Chris2112

That is an absolute beauty. I'm sure I saw it on one of Alan's recent Facebook posts for instruments he was working on. In any event, enjoy playing. ACG are amongst the very best basses you can find.

There was. He didn't use them for long and the run of basses had a reputation for being pretty shoddy. The only video I can think of of the top of my head where he was using his Fender was the Princes Trust 1999 show. Later on the same year he was using some GB basses live but they didn't last long either and the Status Kingbass soon followed.

In the olden days of the internet (well, about eighteen years ago) I used to search around for disc copies of Hellborg's records. I spent a considerable amount getting hold of some of them. The original Jonas Hellborg Group album is one I could never find for a good price, though I did get a copy of 'e' that was pretty cool. I was glad when Jonas started working with Shawn Lane as that heralded a golden age. He started playing Status Graphite basses too which sounded a lot better to my ears. Some of the best bass tones I've ever heard came from Jonas on a Status. What a musician! What a thinker! A true visionary on the bass. Back when he recorded his first solo albums I don't think anyone had recorded an album of unaccompanied bass guitar.

Here is a banger from 1987 with Mark King playing a Jaydee. Mark Brzezicki on the drums, what a combo these guys are. Imagine if they had recorded more together. I've loved this video for years. Mark is just killing it.

John could be a real derrière but his collection of Conklin basses was impressive. I'm thankful for the support he gave Bill Conklin as it meant that he could keep doing business and making basses for great players like Bill Dickens. This double neck was always a bridge too far for me though, despite the amazing woodworking. It looks like it weighs as much as the moon. The picture of John playing the fretless neck gives the impression that it is extremely bulky and unwieldy. Something about double necks has always appealed to me but when a lot of bass designers struggle to a great ergonomic instrument with one neck, the scope of design problem becomes clear. On that basis, the Basslab DN1000 is easily the bass I GAS for most these days. I can imagine it being an extremely light and resonant instrument due to the materials that Heiko uses. Kai Eckhardt's Schack double neck was probably quite manageable too. I've only ever seen him using it once, on some footage from the old John McLaughlin Trio in 1989.

Yes, I had thought so, but even still it looks usefully more compact and smaller than the S1. I wouldn't say no to any of them though, they are all super cool.

I love the slimline look of the second body shape.

I was trying to find out what these pickups sound like today, predictably the press material just consisted of bad references to Primus song titles. I'll look for a demo instead. Seems odd that they'd release this without a bridge pickup to go with it though.

I always thought Sandberg could do no wrong, until they farted out this absolute horror.

They do seem to churn out the instruments at fairly cheap prices so it's not surprising that there will be a gaffe or twelve along the way.

I think it sounds pretty damn cool as it is.

Yes, I think you're right about that. When I went on yesterday the price was still up but the picture was gone and the box to the right of the listing said 'product unavailable'.

Unfortunately it looks like a real basket case, a 'tweeker special' as they'd say on Talkbass. It was probably a really nice bass at one point, before the deranged modification programme started. Really, it's the sort of thing that should just be given away for nothing, to someone with the skills or desire to see it fixed up and reborn as something worthy. But aside from the wood it's made of, there is nothing of value there. Bidding on it seems mad; you're just paying for a ticket to a lot of work and headaches.

It would be a dream if they were.

This is a most unfortunate turn of events. However, I'm sure that the pre-owned business has been quite lucrative for them and some small losses for buying bad instruments will probably be covered by the profits they make. As far as guitar shops go, GG are the good guys as far as I'm concerned.

It's been pulled for now. Guitar Guitar are decent so they'll not put it back up for sale. Does anyone have any pics of the suspect instrument? I'd be interested to see it.

They must surely be hidden in a lockup somewhere. Even the most feckless fence would have have determined quite quickly that these could be identified and traced. That said, they could end up elsewhere, outside of Europe, where they might be more easily sold on.

It may be a relatively minor aside but those leather scratchplates on the older Wals always looked awful to me, a nightmarish hangover from the ghastly 70's that should have been binned 😂

Argh, my eyes! 💩

Mike's channel is great. He has great taste in basses and I find the format and presentation a bit more exciting than Low End Lobster etc. I'll look forward to watching this!

I happened to stumble across this video a while ago and found it equally bizarre. Clearly, he is not a fretless player and probably should have asked for the interview to be kept brief with a spec sheet in front of him. The short clip where he is playing is pretty hokey. That said, I found this particular bass a really odd place to start with fretless, if you're not a fretless player. The Thumb is idiosyncratic enough without having two more strings than you'd normally have on a Thumb. I play both lined and unlined fretless and I do prefer a lined board when the going gets tough. Whenever I see these heavily figured boards on an unlined fretless I always wonder if the figuring there wouldn't just distract you from getting your fingers in the right place. Obviously the guy has spent thousands and thousands on this bass without the chops to get to grips with it, but that's nothing new. Everyone will have seen players who have walls of Alembics yet nothing more exciting than three chord blues. I hope he is getting on better with it now but I expect that it's probably being used as an ornament.

How was the high end on the blue LT? Looking at Bartolinis (one of my favourite pickup brands, it must be said), one assumes that the high end will be a little softer and the mids more immediately pronounced than some other pickups offered in Spector basses, but then I had a Streamer Ltd 1990 with Bartolini soapbars that was so bright as to be almost Spector-ish in it's tone. I may well be considered a traditionalist in Spector terms as my preference is for EMG pickups with either an EMG or Hazlab preamp.

They'd be nice with some fresh roundwounds on.