LeftyJ

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. 

1 hour ago, BassTool said:

Just to confuse the issue, my '98 NT has a slim neck 🤔

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.

43 minutes ago, Bonin-in-the boneyard said:

Nice lefty Jaguar 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405078208483?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dyf8lgj0sie&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=uNGl4Fo9QWG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Nice alright, but very much righthanded 

16 hours ago, synthaside said:

I mainly have problems with Euros  especially in my pockets..... 

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.

31 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

I was wondering that, but I think "inexpensive" would rule out the Warwicks with brass frets.

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.

2 hours ago, Bolo said:

Would Warwick brass frets be an option? 

I'm not metallurgicaly educated, so sorry if unhelpful.

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. 

10 hours ago, tauzero said:

he of the Perfect Balance bass

On 25/05/2024 at 08:28, AndyTravis said:

Quite a cool insight…

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 )

Came here to say this 

I was just looking up the story on that bass and stumbled upon a story by someone who claimed to be a friend of Tye, who says it never evolved past the two or three prototypes (one was a fretless apparently) because the involved Fender custom shop Master Builder got caught with porn on his work computer and was subsequently fired (?). 

There were also the Fender Heartfield DR-6 and DR-6C (the latter is a neck-through version) which have a reasonably goodlooking 3+3 headstock - though one could argue they're not true Fenders. 

When specifically searching for "stainless frets" on the Thomann website, the cheapest 5-strings that pop up are the new Sire Z7-5 Stingray-inspired basses at €709 euros. Maybe have a look at these? 

Edit: Ha, great minds think alike! 

4 hours ago, AlexDelores said:

I know this is a weird question. But, do short scale hollow bodies actually feel like you’re playing a short scale? 
 

I always assumed because of the size of the body that they sit on a strap and feel more like a full scale bass? 
 

God, that sounds weirder to read back than it did in my head 😅

I had an Italia Torino Bass a few years ago. My 2 cents: yes and no 

To elaborate: because of the large body, and the bridge sitting relatively far forward, it was a fairly big bass. It had a separate tailpiece which sat farther back, enabling the use of normal longscale strings. That said, because of the weird plucking position relative to the size of the body (and to counter its tendency to topple over forward, because of the arched back) I always wore it somewhat to my side so the 12th fret was more or less dead center in front of me. This added to the shortscale feel of the bass to me, despite the larger size. 

It was a fun bass, with a big mudbucker up against the fingerboard and a guitar humbucker underneath a closed cover close to the bridge. It sounded big and thunderous and looked great. It was surprisingly heavy due to the solid maple center block below the bridge and pickups, but played great. 

7 hours ago, Obrienp said:

Yesterday evening doing a catch up on Glastonbury on iPlayer, I stumbled on the Last Dinner Party. I noticed from the very brief glimpses of the bassist (BBC seems to try to avoid showing bassists) that she seemed to be playing a Gretsch Junior Jet and it sounded pretty good. Good on her I thought. You don’t need fabulously expensive kit to sound good. Of course they didn’t show her rig (at least while I was watching). One up for the short scale players anyway.

Cool! When I saw them on Later with Jools Holland once she played a gold Fender PJ Mustang. Sounded great too. 

With bonus t*tty veins! 

19 hours ago, thodrik said:

Marshall combo JCM 2000/JVM combo will also do a great job and can be purchased used at decent sub £500 prices, though you will need a boost pedal to get really high gain sounds. 

There is Blackstar too but I preferred the Peavey to the HT Stage series when I looking at amps 10 years ago. 

With the Marshall JCM2000 series, stick to the DSL models and leave the TSL models alone. They're less reliable. 

Great call on the 6505 too! Great metal tones - but yes, the clean and crunch could be better. 

And Blackstar... I don't know with Blackstar. I always feel they sound good on their own, but get lost when playing with others. They look cool, they're packed with useful features, but the HT series lacks top end presence to cut through a mix. 

Looks like this one:

https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/product/ksm-4-string-bass-bridge/