Bassfinger

Those Hohners were decent instruments. They sell for good money these days. As good as Steinbergers were - I love them - the move by Gibson to more traditional construction wasn't all bad news. The Spirits are decent instruments in their own right and good value, and dont suffer the age related neck issues that many of the truss rod-less Steinbergers do with the passing of time. Indeed, the contemporary Hohner copy tends to withstand time much better than the original, which could be why prices are on the up. Fundamentally, the original Steinberger was flawed. Cracking on 50 years ago when Ned Steinberger started work on these designs he didn't have the benefit of the modern materials and the understanding of their characteristics that we do today, which is probably why modern firms can make them better and cheaper. In the case of Gibson, they followed the profit - theres no physical reason that they couldn't have updated the design using modern materials and composites, but they're a volume seller that tends to rely on high turnover as their business model. To that end, they've done very well - the Spirit is an ok instrument and a consistent seller, yet probably costs them no more to manufacture than, say, a Harley Benton Jazz Bass, so they're making good money off it. Fair play to them. Smaller manufacturers target different markets and run different business models, and that's where the likes of Status come in - their operating model would never allow them the growth to Gibson levels of turnover, but the benefit is that they can concentrate on developing smaller volume, higher profit instruments. It's physics, materials science and business, all rolled into one! Were Ned to release the Steinberger today, it would be a different matter entirely. He was simply born 40 or 50 years too early.

Blimey. One of my fave bassists, gone.

Yep, I'm very sure. Fashion finishes and basic designs are completely different concepts.

OTT fancy wood finishes on modern basses puts me off. Last time it checked it wasn't 1993 - the world has turned since then.

My toolbox is moderate and while I'm no craftsman I have some hands-on experience with tools from work. Consider me average in ability, perhaps a notch higher, but most definitely no craftsman. My skills lay with basic assembly of parts, and minor reworking to make them fit fully. I don't think I do anything that the average hobbyist couldn't, provided they take their time and use a modicum of care. The next step of shaping bodies from a block of wood, or creating necks from scratch, is well beyond me and I have massive admiration for the amateur luthiers on the forum. However, the careful sourcing of parts and their assembly to an equally careful standard is, I feel, something than the average Joe on here could equally manage with a mediocre array of tools. I have zero training, but I do have eyes to use when sourcing parts and opposable thumbs with which to wield tools - with luck you have all that too.

Morning. Ebay. There are loads for sale but it took about 2 months of patient daily checking before this one showed up from a guy in Ireland at a very nice price of £40 delivered. It was new and he had a handful of both P and J necks for sale. I messaged him, and he seemed to know what he was on about so I took a punt. I was expecting reasonable, but was absolutely blown away, all expectations surpassed. I finished it in Danish oil and then was with 0000 wire wool, which darkened it a bit close to the colour of the body than the original near white maple colour. It's quite an olde fashioned feeling neck with a fairly flat fretboard radius and fairly square edges, but I like the flat tish feel and the edges are very, very neatly finished so the lack of modern rounding off isn't an issue. The body is an ash job from Gear4music. Again, very pleasantly surprised. It's a (or several) nice piece of wood, very neatly machined with a lovely deep clear poly finish. The rest is either from my box of scrap or from China, the later after very close scrutiny and comparison of pictures. I'm particularly pleased with the pots and wiring loom from China, which are big old things with a lovely smooth, well damped action and a nice logarithmic response.

I would only agree with that to a point. Buying parts online can mean an imperfect fit, or at least a fit that may require fettling. However, that isn't automatically the case. With a big dose of luck the neck on my latest bitsa fitted my new ash body with absolute surgical precision. I nearly cried tears of joy, it was that neat and close a fit in the neck pocket. The neck itself is also superb, with even and well finished frets - I've not had to do any tinkering with fret dressing etc. I've played relatively expensive instruments with necks that weren't prepared as tidily. It cost me about a hundred quid to build and I'm confident in tone, feel and playability it would not embarrass itself in the company of any P bass from any manufacturer costing 10 times that. And whatever happens, it'll never, ever be worth less than it cost me to build, so straight away it has an edge over most cooking Fender models. Do it properly and you're in reality far less likely to lose money than you would buying something from a production line. So you can get lucky and components can fit to a high degree of precision. If not, care, patience and moderate hand tool skills can make them fit - after all, that's all they do in the factory. You can make a rough old dog, but to be fair you have to either be completely inept or lazy to end up with one that bad.

