Heheh, I love playing slide. That Bo Diddley guitar above was already in open D when I picked it up, which made me happy enough to splurge on it.
One of my favorites is Blind Willie Johnson. He’s always got the bass going on his thumb.
Here’s a pretty good approximation of how he does it on several songs.
I was just idly looking through this thread and wondered if the original instrument in that case left a “shroud of Turin” on the inside of the lid. I can almost see a bass.
Hehehe, what that case is for is really bugging you, huh? 
Nah, I can see a couple of imprints in the padding of that case, but nothing really obvious. But I just checked, and it fits my Jazz bass perfectly.
Things seem a bit sleepy around here…so let me share my joy: a new axe!
I have been finding the P-bass a bit wearying on my shoulder during long sets over the past year or two, and have been always on the lookout for a lighter alternative. Last week I saw a used Fender JMJ Mustang Bass in “faded Daphne Blue” show up at my nearest Guitar Center for a great deal. I was intrigued. I had heard of Mustang basses but never actually held one in my hands.
I stopped by my regular guitar store (not Guitar Center) over lunch and found they had a brand new one hanging on the wall. I tried it out and was amazed at the sound and the size, but was disappointed that the darned thing still weighed as much as my P-bass.
Still, I liked the look and so I explained to the guy that Guitar Center across the river had a used one for $400 less, and could he work with me on the price. He tried, but said they can’t keep them in stock even at list price, and he totally understood as I headed out the door towards Pennsylvania.
The used one turned out to be even better than the new one–alder has variation in weight, and the used one turned out to be significantly lighter. No case, but I couldn’t care less since I don’t case my guitars–one less thing to stuff in a musty closet.
As soon as I played it, I knew this was going to be my new favorite bass.
BUT…it’s the dumbest thing–they make it to match Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s bass from the 1960’s, then they “relic” it…thrashing it a bit, sanding here and there, banging it around, and people pay a premium for that. They probably made thousands of them, and they all look the same: faded robins-egg blue with worn areas where your arm rests and some random dents all over, and witness marks from the former “tug bar” that was moved to the top to be a thumbrest. Funny to make them all look identical, but they achieved it, within the bounds of manually scuffed up instruments.
Finding it used turned out to be awesome because they come pre-beat-up anyway, so mine doesn’t look worse than a new one. I couldn’t care less about it appearing road-worn or me looking like a poser–I now have a guitar that I can bump into things and smile because I wouldn’t be able to identify my new dent from the ones already there.
Play: Superb. I told my wife that this short scale bass with its floppier strings feels to me like how it feels to her when she plays a nice keyboard instead of her baby grand–easier, lighter, and a bit like cheating because it’s not the traditional instrument.
Sound: very good, surprising low end. As a bonus, I often find that the middle bit of the G string (around C and D) sounds too thin for my taste on a P-bass, but this guitar gave me a fuller tone in that region, meaning I might opt for a fretted C on the 5th fret instead of my standard 10th-fret C, if the situation requires it.
They ship it with flats, but that’s the only kind of strings I play, so it’s right up my alley. Surely these strings will outlive the instrument.
My only change was to swap the plastic Fender thumbrest out for a black powder-coated Hipshot one made of brass that I had kicking around.
And here it is, though I’m not kidding when I say I could have swapped in a stock photo of another one and all of the dents and such would match.
Weight: 7.5lbs, with the strap, so it competes with the blue Carvin in the photo for “easy on the shoulder”, but it sounds better. The P-bass third-in-line weighs 9lbs with the strap.
Love my Mustang even though it weighs a bit more (about 8 lbs). I have a set of flats to put on, but I haven’t yet. I need to modify the nut a bit so that will be an upcoming winter project. I at least have a backup bass to use for my weekly band practice depending on how things go.
What I don’t have a backup for is amp. My amp input jack had a bad event last week involving my large dog and him snagging the cable while I was practicing. Luckily the amp (Fender Rumble 500) has an effects loop so I could use an overdrive pedal and compressor to get enough of a “preamp” to send into the return jack and use it at practice. My nearest Fender repair shop is an hour away so I’m trying to figure out how to get it repaired without missing a week of band.
