largo

I wish they's used Neo drivers in their 310 to bring the weight down to Epifani levels. That would have really tempted me ... My Schroeder 410L weighs the same, albeit cost a lot more.

About 15 years ago I traded-in a Wal Custom with full flightcase for about £500 at Sound Control against a Warwick Stage II bass. Wish I'd held on to it purely for monetary value as being honest the Wal was heavy, cumbersome and I couldn't get a tone out of it I liked, each to their own I guess. The Warwick was amazing, an '88 and really beautifully made.

Out of curiosity, why did you not just buy an amp with a graphic EQ or similar ?

Well, got an email back from Carey @ Nordstrand ... First question was, did you not get the wee card that gets sent with all our sets of pickups ? Er, no as it would have saved me 3 days of searching. So, this new "ground" wire on the pickups is an earth signal for the new preamps that have buffered(!) amp circuits. Just like the Audere and John East preamps. So, conclusion is, the grey wire is connected direct to the ground on the jack socket and the black (pickup) ground goes to the connector on the preamp circuit. Don't know why, or even what a buffered preamp is but that's what it's for. And yes, would have been nice to have the wiring diagram on the Nordstrand website too ! S

Not got a clue, but intend to email Nordstrand to find out ...

I'd doubt it as these are single coil pickups. You should check them out, absolutely amazing for Jazz Bass tone if you like that sort of thing :0) Got word back from Brian @ Best Bass Gear in the US and this is his reply .... The additional ground wire is something new and meant for some of the newer preamps out there. You are correct in your assumption that the grey wire should be connected to the jack ground. The black wire should go to the pickup ground on the East preamp. In case anyone else wonders. Stephen

I just got a new set of Big Singles for my bass, which has a J-Retro deluxe. Now the old pickups (anyone want to buy a set of 19mm Big Singles) has 2 wires, black & white plus an extension to the black wire which is grounded to the pickup cavity using a little grub screw. Fair enough ! The new pickups however has 3 wires, black, white & grey where the grey wire is soldered to some copper tape on the bottom of the pickup, I presume pickup shielding. Can I twist the black & grey together and solder them to the appropriate connections on the J-Retro circuit to ground them. Each pickup has a different connector so not sure if it's common ground ? Or, should I ground the grey wire to the pickup cavity or maybe even do something else to help minimise buzz as much as possible. All help gratefully appreciated. (Hope you all follow that) S P.S. Sorry I also posted this in the John East section as I hoped Mr East would help me out personally but thought the techies probably hover around this forum more.

I think the Bass Centre, www.basscentre.co.uk are the UK supplier of all Warwick parts & components. They'll get one for you :0)

Hehehe, it's not actually that green when you see it in the flesh. It maybe false lighting or something .... It's a mint green plate to try and give it an old skool look, which works remarkably well. Looks a wee bit like Stu Hamms "Mel" bass I think. The good news is the red sparkle is almost a perfect match to our drummers red sparkle kit which was what I was after, and Jon hadn't even seen the kit. Not even in a picture he was going on my description alone. What a guy !

Yeah Darkstars would have been a nice option. Didn't think of those... The inlays were more a tortoiseshell effect AussiePhoenix and not sure how that would look on a whole bass instead of sparkle. Like a big purple toilet seat and probably too plasticky looking. Hehehehe ! Bottom line is, the blocks didn't come out so clear as I'd hoped but I wouldn't have gone for a maple neck just so the blocks looked better. It would have changed the whole look, not to say tone of the bass having a maple neck. And in this case I wanted rosewood. That's not to say my next Shuker build won't be more exotic woods and a nice birdseye fingerboard. Something like a Zon TJ look to it, mmmm ....

Yep! red strings, the DR Red Devils. I already play them on my Sei and their the best coated strings IMHO. Last a while and great tone. I was a bit disappointed myself with the block inlays and would probably have gone with the usual pearl if I'd realised they wouldn't show up. I'll maybe ask Jon how easy they'd be to swap for pearl at some point ? Jon & I both agreed that it would have looked tacky rather than sophisticated & sparkly ! Has anyone ever seen a red 70's Jazz bass with a maple neck ? S

Well I did say I wouldn't post pictures until I'd got my hands on the bass itself, but now that I have it .... These are pics sent by Jon just before he posted the bass. He had some A0 size posters made up for Bass Day and he has kindly said that he'll ship them to me once Bass Day is over (I think it was yesterday) Dunno what I'm going to do with posters, I'm well out of my teens ;0) She plays lovely and I'll post a review pretty soon, gigging with her again on Wednesday. I'll probably review the bass against my Sei Jazz and let you all know what I think of the two different build styles (and there's a few) !!!!

Forgot to add ... When I get the bass I'll be emailing Jon, and yes I'll include the bads as well as the goods. S

No, i'm not really p***ed off Dood, just a little disappointed at another delay. It's been floods, pickups, couriers and more. I know Jon's busy and I know he's working his ar** off for Bass Day. The last thing he needs right now is me moaning at him, what more can he do now. Besides, I've called him this morning and the bass is on it's way. Woohoo ! On the plus side, Jon has been very helpful regards my bass build. He's gone out of his way to customise my bass to exactly how I wanted it, and I will use him again. This is what having a custom build is all about. Martin at Sei no longer does builds away from his product portfolio and the reason I moved to Jon was because he does. Just this time I'll be a bit more sceptical about build times. If he says 6 months then that's fine. Believe it or not, i'm pretty easy going. I'm putting it down to age, 37 and turning into a grumpy old b******* !!!! Wait 'til I'm 50. S

But if his lead times are caused by suppliers then why not just buy earlier. For example I knew I wanted Nordstrand pickups and delay was 10 weeks because they were custom orders. Buy them when I pay my deposit, not when the bass needs them and then a 10 week delay. Ask for money up front if it's additional costs. Quoting longer lead times is fine if you've too much work but not if it's suppliers delaying. Jon had a one off (hopefully) flood problem which delayed matters. One reason I went to Jon was his build times, I didn't want to wait 6-8 months for my build.

Yeah, my only argument on that would be.... Jon takes a big enough deposit to purchase most if not all of the components at the start of the build. It's just that he doesn't :0( So an 8 week delay in parts shouldn't matter in the whole process as I'm guessing the main woodworking takes a few weeks to begin with. I'd happily pay more deposit to cover all parts up front if that would help him too.

Been playing Sei's for the last 6 or 7 years so he's got a lot to live up to ;0)

I'm not having a go at Jon, just a good old fashioned moan. But, as much as I believe in you get what you give ... How come the nice guys are always the ones that get shafted ?

What does he need to do Bass Day for ? Sounds to me like he's too busy already.