NJE

Wow, that’s looks good, go Fender!

I know several musicians and general studio engineering and mixing folk who use Senngeiser HD-25 headphones. Apparently great natural flat response and not earth shatteringly expensive for headphones.

As above, coil them properly, Velcro cable ties and store them so they don’t get scrunched up. I do also believe that most of the branded cables you can buy from shops (fender, planet waves, Ernie ball, monster etc) are pretty hopeless most of the time. For 15 years I have been using two Klotz/Neutrik cables my dad made. I have one more I bought custom made using Van Damme cables and Neutriks and that has done about 5 years so far. For some reason all my guitarist friends go through cables at a ridiculous rate but they keep buying overpriced shop cables, they won’t bloody listen....😂

I have a Harley Benton Fretless sunburst Jazz. Silly cheap new and even better deal secondhand if you look around. Plays great, well made (neck joint is tighter than I have seen in 2k Fenders) and I think it looks superb. For the price you can use it to fend of drunken idiots on a Saturday night and not worry.

I have been using Strings Direct for over a decade and never had an issue. Once an order got lost in the post and after a few days I queried it with them, next morning I had a set on the doorstep, very professional and good prices. Bass Direct have been great the couple of times I used them too. shame about Stringbusters, used to use them for certain strings and never had an issue, but I doubt I have used them in about 4 years.

Yes to some Star Wars in there 😄👏🏻

I would definitely go tort or find a cool black and white image to go underneath a clear guard like Gail Ann Dorsey does.

I used to play in a soul/disco band with brass etc and it was a reasonable sound. Our guitarist and sort of promoter and general gig-getter is harmless but a shameful liar when it comes to getting gigs and would feed venues all kinds of nonsense unbeknownst to the rest of us. He booked us out as a “top northern soul band” at a venue and they had promoted the whole night as a Northern Soul event so it wasn’t a good start. There were maybe 25 people in a very big bar/venue and you could hear everyone moaning between songs that we were playing Chic and sister sledge etc as well as the obvious Commitments type soul songs and the organiser wasn’t happy either. To add to the horror, we had a new-ish drummer who was in his 60’s and taught drums. Rehearsals had gone well but when it came to the gig he didn’t know the tempo or rhythm for any of the songs. Before each song I had to remind him and seeing as I was on joint lead vocals it wasn’t conducive to swift song changes. To my utter embarrassment on several occasions I had to stop him after the whole band had started because he was playing way too fast or basically rock beats under disco. On one occasion I had sang him the start of the song, he said he remembered and played it completely the wrong beat. I stopped him again and played the beat and tempo out to him, on my leg and he said “I’ve got it” and then played the exact same WRONG beat he had just been doing. I tried him once more as it was normally our best tune and he still fudged it so we moved on. I just wanted there to be a sniper in the back of the room to just put me out of misery right there and then.

Another vote for Elixirs, I have said several times on various threads that I have some potent body chemistry and eat through normal strings at an alarming rate, a few practices or a couple of gigs and they are gone. Elixirs however remain consistent for a very long time and I love the soft feel the strings have as well, win win. I was also sad enough to work out what I would spend on uncoated strings in a year against the price of Elixirs and how long they last me and I was comfortably saving money over the course of a year. I will also throw out a very honourable mention to D'Addario NYXL strings. I have a set on my Stingray and they had done incredibly well considering they aren't advertised as a 'longer lasting string'. They feel good and have lasted a lot longer than my old favourites Ernie Ball Slinkys, the 'regular' D'Addario Strings, and Dunlop Super Bright.

I have played a few of the British custom basses mentioned on here and I can honestly say that the two Sei Basses and GB Spitfires I have played have probably been the nicest instruments I have ever played and are not the benchmark for feel for anything else I own. Actually I also need to give an honourable mention to the Overwater J5 I had, the neck was just phenomenal but it was someone else’s order so not 100% what I wanted in a bass. I found the Sadowsky basses I have played to be impeccably built and nice to play but soulless, just very clinical and the ones I played (metros I should add) didn’t have the nice rolled fretboard edges I like but that’s a personal thing. They were great but just a bit clinical. I would also rate the three makers above over an Alleva Coppollo I played as well. I tried two Enfield basses as a show once, beautifully made but the G string kept rolling off the edge of the fingerboard when I played it, god knows why, never happened to me on any other bass. Not sure if your after a 4 or 5 string but there are used examples of both GB and Sei at the gallery.

