Starless

[quote name='Lostheplot' post='662956' date='Nov 23 2009, 05:43 PM']I'm still dreading the actual gig though [/quote] That's the other important thing. Don't get scared. What's the worst that can happen? You could be complete sh*te, but so what. Just remember it is you that is up there, not the punters. The adrenalin will kick in and once that first number is out of the way and you hear the smattering of drunken applause it is plain sailing from there on in. Pick an absolute dead cert as an opening number, up-tempo, simple and right in their faces. get off to a flyer and you're halfway there. Don't stand looking like you want the ground to swallow you up. Take every opportunity to look up and around at each other and out into the crowd. Staring at your shoes (or your fretboard) throughout the gig will make you look scared. Tapping your foot is a good thing to do, and having a bit of a jig around even better. Be confident but don't be an arrogant cock. I speak from the mid-life crisis experience of being a home 'noodler' for 30 odd years, before finally going out there and doing it in public for the first time earlier this year. First ever gig in front of a Saturday night pub full of boozers with that 'Go on, entertain me' look in their eyes. Nerves completely evaporated as soon as the first note was struck in anger, and the applause at the end of that first number was an experience I will never forget. I had to learn something like 30 songs of various genres in about a month and there is nothing like having to do it rather than just piddling around to make you a better player. Second gig - great, third gig - so-so, 4th - fine, 5th - cracking.... etc etc. I'll be in gig double-figures next weekend an I'm loving every minute of it, should have done it years (decades) ago. You'll be just fine.

[quote name='TRadford' post='663176' date='Nov 23 2009, 09:14 PM']I love the looks and tone of the Warwick, I love the range of tones from the G&L and I love the look and heritage of the Stingray.[/quote] But which is better? There's only one way to find out.........

"a 1963 jazz bass with the L serial number, all original except for the body, fingerboard and headstock" Sorry, but is this a wind-up thread? Surely this ceased to be a '63 Jazz bass some considerable time ago, and is now in the category of 'Frankenbass'. Clinging on to that description on say, an eBay listing would have the punters on here laughing their socks off. When does a bass cease to be what it was manufactured as? Change fretboard OK, rip out the electrics fair enough, but replace a Jazz body with a P? This is mental.

[quote name='mpjsols' post='649273' date='Nov 8 2009, 11:27 PM']I think 35 and I am using ADAGIO PRO - 5 String Set 45-125.[/quote] Have you tried tuning the bass down one or two steps, just to relieve the tension? If you try that and find that you are eliminating some of the zinngg, then would be worth looking at trying lighter guage strings (40-100 maybe, and keep the 125 B string).

I've found the higher the tension (no matter what brand of strings) then the more Zinnngg! there is. You say it is a 'longer scale bass' - longer than what? Maybe you need lighter gauge strings to compensate for the increased scale length and reduce the tension a bit. Maybe keep a tight B, but lighten up the other four. What gauge of strings are you using and what is the scale length of the bass?

Without a doubt, get the wooden 2 vertical screw one. I have 3 of them along the wall screwed through the plaster and into the wooden uprights behind the wall (no need for any plugs or plaster fixings). The screws supplied are long enough to get right through. The triangular metal things will probably not guarantee all the screws are in wood and I wouldn't trust my Fenders with any kind of plasterboard or fancy fixing plugs. As an aside, I use another 4 of the wooden vertical ones above and inbetween the lower 3 for acoustic (lighter) instruments. These ones are in plasterboard and utilise the supplied (very long) rawl plugs. You don't need a builder to find the solid wood behind the plasterboard. Just tap your knuckle along the wall and listen. Hollow sounding means no wood, solid sounding means screw it in there. Depending on the age of the house or wall they should be about a couple of feet apart (mine are about 22 inches). Perfect for basses below, acoustics above. Rock solid (pardon the pun) and the wooden bits match the guitars (and the dining table).

I just can't see me debasing my Fenders with those pretty wee pastel coloured bits of twee. Probably Ok for 6-stringers (they're all closet flower arrangers anyway), but not on a bass.

[quote name='lemmywinks' post='606200' date='Sep 22 2009, 10:32 PM']That looks stunning, good score mate! I'm a sucker for dark wood finishes anyway but that's beautiful If you fancy a fretless sister for it have a look at the link down there [/quote] That does look rather nice.... thanks for the offer, but she already has a fretless sister.... I will have to get a photo of the two of them together... will that qualify as 'gear porn'? If so, better not refer to them as 'sisters'. Maybe, 'just good friends who share a room together and become emotionally and sensually entwined as they explore their deepest....'. maybe that's taking the analogy too far, I'll stop before I include the vibrating G-strings.... Need to go have a lie-down now.

