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It was nice meeting everybody and I found the guitar makers presentations fascinating. Well worth the drive!

I`d bet on small intimate gigs with a lot of ambience, Pete

We had a blast of a gig at The Inn, Greatworth near Banbury last night. I expected a country pub with a couple of chilled out villagers. No, we got a pub full of the most ‘up for it’ party people we’ve seen for ages! Greatworth appears to be the kind of village where everyone goes out to the local at the weekend; it’s just far enough out of town that it’s easier to stay in the village than start getting into taxis etc. We were squashed into a corner of the bar which meant we were eyeball to eyeball with the friendly crowd, who made us very welcome incidentally, which I always enjoy. Pretty much the whole pub was up and dancing from the word go, and didn’t sit down all night. We were still playing at midnight, they wouldn’t let us stop. Really good tone from my MIM Jazz Deluxe and Genz Benz rig, sounded great. When we were packing down I asked the landlord if the residents minded bands playing into the early hours? ‘No’, he said, ‘they’re all in here!’ We left having made some new friends and a return booking for later in the year - can’t wait to go back!

Ozric Tentacles - Paper Monkeys

Well done folks another cool n casual outing on a nice sunny day. Maybe next year if im around i can bring along a mcmillan 12 step for anyone thinking of midi backing in their band?

A great afternoon out. Thank you.

@Jabba_the_gut shows us some wood ... and templates

We find out who was really responsible for JFK's assassination? Westside Distribution to close citing "falling profit margins?" Darkglass to lower prices of pedals? Ashdown to admit that the Geezer Butler head is total pony? Miranda Hart to become the new Gibson CEO? There is so much good news out there, I wait with baited breath.

@Andyjr1515 shows us more roll than rock in the live veneering demonstration

I’m always very happy when I get to play with my DB112 cabs on a decent stage, they put out a lovely old school round sound. However, if I had to buy two new replacement 112 cabs, I wouldn’t buy two new ones, as the prices have gone pretty mental and here in Europe there are plenty of reasonably priced alternatives!

Looking at the bridge in more detail, it’s screw points are at each corner, so replacing the bridge will involve drilling new holes and filling existing holes. No big deal, but as changing the bridge is purely for cosmetic reasons I might just leave it and get an ashtray. Here’s what I think of it so far...

Got the top shaped and arm carve done, just got the belly carve to do tomorrow I wasn’t 100% happy with the top horn so I took a little bit off the bottom to thin it out a tad which I think looks better

And it begins! Bass players are even talking to each other instead of having a slap-off 😂

Mine arrived yesterday too. Not had long with them but definitely very happy. Far more bottom end than I was expecting and good separation of lows, mids and highs. I'll tweak eq today and then save an eq setting for them on the XR18 so I could pull that up if I ever need to use them at a gig.

I had a really nice JJ jewel, which I used at work to take soul band rehearsals. It had got knocked over once before and had a hairline crack around the neck pocket. One day we were working on ‘performance’ and they decided I should demonstrate the Pete Townsend leap I was on about, which I promptly did. Upon landing, I felt the strings go slack and the body drop, which I caught. Looking down the neck was completely separated from the body. I put the dismembered guitar on the floor and the trumpet player asked me ‘Is it dead sir?’ When I confirmed i thought it indeed was he picked up his instrument and played the last post as solemnly as he could manage, the cheeky begger.

Mine are really growing on me too... Undoubtedly great value and I'd highly recommend!

Got the body all cut and sanded..... I should get the shaping done tomorrow, but I now need to wait till the neck and pickups arrive so I can make the router template hopefully they should be here by the end of the month.........

