apparently this guitar is 10.1lbs:

https://reverb.com/item/18234435-2017-electrical-guitar-company-standard-baritone-aluminum

What surprisies me is that people always go with raw aluminium, OK when polished it feels OK but if it tarnishes it feels bad.

Anodised aluminium has a lovely feel, as nice as wood.