Thanks for all the replies people. She arrived today, and I must say Ishibashi have out-done themselves this time. The serial number dates it to 93/94, and when I enquired about the condition of the bass prior to purchasing, I was told 'a few scratches, nothing serious. Frets 80-90%' - I wasn't sure what the fret reference was all about, but went ahead with the purchase anyway. After unwinding about 50 metres of bubblewrap, she revealed herself in all her glory - not a mark on her apart from some serious scuffing and scratching on the black pickguard. I then noticed that the pickguard still had it's protective film on it, and after peeling it away, I was left with a shiny new pickguard. So, a fifteen year-old bass with not a mark on her anywhere. It is a matt walnut finish and I would have expected to have seen some 'shiny' patches where actual bodily contact has been made while playing, but no - nothing. Whoever owned this before obviously wasn't into playing very much. Now for the tricky bit. The tuners are black-ish (a kind of almost metallic black), the tailpiece, neck plate and strap buttons are a dark metallic greenish kind of gunmetal sort of colour - does anyone know what the technical term for that is? It is going to be impossible to find a set of schaller strap buttons to match. Gold won't do it, and their black ones are just too ...ehm...black. Does anyone know of a decent straplock system that would work with original Fender vintage-shaped strap buttons?

Thanks for the replies folks. Good old Fender Japan along with Ishibashi's used stock have contrived to make me part with the dosh for my first 'duplicate' bass. It is a walnut finish '62 re-issue CIJ Jazz, and as I already own a CIJ 62 Jazz in John Paul Jones 3TS, I'm hoping the quality of the one currently on its way will be comparable. I've never obsessed about how a bass looks before, but just thought the completely walnutted Jazz would go well with my completely mapled fretless P (CIJ of course). A kind of matching contrasting pair that would complement each other on stage. Mmm... Walnuts and maple syrup... Mmmm.... The 3TS jazz is my 'baby' my gigging workhorse, and there is sentimental value attached to it, but when the walnut arrives... One of them will have to be eBay-ed..... Those Japanese chaps do make exceedingly good basses, at a fraction of the price, and the choice of models and finishes is just mind-blowing (and over-draft inducing). Can't believe I've just pulled the trigger on a bass because of the way it looks. Jeez... Shoot me someone.

I have seen a couple of walnut finish basses recently, and was wondering what the score was with this finish. Body, headstock (front and back), back of the neck... In fact, just totally walnutised. I'm presuming this is not solid wood, and is some kind of all over satin finish. Does anyone have any experience of this (especially on a Jazz bass) and how did they sound and play? Also, when did Fender actually produce this finish - were they ever standard production models or custom jobs? Any replies appreciated as I'm beginning to lust after this particular finish. Help me......

I've had some of the cheapest nastiest old basses able to hold a note for ages (well beyond what would normally be required if actually playing a song), so this magical sustain of which you speak is no indication of a bass's 'quality'. Thru-necks tend to have more of it and so thru-neck fans bleat on about how great the sustain is - it's like marvelling at how a 4x4 can climb mountains when all you ever really do is take the kids to school in it. If I needed a bass note sustained for a whole bar at constant tone and pitch I would get a set of bass pedals or plonk a synth in front of me. And what is it with these people (eech..sounding like a stand-up comedian now) who fit brass nuts (no monkey jokes now) to their basses? "Oooh... listen... great sustain...", these poor sods play nothing but open strings all night? This is all really for people who attach the output of their instrument to an oscilloscope rather than a performing amplifier.

...and the next thing to do is buy a Hipshot replacement tailpiece, so that you can adjust the saddle height INDIVIDUALLY, and then re-intonate after the neck adjustment without having to loosen off the strings, and then be able to palm mute the strings without knocking lumps off of your hands courtesy of the useless damper adjustment bolts, and finally marvel at a piece of engineering which doesn't actually bend (tail-lift) when put under tension (which is what bass tailpieces tend to be most of the time).... etc etc. You guessed it.. I had Rics once, and that damned bridge assembly is the biggest waste of scrap metal ever to appear on a 'high-end' instrument.