My 1st gig of the year was on Saturday night depping for the Flotonics. Their singer is our function band's ex singer and asked me to dep about 4 months back. It's been 4 months of slowly absorbing 30 old skool soul numbers. The 2 rehearsals leading up to the gig impressed me. The guitarist has a cellar full of equipment so you just bring your instrument and plug in (drummer has the choice of 2 kits). We rattled through 28 tunes in about 2hrs and then chat over a pint in the pub. No other band I've been in has that work rate. Gig itself was in Laverstock just outside Salisbury. Nice, friendly boozer but with a hen night on as well (mmm...pub rates with a party going on!). During soundcheck one of the party seemed very drunk and started making herself known to the band, telling us to keep playing and asking us "do you know any Queen?" She must've passed out soon after as I didn't see her again all evening. Once we started the hen party were right there dancing and only stopped for fag breaks and the bit where the hen kisses/gropes/tries to purloin a pair of pants from a punter. Odd venue for a hen do but in the end they were our crowd and enjoyed it most, everyone else just watched. 1st gig playing 5 string (ibanez sr1205), 1st gig depping. Very good musicians so I really worked hard for this gig. Drummer Ley was in a band signed to CBS in the early 70s and you could tell, his drumming was some of the best I've had the pleasure of laying down a groove to. Singer is ex pro too. Guitarist and keys are of equally high standard with fantastic BVs. They seemed to enjoy my take on some of the basslines and were very complimentary (I hope they weren't just being nice). Anyway, job done. I'm happy, punters were happy, rest of band happy. Looking forward to their bassist dropping out again .

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!

Great day out and the presentations were great. Andy made the veneering look straightforward enough that I'm now looking for an unfinished body to have a go myself. Lovely to see you all, thanks Si for organizing 👍🏻

Thanks for the Wal link – I see that the rareguitarheaven outfit get some rather scathing reviews – I'll almost certainly get someone around these parts to build it for me as I'm a fussy git – I'll make a fresh post once the build is underway, don't hold your breath though!

That and the £2K price tag!

Classic fender passive stack

Nice one! I work from home so will be able to have a cheeky go as soon as it lands!

@Al Krow Swap tall for thick wasted and the tall award goes @CameronJ

As @NancyJohnson said please. i’m an Old man, I don’t do tease well

I`ve always thought that the wall of speakers is a great idea. Just cos there are loads of them doesn`t mean they have to be loud, amps do have volume controls remember, but on a (very) large stage, well at least you`d have a presence of the instrument no matter where you were. Rather than one 210 some 30 feet away, and two monitors in front of you trying to handle the whole band in them to rely on. When we play festivals we never have the amps louder than the on-stage un-miced volume of the kit, but the fact that it`s invariably an 810 and two 412s stacked make hearing yourself a lot easier. On even bigger stages I`d like two 810s, and two 2x412 stacks for the guitar. I suppose I`m not that keen on relying on monitors, as long as I can hear all instruments on-stage volume fine then I`m happy, and having more speakers has - in my experience - helped that a lot.

That's good news John. I'm bringing along my bass Uke. It's only a cheapy, but should amuse Jack 😄

Yes, it is similar totally to how JE used to play. I saw a video clip of him showing off his typewriter style where he attacks the strings as though playing an old fashioned manual typewriter, but my style and hand position is more like traditional finger style but I probably have my fingers a little straighter so that it knocks the string onto the frets but not completely perpendicular to them. It's more crap technique than anything! Any alleged prowess on my part is long gone

So how good are these results? My room now has a well-controlled frequency response that meets "pro" standards. Its decay/ reverberation measurements are also in good shape, but they don't meet professional standards - and they never will. It's just not possible in a room of this size. Perhaps most crucially, the room sounds good to my ears. My reference material has a new lease of life: clear, punchy lows and smooth highs that don’t have anywhere near the harsh/brittleness that I was experiencing before. The soundstage appears wider and I can hear a lot more detail. Everything just sounds better. And my old mixes sound quite flat and lifeless by comparison… so I’m looking forward to putting this newfound clarity to good use. Ok, but how does it compare to a professional studio? Very few pro studios publish their acoustic measurements for obvious reasons - i.e. they’re typically not as pretty as they’d like! So it's difficult to find any data to compare against. But as an example, here’s a measurement from Sunny Side Studios, a professional recording, mixing and mastering facility in Belgium (taken from the article in the link above). This is the low end frequency response from 20-200Hz, which is typically the most difficult section of the frequency response to get right. The measurement from Sunny Side Studios shows a variation of around +/- 5dB (10dB from highest peak to lowest dip). And here’s the same frequency plot at the same scale from my room… a converted garage in sunny Manchester… which also shows a variation of just +/- 5dB across the same range (well, at least down to 30Hz). Not too shabby at all. Of course this doesn't mean that my room acoustics in any way measure up to those of a high-end studio like Sunny Side. They are leagues apart. But it hopefully shows that with the right amount of stubborn, methodical persistence, you can get very usable acoustics in a small room. Job done. Time to make some music...

