Chris2112

I hear there isn't much between these and the top dollar Stingrays. I'd like to try a couple and see if thats true! It wouldn't surprise me after seein how good the Squier Classic Vibe jazz bass is!

They sound great but I've never liked the silk wrapping on the tops. I've been meaning to try the recently reintroduced Funkmaster strings as these were what Geddy Lee used in the 80's when he was playing Wal basses. It would be awesome if they unwrapped at the top!

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='1083597' date='Jan 9 2011, 09:01 PM']I'd recommend the Bass merchant certainly. Nice guys, great basses and a free coffee Enjoy. Oh and I've a Sandberg PM5 I need to add to my sig. Guess where that came from Peter[/quote] Peter, I can't believe you have an ACG and a Status Empathy bass. You have great taste in basses!

There is some pretty awesome playing in this cool John McLaughlin tune. I've got the CD in the cupboard so I'm not sure who is on the bass here but it sounds like Hadrien Feraud so I'd guess it's him!

Quite frankly, I'm surprised there isn't a bigger market for fake boutique basses.

[quote name='KevB' post='1084267' date='Jan 10 2011, 02:39 PM']Not a member on TB so rarely even look at the site but this was an interesting thread and I think I read most of it. All the usual posturings of recognised forum types, the 'nudge nudge I'm on the inside' expert types to the die hard 'fighting for justice' vigilante types and even whiffs of conspiracy and big dollops of 'it's us little guys against the big corporate machine' mentality. Fascinating. 45 pages of the stuff and it's still not sorted, it's possible that the true facts might never come out which would be a shame as there are still unanswered questions, the main one being is it really a true fake at all?[/quote] Yes, the thread is standard TB fare. The "inside types" remain cryptic, the vigilante martyr types reamin over the top in their "I will fight to the death to see justice done" stance and John Turner looks like a mug because of the whole sorry situation. At the moment, it's all a bit strange because Jens Ritter doesn't seem to have stated either way that the bass is real or fake. For all we know, JT could be holding the fake as the other bass looks better than his if I'm honest! If it's a mistake in the serial numbering of basses I wouldn't be surprised.

Of all the myriad preamps I've come across over the years, the Tonepump has been one of the better ones. A friend of mine used to have two Spectors, one US made with a Hazlab preamp and one Euro with an Aguilar preamp. The Hazlab was the best sounding of the two, but when I A/B'd my Euro against his basses it sounded a lot better than the Aguilar and not far behind the Hazlab one. The Hazlab preamp sounded amazing, absolutely great. Thats what Fodera used to use, and I believe Victor Wooten's #1 Monarch has this preamp. The Spector in question certainly sounded said fairly "Wooten".

[quote name='Russ' post='1083840' date='Jan 10 2011, 01:42 AM']There's actually some rather nice looking Jem and Universe ripoffs available from that Tradetang site - here's a nice Jem7V ripoff.... [url="http://www.tradetang.com/for-sale/Free-shipping-new-seven-strings-electric-guitar-for-sale-electric-guitar-/137320-2203578.html"]http://www.tradetang.com/for-sale/Free-shi...20-2203578.html[/url][/quote] This is the sort of thing I had seen, with the cheap, dull looking hardware and so forth. I recall seeing an Ibanez Joe Satriani model with the "Fred" finish which looked particularly poor but this counterfeiting has come a long way if the Ritter thread is anything to go by!

The daft thing is, on a relatively simple bass like a Ric or a Stingray (which seem to be the most copied) I doubt there is much to separate them, especially if you can get a fretjob and setup done when you buy them in. I'm not surprised people are making money off this. It's also funny that Musicman and Rickenbacker are the most copied, saying as they are the ones who are so desperate to protect their designs!

[quote name='icastle' post='1083822' date='Jan 10 2011, 01:23 AM']Ritter aren't the only ones being faked. I see that Ibanez have a Counterfeit Warning on their homepage...[/quote] Ibanez fakes have been big news for about 5 years now, maybe more. There is a big market for older Ibanez, particularly the "shred boom" era models of the late 80's and early 90's. Things like Steve Vai signature Jem and Universe guitars and the Joe Satriani Signature models with the exotic paintjobs were commanding high prices (they still continue to appreciate too) along with other models from the era. I think it was initially revealed when a Chinese Ebay seller was offloading a number of the paint swirl Universe and Jem models. Now, these are fairly rare anyway and to have such a number was a giveaway. It's really only Ibanezrules.com and the Jem site that get decent numbers of second hand paint swirl models coming through. A couple of people spotted them and it was pretty obvious they were dodgy fakes. However, a few had worked their way around the world and iffy Ibanez guitars were beginning to appear in America. Ibanez were made aware of it and have been warning about dodgy Ibanez guitars ever since. In fact, at one point they had a buyers guide up with the advice of "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". These things were being made on a large scale, there must have been a factory producing them. I remember seeing a fake Jem7V at a shop in Newcastle. It was very hokey and obviously fake from a mile away (as it's £200 price tag suggested) with some very iffy electronics, a woeful knock off tremolo and some incredibly poor inlay and fretwork.