[quote name='Stag' post='566316' date='Aug 11 2009, 10:09 PM']Splendid stuff there chap, it isnt option B thankfully! Bit of taillift going on as is the case with these things but otherwise I thnk a bit of saddle fiddling should do some good. Many thanks![/quote] Thing to remember about Rics is, with the strings tuned to pitch, the neck should be dead flat, no bow (back or forward) absolutely straight as a very straight straight thing (from Straightown). Next thing to watch for is the year of the bass.... if yours is an 82, then the adjustment is done differently from more recent Rics (I think post-85). The rods need to be loosened off, the neck pulled into position by hand (with the help of a friend to hold the bass down, and another friend to sight down the neck - you need a lot of friends) and then the nuts tightened up again. Early Rics don't do the 1/8th, 1/4 turn, leave it for a day, procedure. I think doing that will either have no effect, or pop the fretboard off. One of the two, not sure which.

[quote name='pete.young' post='564055' date='Aug 9 2009, 11:52 AM']It is a CIJ PB70 80US fretless, a not-for-export model with US pickups and I'll guess a jazz-width neck. I have an identical one, except that it has frets.[/quote] Yes it is a 70's re-issue with US electrics. The neck is certainly Jazz width, but a bit chunkier in profile (if I could find a Jazz that looks exactly the same then I would have that like a shot - but not sure if they ever existed). The only downside to the bass is the weight. It is appreciably heavier than my Jazz, and I am not 100% sure what the body material is... certainly matches the maple neck and fingerboard, but I was always under the impression that these things were either ash or basswood. Either way, those cunning devils in the land of the rising sun did a fab job matching the wood finishes.

[quote name='Moos3h' post='563471' date='Aug 8 2009, 01:58 PM']some of the prices being asked for them exceed the cost of USA built ones[/quote] I'm not really seeing that. More like Japs are anything between £450 - £700 depending on model (bass) and the US equivalents can be anything up to £1200. No contest for me, I have never owned a US Fender (although have had a shot now and again), and refuse to gig with anything that costs me over £500. My Jap Jazz and 'Precision' both cost me around £450 and they are spot on, build-wise, finish-wise, sound-wise. No point taking a chance with the Mex models and I'm not going to pay an extra 3-400 quid for a 'Made in USA' sticker. In all my time of trawling internet forums, I have yet to see any bad stuff written about Japanese Fenders. They may have crept up a bit in price recently, but that has to be as a result of their reputation. This is the (imprecise) Precision. Just cannot fault it in any way.

And lookout for Rickenbacker's legal department sending out the swat teams to beat up every kid in their bedroom who actually owns one. You think I'm joking?

The 'advantage' of try before you buy in a shop just doesn't cut it for me. Over the last few years I have chopped and changed instruments quite a bit. As a long standing Rickenbacker user I had tried the occasional P and J bass in shops over the years, and just didn't fancy them at all. Getting back into gigging last year meant I had to decide whether to cart £1500 worth of Rickenbacker (x2 if taking a backup) or get something cheaper. I read up on the subject of Fenders and bought a used Jap Jazz online at a great price. Sure enough the first couple of hours were not great, but I kept the bass and over the weeks and months finally 'got it'. It's now my number one instrument and the Ricks have been sold (funnily enough online for great prices). The moral of the story for me is that trying a bass in person at a mate's house or in a shop for a couple of hours is really not enough time to decide. If I had strapped my fretless P on and only doodled around for a bit, I would have handed it back there and then. But again, because I had bought it, I held onto it and it too is now 'un-put-downable' for me. I look at buying online as effectively hiring the instrument. If after 3 months it is still not floating your boat then sell it again - a decent enough instrument will have pretty much held its value (or in some cases increased), and even if you do take a slight loss, then that can be considered the 'hire fee' while you've had it. I would never make a decision on a bass in a shop, so with far more choice out there on t'interweb, it makes sense to me to buy that way and then sell on later if necessary.

I'm no expert (obviously, as I have MAG 300 + MAG 2x10 + MAG 1x15), but I'm of the opinion that there are so many influencing factors involved before the signal gets to the head, that I would happy to play through any head/cab combination, and adjust the characteristics to suit. Pickup type, pick-up positioning, pick-up blending, fingering type (attack etc), fingering position, bass tone pot, (and in my case) graphic eq pedal etc etc. I can adjust all of these to get exactly what I want to hear in any given circumstance (rehearsal, busy pub, empty pub, hall etc). I can make my fretless P sound like a Ric, and my fretted J sound like Macca's Hofner. I've never felt the need to agonise over the amp controls or features (although the Ashdown's built in sub-harmonic feature is pretty good). Just my non-expert opinion, but if the Ashdown is 'woolly' given what it is being fed, then feed it something else. I'm pretty sure I could make an Ampeg or Hiwatt or whatever else sound 'wooly' if I wanted to. Just all seems a bit anal to be fretting over head/cab combinations as if we all play in acoustically perfect laboratory conditions (which I certainly don't).