Hanzo said:
Wow! 1500-2000?!! Thats more than I paid for the bass.
I have a Spectacore 5 ( semihollow, fretless, EMG humbucker,
piezo bridge, for $600!), that will have to do for now. As far as
a CS goes if you've been on Ebay lately you've seen how hard
it is to get a good price selling a used bass ( especially a
Katana), so getting a CS and selling mine is out right now. I do
love it enough that if I came into a winfall of money I'd think
about the mod. A CS with the Vamp pickup config and the piezo
bridge would be sweet though. 8)
Hold on tharrrr .... I was emphasising how much modding
you can get on a used bass from a luthier vs a factory CS.
IOW, mucho vs none at all.
That 'mucho modding' example included conversion from
fretted to FL, from JazzMan to $$ config, PLUS instalation
of a piezo system. Thaz the figure you're repeating. Plz
read again my prior post and you'll see I guesstimated
$1000 for just adding the piezo ..... and I did mention
that a piezo option, when buying a new factory bass, is
about 1/3 the price of a luthier's upgrade of a used bass.
Comparison of cost-of-modding vs cost [or value] of an
ax in "need" of modding is the central issue. Frinstintz,
my guesstimate of up to $2500 for a triple mod to my
NSJH means no sane person will do it. The finished result
is a $2000 new bass with $2500 in later mods, or a total
expense of $4500 for the modded bass. It's a no-brainer.
Why spend $2500 to mod a used bass when I can buy
the same end-result brand new for $3000, which is really
only $2000 if I "give away" the current bass for $1000
[$1200 would be typical].
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Does that mean Stuart's pricing for the mods is unfair ?
Nope. My bass is a bolt-on, so I could just get a new one
with the 3 "mods" as original equipment options, for the
same $2500. Then I would have two bass for that same
total, my current $2000 model, and a fancier newer one
at $2500.
OK, but
WHAT IF my current bass were the neck thru,
which is about $4500 [there's that number again]. The
mods would still be $2500, so I might do it. Buying a
neck thru just to include the 3 mods as original options
would prolly be about $5000 for the new fancier bass.
So
IF my current ax were neck thru, my choice would
be: either mod the current NT for a total expence of
$7000 [incl my $4500 NT bass] or buy a new $5000 ax
with the desired options, for a total expence of $9500
but this choice provides me with TWO basses. $7000
total and I own one modded used bass. $9500 total
and I own the unmodded used bass plus a new bass
with the desired mods already onboard as options.
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Prices are inexact, but the concept is real. Would it
make sense to spend $1000 to add the piezos to my
$2000 bolt-on ? Or should I buy a new $3000 piezo
equipped version of my bass ? Assuming that I can
afford either choice, it really comes down to whether
I need, or prefer, two different versions of the same
bass, cuz the economic "common sense" of either
choice is roughly the same [ballpark]. Mix in that my
bass could be sold for about $1200 and now I have
three choices, all in the same economic ballpark.
