GreeneKing

He also has the voice of an angel and is good enough to play percussion at this level. Oh and he plays guitar too. An amazing musician and from what I've seen an amazing bloke too

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1356725598' post='1913023'] My thoughts always!! [/quote] Please see my comments to Bilbo above

I thought you were going to ask about women

Thanks for the kind comments. It really has turned out well. Bilbo, I'd swop your playing ability for my practical ability

There are significant drugs in terms of harm caused and difficulty in doing without that don't often get a mention in the mainstream. Sugar and refined starches being the major one. If you say music is a drug because you find it difficult to do without then life itself must be the ultimate drug?

I've owned quite a few Fenders over the years. With the exception of my RI Precision non have made a lasting impression on my bass soul. But they have to get one right once in a while I've had my 1987 Fender Jazz Power Special for a while now having bought it on a whim on BC. I loved the look and the specs interested me. The Fender electronics started to fail and I looked around for a replacement. I'm a big fan of John East's pre-amps but I wanted to retain the original pickup switching option. John said it was possible and customised a U-Retro to have a 3 way switch, like the original, with neck/both/bridge options. The neat thing is that there is an active blend too. If the blend knob is set to bridge then the switch works otherwise it's the blend that's used. There's sweepable mids, bass, treble and a treble boost by lifting the treble knob. There's also an active/passive switch. The bass is CIJ, a P/J with a reversed P pickup. It's got 22 frets and has a layer of carbon weave in the neck that exits on the headstock making the bass look as if it has a matching black headstock. Playability is a bit special, the best Fender I've owned by far. The neck is lovely and slim and the action is low and very clean to play. It's a tone monster with a huge range of tones. I've also fitted a Babitz bridge purely as the original was corroded. It is a great bridge and looks very nice too imo. I had a problem with lots of noise that went when you touched the strings. I checked the bridge earth and it was fine. I spoke with John and he suggested shorting out the pups to see if it was a shielding issue. It was. Today I just put the bass back together after putting two coats of shielding paint in all the cavities and joining holes. It's now very sorted indeed. Yeah I know it's Xmas day but what's a single guy miles from family to do [url="http://peterb4407.smugmug.com/Other/SmugShots/20297576_MJZnTm#!i=2289307308&k=Wc4zTnP&lb=1&s=A"][/url] [url="http://peterb4407.smugmug.com/Other/SmugShots/20297576_MJZnTm#!i=2289307359&k=pJXLGHW&lb=1&s=A"][/url] Peter

What price any product can be sold for is based purely on what the market is prepared to pay. In terms of bass guitars there's myth and there's reality. Myth will help push up prices but reality will hit home when neck dive, average tone and poor quality of build become the reality they always were. Don't get me wrong, I'd love an Alembic but I'm lucky enough to know that this quality of build and attention to what matters in the real world is available cheaper and closer to home.

[quote name='niceguyhomer' timestamp='1356290501' post='1908884'] Yo Pete, if you're planning a trip northbound M6 to try the Aggy, let me know and if I'm not doing anything I'll come with you to see Pedro. [/quote] That would be a pleasure guys

John and I have previous We met in a car park, goods and cash exchanged hands and two furtive bassists made their way. John is a star! Peter

Pete. I have a 2 channel Aguilar AG500 that I've owned from new. It's surplus to requirements. You're welcome to try it out if you're interested. It's in a neat Boschma flight case but I have all the original packaging. Peter

There's more to this than a simple active vs passive thing. I've played passive basses that were poor. Poor pickups and that's the end of your tone. Active basses have an ability to rescue poor inherent tone imo. Generally I prefer active but my Yamaha BB2024MX with the Hollywood pups is huge in terms of tone and just doesn't need a boost.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1314203509' post='1350506'] All people are different. Some like to plug and play and not worry too much of the nuances of "tone", while others enjoy an understanding of "tone" and like to play about with it and use it as an expression of the music. Sometimes a passive bass can fall into the hands of an aural-ist but although being slightly limited by it's passive tone, fits the players criteria perfectly well. Sometimes an active circuit is added to correct or give headroom to an unenjoyable tone (often with less than spectacular results), sometimes it is added to enhance an already good tone and sometimes it is there by design. Sometimes the active circuit is taken away entirely because the player doesn't grasp the concept of their active circuit. The most fundamental thing to remember though is that with a passive circuit the rule of thumb is that you can only remove frequencies (tone) but with an active circuit you can boost and cut frequencies (as defined by the circuit) giving the player an expanded pallet to play with. I like basses which can do both. [/quote] Nice response, sober then Rich?

Congratulations. Beautiful indeed.

[quote name='Hutton' timestamp='1356170993' post='1907550'] Why bother to post then? [/quote] +1