It’s difficult to try some of the brands we are talking about, but if it was me I would be looking at the following: Pensa, Stenback, Suhr, Moollon, Lakland, Celinder, and actually of your ok with passive (although you say super jazz so maybe not) Fender Custom Shop. On a side note, I have played Sadowsky, Alleva and various other high end jazzes and the best two I think I played were Sei and Goodfellow. I have fallen madly for two of Bernie’s GB Spitfires, phenomenal but I know that in a secondhand market they won’t hold value like a big US made jazz bass.

I get stuck into a mindset occasionally that I should like most basses and pickup configurations. I have owned about 5 p basses now and I just can’t gget on with them. I just can’t find a position where my hand is comfortable. It’s the same with jazz basses, I have owned a few but I just can’t get on with the nudge width. I got round this by playing 5 strings for a long time but I’m back on 4 string most of the time and have settled on a Stingray which gives me what I lack in a P and J. Am I content? No, I have it in my head I need a custom Jazz with a bigger nut, a PJ precision and I still have undwindling GAS for a Pino signature knowing full well I can’t get on with P basses. I think my heart says the Pino will cure my P bass issues....deluded 😂

Just tried it, it doesnt seem to work ☹️

Stop wasting your teenage years playing bass in bands thinking you will ‘make it’. Work harder at school and study something useful that will give you a good career and make you good money. The best it gets for you is playing weddings to drunk people who just want to listen to crap music, and you won’t earn any more from it per night at 35 as you do at 16. Excercise more, don’t waste your money on guitars.

I have had my fair share of USA Fenders and unless you can try one secondhand before you buy I would stay clear. I think all of mine have had quality issues of some kind and never felt very responsive. I don’t think they are worth the money new at all. If it was me, I would go Lakland or a chunky necked MIM 50’s (both the normal and roadworns I have played are superb) or I would look at the Nate Mendel precision secondhand. I don’t think anyone has much bad to say about them, they look great and Scott Devine seems to play his a lot more that a Fender Custom Shop which says something to me. We all like different feels and look for different qualities though, so really it’s the same old advice of try a load and see what sticks.

Yeah my dad too. He was in London at the start of the rock n roll explosion and ended up unwittingly rubbing shoulders with a lot of the big names in music now. He grew up and played in bands with Ian McLagen of the small faces, did sessions with Manfred Mann, had The Who support one of his bands, saw the stones before anyone cared about them, bumped into a “weird kid” called David Bowie at some parties.....and so on. All of this and a bit more I have draggged out of him over the years as he kept the fact he was even a musician hidden from my mum and I for about 20 years. He turned his back on it and gave up until I was about 15 when he started playing guitar again. I adored music before he showed any ability, but he stoked the fire in me to learn to play and instrument and taught me my first chords and encouraged me so much to play bass when I showed a genuine interest. At 16 I was gigging in pubs and playing functions in his band earning £70-150 a night, good times!

I have just seen the Rivolto Combinata on eastwoods site which was designed by Dennis Fano. It’s a cool shape and I actually quite like the headstock too, so if that could be modified or adapted to a short or medium scale that would be interesting. Get some nice hipshot hardware on there and some cool pickups and it could be a pretty cool retro bass. I like a lot of Fano guitar designs and ideas so maybe seeing what they could come up with would be cool.

If you really want to spend a load of money, I would probably aim for a Stingray Classic or an Old Smoothie. If you fancy making your budget go a little further, I would keep an eye out for a regular 2 or 3 band Stingray secondhand (I love the three band but a lot of folks like the 2). I have seen them as low as £700 on here, Facebook and Gumtree and I would put the rest of your budget to good use somewhere else or on another Bass.

Hit me with your rhythm stick. That takes a lot of building up to, it’s hard to get the feel right and play at the right speed and will get your plucking hand working well with your fretted. I have seen very few people nail it.

Yeah really great strings and I also love the whole recycling idea and the rewards scheme, genius! Just saving up for a new set which takes a while these days with a kid in the house 😄

My good friend (who’s a guitarist) bought me this.....bar-steward.....it’s pretty much true though 😄

This man speaks for me as well 😄. I read the title and this is basically what came to my head, short scale or even up to 33” scale with some nice hardware (lollipop tuners please) and a big Novak or Serek-esque pickup.