I feel so privileged to be playing with these guys. They really do put their heart and soul into every performance. This is one of my favourite moments from this gig. Everyone is right on the money here. Strangely my IEM mix had deteriorated (I'm not entirely sure why) to the point that I really couldn't hear any sax at all. So, its been quite nice listening back through all the video to what our multi-talented guy stage right was doing - he also plays bass and drums as well as guitar, sax and being able to sing!

Livin the dream Blue!

It’s always good to hear a bit of “Green Day!!! I thought you might break out into a bit of “Longview” Them Wilkinson pickups sound good and that colour looks awesome especially when the light hits it!!! Great job l!!

Yep like @kodiakblair mine is about 9lbs. It’s hefty piece of wood alright, but no more than my MIM Jazz Deluxe or Stingray.

I've been wanting to try one of these but I haven't seen too many either for sale or to try. Every review I've read has held them up to me very versatile and they seem to be well recommended. Not sure if I've overcome my disappointment with Class D rigs in general though - I've had a Mesa, a Darkglass, Genz Benz amongst others and all have disappointed.

I currently have one, even though I have replaced it, but I’ll still happily share my thoughts I bought mine after watching quite a few different video reviews, at the time I had managed to get through a Darkglass Alpha Omega, Sansamp VT Bass DI, and a Sansamp Deluxe Programmable Bass Driver. Each pedal was great for certain tones, but I struggled to find that perfect type of distortion. The Alpha Omega was far too much of everything and I really struggled to find a sound I liked. The VT Bass was nifty but the drive was more tube like and not gritty enough for me. The BDDI was a bit better, but I found it heavily coloured my tone and that in order to get that Sansamp sound, you had to really compress your tone and I felt I was loosing too much of my tone. After a couple of videos of the Battalion, straight away I much preferred the distortion on it, and the added features of compression and a noise gate, as well as an extensive EQ section for both clean and distortion. I managed to sell the last Sansamp and it paid for it comfortably. Straight away when I plugged it in, it felt more neutral, my clean tone wasn’t too coloured by any tube emulation, it gave that tiny bit more control over my tone instead of only relying on the amp. The distortion was instantly more to my taste, it was merely finding the sweet spot for the blend and I was loving it. I used it for in-ear rehearsals many times and never had a problem dialling in my tone. The compression is actually pretty good for what it is, I use a TC Spectracomp for my compression so I never needed it too much. The fact you can’t adjust the compression ratio/threshold etc...does put some people off from using it, but set to about 10 o’clock seemed to be the best place for me. The noise gate is a cool extra, but as some reviews make note of, it’s not the best, it’s functional but a bit clunky and can give unwanted noises in your signal chain. I’ve only recently replaced it with a Darkglass B7K Ultra V2 after being impressed by the new cab sim options and more options for mid control. So since then it’s been sat on my desk looking sad for it self. I would recommend it for its price and features alone, it’s a great bit of kit even if you don’t use everything on it. I hope that helps mate

Neck sanding is over.Now i have to build the body and then give the final edges to the neck,where body and neck met etch other and then glue the fretboard

This is worth a listen - "Martin Simpson and Richard Hawley visit master luthier Roger Bucknall, who reveals the extraordinarily painstaking and creative labour of love involved in making an acoustic guitar." https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b0pw02

I think you've misunderstood, those perspex cages are to control on stage sound and prevent mic bleed, they have no impact on what the audience hears but give the engineer a better palette to work with which leads to a better mix. Now can all this silly faux masculinity be put to bed please? Having a loud valve amp wallowing all over the stage doesn't make anyone a tough guy/gal, it just makes you a PITA for whoever is engineering your gigs.

