Design your new Fender.

[oggiesnr]

[quote name='Mark Dyer' timestamp='1395078914' post='2398414']
[url="http://www.configurator.sandberg-guitars.de"]http://www.configura...berg-guitars.de[/url]
[/quote]

Oh dear, dare I get a quote for the 5-string fretless I've just configured?

Steve

[steve-soar]

Yum.

[Mark Dyer]

Choices...


Choices...



Choices...

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1395068839' post='2398241']
What you or anyone else chooses to do with their own property is, of course, entirely their own affair, but surely you can see that your attitude and approach is not typical, BRX. You have a rather idiosyncratic aesthetic ideal in comparison to most folks on Basschat, myself included, and also a far more cavalier attitude to making such alterations to your gear . Your Warwick Star Bass is a perfect example of this, because to myself and most other folks I suspect, that bass is absolutely beautiful just as it is, and suits you very well . I am amazed and even a bit upset that you think that headstock is ungainly and can be "improved" in some way by alteration. To me and nearly everybody else that is an act of vandalism.

I suppose it's also important to recognize that, reading between the lines, men like you and I probably have a lot more disposable income to spend on basses and other such fripperies than most other folks,not least of all because we don't have children and all the financial responsibilities that come with them .To the vast majority, any bass is a significantly costly purchase that they want to get the maximum value for money from, both in terms of purchase price and resale value. In light of that, it's not surprising that people don't want to buy a bass and then spends more money on it taking a course of action that ultimately decreases the potential value in the long-term.
[/quote]

It is ultimately a question of taste. However it's definitely not fuelled by having a decent amount of disposable income. In fact a lot of attitude towards gear stems from a time when I had little income a certainly nothing supposedly spare for trivial stuff like musical instruments. While still at school I built my first electric guitar, because that was the only way I was going to get something close to what I wanted in looks and functionality on an income of pocket money and the occasional holiday job.

In the 80s when I was playing synthesisers, buying a reasonably decent one meant selling a lot of my other possessions and cutting back to the minimum and cheapest food I could get away with. Even then it didn't to exactly what I needed, so out came the tools and circuit diagrams to get it to the state where it did most of what I required from it. When I got my KX5 MIDI keyboard the first thing I did after making sure that everything worked properly was to take it apart and spray all the bodywork yellow and red so it looked more interesting than the factory finish of black and pale green.

In all these endeavours resale value never even entered my mind. The gears was there to do a particular musical job and present a certain image on stage and since I couldn't afford to have exactly what I wanted custom built, I bought the most suitable thing I could afford and then modified it until it was as right as I could get it. The alternative would have been to have had nothing, because in their factory state these instruments didn't have the functionality or looks that I was after.

[Dingus]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1395305715' post='2400820']
It is ultimately a question of taste. However it's definitely not fuelled by having a decent amount of disposable income. In fact a lot of attitude towards gear stems from a time when I had little income a certainly nothing supposedly spare for trivial stuff like musical instruments. While still at school I built my first electric guitar, because that was the only way I was going to get something close to what I wanted in looks and functionality on an income of pocket money and the occasional holiday job.

In the 80s when I was playing synthesisers, buying a reasonably decent one meant selling a lot of my other possessions and cutting back to the minimum and cheapest food I could get away with. Even then it didn't to exactly what I needed, so out came the tools and circuit diagrams to get it to the state where it did most of what I required from it. When I got my KX5 MIDI keyboard the first thing I did after making sure that everything worked properly was to take it apart and spray all the bodywork yellow and red so it looked more interesting than the factory finish of black and pale green.

In all these endeavours resale value never even entered my mind. The gears was there to do a particular musical job and present a certain image on stage and since I couldn't afford to have exactly what I wanted custom built, I bought the most suitable thing I could afford and then modified it until it was as right as I could get it. The alternative would have been to have had nothing, because in their factory state these instruments didn't have the functionality or looks that I was after.
[/quote]

You are absolutely right that it is a matter of taste, and as I have already said, it is, of course, your absolute right to do with your own property as you wish.

I can't help but observe though, that your own taste is a little on the "extreme" side by most people's standards, as I'm sure you would acknowledge yourself, and so , if you think about it, it's not surprising that the majority of folks don't behave in a similar fashion. I am not having a go at you by any means, my friend, and I think it is a great and indeed a necessary thing that some people [i]do[/i] go to extremes, but at the same time it isn't very realistic to expect mainstream opinion and behaviour to follow that same extreme .