Photos of the bridge, ball ends, tuners end... I think the photos will tell a lot more about what the strings aren't than what they are, but any info will be appreciated.
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Photos of the bridge, ball ends, tuners end... I think the photos will tell a lot more about what the strings aren't than what they are, but any info will be appreciated.
Yep... could be a lot of things. Could be nickel Low-Riders or most any DR strings. If you post the photos in the strings section, there are some guys with exact measurements for a number of strings... ball end to taper etc... I like LaBella strings so I would suggest the ones that are on my Deluxe. They are LaBella RX Steels 45-130. I would also email Marcel at F Bass to see what they are putting on the VF's these days. May not change much, but couldn't hurt. There are also a couple of committed VF fans here that may chime in soon. In addition to @Blunder core for Sunbeams, I would ask @wthompson007 for his preference.
Anyway... hope that helps.
Came across these.....
How I feel when I play my VF PJ...
How I feel when I play my BN5.....
I LOVE FBASS !!!!
How I feel when I play my VF PJ...
How I feel when I play my BN5.....
Probably one of the first things I ever noticed about F Basses. Not my favorite finish, but it got my attention.
I think some grain patterns look better than others. I thought the one in the glowing Bass Player magazine review was gorgeous, and I was able to choose the unfinished body when I ordered mine, ensuring it’d be a pattern I liked. I totally get it not being a finish that’s universally loved, though.
For the Ceruse finishes, I've seen red filling, green filling, gray filling, yellow filling and white. So far that green has impressed me the most.
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OK all you Ceruse Fbassers, time to show us your beautiful basses.....
The nicest one I've seen was called antique white ceruse. It was a trans aged white over black enhanced grain. It looked like a picket fence around sea salt swepped lighthouse
That's gorgeous! Very similar to the natural finishes that you rarely see from Fbass these days.
Antique White Ceruse
I have a BN5 roasted ash / ebony and a BN5 Deluxe ash / maple. There is definitely more versatility with the deluxe and since I play in a cover band that covers a wide variety of genres, that can come in handy. However…most commonly I leave those switches in the single coil setting, where it sounds like a snappier and more aggressive BN5. I rarely use the parallel coil position, I don’t really find it sounds much like an MM pickup. But for some funk stuff, or if I want to use the pickups at different volumes and not get hum, it can be useful. I do use the series coils more frequently than the parallel and find it gets a bit closer to a P sound than the parallel gets to an MM sound. But there is a volume bump - so what I sometimes end up doing is just switching to that if I need a volume bump during our “louder” songs like Guns ‘n Roses etc.
Overall I think the BN5 is probably the best-sounding bass I own. It’s not quite as versatile as the Deluxe - but it’s actually pretty damned versatile on its own with the active preamp and I find the controls very intuitive. I’m glad I have both and I use both in both practice and live situations depending on my mood. Obviously there is significant overlap and if I wasn’t such a devoted FBass player I probably wouldn’t have both - but I am, and I do!
Strings are an ENTIRELY subjective thing of course. But my current main squeeze for my VF5 is DR Lo Riders 40-120. I find them very versatile for all genres and their tension and size are perfect - for me.
Is George/Marcel still using swamp ash on the standard BN series or is it all northern ash now ?
While I was waiting for my Fbass years ago I read every post in all the FBass club threads. Entirely possible that I missed it, but I don't recall reading about swamp Ash at all - I thought they used Northern Ash exclusively but accommodate requests for lighter builds? Happy to be informed if I'm wrong!
