LeftyJ

I have always had a strong tendency to tamper with the guitars I've owned. Additional switching options, upgrading the pots and switches, experimenting with various capacitors on the tone control, graphite nuts and string retainers, swapping pickups, and all have had strap locks added. Somehow on my basses though, I barely touch anything. I have one exception (Fender MIJ 70s Jazz Bass reissue) that was originally passive but went through two different preamps, had its stock bridge swapped for a Badass II and its tuners swapped for Hipshots and a D-tuner but otherwise I've kept things limited to just strap locks.

My previous band used to do this, but not for the reason you state. We played pop metal with female vocals, and our album prominently featured a lot of synths and a Hammond organ - but we didn't play with a live keyboardist, so we had a backing track with all the keys and some backing vocals. We rehearsed either with a clicktrack (which only our drummer would hear through his headphones) or to the drum tracks from our album recordings if our drummer couldn't make it to our rehearsals. We sounded tight as f*ck! We often played live with in-ear monitoring, and would have the click track in all our personal mixes (which added a funny bonus: we replaced our drummer's count off with four clicks up front on our in-ears, so we would all start our songs perfectly in sync and our audience would have no idea how we did it).

My last remaining Ibanez is just one month younger than me, so pretty close to turning 40 (December 1983). I consider it vintage, but I'm not quite ready to be called that myself

I saw one of Lukasz' creations on eBay just last week, a lefty in matte black with an MM pickup. The design isn't for me (strong Ritter vibes, but less elegant), but they do look well-made and well-designed. Enjoy!

Ouch, that 3+1 headstock does not look good IMO. I was expecting it to look more like the headstock on their Fender guitar replacement neck.

Check out KLOS. They've recently introduced separate graphite guitar necks, and I expect bass necks will be next on the list. They're made in China, with final assembly and QC in the USA. Their Apollo basses have been getting great reviews so far. And @Beedster's advice is great! Sometimes basses with Status Jazz or Stingray necks do pop up used.

Overrated: MM-style humbuckers. I get their appeal, and I like the tone many players obtain from them, but I just can't get along with them. I've owned a Stingray 5, two Carvin LB75's, a Carvin B4 and several Ibanez ATK's and I've loved each and every one of them for a while, but grew tired of the tone after a while. I like a bit of attack, but I don't like the overly bright, midscooped clack I get from them. Or more specifically: I don't like a bass where the "neutral" setting of the EQ is not a good and solid base tone where I can just unplug one bass (say, a Jazz) and plug in another (MM) without having to adjust the on-board EQ to match my amp settings. So definitely a me-problem Underrated: Line 6 Lowdown bass amps. They were short-lived, and dropped in price real quickly. Their big mistake was they only sold them as (bulky) combo's, and not as heads. They were simple, with just 5 different on-board amplifier models, had a very usable range of tones, and sounded great. I had a Lowdown Studio 110 for years that I used for home practice, small livingroom rehearsals, a few small gigs and to record an album with my old band The Bullfight, all through the XLR out. It was just 12x12x12 inches in size, very portable and rugged. It only lacked one thing, IMO: a tweeter would have been great. I contemplated replacing the stock speaker with a coaxial one with a tweeter in the middle, but then a cheap used EBS NeoDrome 112 presented itself and I've been a very happy camper ever since.

That looks surprisingly good! A bit of Peavey (Cirrus), a bit of MTD (not just the knob layout). I like it, and would happily rock a 5-string version or a first venture into 6. This one is over the top for me I'm afraid, and the wrong way around at that!

Very rare 1980 Vigier Arpege in France: https://www.leboncoin.fr/instruments_de_musique/2383827738.htm

It's difficult to advice on this without knowing the neck dimensions of the kit guitar. That said, Telecasters typically have fairly thick and rounded necks with a fairly small fingerboard radius (i.e. curved frets). I have owned a '99 Fender American Standard Tele and two G&L USA ASAT Specials (one from the 1990s and one from around 2004) and all of these had similar necks: fairly bold and thick C-shaped necks, thicker than my Strat necks, with a curvy 9.5" fingerboard radius (more vintage correct Teles will even have a 7.25" radius, which isn't for everyone). If you want Tele tones but a thinner, more modern neck shape there are other options out there too. Ibanez recently discontinued the Talman series, but there are still TM302's out there. The shape roughly sits inbetween a Jazzmaster and a Tele, but the electronics package and the bridge are undeniably Telecaster. They're very comfortable instruments with classic Tele tones but a more modern look and feel. Andertons recently did a nice video on affordable Teles too, with some nice contenders like the Sire Larry Carlton models that looked and sounded great.

