LeftyJ

I have a varied collection, but my absolute number one is my 1980s MIJ Squier E-series Strat. It's had its pickups replaced with a DiMarzio Pro Track (SC-sized humbucker) in the bridge and two Blue Velvet singlecoils in the other two positions. It is closely rivalled by my Music Man Silhouette Special and G&L ASAT Special. I much favour Fenderlike guitars. I do however also own more Gibsonesque guitars: I have a Cort MGM-1 Matt "Guitar" Murphy signature (he of Blues Brothers fame, among many more) and a Tokai ES-60 semi-hollowbody, and a beast of a Carvin 7-string DC-727. And just last week I picked up an Ibanez ORM-1 Omar Rodriguez Lopez signature model which is a lot of fun in its shortscale goodness and single-pickup simplicity. I have another MIJ Squier Strat (Silver Series) but that's on a semi-permanent loan to my brother in law. And my first guitar, a Chinese Squier Affinity Strat from 1999, is sitting idly in a case. But that cheap Strat, that I paid just €175 for before the mods I made, is my undisputed number one, and has been for the last 15 years. This was before the mods:

I also never considered myself a P person. I've always favoured basses with two pickups, and love warm Jazz Bass tones and more modern active basses with soapbars, whether they be singlecoils or humbuckers. I've owned PJ-basses before, varying from Fender-like (Ibanez RS924, G&L SB-2) to more modern active basses with the P-pickup reversed (Ibanez SR800LE, Warwick Streamer LX) but never used the splitcoil on its own. I briefly owned a Fender MIJ '57 P reissue but absolutely hated it. Now I have a Sandberg Lionel shortscale P, which I bought based on looks (and being a shortscale) mostly, and you just can't argue with the authority of a P with flats. It just sounds so good! Totally wasn't expecting I would like it this much.

I love their straps, I must have about 8 of them! I was first referred to them by someone I bought a used bass from, who had two beautiful double-stitched Italia straps. Oddly I've never seen that feature offered on their site! But yes, their tactics are "special". Most of their deals are for returning customers only, once they have your email address you'll get almost weekly emails with discounts varying between "buy one, get one free", "free shipping on all orders", "order two, get a free all-black leather-backed 2.5 inch wide strap" or a combination of those. I guess I'm living proof their tactics work - on some gullible people But they're great. Very high quality leather, well-made, and beautifully even dyes. I've had one black glove leather-backed strap that would leave black stains on my white shirt when I would sweat excessively during warm gigs, but I've never had that problem with any of their other straps so I think it's an exception.

Fascinating! Properly weird, in a great way.

bam pad retrofit set for case – Thomann UK Might not be ideal for a gigbag, but should be good for hardshell cases. The end of the headstock should never be the thing that keeps a bass from moving around in its case. It's the body that should be held snugly in place. You need to avoid unnecessary stress on the headstock at all cost, especially with the infamous Gibson (and similar) necks with their ridiculously large truss rod access holes. Pads like these can be great, but the description doesn't mention if they're adhesive with sticky tape or with Velcro. If you need to be able to change it around for different instruments, the latter would be ideal but sticky tape... not so much. I would assume they're similar to the removable pads in their (expensive!) guitar cases.

I've been looking at these with keen interest, but when they released the second iteration their stock of lefty models flew out in less than a day

Close: the Polish luthier Nexus (previously located in Belgium, but now back in Poland) has made fretless basses with granite fingerboards!

Agreed! Modular, easy to manufacture in large quantities (on a simple production line, with no need for actual skilled luthiers), hugely ergonomic and super comfortable to play, timeless design, and really easy to adjust and modify to the player's preference. And those timeless tones! I've had many guitars, but I always come back to my trusty Squier E-series Strat because it just fits me like a glove. I've had USA-made G&L's, Music Mans (Men?), several high-end Japanese guitars, and they all owe a lot to the classic Fender designs but none of them has managed to keep me away from my Strat for long. It just works!

Oh! Is that a 1954 LP Custom reissue? That's gorgeous, and those neck pickups are quite unique.

Their normal strings are readily available? I have a few sets of double ball end strings on order direct from Status for my headless basses and have been waiting since january. They have taken little effort to keep me up to date either. Whenever I emailed or called them Dawn has been great, but I never get updates from them without asking. I hope this won't be a recurring problem, or I'll need to stock up or switch to another manufacturer - or single ball strings, with the clamps at the headstock end. Do Status single ball strings have the same taper wound ends as their double ball strings? I would hate to have to readjust my bridge for different strings and then readjust back for their double ball strings when they become available again.

I never thought I would do this... First flatwounds on my Sandberg Lionel shorty, and now mutes The Acinonyx one is for my Atelier Z Baby Z-4J which has narrower string spacing. Yes, I know I paid too much (ordered directly from Carey). But I was sold after trying one from the guy I bought my Sandberg from.

I use one by Harley Benton with a detachable bit that fits in a power drill. I pair mine with a small Bosch IXO 5 electric screwdriver which works great! It turns fairly slow, it's nowhere near power drill territory so it works precise enough for roughly tuning up to where I need to be and doing the last stretch by hand: Harley Benton Speedwinder – Thomann

I think it had to do with ovangkol being a less rigid wood than wenge. But presumably Warwick got an offer they couldn't resist on a huge supply of ovangkol that would last them 10+ years Both my Streamer LX's are early 2000's and chunky too, especially my 5-string, but not uncomfortably so to my big hands.

Warwick abandoned wenge necks in 1998, in favour of ovangkol. At the same time the neck profile changed to a chunkier shape. So yours must be from just before the change They moved back to thinner necks around 2009/2010.

Holy crap. Formatting? When pasting text from another source, the forum has a button in the text editor to remove the source formatting. Select the text you want to edit, and tap the icon that looks like an underscored T with a tiny subscript X next to it. Would improve readability a LOT here I think the main difference is in the hardware and electronics. The basic framework is near identical, and both have used pretty generic hardware, depending on model year. The real Mayo's have had hardware by Warwick (the familiar 2-piece bridge and tailpiece), WSC but also Schaller depending on year. The MEC pickups and electronics aren't exactly sloppy or cheap, but also not quite in Bartolini territory. The Mayones BE4 Gothic I once played came stock with active EMG's and VVT controls. It really depends on the exact model and year.

That's a lot of money for a cable with non-serviceable plugs, even if they are Switchcraft! The lifetime warranty is nice, so I guess it isn't a problem, but I would much prefer a cable with plugs I can (re)solder myself. I've been a very happy Spectraflex user for many years now, and at home I use a few Sommer cables with silent jacks (the Thomann site doesn't mention it, but that gold ring around the straight jack is very much a switch) that were very affordable but high quality.

Nice alright, but very much righthanded

Today I learned my spending problem is actually just a nickel allergy

Yes, you're not going to find a new one within your budget (the cheapest at Thomann is this Corvette at 1880 GPB) but you can definitely find used ones out there. For example: (unfortunately not a 5-string) this Corvette Standard at 550 GBP.

Not necessarily, a used Corvette Standard, Fortress One or one of the bolt-on Streamers can be found for affordable prices. The real question here is if you can find one that's light I paid €500 each for my Streamer LX and LX5 in 2013 and 2022, but their solid flamed maple body and chunky ovangkol neck make them heavy beasts despite the body's compact dimensions.

This thread is 8 years old and was just dug up by a new member who specifically joined to leave that message about the G&L JB-2 and then left again ...which is an odd suggestion, as it is just a regular passive Jazz Bass with a somewhat Stingrayish shape.

Good call! According to Warwick, they're an alloy of copper, zinc and iron and should not contain any nickel. To confuse matters though, Warwick explicitly refers to their fret material as bell bronze, not brass. However, bronze would primarily be a copper and tin alloy and brass would be primarily copper and zinc - and there's no tin in Warwick's frets according to them. Some googling shows that bronze very much can contain small amounts of nickel.

Where have they been hiding that CNC router from us all this time? (edit: image taken from a Rickenfaker ID thread, so not a real Ric. Routing job of the wiring channel is accurate though )