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Styling cues you don't like


Rich

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Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

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14 minutes ago, thodrik said:

Okay, I'll bite.

I think it looks cool apart from the pickup covers. The tuning machines don't bother me in the slightest. The look of the bass though makes me think that I would need to water it a couple of times a week to help it grow. 

Looks like a wound...or that ginger guy in Robocop who falls into the toxic waste at the end...

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46 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

😂

Screenshot_20200331-135610_Chrome.jpg

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2 hours ago, Silvia Bluejay said:

This 'thing' I saw at Warwick's NAMM stand, and photographed in utter disbelief. 😱

 

Warwick.jpg

That's bringing back a few memories for those of us who have changed nappies on our kids in our time. 🤢 🤮

And why have they used burnt fish fingers for pickups?

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Agree on the modern singlecut Basses, never seen one I really liked.

One that always gets me is matching colour headstocks on Basses with Maple fingerboards.  Just looks wrong to me.

Same Bass with a rosewood/other dark fingerboard, usually very nice.

YMMV!

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23 hours ago, Rich said:

I don't mean functional features like slim necks or tighter string spacing, I'm talking about purely aesthetic stuff here. Body shapes and the like. I'll start the ball rolling.

Early P-bass/Tele headstock shape. Don't like it, at all. It looks like someone's had a bandsaw accident with a regular P neck and tried to make the best of it.

90s hair-metal Charvel/Jackson pointy headstocks. Looking at them, you can just smell the hairspray and dodgy spandex. Stick your foot on the monitor and away you go. Far, far away please.

 

Headstock-Front.jpg
"Whoops".

th.jpg.3a960c5ad1c1ee4a1dfb7c66bbb14cf4.jpg
Rawwwwk. Errm, no ta.

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

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1 hour ago, Muzz said:

Singlecuts (sit-down basses, nobody makes a neck so weak that it needs reinforcing like that...)

Tort. Why not tartan as well? From the same era that thought it was a good look.

3TSB (especially the really crappy 70s ones that look like they've been sprayed on from a rattlecan...I'm looking at Fender here...)

Fingerboards with face dots, blocks or binding.

Headstocks where the 'designer' couldn't be bothered, given a blank sheet of paper, to design something that pulled the strings straight across the nut in the vertical plane, or downwards/backwards in the horizontal plane enough not to need a nailed-on, afterthought tensioner. Oh, and mahooosive paddle headstocks a la Fodera.

Blingy gold hardware.

98.6% of Jazz copies out there, no matter who by.

99.6% of Fender Jazzes.

All relicing. Fake. About as desirable as one of those CBGB pre-greyed t-shirts from Asda.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll think of something else... 😁

Maple neck, black blocks, binding. Absolutely rancid. I've no idea why it's so popular. Rosewood and pearl isn't far behind, but maple and black is particularly awful. I don't mind binding and dots though on a rosewood fingerboard.

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2 hours ago, Bobthedog said:

What come out of this is collectively we could not build a bass that anyone liked in it’s entirety. 😀

But could we, perhaps, build a bass that was universally hated?

We could start with stick on f-holes and work from there.

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20 minutes ago, Jono Bolton said:

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

On that very subject, this seems to me an acquired taste?

image.png.31853bc929d2c671a1f4093d4305a99b.png

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11 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

On that very subject, this seems to me an acquired taste?

image.png.31853bc929d2c671a1f4093d4305a99b.png

IIRC, that shape was used for 12-string Teles, but it doesn't really work for a 6-string. It barely worked for a 12-string. The only good Fender 12-string headstock was the one on the Electric XII

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3 hours ago, thodrik said:

Okay, I'll bite.

I think it looks cool apart from the pickup covers. The tuning machines don't bother me in the slightest. The look of the bass though makes me think that I would need to water it a couple of times a week to help it grow. 

I’ll go a step further and say I think it looks cool in its entirety 😕

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2 hours ago, Jono Bolton said:

I think the Tele headstock works best on a Telecaster. It looks ok-ish on a 51-style P Bass but I think it best suits the Telecaster body shape. That said, I absolutely detest Telecaster-shaped basses. You know the ones; a standard Tele guitar shape, blown up to bass size. I think Squier made them as part of the Vintage Modified range, and I've seen a few rubbish home-made jobs too. it really, really doesn't work for a bass. And that's not 'IMO'; it's stone-cold fact.

When I was about 13 I had a go at putting a parts bass together. I got an awful Tele body from eBay or somewhere and a full scale P bass neck. Needless to say that the bridge was in the wrong position so it wouldn't intonate but I didn't understand that at the time. I mixed creosote with red food colouring to stain the body and that really didn't look too bad. It had two 51 P style pickups in the Tele positions and I seem to remember that I wired up them pretty good. 

 

Think it was all firewood after a year or so 😁

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