But, I’m now thinking of getting an actual preamp (like a Sansamp) to try different sounds than the Fender preamp and controls. The return line on the Rumble bypasses ALL controls including master volume.
I love my Mustang bass. I just got it back from a friend I had loaned it to. The shorter scale emphasizes the fundamental note more than a 34" scale. So it’s in the same ballpark as a Precision, but it thumps a little harder and doesn’t sing as much. Mine’s one of the modern ones, so it has the P/J setup, so you can add the jazz pickup for a bit more bite, but it doesn’t bring the same overtones.
But my favorite short scale bass, and the lightest by far is my Danelectro Longhorn. They come in around 6 pounds, and they are so ridiculously easy to play it almost feels like a toy compared to other basses. It can be bright, but the tone controls are versatile. I can get pretty close to a P-bass sound with mine.
I still hate the copperburst finish on mine, though. I should probably just bite the bullet and get myself a black one.
If you want to get into that and be Behringer cheap, I’ve been quite satisfied with my BDI21 for home recording. Smooth to a nice grind, it can do them pretty well. I believe it’s a clone of a SansAmp Tech 21. I’ve never had a real SansAmp Tech 21, so I can’t report how accurate a clone it is, but it sounds good through my cab emulator.
If you don’t care about price, my Ampeg PF-20T has a preamp out, and as much as I like the BDI21, the PF-20T’s sound usually wins when I am recording someone else and they are picking the track they like the most when I record them in stereo.
It would take a balun connector to put the PF-20T into the effects loop of another power amp. But if you were willing to grab one of those, it is a whole amplifier. So if you were willing to grab a cab, it could be your backup amp. But it’s only 20 watts. If your drummer hits hard, it’s going to have to be quite a cab. I ran it through my 2x15, and it would keep up with a drummer. Smaller cabs would probably struggle. There’s also a PF-50T, but it normally seems to go for quite a bit more than the 20W versions.
In the world of six stringed guitars, my acquaintance must have sweat buckets on that Bo Diddley guitar I bought. The aluminum knobs are pretty heavily oxidized and all the pots aside from the master volume are completely seized. I thought about re-wiring all of it myself for about 15 minutes, and then I decided I was lazy enough to order a pre-made harness. It’s somewhat a pity, because its stock wiring is pretty well done, even if all the pots are wrecked. The new harness is still a bit of an upgrade.
And it looks like G&L is in trouble. That makes me sad, but they are one of the brands I’ve consistently lusted after, but have never bought. So I’m probably part of the problem there.
Dang, that sucks. I have a G&L L-2000 (the made in Indonesia Tribute series) and it is a rock solid instrument. It was a Craigslist special and I got lucky for not much money.
And that’s one of those basses I have lusted after for awhile. I probably should grab one before they go away.
It can do a lot, both passive and active. More than I can competently ask it to do.
So, I had a huge revelation tonight with my fucked up Rumble 500. I have a Boss GT-1 guitar multi-effect and tonight I decided to see what would happen if I tried to use it as a pre-amp into the power amp of my fucked up Rumble. Guess what? It rocks! Using the Natural Clean Preamp with speaker cabs turned off, a compressor, the expression pedal as a volume control (the Rumble controls are completely bypassed so you need external volume control) and a suitable OD (I used the Blues Driver) on a switch, I have a fully functional and awesome sounding amp. Exp pedal can boost volume when needed, hit the OD pedal when needed, and with my PJ Mustang I can switch pickups depending on the song.
I shoulda tried this long ago. Do I even need to repair the input jack? This is a very versatile machine now. It was before, but I have even more control and sounds available. I think this will work great for our Strokes cover band (mainly Strokes with several others thrown in like Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Muse, At the Drive-in, Cage The Elephant, Two Door Cinema).