I had to come back to this, because I forgot to mention I don't own the bass version but use the guitar version for my headless basses. Might be an important detail, and quite a deciding factor in how low (or high) the bag hangs on my back

I've never given this subject enough thought, and I'm not one to try out many types of string or to find the set that matches a particular bass best. I've had a liking for Elixir Nanoweb strings for many years and have used them almost exclusively on everything for the last 10 years, with a few notable exceptions: When I bought my Ibanez RS924 used, it came with two spare sets of Warwick Red Label 040-095 sets and they worked really well on that bass - and stayed crisp for a remarkably long time. I stuck with them on that bass until I sold it two years ago, and have never bothered putting the Red Labels on any of my other basses. On my headless Status basses (and the Hohner B2A that I had briefly) I use Status Hotwire double ball strings, stainless steel 045-105 on the 4-string and 040-125 on the 5-string; On my Atelier Z shortscale the previous owner had installed a set of DR Sunbeam 045-105 round core strings and I love the feel and tone. Elixir don't do medium scale or short scale sets, so I think I'll stick with the Sunbeams. I was amazed by the tight feel (and tone!) despite the 30" scale. Before using Elixirs, I tried several sets on the Yamaha TRB5II I had then. It's had Warwick Black Labels, a very hefty set of Galli strings with a 145 B-string (not recommended for standard tuning on a 35" scale bass! Not doing that again, it was hard work playing it with those strings on it), Ernie Ball, D'Addario... Ever since trying Elixirs, I haven't looked back.

Atelier Z has / had a couple. The ZPO 5 is a Precision-shaped model with two J pickups and active 3-band. The Baby Z 5J is a Mustang-shaped model with two J pickups and active 2-band boost-only. There are also some Jazz-shaped models I think. The Baby Z is fun and the most affordable of the bunch, I have the 4-string version. It's slightly neckdivey but incredibly easy to play and it sounds great. Similarly to the Fender Musicmaster, the string spacing at the bridge is quite narrow at just 16.5 mm even on the 4-string, so it's probably not for everybody. That Callowhill had me squinting at my screen for a moment because of its proportions. It looks like they took a picture of a fullscale PJ bass and just squeezed it down to a shorter length. That's brilliantly funny! Looks really cool.

The neck pickup position is interesting, it appears to be closer to the neck than on a regular P (or PJ). Was this originally a regular JJ?

It is, but on other MetroExpress basses it looks like the bottom part should sit in a recessed slot. Another BC member posted his, and the bottom of the top part sits flush with the sides of the nut slot.

I've had the opposite: "Why do you listen to Gorillaz? You're old!" But then I was able to reverse it, and tell them "Clint Eastwood" was released in 2001, when I was still their age (turned 18 that year)

I have no experience with the newer models, but owned an ABM300 EVO II C210T with an ABM 115 Compact extension cab for a few years. Regarding how 'loud' it felt to me, it mattered a LOT (more so than with any other amp I've ever played through) where I set the bass control knob. That amp had tons of low end and subharmonics (and I'm talking that KILLED the volume of the amp. I had to keep the bass control down to 9 o'clock to keep things usable. But as I said, that was with an EVO II so they may have addressed this on later models.

How's the rout look from the inside? Could the bottom part of the stock nut sit lower if you clean up the rout a little?

Looks like the bottom half wasn't properly recessed. It appears there is some routing done, but it's not installed properly. The flat area should sit flush with the bottom of the nut slot (with the wood, that is). Is it glued in, or can you pull it out freely?

To be fair, that sounds like something that can be solved with adjusting the length of the straps? I'm 1,96 metres tall (and chunky too) so it's easy for me to talk: mine doesn't get anywhere near my legs when I carry it on my back. But I'm sure carrying it higher up your back would solve your issue? I agree it's not the most comfortable to wear, but it's not bad either. My most comfortable one is probably my old Ritter (the bass version of this).

There should be a second part underneath the nut, I think? The adjustment screws probably don't rest directly on plain maple, or they would eat their way into the neck wood. I would try removing the nut and see what's underneath, the bottom part should be recessed and mustn't sit flush with the bottom of the nut slot.

Looks real enough. The smaller, narrow-post Gotoh GB-1 tuners give it away as an "entry level" instrument, and the O-serial dates it to 1993-1994. Might be a late Silver Series model, although I would expect the headstock decal to point this out and it's not showing. Silver Series would have a single-ply pickguard without bevelled edges, which this doesn't appear to have - but I have trouble teling from the pic. Appears to be in great condition still, nice find!

I would much prefer black on gold. Proper pr0n! The chrome doesn't look quite right on the gold finish.

Negative, that would be the J-tone, not the J-retro. This is the J-retro: