Leaderboard

Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 35 years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

Still cold from the back of the UPS truck is my new Harley Benton PB-50 which will soon be disassembled for some minor modifications: swap bridge for a more traditional looking example, reshape the headstock and apply amber tint to the neck. I may upgrade the pickup at some point but it’s perfectly adequate for now, and I will probably change the scratchplate for a white one. Also I’ll fit some flatwounds. I’m impressed so far, the neck in particular is fantastic. The set up is pretty good, it was even in tune. For £300 this would be a decent bass, for a little over £80 it’s incredible. The only gripe I have is with the pots. The tone knob did nothing at all at first, although the more I turned it the more it gradually came to life and now works - weird, it’s as if it just needed some motion to get it going. The volume control works, but instead of gradually decreasing the volume as you roll it back, it stays at a constant volume for about 80% of it’s travel before just falling off a cliff with a silent final 20% of the turn. Not a massive issue as I’ll probably change the pots. I was kind of annoyed at first, but then again have to remind myself it’s an €85 instrument. I think we are so spoiled with decent cheap gear these days we have high expectations even of budget stuff! So yes, I’m happy, and with the completion of my self build Precision two days ago that’s two new basses in 48 hours, can’t argue with that!

I like it!

firstly I would like to thank basschatters for the posts of advice they have made. secondly thanks to Andy and bass bunny for the phone calls for all the pickup experts here the dimensions of both pickups the bass are collection pickups are 94mm long 18mm wide and the lug centres are 40mm

So looking forward to seeing this project's progress.

I bet you will!!

Me too 😄👍

I just hope there won’t be any higher offers through PM to him now I let you all know...

I thought I saw the word “it” in the title and completely miss read the rest of it. The actual thread content was therefore not what I was expecting.

@BrunoBass Congratulations on joining the ranks of PB-50 owners That was pretty niffty delivery timing since it only shipped Wednesday. @machinehead I've owned 5 of these and all have hovered around 9lb using luggage scales

Dude you can kill small dogs with that rig, nice Sire too..

[Pedantry] I'd have to disagree; it's counted in (typically on the hihat...) as '1-2-3-4-1' for the riff to commence on the following 'and' off-beat. [/Pedantry]

Not gear, but when our singer fell off the side of the stage at one gig i couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the song. I am not a nice person lol.

I am the proud new owner of Lorin's 735A, and it is gorgeous. It replaced a black 425X which I loved, very sorry to see it go, but boy was it worth it! Very comfy to play, lighter than the 425, very even tones everywhere on the fretboard. In passive mode it has the usual BB smoothness, and when flicked to active you can very gradually and gently mold that smoothness from a thick deep tone all the way up to a farty honk, in combination with the rotary pickup control. Such a well-thought-out design and execution, it is easy to fall in love with it! I have tried it with nylons, chromes and nickel rounds, and it is great with all of them, depending on the sound you want. With Chromes in the studio it will be gorgeous. I am going to gig it with rounds as that is the sound I want. A good demo of the 735A (and all good things Yamaha) is here:

spilt a pint of Shandy (hey I was driving right?!!!) straight off a table onto my pedal board, ruined a markbass compressore, managed to save my DHA VT 2, just before a gig, had to go direct into my Ampeg, sounded exactly the same if not better!

Not the kind of stress you want. Life is difficult enough without idiots making it worse.

New wardrobe GAS?

If PG Wodehouse had ever auditioned drummers this ^ is how he'd have written it up. Sterling work, Sir

Recently acquired here from Ash, a Fiesta Red Road Worn Jazz, 2008. After getting a RW P bass and being knocked out by it, I had to get it's cousin/sister/brother. It hasn't disappointed. Great jazz tone, a joy to play, light, and finally, finally a bridge pup tone I like. And in a family picture...anyone know what's with the P being more pinky than the jazz?

Yeah! We got our Summerfest 2018 slot today. July 8th 5;00-6:00 on the U- Line Rock Stage. Not the best slot but better than a 10:00 am slot. Most local bands never get to play Summerfest, this is my 7th year in a row playing Summerfest. Blue

At last, more vicarious build threadage!

Come on guys, we all know who this is, and he's been doing this for many years. It's cheap publicity. He posts the most outrageous piece of cr4p he has in stock with the most outrageous price tag he can dream up, then sits back and waits for online addicts to take the bait. I've admired his work for ages.

that's rather tasty! a brand new status neck is £374.40 delivered inc VAT, so the £320+25 that someone paid for this one is a bit high, personally not enough of a saving over a new one. Matt

Mine landed this morning. Luckily, I've had a day off for a long long weekend so them dropping through the door was good timing. Haven't spent long with them but initial thoughts are that they're AN AWFUL LOT of ear candy for not a lot of money. Considering the cost of them, they sound pretty impressive. I A/B'd them against my 1964 Ears V8s. TBH, the V8s sounded far more convincing, controlled and "expensive" than the KZ10s but given the huge cost differences, I'd not be surprised. But, and here's the but, whilst the KZ10s sounded more "agricultural" in the upper mids and top end, a bit of EQing sorted some of that out. They've massive low end. Really impressive for such a cheap pair of phones. Again, pulling back a tiny bit of the lows really helped tighten things up. All in all, I can't believe how good these are for the money.

I really like sires, the preamp is fabulous... A couple of people here have put lighter tuners on, and it makes them balance much better. I found myself looking online at a V9 5 string fretless this morning.... Hmmm very nice, and I'm sure it'll play well like all Sires, but at £780ish a bit pricey?

The 12er thru a mix of TE and Hartke in 2010...

Great to listen to, a blast to watch live and...local to me: The Brooks

Anyway. Chown SWB Pro, Retrovibe EVO Davie504 & Retrovibe Volante basses being delivered to us on Tuesday. We have some stock going out to Bass Direct, Gear4Music, Andertons and one to PMT. Nearly everybody waiting for an SWB Pro will be getting theirs shortly. If you just HAD to have one and didn't want to wait, snap one up from one of the above retailers.

Apparently, he's quite good on ukulele

Hey Muzz. Sorry to burst your 5 count jazz theory but Whole lotta Rosie starts with a 5 count. Of course, we could be playing it wrong.... Got a similar one. Auditioned a guitarist a few years ago for your standard pub rock combo. Guy seemed nice enough, nice Strat, Vox amp but he had a army type kit bag with him. He opened the bag by turning it upside down and out fell about 20 pedals plus assorted cables and batteries. My Spidey sense was tingaling now. He proceeded to arrange them on the floor, moving them until they were in some exact position which took about 15 mins, then started to connect them and change batteries when he discovered some were gubbed. By now, the band are giving each other the WTF look. After what seemed like an age, he seemed ready but the sounds he was getting were unsuitable for the songs we were playing and after 20 mins or so, we knocked it on the head with the standard "we will be in touch."

I used a LMIII and a 1515L for a good while, and that was a really good combination: I kept the 1515L for longer than the LMIII, and it did a great job with many different heads. Just a superbly practical cab in a band mix: not an attractive tone on its own, but it sat superbly well with the rest of the band. And for such a tiny cab, it could really project: we gigged up in Scotland in a club with a resident engineer, and at one point I saw him fiddling with a slider, looking puzzled. He came over and asked me if I could remember what channel he'd put me on, as he was trying to turn the bass down a bit. Then I reminded him he hadn't put me through the PA... I'm struggling to remember why I sold it now...

Get the gig out of the way, then give the news. Good luck

Unless you're a pro, there's no point in being in a band unless you're enjoying yourself. Best of luck getting the band that you deserve - there's a fantastic band out there waiting for you - you just have to find it.

More than one lesson learned there then! Could end up saving you money in the long run that one...

Jesus Christ. Fretless as well!

That orange juice is a little beast!

Update: Just got back. Had a long evening in the bar where we spent the first hour avoiding the elephant in the room. After this it was brought up. That I wasn't happy and that things were going too slowly and we need more structure, discipline and passion, etc. I tried to keep it as a friendly open forum of ideas and it was quite pleasant but as the evening wore on I could see that the drummer understood my point of view that we need to work harder but the guitarist was becoming unaware of how serious my feelings were/didn't care and that basically I think he is unwilling to change. Happy to point mine and the drummers weak spots but I don't think he realises he is the weakest musician. I had a side conversation with the drummer (who was very reasonable) when he went for a wee about how I think the singer is going backwards and that he doesn't respect us. I left them both having a beer in the garden. I imagine the drummer might mention that it's a lot more serious than he thinks it is. I've got a rehearsal on Tuesday and a gig on Saturday. Will do those. I may even stay in until my holiday (3 weeks time) but I honestly think that I will walk before then because his head is so far up his bum right now he'd have to get a proctologist to brush his teeth.

This irrational dislike of Markbass based on the look is not shared by most bass players, 99% of bands and 100% of audiences.

Kick Snare OH Done.

If you ever met me, you would know that to be true I would never consider adapting my playing style to fit around the covers, unless they had a functional need to be there - a horseshoe Rick pickup, for example, is going to be there whether you like it or not so it's something to get used to! Not that I imagine owning a vintage RM1999 anytime soon... That said, I've been looking through some old photos and came across a pic of a Burgundy Mist Fender Jazz I used to own, resplendent in bridge and pickup covers. Now that was really something. Seller's remorse.

I've usually had enough after seconds. Urp!

Can you read SPL charts? This compares response of a Simplexx 15 sealed and ported with the Eminence BP1525 driver. Note that if you want to get the same response from the ported as sealed you can, just back off on the bass EQ, which also reduces power draw from the amp. The chart only extends to 200Hz because above that they're identical. The ported advantage in low frequency sensitivity is there, but it's not huge. Now consider this, a maximum SPL chart, which takes into account the response, the driver thermal power handling and driver excursion limit: The sealed cab doesn't even come close down low. The difference is attributable not only to the output added by the port but also the reduction in cone excursion that porting results in, and it's excursion that primarily limits how loud a cab will go below 70Hz or so, not the thermal power capacity. You can get a ported cab to sound like a sealed cab, but you can't get a sealed cab to deliver the low end output of a ported cab. There will be those who say otherwise, but in controlled double blind listening tests when EQ'd for the same response listeners are unable to tell the tone of one from the other.