DF Shortscale

My comment was less about the musicians who use the stuff and more about the perceived value of the outcome. The software is great, of course. The fact that it’s either freely available or it provides you with a level of convenience that even my mum could knock out a 175bpm d&b roller (or whatever), and the fact that AI can essentially just do it all for you - that pretty much means that nobody listening values the music any more.

Yeah, it’s been kind of happening very slowly ever since DAW’s replaced samplers and outboard gear, those amazing 90’s genres started to sound a little contrived when everyone dumped their Akai’s and Emu’s and got on Reason / FL / Ableton etc. But what’s happening now is way beyond that. Splice, Izotope and all the other new ‘essential’ tools have taken anything that was special and unique about electronic music and they’ve commodified it all. But even that is nothing compared to prompt driven AI creating tracks for you - that to me is the final nail in the coffin. The interesting thing about AI being used for creative output is that the internet , as we know it today, is going to end up just eating itself. AI produced anything has zero value, it’s derivative garbage in a pretty dress. If people can no longer tell the difference between real and AI, they will quickly stop trusting anything they see / hear online, and all digital / online creative work will be treated as worthless garbage, regardless of where it comes from. And the only solution is to move away from online / digital and back to physical spaces and physical objects. As soon as you’re away from the internet, AI stops mattering. People won’t stop wanting to enjoy art and music, they will just stop engaging with it online. Which I actually see as a very good thing - perhaps the beginning of the end of the social media / smartphone era.

This would be a big loss, Reaktor and Kontakt are both great, Reaktor in particular is pretty unique and the user library is full of amazing stuff going back decades. I have a feeling that this will keep happening to similar companies and we are seeing the early stages of the death of electronic music, or at least software based electronic music. As AI eats everything digital, people are slowly losing interest in this stuff and values are beginning to shift. If AI can crap out a generic house tune which is indistinguishable from a human-made one, it’s game over. When people can’t tell the difference between digital and AI, they will just lose faith in the whole thing and move on. Same thing is beginning to happen to digital art too. Interesting times.

If you are tempted by that, you might like the new Fodera / Trickfish pre. Same price, and with endless eq options. Both are beyond what I’d pay for a pedal (but I do own a Motown DI which is also not cheap, with zero eq options and it has been in daily use here for around maybe 10 years or so).

Could always order one from ebay, or maybe give Danny at Japan Bass Direct a shout. It will mean shipping and taxes but it’s a relatively cheap bass. Fender USA seems to be funny about cross-breeds of iconic basses (based on the hoops we have to jump through to have a US built J neck or J pickups on a P body..), perhaps a Mustang / Jazz combo doesn’t align with their marketing strategy. Or maybe they think it will just sound bad in a live situation, which it easily might. Short scale jazzes definitely do sound different to Mustangs. Who knows.

Has this been mentioned here yet? Seems like it will hit the spot for a lot of people in this thread, Fender Japan Chilli Beans / Maika Mustang (although it's made in Indonesia I think). Almost exactly what I was after a couple of years ago, if I was still searching for a short scale I would 100% grab one of these.

Not sure, I know he has a website as well as the Reverb shop, I guess it might be better to contact him directly through his site if you’re after a trade-in, but I don’t know.

Maybe it’s because I was trading in a bass, and he wanted to see it in person. In all fairness his place is more like a small workshop than an actual store, it’s probably not ideal for drop-in visits. Ultimately he gave me a decent deal, and his stuff is legit and priced realistically, so I my experience was definitely positive.

I bought a bass from him recently, no issues at all, I found his prices totally reasonable and it was an easy transaction. I went over to his shop, tiny place full of cool / odd / rare Fenders, lots of MIJ stuff that you don’t see often in the UK.

This used to be my bass, I can happily vouch for it, it’s a light weight, beautifully built and super easy to play instrument. I got in new from Japan a few years ago. The action can go crazy low on these, definitely lower than I needed and I like low action a lot. The tone is bright and snappy, but you can get a really nice jazz front pickup tone from it, especially with the preamp engaged. It’s basically a modern J style short scale. The body shape is a downsized P, this was the shape before they came out with the Baby Z series. If anyone decides to buy it, I strongly recommend the Atelier Z short scale rounds, I tried a bunch of different strings on this bass and I liked their own strings so much that I ordered loads of them, I still have a few spare unopened packs so message me if you’d like them. Also feel free to ask if you have any questions about it. (No affiliation to Fender Fever, I had a good experience dealing with him, but I just want to see it go to a good home!)

That’s literally down the road from me, I’m gonna go have a look at the weekend. Quite surprised to see a bass of that calibre in that shop, it does seem like a bit of a novelty market shop but I suppose with Trinity, Greenwich uni and Ravensbourne in the local area there are a lot musicians and music / art students hanging out around there. Not that any of them will be able to afford that bass. (Although you never know, there are still lots of international billionaire trust fund kids coming to London to study).

This album has some beautiful bass playing on it, pretty much all the way through. One of my all time favourites.

Good to know, thanks. It's odd that the individual saddles cost more than some entire bridges, I've seen a Wilkinson one for about the same price as the one above, although a legit Fender one with slotted screw heads (instead of hex screws) is closer to £60..

If I want to replace the saddles on a P bass with threaded ones, is it just a case of buying the threaded saddles and putting them on my existing bridge, or is it better to replace the whole bridge with a bridge that comes with threaded saddles pre-installed? The current bridge is just a standard USA Fender, but I know screw shapes / sizes can vary, some threaded saddles don't come with screws etc, and I'd like to make sure it all fits as it should.