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I found a couple of photos recently which I thought I’d share, I don’t know if they might be of interest to any of you. It’s my dad, Martyn Gibson, who played bass in the early sixties, before marriage and fatherhood took over. Dad played in a band in Stafford from 1963 to 1965, initially they were called The Countdowns, later The Sneakers, and they played originals and covers, a bit of RnB (Ray Charles etc). They played all around the Midlands. They supported Johnny Kidd and The Pirates, and often played with a band from Leicester who went one to become some of Showaddywaddy. My dad’s first bass was (possibly) a Hagstrom PB-24-G; from my research they were also branded Kent and Selmer but he can’t remember and the headstock isn’t visible in order to identify it properly, but as The Beatles became popular he splashed out on a Hofner 500/1. The shop in Stafford (H.E.Parkes & Sons of St Marys Gate, Stafford) ordered it direct from Hofner in Germany with a hard case for forty pounds (or guineas, he can’t remember). How I wish he’d kept it! He had a Vox amp (didn’t everyone then?) but he can’t remember exactly which model.

He always struck me as a colossal bell end.

VOCALIST REQUIRED FOR TERRIBLE BAND Unreliable egotistical diva required to sing badly before their voice fails half way through the second song of each two hour set. The ability to come up with various poor excuses and not turn up for gigs and practices less than half an hour before they need to be there is a must. Must also be able to argue equally with ALL other band members and have tantrums on and off stage whilst maintaining a drunken and/or stoned condition. The ideal applicant won't even turn up to their own audition and preference will be given to applicants who have extremely poor personal hygiene. If you think you can live up to these high expectations you probably won't be arsed to respond to this advert, if not please feel free to message me here.

An empty guitar case will often get you into a gig for free.

Another useful little idea. I’m going away to London for the weekend. Packed a bag and noticed that the zip has come off. Don’t worry though, a pedaltrain nano+ bag can hold a shaving bag and all your weekend essentials.

I guess if your musical palette is as one dimensional as Gene Simmonds he has a point. However, to make such a sweeping statements shows an enormous amount of ignorance of music genres and fellow musicians. Alternatively, he's being a bellend. In fact, either way he's a bellend.

As above. I've never picked up a guitar. Never played one. Never been interested. Went from a percussionist (the classical variety) to a bass player and never regretted it. The only significant downside is that guitarist show me chord shapes and the answer is, "you're wasting your time there mate". I was wondering how many other people here are bassists without the seemingly obligatory intermediate step of playing guitar? And how do you feel about it?

Tone bends for the win: (You don't have to watch the whole video, just a wee bit of noodling at the start!)

Such as the following: *******, *****, ******** and of course *******.

I put my vote on the Shift Line Olympic Tube Preamp. It’s a great unit and sounds really awesome. It does the pushed tube amp unbelievably good but it doesn’t do overdriven sounds. It’s the best “clean” preamp I’ve ever tried, and I own a bunch. Le Bass, Tonehammer, SCR-DI, Vintage Ultra & A/O, Hartke Bass Attack I &II, MXR M-80, 3Leaf the Enabler, Verellen Meatsmoke, Noble, Rusty box and probably a couple more. It takes dirt really good and the cab sim, especially the 8x10, is fantastic. And the headphones is dead silent, perfect for silent practice. And the whole unit breathes quality. I wouldn’t hesitate buying another if something happened to this.

Simplified things a little but very happy with this.

I think you've saved yourself a lot of pain. I first picked up a guitar nearly half a century ago and I'm still no better at it. I discovered I was much better playing one note at a time and picked up bass after a decades-long sojourn on sax. Some things just suit you more than others. In my last band I used to catch the rhythm guitarist squinting at the notes I was playing... he squinted a lot as I usually played fretless.

I read the brand name initially as "Firewood" - probably wasn't far off the mark

!!!!! Look what arrived

Even a gorilla couldn't bend the gauge of strings I use.

My name is Walbassist and I am a string bender.

I am sure the Gene Simmons supporters would approve - better clarity and definition to your cake eating that way.

I've decided to find this whole thread offensive, even though my pampered first-world life is pretty sweet. Anyway, I'm going to get on the internet and moan about it endlessly, just see if I don't! Or maybe tomorrow - Bargain Hunt is on soon and I must prepare tea and biscuits...

My personal opinion about this Grade A douche aside, I also 100% disagree with what he's saying. I've never seen any funk players live using a plectrum. If he said that to Larry Graham or Bootsy they'd laff in his faces (both the monster one and his stage make-up)

Anybody else think he looked less creepy WITH the makeup?

If that's what clean living does to you I'm off to find my next vat of toxins.

The bass is a Cold War-era East German Musima copy - the irony is that the original hardware on these was decent - the original tuners would have been torque-adjustable Gotohs. Wonder if the seller binned the old bits just because they were old, & "upgraded" it?

He Always Struck Me As A Colossal Bell End - The second of today's entries on my list of potential autobiography titles.

Wow, just come across this thread....what a total blast that must have been It's very unlikely I'll ever get to do anything that massive so thanks for sharing - I'll be thinking of this when playing at The Dog and Duck squashed up against the PA!