Judging from the state of that (rather lovely) bass, I would suggest that the fluffy, cossetting case is a bit superfluous.

Some kind of one on one combat? See how prevails?

Perhaps send Parcel Farce a bill for 4 months rental of your instrument?

Were both strung with strings from the same batch, fitted at the same time, and played roughly the same amount since? Are they set up identically for nut height, string height, intonation? Just too many variables to start attributing these slight differences to types of wood. Two very nice bases, by the way.

A great song. It's a shame his conviction for domestic violence doesn't live up to the rose tinted ideals about which he sang.

They clearly advertise themselves as the nations #1 classic rock station, so the name cannot be regarded as the slightest bit deceptive. I've been listening most days while working from home, and today alone they've easily played stuff from the mid 60's, right through to the Brothers Osbourne's new release, so your description is completely disingenuous. And they do actually play quite a lot of new talent, more modern rock, country rock, metal, yacht rock, AORblues etc...but you need to listen to the programmes in which they are played, not the regular day time programming, which is largely fairly vanilla classic rock, as per their S.O.P. I suspect they spend their time while the music is playing wondering what sort of classic rock rock the nations humber 1 classic rock station should be playing. When Bauer media were in the sheet and offloaded a number stations Planet Rock was the only profitable one, and a good one at that, so whatever they're doing while the computerised playlist is playing is clearly working. You might not like them, that's cool, but they do exactly what they claim and a fair bit more besides, which you have failed to reflect in your rather narrow and blinkered summary of their output.

Too close to call. The difference is so slight it could be down to something like the age of the strings. The ash has slightly less fret buzz.

I always presumed they masturbated a lot. PS, I'm not sure what you expect of a classic rock station if you're surprised to hear them playing classic rock.

Choose the one with the least obtrusive hunchback.

See, white cars look horrible - it highlights all the shut lines and the like and just looks wrong. But white basses just look fantastic.

Indeed, Rabin's sound and style is rather more limited than Howe, but what he does do, in my humble opinion, he does some much better and tighter than Howe ever did. But, as you say, it's a horses for courses thing. As good as I was once I expect Howe is still better! 🤣

I get paid in Euro's - strictly speaking I'm employed by my company's HQ in Italy - and the current weak pound is doing me just fine! Just a teensy drop more and I'll be drawing a 6 figure basic salary in Sterling for the first time ever.

I never rated Steve Howe. As a guitarist myself I admired his classical skills, but to my ear his rock guitar work sounds sloppy and his timekeeping poor. Rabin is a real talent and a great songwriter and producer in his own right, and Pomeroy is a worthy successor to Squire - different, but worthy.

Hold The Line. Not especially difficult to play, but it takes a bit of flair to play it well so it goes with the groove. Definitely my favourite to play. A close run second would be Damage Case by Motorhead. It's just great fun to thump through that one.

Pomeroy is brilliant. His recent appearance on Rick Wakeman's Red Planet was something else indeed.

I dont think theres any inherent law of man or physics stopping you. It can be done, seen them first hand, although may be the case that some types don't survive the bend where they turn 90 degrees at the bridge. The power of Google shows many folk successfully doing so and listing the strings they are using.

Or you could buy one of the various waist strap/harness systems that are available, and play whatever weight bass you fancy without handling your back.

The pickups arent listening to to resonance of the wood - they're listening to the vibration of the strings, and that is a function of the rigidity of the structure. The doubters still doubt because the guys who make these instruments have yet to actually prove it scientifically. Where are the before and after audio analyses or oscilloscope traces to back up what they are saying? I'm not saying that they're not right - they may well be...or not - but they're going to have to actually employ a wee bit of science to prove their claims. We've had 7 decades since the P bass appeared and no one has done this, which kind of makes me understand where the doubters are coming from. Tapping blanks of wood is laughably meaningless ins scientific terms. You want to silence the doubters? Then show them the teensiest shred of actual scientific evidence. A before and after audio spectrum analysis using a machine to pluck the strings identically in both cases. Until that's done people can tap all the blanks they want.