Dom in Dorset

The Marmite option:

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nameless , probably Japanese Jazz bass. A cool looking wreck that (as far as I remember) played like a dream. For some reason I sold it to this guy for £30, he gave me £15 on the spot and was going to give me the rest next week.....25 years passed.... Probably looking at that bass through rose tinted specs but it's bass I really learned to play on.

Matt Dulux - always takes a loaded shot gun on stage, the worst alto crumhorn player in North Somerset, drinks petrol and chain smokes Slim Panatellas. He ran off with my dog.

it's like the "Pina Colada" song! I think that you should apply under your own name, let them know that you're onto them, see what happens.

One of my bands has three song writers who all sing , I'm one of them. I tend to write on guitar and deliver a fairly complete song for the band to work on, sometimes it's a bit more embrionic and the others chip in but I do write all the words. I also play in an instrumental band where I have much less input mainly because thery've been playing for years, I joined last Christmas and I'm still learning all of the old stuff.

As an acoustic for performance most just aren't loud enought, some of the cheap nameless short scale ones can be loud but clunky. Ibanez ones are good but not too loud. I made myself a shallow body fretless acoustic and a play it all the time unplugged, not loud but a great tone for at home noodling. Plugged in it's the bass I use about 80% of the time. I'd be intigued to try the Fender (kingma?) bass , acoustic body +jazz neck or a Godin.

Building basses is like taking crack! I made an acoustic fretless, i thought I could handle it but before i knew it i'd started on twin neck. now I'm into the hard stuff, I've got a five string in the pipeline and a headless acoustic twin neck ,a thru neck active jazz etc ect

Check out the Build Diaries forum (scroll down on the menu) Get a copy of this book: [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Your-Own-Electric-Guitar/dp/0953104907/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286901574&sr=8-3"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Your-Own-Elec...1574&sr=8-3[/url]

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Strings make a huge difference, I use black nylon wound some like the ebony board/rounwound combo, there must be those who favour regular flats. It might be worth getting a cheap bass de-fretting it and experiment with string types even pickups to narrow your options before you splash out on something special.

A quick look at timber prices at my local wood turning shop shows little difference. There are however several typesv of rosewood some of wich may be more expensive.

Piezo bridges can be bought from several outlets , CH guitars do a cheap one , I've got some but not tried them yet. Acoustic basses use piezos, you can also buy these pick ups and pre-amps on ebay. I built myself an acoustic fretless with one , it's my main bass now.

I'll take it. how much?

If they are offering you some free strings take them, I can't see how they can check up on you to make sure you use them and you never know they might be good.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='963606' date='Sep 21 2010, 06:08 PM']OK, I'm imagining Steve Harris. Now what do I do?[/quote] Tell him to re-string his bass and stop messing up my contribution to the debate.

[quote name='KERMITNT' post='963546' date='Sep 21 2010, 05:04 PM']sorry i have to say it the inovation slaping the bass and roundwoond strings other techniques as well make the bass sound awsome[/quote] Roundwound strings +1 try to imagine any rock bass player using flats. I read somewhere that it was down to John Entwistle nagging Rotosound that roundwounds for bass came into being (I could be wrong) before that it was all flats.

I have exactly the same problem + even when I'm using my own amp and get the time required to ballance to volume between my basses the singer launches into the intro before I've had a chance to change! solution...twin neck under construction.

"Because the first one is not worth using for kindling. I bought a finished jazz neck from this lot and it was totally crap. Finishing on it had been done by a madman with a sanding machine and the nut was so gigantic that when I attached it to my bass body and put strings on the action was so high I could have used the bass to shoot arrows with." - almost totally the opposite of my experience! the only issue i had with the finish (they could be described as unfinished) was a couple of minore dinks that i sanded out.There were no visible sanding marks , there were a few ragged bits around the holes for the machine heads. The nuts were the standard size that I've seen on any jazz bass, I would expect them to be slightly oversized to alow for some adjustment. I've also seen the same criticisms given to more expensive necks when I posted a similar enquiry last year! I think it depends how much work you are prepared to do yourself, the more you spend the less you should have to do to it.

I did some research on this a while ago and as far as I could tell people had good and bad experiences with just about every brand neck. On the whole the £59 necks had slightly less bad reviews than the £150 ones! As I was making a twin neck I went with CH guitars (£59) to keep costs down, and so far I'm happy with them. The finish needed a bit of attention (ten minutes with some sand paper). I bought jazz necks and they look quite delicately made, not the chunky things you sometimes get on a cheap bass. I haven't finished the job yet so I have no idea how they play.

New neck and body! I'll get an off the peg neck and make a body , probably from recovered or discovered timber. i've got lots of nice wood in the workshop but i like the idea of a total one off using some interesting bit of timber. I've got another build on the go at the moment (twin neck in build diaries) so I'm in no rush, a suitable body will present it'self in time.

It should be an interesting project, thanks for your input, it's helpful to know what I've got before i decide what I'm going to do with it.

i've seen a couple of shines, they do a six string that's good value. they seem nicely made for the money, the one I now own isn't to my taste in looks, if the hardware can be extracted without doing too much damage the body will be available if anyone wants it (postage only or collect for free)