Delberthot

Fantastic - harking back to my days as a spotty teenager playing in a big band with guys in their 60s and 70s, I look forward to, musical and otherwise, stories about the past. I recognise the pic in your avatar from an old issue of US mag - Bass Player.

loads of stories about these - one of which being that until the Japan factory got up to speed with manufacturing parts they literally shipped US Fender parts over there and had the workers there put them together. Early JV0*** serials had the large Fender, small Squier logo They were produced at a time when Fender was beginning to get its act back together after the all the, mostly, woeful 70s crap they produced. I've owned an early JV13** Precision and a slightly later SQ series one but failed to see what all the fuss was about. the only thing I could see that i liked was that they had the rolled fretboard edges. And so on - as i said, loads of stories. there's a JV Squier website as well somewhere but i can't seem to find it.

After Saturday's gig I can confirm that the 1212L took everything I threw at it with the 5 string. Even with the limiter coming on my Shuttle 6.0 when I hit the B very hard, there was no indication that the cab had any difficulty at all handling it. Afrer only 1 gig I can say that the sound of a Corvette 5 string $$ through a Shuttle into a Shcroeder cab is absoutely phenomenal.

They also did a 5 and 6 string version as well as the rarest of all Ricks - the lightshow - which literally had a tranluscent top with lights under it

That made me laugh You'll take someone's eye out with that machinehead. Definitely something like a BBN5 but an interesting bridge that allows the strings to remain close enough so as not to disappear off the edge of the fretboard. When I modded my Rick copy to a 5 I could only find a Kahler complicated as hell bridge that would allow me to have the string spacing I needed.

Should be easy enough to make one if I wanted to - there's only about 10-15mm between the pickups. That's what i can't understand - why not just have them as close as they could get without them touching? It means more work routing the pickup cavities as they could've just had one large one instead of 2 with the tiniest of gaps betwen them. I honestly didn't see myself going back to a 5 string again. I think it may have been the width of the 6 string necks that hacked me off in the end, making me go back to the more conventional 4 string. I had managed to persuade myself that i didn't need anymore than 5 strings. I changed my technique, learned to play songs differently without the missing 2 strings, only occasionally using a drop D but not enough to warrant a D-tuner and am still very happy playing a 4 string. I actually perfected using the drop D by learning 'Bad Love' by Eric Clapton inside out as a spotty teenager. The things that I liked but need to get used to again are the closer string spacing. I'm a big fan of octaves so playing something like 'Everybody Dance' by Chic becomes a lot easier. I also like the fact that I can play the E string quicker by virtue of having the B string as a barrier to limit finger travel so I can recover quicker after each note. After I went back to 4 I learned acouple of new slap techiques: the first is doing it the way Larry Graham plays, right back over the pickup which is more difficult with less room to move on the 5 to vary the attack used to change the sound. The other is to literally bring my hand down over the E string. I don't know what you call that one but i remember seeing an Indian guy playing something in 22/23 time or something like that where he strikes all or most of the strings that way. I can't imagine many amps will thank you for hitting a low B as hard as that this way. I'm going to keep at it with both basses before I make up my mind what to do.

I think most of the ones that have 'upgrade' after them are MIM models. Unless I got a crazy deal on a MIA, I would only go for CIJ models FWIW BTW IMO GCH GSOH

Well the gig wasn't ideal to judge the sound as I effectively had to stand to the side and just behind the front of the cab so I never got the chance to listen properly. It took a bit of getting used to the narrower string spacing. Since I have been playing 4 stringers for so long I have a larger finger sweep as I have more space in between each string. This bass requires me to play with a shorter sweep so that i don't hit any string I don't intend to. If that doesn't make sense then tough because i can't think of a better way to put it The sound is very modern compared to my Warmoth and very burpy. I found I could play as fast as i wanted and every note was clearly defined. I did think that notes on the G string sounded a bit thin and quieter compared to the others. I lowered both pickups on the bass side and this seemed to help a bit but I'll have to see what i can do about this. When I was setting it up I purposely set the G string lower than the others as, apart from anything else, the string could go lower than the others without buzzing. I have found other basses had thin sounding G strings in the past (ooer missus) so that is why I did this. Another thing I noticed was that I instinctively put my index finger where I thought was the 5th fret and realised that it was the 7th due to the longer neck and smaller body than I am used to. The pickups provide a sort of ramp when playing meaning that I can't dig in as much as I normally do. I'm not sure that i like the feeling of the exposed poles of the gap between the pickups as I felt my thumb landing there quite a bit during the night. Overall I really like it. I found myself playing stuff that I hadn't been able to play since I had my Flea bass due to the low action I suppose. The bass is very comfortable to play but looks about a mile long with that huge looking neck. A very comfortable, well balanced bass with a really punchy, clear sound. Too early to tell but I think what I mentioned above about the pickups may annoy me enough to look for something else but I'm going to give it 6 months before I make my final decision. If I do get something else then it will almost certainly be a Streamer 5 string but we'll see. I'd need to get some money together first before that happened.