Well beyond just trouble. They fired all the workers Monday and are apparently clearing out their facilities already. A bunch of insiders including the master builder that ran the custom shop have been posting blow-by-blow accounts of the mess. Apparently the mismanagement has been incredible.it all came to a head a couple weeks ago when they ran out of parts to keep building but also no longer had cash or credit to order anything else. FedEx also cut them off and their phones haven’t worked for months.
it’s really sad, as I’ve been a GNL guy since the 90s. Last guitar I bought from them two or three years ago was really questionably assembled though. When their master builder, James, got hired a couple years ago he gave an interview in one of the guitar magazines where he said that it was just total disarray, he didn’t know how they built anything, and there was no QA. Sad times.
Heheh, possibly so. Glad you found a solution.
Damn, didn’t realize it had gone that far already. Kind of surprised that no one scooped up the brand and the designs.
There’s rumors that Fender is interested in a sale. One of the only things of value that G&L has left are the rights to Leo Fender’s name, likeness and signature graphics. Apparently not having that intellectual property has been a thorn in Fender’s side for a long, long time. There’s not much else to sell as the company’s debt apparently far outweighs the value of of their physical plant. Not to mention, they don’t even own the building they run out of and of course no longer have any employees.
I will have a moment of silence at band practice today (where I play my G&L Fallout bass).
Somehow I had never heard of G&L (I do live under a rock, of course)
Pity. That’s one fine looking guitar–I’m not a fan of active bass, so that particular one won’t be on my short list, but it sure looks like a bass ought to.
Heck, at this point nothing will be on my short list. I buy new basses about as frequently as I change strings…once a decade.
That’s the core of the problem right there. No, not that you live under a rock, but that you hadn’t heard of G&L. Their marketing ‘ideas’ appeared mostly to be the owner saying, “I’m going to market G&L by spending a ton of cash on pet project I haphazardly remember to upload to Facebook with no context.”
You’d think that, “This is Leo Fender’s last company. It’s where he personally developed new technology to refine everything about his beloved basses and guitars,” would be a great platform to build on, but no.
”Handmade instruments built in Leo’s small shop on Fender Avenue?” Nope. Barely tried.
Since I was a little kid and a Geddy Lee fan, I’ve always wanted a 4001/4003 Rickenbacker bass. Add on all the other people who have played them, and my want only increased. A couple of weeks ago I was hemming and hawing about buying a Fernandes lawsuit era copy. I mentioned this to my sweetie, who replied “Why don’t you just buy a real one?” She was right, we could afford it. The only reason I was hemming and hawing about the Fernandes is because I’m a bit of a cheapskate.
So, I borrowed a friend’s 4003 to make sure I’d like it. I loved it. So I went ahead and bought a used 4003 on Reverb. The high gain pickups are replaced with a set that is more like the 60s toaster and horseshoe setup. I’m not 100% sure I like them, the high gains on my friends bass certainly have more growl. But the original high gain pickups were included, so I can switch them out if I don’t like it when I’m plugged into my normal amp, which is at the practice space.
It also has a pretty sweet glittery pickguard and a silver thumb rest.
After I bought it, I found out that a friend over on talkbass.com had grabbed the Fernandes a few hours after I finally went with the Ric. So it found a good home, too!
Very nice! I’d like to give one a try as well.
How much does it weigh? I’m pretty beat after our 2 hours of rehearsal using my two light’ish basses (well, the G&L is 10 lbs so not that light).
Thankya! It is an odd neck profile that some people do complain about (kind of flat on the back of the neck), so I do recommend trying one out before taking the plunge.
Well, it’s no lightweight. According to the bathroom scale, mine is 10.1 lbs. My friend’s is a little bit lighter, but I’d be surprised if it was less than 9 lbs.
That isn’t that bad. For some reason I had it in my head that they were tanks - like 12 lbs. I looked at Sweetwater and see they are in the 10 lb range.
An angle grinder and a couple of chains and you can relic that up nicely.