I recently sold my bass rig in favour of an FRFR cab and great it is too, however it did leave me in a dilemma as I only owned one amp head (a trusty LMII) and now have nothing to power my little EA cab which I use for home practice which I can leave set up in the front room. I had my eye on a Trace Elf or the little GK amp (MB200 or something?) but they are a bit overkill for plugging in around the house. I did think about a cheap combo but I want the sound quality of the EA cab which is lovely and crystal clear. So what to do? Enter this total POS, a local collection won on eBay for the princely sum of 99p (yes, 99 English pence, excuse my cluttered workbench). It's a cheapo Kinsman 10w kiddie's practice amp, same thing you see rebranded under 100 different names but it's essentially a BB10. As you can see it's had a hard life, it's completely crushed and it sounds terrible. Originally I was going to rehouse it but the little 4" speaker is shot to pieces (or more likely just wasn't any good in the first place) which leaves the amp. No prizes for guessing what happens next! So out comes the screwdriver and we can see what's inside! Here's the details: As we can see the amp was born on the 23rd of July 2011 and is called Jim. Now Jim and I have become firm friends I can see about liberating him from his awful particleboard prison and making him a new home. Time to snip some wires and get the dremel and soldering iron out. Luckily there's already a couple of holes here so both will be widened so I can fit an IEC socket and a Speakon combi jack, the Speakon I already had (bought a pack of two when I fixed an old cab) and the IEC socket was £1.30 on eBay. Originally I was going to fit a 1/4" jack for pure convenience but that would mean actually buying one and not being able to use my short speaker cable so that idea went out the window. I did have some pics of the widened holes but my old phone died, the combi jack hole was incredibly neat and the IEC hole much less so. Any untidy edges were covered with a layer of black vinyl (99p - eBay again) on the outside anyway so my cack-handed metalwork is well hidden. I decided on semi transparent acrylic for the case which was £3.49 for an A4 sheet including delivery, wood would be easier for me to work with (I hate cutting plastic) but I thought the acrylic would look smart and I already had a bag of M2 hex screws to hold it together, unfortunately I misjudged the sizes due to the amp frame being slightly uneven and bulging slightly (probably happened when it got damaged originally) but meh, it will do for now. I used the original feet and screws from the original combo where possible so I didn't have to buy anything else. So here's Jim in his new clothes! So seeing as I had some screws and a Speakon socket lying around to begin with all in all this cost me: Amp - 99p Acrylic - £3.49 IEC socket - £1.30 Black vinyl - 99p Total - £6.77 As you can see there's a few rough edges there along with some poorly cut acrylic, I didn't sand anything down as at some point I'm going to redo the acrylic sleeve entirely - I seemed to have got the hang of cutting it with a jigsaw on the very last cut I had to make and know where I went wrong the first time. It will do for now though, besides another £3.49 sheet of acrylic would push the cost of the build right up and I'm not made of money. So I bet you all think it sounds terrible and has no volume when paired with my EA cab right? Well it actually sounds surprisingly good, more than loud enough for home practice and isn't at all deficient in the tone department either. Sure it looks like a child's lunch box but it makes for a solution a problem with the absolute minimal spend which is ideal for me. Now I can buy another expensive preamp pedal and not feel guilty about it.

Hanging onto faulty components when they should have been thrown out long ago (By the way I'm going to get a soldering iron out and repair everything) . Like jack leads, XLR leads, Floppy mike stands, faulty guitar tuners, faulty patch leads, I could go on and on. Then having to sift through all these parts during stage set up.

Tuning should always be done silently, or as silent as possible for acoustic instruments. Not a soul in the world wants or needs to hear the sound of tuning.

Yep , nothing more annoying than trying to tune up or to talk to another musician in the room about the material you are playing and someone is blaring away on their instrument

Guitarist noodling at any time the band isn't playing be it at rehearsal, in soundcheck, pre gig ,between tunes ect. Out of all the things that are annoying this is the most.