Gonna be hard to let this one go. It's a cool, cool machine, but the sad truth is that I just don't use it. Plus, I got a bad case of the wants for a USA P Bass, and since this one is the one I use least, it's going to be the first to go.
It has fairly substantial upgrades. First off, the DeArmond mudbuckers have been replaced with Dark Stars, which are painstakingly reconstructed replicas of the original Hagstrom bi-sonic pickups featured on the original Starfire basses. These are really amazing, broad range pickups. This in itself constitutes a $400 investment.
Next, the slippy, cheap feeling tuners have been upgraded to Grover Titans, which are rock solid and have been known to hold the bass in tune for months at a time (given the weather staying relatively constant).
Lastly, after all the upgrades, I just didn't feel comfortable carrying it around in the flimsy nylon gig-bag it came with, so I bought an Epiphone Jack Casaday bass case, which holds the bass nice and snug. At this point, a pretty convincing argument could be made that this bass belongs in a Jack Casaday case more than the Epiphone Jack Casaday model does.
At this point, this bass has everything the Guild Starfire has, plus this one comes with a bound neck (which the Guild doesn't) and the Dark Stars. The Guild's are going upward of $2500 when you can find one. I paid $650 for this, and put about $500 or $600 into upgrade parts, plus at least $100 in labor, so I feel pretty justified asking
$900 for it.
This was originally posted with a P Bass trade option, but I bought a used P this weekend, so I'm no longer looking for a trade.
It is currently strung with D'Addario chromes (ECB81M), which after much trial and error seem to be the best match for the bass sonically, and they also fit the medium scale perfectly.
Here's the pics (yup, it's black, so you can see those fingerprints!). PM me if you have any questions.