Local music shops where I live are more like this. Me: Hi. Him: Arr. What be ‘ee looking forr? We ‘as a nice range of galoubets, serpents and lutes. Or a dulcimer if ‘ee want summat new-fangled? Me: Errm, actually I’m more interested in bass guitars..? Him: Guitars? Arr right, well we’ve got a very nice baroque guitar over ‘ere… Me: No no, a bass guitar. Him: {confused} Well it don’t come with no base, but… Me: No, a bass. An electric b… Him: {recoils in horror} Elastictrickery?? Why, 'tiz the work of beelzebub! Are you in league with the dark one? {yells out to the back of the shop} Perpetua! Assemble the townsfolk and loight the bonfire! We ‘as one of satan’s imps in ‘ere! {exit Rich, pursued by pitchfork-waving mob of very closely related locals}

I came across this on Talkbass (im spending too much time there lately) Its a free program for Windows/Mac that allows us to go deep in to pedals like the 60B and edit the tones in real time. Looks pretty cool. I should say ive not yet tried it myself, but will do at the weekend. http://tonelib.net/ Original TB thread here https://www.talkbass.com/threads/free-editor-for-zoom-pedals-b1on-b1xon-ms-60b.1334064/

My Dad played tea chest bass in the Coney Island Skiffle Group. They were on the bill at The Cavern on its opening night. No connection with Coney Island. They were from The Wirral.

That's a very cool pic. Frank.

My epiphone pro-v went totaly dead a couple of weeks ago after I tightened up one of the pots. I initialy wondered whether there was a problem with the active circuit but it turned out that the pot had rotated so one of the terminals was touching the shielding paint. Once it was straightened out it was fine, so check that nothing is shorting out. Also when the socket was replaced was it replaced with a switchcraft one? I've found that the cheapo (eg from maplins) can lose their springiness after a while & often start to crackle & lose contact before too long.

Cheers, folks. The DVD came out today - there's a premiere event this Sunday, so I'll see it then...

Variation on the theme of the OP: dep guitarist in one of my covers bands is using a Helix and wants a transparent monitor / speaker to put it through rather than getting a guitar amp as he feels that an amp will colour what's coming out of his Helix (all the other guitarists I'm working with have gone for the Roland Blues Cube) . He's insisting on 10" rather than 8" (probably correctly?), though. Anyway, we're off to PMT Romford tomorrow to check out Yammy, QSC and RCFs; I may try out the odd bass guitar while I'm up there...

Shpeek for yoshelf

Didn't think I'd be posting the words 'I AM A BENDER' today, yet here we are.

Picking up on chienmortbb John's mention of using latest-generation speakers to shed some overall weight.

Morning all, So, what did I think of it? Love it. For a few years now I've been using the BH series amps so knew I'd be happy with the eq section. Also on the BH's I've always got one toneprint set to a spectracomp and always on. So again, knew I'd be happy with that too. Yep, you're right. He's got a BH and a spectracomp toneprint, he probably has the other toneprint set to an OD, so why bother buying a spectradrive? The real selling point for me was the headphone jack. A few years back OBBM made me up a joint Headphone and jack lead and never really got any use out of it at the time. Along comes the spectradrive. Perfect. Ive now got myself a trendy little preamp/compressor/drive which doubles up as a monitor and has the added bonus of freeing up two toneprints on my amp. So, back to last night. Arrived at venue, set up as usual, with the addition of the spectradrive. From the picture above I've got my upright going to the input. Output goes to a Roland bass cube (little battery powered one). Di goes to the PA. Headphone out goes to my head. That's when I had an idea. We normally keep a phono/jack lead in the PA just in case. Thought I'd have a go at running that from the PA's recording out straight to the aux in on the spectradrive. Perfect. I've now got my monitor set up and can hear everything. Take my monitors out and go to set my bass down whilst the guitarist finishes up. That's when I noticed something that contradicts what has been said in this thread. The guitar and vocals are now coming out of the Roland. Moved the lead from output to thru and that resolves that. No more aux in coming out of the output. Did the entire gig with monitors in and had a great time. Not had a chance to try it with my electric basses yet, but it works and sounds great with an upright. Can't test it with my electrics for a few days as I'm off to London for the weekend and my guitarist was that impressed with it last night, that he wants to test it for himself. All in all, for me it's perfect. It was bought with monitoring in mind and it fulfilled its duty perfectly, it performed exactly as I wanted it to. Looking forward to trying the toneprints on it.

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I've just looked at the Newtone website in more detail & can now see that the Platinum strings have a finer outer core than the Diamond ones I bought. That might explain the slight 'tackiness' I mentioned above. To be fair that is probably by design then, & I'll order Platinum next time to see the difference.

I don't think it's a "rebuild". It seems like a custom job from the start, unless they did a reshape of the headstock with the rest. I can't find any other Fernandes basses with the same headstock or body shape, either. It's definitely a strange bass :-) But very nice.

Super, thanks! Out come the tools! And @lownote12 I’m still very much enjoying the bass. All those knobs and switches and I still use it almost always passively 🤪

Aren’t those Simms pickups passive? I thought I’d read the battery was just for the leds? What preamp was in it?

Thanks. Yes, I’ll give it a few coats tomorrow once it’s settled. I’m not sure I’ll wet sand the headstock actually, as the lacquer layer I built up before applying the decal dried very nicely. Even though it’s a gloss lacquer it dried with a smooth, dry looking finish. I’m using car paints too. I’d planned to use nitro but decided to use acrylic car rattle cans instead. There’s a really good supplier in town close to me, and it’s cheap; I’ve bought a 500ml can of primer, a 500ml can of clear coat and a 400ml can of specially mixed colour for less than £20.

I think Gene forgot a R in his pick....

Welcome Hazza, I'd recommend you look at @Jabba_the_gut's build. I saw it at a Bass Bash last year and it's a beaut! Old Front Door and a Shelf... Your budget should allow you get a decent starter kit though. I echo the suggestion that you modify a kit body rather than make one from ply. I spent about £350 building my Ibanez tribute bass. The link is in my signature. I liked it so much I had to buy the real thing after so beware. Well done for jumping right in though. Respect.