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Absolutely mental, very funny, and a great player.

It's his hat, right?

Has there ever been a cooler drummer than this?

Modding an Already-Modded P Bass... You may or may not have seen my Modded HB PB-50 (Version 3) - if not, it's here. All well and good - I liked it a lot... the single-coil vibe is nice, but sometimes you really want that mid-forward, split-pickup dual-coil 57-type P sound as featured on every recording since the Bronze Age. Consequently, I started looking for a bog-standard 57-type P Bass. There are lots and lots and lots of them available for sale... THEN, I came across the concept of the dual-coil 51-type four-pole telebass-type pickup... with that in mind I bought this Jess Loureiro dual-coil 51-type pickup with a view to fitting a switch to give me the option of series (57-type dual) or parallel (51-type single) coil pickups, both with the fast attack you get from a one pole-piece-per-string setup... hopefully negating the need to buy another bass, cart two basses around with me and change them on stage for different songs... I also fitted a new Fender American Deluxe bridge with part-threaded saddles. Stable, well-engineered... top load or through-body options... and way too expensive in the UK, which is why I imported one from the States. Even with import duty it was still cheaper than buying one here. Many thanks to Mr Gary Mac, without whose help and assistance I'd be in hospital suffering from soldering iron burns and crying. Thanks, Gary. Sound clips: Listen on good phones or decent monitors, etc. etc... Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

Blast! Well, based on it feeling like the fretboard has taken longer than the body so far, I'd better just remake the body and persuade Neil that learning to be ambidextrous is a real life-skill!

No worries Dave, I see what you mean. I took said claw hammer so that if I saw the person I suspected of stealing my bass, I could hit him with it. I was less reasonable in my younger years.

Great idea! Looking forward to the first one. ☺ Once it's up and running, can I suggest that we link this idea to the various regional Bass Bashes, where there will be opportunities to get some fantastic content for the podcasts. For example, the SE Bash has had so many good workshops and guest speakers over the years, much of which would have made for interesting and relevant podcast material...

I heard this on Radio 1 earlier and love it. Me and the wife's heads were bobbing away in the car. I thought we were listening to another station too be honest.

Garfield Fleming from the Delfonics was walking past a record shop and heard a record he wrote and sang.. They didn't realise who he was. Just an excellent moment.

John Taylor from Duran Duran gets my respect. I was never a fan when they were big in the 80's, I always had them down as a kiddy pop band. But some of his lines are incredible.

Last time I went for a 'well person's checkup' at the local surgery, the GP told me that for the health of my heart, I should do "1/2hour of intensive effort at least once a week that you enjoy and that makes you hot and sweaty" and then gave me a big wink. How the Dickens did he know I have a Veritas Pullshave??? Sure enough, 1/2 hour later, I'm hot, sweaty and pleasantly fulfilled: What a doctor! What great advice!

Buy a Harley Benton PB-50 from Thomann and put some decent flats on it. Sorted. https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pb_50_sb_vintage_series.htm If you like P Bass necks, you'll love this. You get Thomann's 3-Year Warranty and 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, too...

And when looking at it too, when my Custom Shop decal arrives!

It seems to work really well, especially 'in your face' through an amp. I'm no top recording engineer or producer, I did the audio clips very quickly. There are a few other dual-coil 51-type options available, notably from Lindy Fralin: https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/split-51-p-bass/ It is a lot more expensive that the Loureiro version, though. And the main selling point is noise reduction - the fact you can approximate the sound of a 57-type split-pickup seems to be totally ignored. As a split pup is essentially a humbucker yes, you're going to get less noise in theory, but I've had no problems in that area even with a single coil. My bass is quite heavily shielded with copper tape though and is just as quiet with a single coil or a dual coil.

It's interesting as I'd heard examples of the old S2 switch on past Precisions and felt that their pickup choice didn't seem to suit the function, whereas this sounds way better by comparison. I'd put it down to the qualities of this pickup. (The S2 is great on jazz basses).

Yes - but look where my mind's gone now, no wonder 😃

Thanks for the comment, Dan. Plugged the bass into my combo this morning and wound it up - The Loureiro is a quality bit of gear and no mistake. The previous Herrick pickup was a class act in itself, but as well as having the switching options, the Loureiro is a bigger-sounding, warmer pickup overall.

Ooooh it makes me wonder!

I think I met him once. Is this him?

What do you think are your chances of finding a buyer who appreciates a neck as you do? IMO I think it's pretty certain that you'll adversely affect the value of the bass if you start scraping off the finish. You've posted this so I guess the resale value is important to you. . . . in that case, don't do it.

And here is Happy Jack with that bass!

Very nice; but you appear to have made a left-handed fretboard!

Absolutely no prob re. getting audio from the bashes. I usually record almost everything on video, so adding a dedicated, good quality audio recorder will be no problem at all. Looking forward to this!

Well, it was a lot of work - but on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfying was that?

I’ve got a Spectrum DX and it’s really decent. Maple body rosewood neck. High gloss black finish looks immaculate from several feet away though fairly dinged up on closer inspection. Single pickup is I believe essentially a p and sounds excellent. Unlike the Thunder it’s not a heavy bass. I’d definitely recommend.