Sorry, its my first time on here. :blush:

They are beautiful basses but very expensive. I've always wanted one of the bright orange semi-acoustic basses but they're about £1400. I think they're still Fender owned but did hear something about the original family business buying it back at one point. Perhaps someone who actually knows something will be able to elaborate for me.

Fender also had a habit of repainting guitars. Say they did 5 red ones but someone ordered a black - they would paint one of the red ones black right over the top of it. They also did that if someone made an arse of a finish. Easier than stripping it down to the bare wood again.

When I was trying to sell my Warmoth '57 single coil bass I had a few offers of trades but decided to wait until I was sure no one wanted to buy it before deciding on a trade. The one, well the only one it could be was this: For those of you that don't know, its a Warwick Corvette $$ 5 string in Ocean Blue. When I say it ws the only one it could be, I mean that I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I've cleaned the frets and board with steel wool and given it a wooling up the back of the neck as well so that it is slippery smooth. The body has been cleaned. New Yellow label 45-135 Warwick strings as I thought I'd try nickel strings for a change as I hadn't used them in a while. Set up the action and locked the bridge back down and its ready to go. Before I put the strap on, I hoped that it wasn't as neck heavy as my Thumb NT5 had been since this also has a relatively small body but was amazed to find that it balances perfectly horizontally. Its the first 5 string I've had in a while so it will probably take time to get used to it but I'll be using it tonight. This will also be the first time I have put a 5 string through either my Genz head or Schroeder cab so that should be interesting. It will probably be a bit early to give a review of it but I'll report back later on after the gig so any night owls like myself will be able to read what I thought about it. If I don't post anything here later on then I don't like it and its in the for sale section. Ah well, at least I already have the pictures ready should it come to this.

They have always been my favourite bass. Peoiple think that they only do old school tones but that's not true. I can get a very clean, modern passive tone from mine through to just plain dirty when I dig in. The Seymour duncans are good pickups. I have one in my Gold Warmoth single coil but had a Lollar in my other single coil bass. If you want something like my explanation of my gold one then go with the SD. If you want a proper old school tone then go with a Lollar and change out the cap for a paper in oil one.

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='382733' date='Jan 16 2009, 07:02 PM']I want one, or two for my 54 P bass, how do they fix on ?.[/quote] The smaller one goes over the pickup and the larger over the bridge. The pickup one goes against the scratchplate with the widest end towards the bridge. The bridge one goes quite close to the bottom of the body facing the same way. Its amazing how many people fit that one the wrong way round. They just screw into the body. here's my now departed one to let you see: I really want one for my gold Warmoth but no one seems to do gold ones

I believe playing White Room from 24 Nights was what enabled me to become as good as I am. Absolutely phenomenal bass line. And Popeye from his instructional video - still manage to get it in some nights

We do a lot of Paul Rodger stuff as well - Wishing Well, Overloaded, Can't Get Enough & Louisiana Blues. We got our band name from the second track - first time I've ever been the one to name a band before. Aye, good luck. We're playing tonight as well. Its going to be full of people I was at school with 16 years ago.

For me it would have to be: David Coverdale -Vocals Me - Bass Steve Walsh - Lead Guitar David Gilmour - another lead guitar Steve Howe - Rythym guitar Steve Gadd - Drums Vinnie Coiliuta - Drums Ray Cooper - Percussion Sam Brown -Backing Vocals Durga McBroom - Backing Vocals I think I've maybe thought a bit much about this but while thinking about it, I did toy with the idea of having another 2 bass players as well as me - John Deacon and Bob Daisley

One way my local music store has managed to be successful is by supplying the local schools with strings, sheet music etc. Also, if there are battle of the bands contests, offer a bit of sponsorship. Not huge amounts but enough to get your name out there. Both of these actions will ensure that all the kids & their parents will see your name and come to your store.

Okay then its a Feckyou Percolation bass.