Gold lamé M.C. Hammer pants, though? Always cool! Show up to your HOA board meeting in those and you’ve got that driveway ordinance locked up tight!
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Think I’ll leave this one be, it’s not limited to Fender Custom Shop discussion so I don’t see any harm in a more general thread. Thanks for keeping an eye out!
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I think most people seem to work through a progression of basses - often, but not always - getting closer to their “perfect” bass, and usually getting a bit more expensive as they progress. I look at a custom bass as my penultimate goal. First I want to get good enough to be sure I know what I like and want and then look at options. But if you discover that some of your “must haves” are pretty hard to find then custom might be your only choice.
In a few years I know I’ll be looking for a short scale jazz bass, and they’re pretty hard to find period (SX Ursa is just about the only currently made option out there - and I’m gonn snag one of those soon 
). My higher quality available option is Japanese SmartSize fenders (>1k and not currently in production). Probably with some added money into upgrades - and that puts me in the range of a lot of customs. The cherry on top with custom is getting the exact aesthetics you want to go with the hardware you selected. Short scale, JJ config, natural, maple fretboard with white/pearl block inlays and binding - custom or highly modified might be my only option:
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That, and he oozes Funk
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Ya know @Mac , you really really really want to make me smack the Mac back into you. You had me tripped up for a good 2 weeks, no shit.
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Okay I’ll change it back
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Or I would if I could remember how 
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[say this in Bootsy’s voice]
For Bootsy, you could try and blame it on the drugs but Bootsy is clean these days and he is still very Bootsy, baby. 
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Why the change to REPA?
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My personal rego plate on my Harley @eric.kiser
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you could say that whole sentence and substitute Toby for Bootsy, and aside from being a funk master, the statement would ring true
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Holy shit that is a lot of knobs. EQ for both pickups? Or 4-band EQ with tone and volume knob?
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I am guessing volume, pup balance, bass/mid/treble, parametric mid freq
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Top Row
- The first knob controls Volume by turning and the active/passive mode with a push/pull switch. Pulling with switch up changed the circuit to passive mode.
- The second knob is is the Pickup Blend control. On the centre position, the sound is generated from both pickups. As the control is rotated clockwise, the sound progressively shifts to the neck pickup and similarly, to the bridge pickup when rotated anti-clockwise.
- The last knob is the Vintage Tone control. This allows high frequency tone roll off and works in both active and passive modes.
Lower Row
- These three knobs are Treble, Mids and Bass EQ. These knobs only work in active mode. The Mid control is fitted with a push/pull switch to change the mid frequency between 400Hz and 800Hz.
From their website
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Ahh, cool, so it has a parametric mid as a push/pull, and then a tone knob that can filter both active and passive. That’s awesome.
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The more I’m reading about these the more I could see me getting myself into trouble.
The luthier that designed them lives a very short distance from me and has a very good reputation
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You are in trouble already posting those juicy specs
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Wow. Thanks for sharing your opinions and experience everyone.
So after trying out several basses, I found it hard to get the bass to my exact preferences.
I personally like the P-Bass and also the Music man stingray sound. However the P-Bass is a one trick pony and also the neck is rather chunky for my small hands. The same goes with stingray, the neck is quite chunky. I notice some custom bass offer the Split coil + Humbucker pickup config. I think I can get the P-bass and Stingray sound with this config.
As for the neck, I am quite comfortable with Ibanez neck. It sits comfortably with my small hands. But the string spacing in Ibanez basses are too close. I found it hard to keep other strings clean when slapping on Ibanez basses. Besides that, most Ibanez basses are 24 frets, I found it less ideal for slapping as I hit the neck quite often. The majority of Ibanez I have tried so far also does not have a toggle to switch between active and passive electronic.
Some custom bass also have option where we can adjust the action from the nut, I think Warwick have this option. With warwick basses I think you can also adjust the string spacing from the bridge. I also want to use a 5-string bass by adding an extra high-C string.
I also live in Australia, where there aren’t many stores that have fancy basses to try out. 
I am not sure if my case is a good reason to go with custom basses instead of buying the ready stock off the shelf bass.
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There are a lot of basses that offer split coil and humbucker. My ESP LTD Surveyor 400 is one.
The pickup in the neck position is a split coil, the EMG P4 pickup, in a soapbar housing. Can you get Schecter where you are? They have a lot of models where the neck pickup is a split coil in a soapbar housing. The Schecter GT 4 is one example
Any bass with soapbar pickups can easily be converted to a P style pickup in the neck position. I have on order a Quadcoil pickup from Delano which can be either a split coil or reverse split coil in the bass, depending how you connect the wires.
A P Bass with a thin neck is readily availible. My Squier CV 70s has a jazz neck, as does the Schecter P4. Have you tried a PJ yet? offers some of the versatility you are looking for, but if you roll to the neck pickup you still have a P.
I guess the point of this long winded post is I don’t see anything you’ve mentioned that can’t be had off the shelf. Or possibly with switching pickups, which is a minor mod. I would look at ESP and Schecter basses for sure.
Also Reverend basses. Forgot to mention those
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