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Hahaha totally
Went by but they didn’t have an E-Groover. They do have one at another location I have been to though.
They did have the J-bass version of that Momose and it looked awesome as you would expect.
Just noticed the 10’s I grabbed were balanced tension. Unintended but doesn’t hurt 
Nice that the 9’s came with an extra E string for when it breaks.
And of course I did not leave unscathed.
That’s actually why I went - to blow my store points on some guitar strings. Grabbed a nice 0.60 Ultex too because why not.
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LsL Balboa
You’ve seen mine
Every review of LsL instruments mentions something along the lines of “more like a vintage Fender than most vintage Fenders.”
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Just ordered this this morning $225 off black Friday sales.
I have every intention to do this to it, lol
Or a roasted maple neck and Delano pickups like what I did with my Steve Harris.
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I also learned about this brand today:
Very expensive, high end local maker. Ikebe has them too.
Nice looking headstock, solid traditional P.
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Pretty much all of the above reco’s for an alternative to a Fender P are just plain awesomeness.
But, it was @howard who would ultimately suggest the winner for me…
Edwards E-Groover PB in Surf Green
Just different enough that I fell in love with the way it looked.
Hardware and electronics are really strong.
Gotoh tuners, Seymour Duncan SPB-1 Vintage P pickup, 38mm jazz neck, actual bone nut, ash body, maple neck w/white binding and white MOP block inlays and just the most vintagey shade of surf green on the planet.
Fit and finish are all great.
Non-gloss neck.
Happy to own such an odd-ball in the US of A.
Ikebe music is really easy (too easy) and good to work with.
Sent a ton of pics of actual bass before shipping.
This thing shipped Monday from Japan and arrived today (Tuesday) at my house in perfect condition.
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Ok that looks absolutely amazing. So nice of @howard to help you spend your money.
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Plays really well too.
Need to ditch the Elixer strings it comes with but will give the thing a couple days rest from its trip to settle in before string change and set up.
Yeah, ain’t he just swell?
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Hahaha awesome. Happy to enable (er, I mean ‘help’ 
)
Looks very nice. Edwards is a really nice price/performance level. Glad you had a good experience with Ikebe.
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Take my money
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Looks like the same body shape as a GB model, which is pretty sweet. Bad news on the Ikebe being easy to work with, i really don’t need that
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I just looked on their easily translatable to English website, oh dear 
It’s almost as if they want to make it easy to give them your money!
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Their international shipping is not cheap but gets there in less than a week. Just saying
They have a translation toggle in the upper right of the web page.
I like them; I have bought two basses from them locally and shop there all the time. They tend to have relatively decent prices. Mail order from Soundhouse beats them, but not by too much.
But their real draw is they get a lot of really high quality stuff in and often Ikebe-only special orders. Like, I absolutely love this SR500B special design and it’s under $600 USD.
https://www.ikebe-gakki.com/c/c-/ba/ba01/ba010123/ba010123189/555243
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Yes sadly I found it! They have some very nice stuff. Anyway my U Bass is on it’s way and I’m pretty excited about that little thing.
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I love how the little Kala’s sound more like upright basses than uprights do
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You had me at white binding. That’s an awesome looking bass. Binding and p bass is pretty hard to find around here. Good catch @John_E and good call @howard
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IF (when) you want to buy something, they have an international customer form you fill out and then they work with you via email in English.
They said they don’t trust anything but FedEx overnight (at least to the US), so shipping was a bit steep ($278) but it got here in what was essentially 36 hours and even the box was in pristine condition. They label it like there is a baby inside.
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At the moment, FedEx and UPS express shipments are the only reliable way to ship packages from Japan to the US and have a reasonable expectation it will arrive in any kind of timely manner. Apparently those firms have a fast track with customs or something? Who knows. Customs is swamped right now.
I miss EMS.
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