[quote name='Russ' post='1083814' date='Jan 10 2011, 12:52 AM']I've read the whole thread... seriously, Jens Ritter needs to give whomever made that bass a job. [/quote] Yep, I've just finished reading it. It is quite the convincing fake, certainly from looking at it I'd think it was a real Ritter! And given that it looks better than John Turner's, maybe his is the fake! As has been the case for a while now, players are getting on top of the fact that dodgy instruments are being made left, right and centre. Without naming any names, there is one guitar shop in the UK that was selling Eddie Van Halen "Frankenstrat" style knock offs. At the lower end, they were obvious Chinese Cheapos with nothing on the headstock. The shop owner was willing to get you a "custom order" from his unnamed builder which would be a dead likeness for a Charvel EVH and could even have a serial number matched from Charvel records. If you were prepared to pay top coin he could get you a Frankstrat which would appear as though it had came from the Charvel custom shop, with the paint scheme applied using masking tape to replicate Eddie's original homemade guitar. Like I say, this wasn't Beijing, Seoul or Los Angeles, this was sunny old England! Whoever did these builds must have been good because I'd seen some of the repair work people got through the shop and it was of a very high quality. In the end, I never saw one of these fakes in the flesh and I'm not sure what has happened to the shop or the luthier now, but it still makes you wonder!

It sounds like John Turner has really been made a mug of here. The topwood on the "fake" is better than the wood on his bass!

Sounds like karma to me! But forged instrument trading is nothing new. Just look at the Music Ground fiasco!

When is the UK tour again? I've got a ticket!

You must be running a pretty crappy amp or working in some pretty crappy studios then! I never had any trouble with my Spector Euro. In fact, it was always a dream in the studio, with that nice hot signal it always had amazing presence and was a joy to mix because it never faded into obscurity like some basses do. And through an amp, it was always beautifully crisp and growly. It sounded as good as the Status Stealth bass I had at the time, and that is high praise indeed.

I bought one of these years ago when they were brand new, it was my first fretless bass. The build quality wasn't excellent, I have to say. The neck pocket fitting around the body was a bit poor, on the front there was a noticeable gap at the bottom left corner that you could have probably wedged a credit card into if you'd felt inclined. The neck wood had that slightly chalky feel that some cheap basses have, quite odd. That said, there was some flame on the neck of mine which I suppose was the luck of the draw! The sound was never incredible but it was functional. I got mine before they got the Wilkinson pickups, although in all honesty I never noticed much of a difference between the two. The playbility was alright but as it was my first fretless, I was pretty far from knowing what I liked. Just make sure, if you do go to buy it, that you get a good price. Mine was £180 shipped when I bought it.

Get into latin jazz, it's very cool and there is a good chance you'll hear Anthony Jackson rocking a Fodera too!

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='1082859' date='Jan 9 2011, 01:46 AM']I post vids of this lady whenever someone goes 'I have small hands so I need a skinny necked/short scale/miniature bass instead of learning how to play properly'.[/quote] Yeah, she is dwarfed by that TRB! It looks massive! John Patitucci knows a thing or two about having great singature basses though.

[quote name='4000' post='1082806' date='Jan 9 2011, 12:11 AM']Ah, you see to me growl is more of a lower mids thing. The last thing I ever do with most basses is solo the bridge pickup! [/quote] I look at it in different ways, as you can have that low mid growl like a Warwick Thumb has or a more nasally sound like a jazz bass. I remember when the whole bass world seemed hung up on growl and endless hours were spent discussing it!

[quote name='risingson' post='1083176' date='Jan 9 2011, 02:49 PM']I've played a lot of high end basses (never a ACG admittedly) that has sounded better than the two or three best Fenders I played.[/quote] Same here. I've been very fortunate to play many high end basses and they regularly trump the best Fenders I've ever played with great ease. Even some of the mediocre boutique stuff has been better than the Fenders! But like you say, it is a case of different vinegar strokes for different folks.