Starless

[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).

I have a couple of these connectors which I keep in my 'odds'n'sods' spares bag for emergencies (in case anyone else in the band has a problem). I don't like using them myself as I worry that pressing pedals and having two connected so rigidly could introduce problems with the sockets after a while or cause stress in the connector. Best to have short patch leads (6") so that any movement in one pedal is not directly transmitted to the adjoining pedal.

There is no 'hit or miss' with Japanese Quality Control (as you would expect). I have a '62 re-issue which was half the price of a USA model and I just can't fault it. As with Rickenbackers, USA Fenders seem to have a premium added because of some ill-conceived perception over the years that they are 'the best', but Fender Japan produce identical models which are immaculately finished. Rather than pick up a USA Jazz, why not spend the same amount of money on a Jap Jazz and a Precision to keep it company.

I was a Rickenbacker nut for years, but have now off-loaded the last 2 that I owned. Several reasons, the main one being I discovered the Fender Jazz Bass. I can make my Jazz sound like a Ric, but can't do the trick the other way round. The previously noted contempt for their customers, the shoddy Quality Control, and the fact that any famous Ric player through history has only really played them as a passing fad (McCartney, Roger Waters, Geddy Lee etc etc) leads me to finally believe that they really are not special and are now shockingly over-priced for what you actually get (even one that has managed to escape the factory relatively defect-free). It's the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle for the noughties. Living on past glories and bumping up the prices to 'cool demand' rather than produce enough instruments. Anyone wanting to part with £1500 or upwards really should hold it, play it and inspect every last detail before parting with any cash (even a deposit). If you had ordered a 4003 in 2007 after having a shot of a friend's new one, you will now be receiving a 4003 with a completely different (fatter) neck profile from the one your mate has. You might like it, you might not - tough sh*t amigo - Ric will do what they like and have you pay through the nose for the priviledge of owning a 'classic'. But you have to ask - a classic what? Long live Leo!

[quote name='Clarky' post='505409' date='Jun 4 2009, 12:39 PM']Also does anyone make a credible P-bass fretless, as I prefer P necks to J necks?[/quote] Those nice people at Fender made them in the 70s, and thankfully those even nicer Fender people in Japan were making them only a few years ago, one of which is my Pride and Joy......