Thanks for this - I don't know how peeps (on both sides) would feel about a closer link than that with the magazine? Feed each other content and promote each other to some extent??? Audio would be a perfect complement to the forum - I for one would enjoy listening to sound samples in the flow of a podcast which I don't bother to click on in a forum post. A good example of the value of audio but perhaps a bit extreme tech for some of us :-? Thanks to those who have offered to make this happen, I await with interest 🙂

As with all things bass-related; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My first decent bass was a Thunder 1A in natural finish and what first caught my eye was the visible real wood - ie not hidden under solid paint or a plastic pick-guard. The other thing I liked was that it had its own look and wasn't a clone of an American design. Having enjoyed playing it for about 2 years I wanted to upgrade and a Thunder III was the automatic choice. Having owned that bass since 1985; I can only say that the build quality and components stood the test of time and I've never had any problems - the bass was 100% original until I did the electronics upgrade mentioned in my post above.

Apparently, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Bob Harris has been running his Country Music show since 1998. On the whole I think Bob Harris plays pretty good music on his shows. He also champions live music so he's a good'un in my book.

I use Simple Pure Fine Talc, as it's unfragranced. Mrs CP put some in a jar which I keep in the uke gig bag. If ever I get stopped on the way home from a gig and the police do a search it could be interesting....

For the avoidance of further confusion: England Flag UK Flag Flag of the Klingon Empire

Bergantino sell direct in the US as a ways and means to attempt to help keep the costs of the products down. (Similarly Bergantino do not have an artist endorsement program, they do not give anything away, so the 'average Joe' doesn't have to cough up.) They do have shops selling Bergantino equipment in the US but of course they don't have the problems with VAT and customs and all that jazz we have here with importing US gear. Bergantino do want to have a UK outlet but the nearest we have at the moment is Bass Buddha in Denmark owned by the rather awesome chap Morten Ehlers. On the subject of whether or not he's great to deal with, I have to say that I have had the opposite experience. Friendly, keen to share the knowledge and has even sent out an email just to see how I'm getting on with my amp! Oh, the B|Amp software updates he sends out personally! Knowing that actually Bergantino is a reasonable small family owned business, I can imagine (actually I do know) that at times Jim is putting in long hours. Maybe you'd just caught him on a difficult day? I want to let you know that for whatever reason, I think that is a rare experience you've had. He's a good guy I think.

Vintage V4 gets my vote. Plus they have some new colours now. How exciting.

I had been considering joining for a while and this thread renewed my interest so I joined up last week. I'm finding it very helpful so far and have already watched a number of lessons. Very well laid out web site and the tutors including Scott are very likeable and easy to follow. Downloaded some of the podcasts too to listen to in my car. Like has been said above you need to put the time in to get your moneys worth and I'm fortunate now that my wife is out most evenings so once the kids are in bed I can have an hour on my bass every night.

Unfortunately there are no decent bands left as I've ruined them all with my playing. 😄 Great site btw.

WOW! Thank you, perfect! - I've just been A/Bing both through big studio monitors and yes I can hear the differences.. Sounds great up LOUD! Thank you so much! Nice playing

I don't have a bass strung with roundwounds Dan, unfortunately... but I've quickly cobbled together a couple of short recordings. You probably won't hear much difference on computer or phone speakers, but good phones or decent monitors should give some idea of what's happening. Like I said, when plugged into an amp the difference is night and day and the new pickup will definitely do the business at rehearsals and gigs. The dual-coil is definitely more mid-forward, has a tighter bottom end and fit into the mix very easily. The single-coil is clear, has a pillowy bottom end and was a bit harder to slot into the mix. Either would work fine in a decent studio. I have bumped up the level of the bass to make it easier to hear, I wouldn't normally have it this far up in the mix. But the real advantage is going to be apparent when playing live. Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

It makes me wonder 😍

If you have a good PA then your back line cab is more of a personal monitor, as it no longer needs to drive the entire room by itself. There's no reason why you can't still use a 2x15, but if your gear hauling capacity is limited the pack space that 2x15 takes up would be better served carrying a larger PA.

It's all relative...

I did have a - luckily - cheap bass stolen once. I was pretty sure who did it, but didn`t want to throw any accusations, so I went to their next gig. With a claw hammer. Probably lucky for all of us that said bass was nowhere to be seen. But, lesson learned, don`t leave your gear to your band-mates to bring to gigs/take back for you. The singer of the band had brought all the gear in the van, and then said he would load up/take it back. He just thought I`d taken it back with me.

Another quiet late shift in work, another boomer slammer of a bass put together on the whatsitminator. There are sooo many things I’d be obliged to spend £1600 on if I had spare, but this is deffo on the lottery list. The neck is roasted too.

Go on then 🙂. I actually prefer the neck on it to the G&L 2005 Tribute i used to own, its far less baseball batty!

We're a bit off the original topic, but there's a whole other topic waiting to be posted on the subject of drum machines 'n all. As starters, though, I'll assume that we're only going to be considering, as 'real' drummers, those with at least a modicum of competence, with at least half-decent kit..? As for drum machines, we'll include 'soft' machines, such as Vst plug-ins, not just stand-alone hardware. All of these have their advantages and drawbacks; the list could become very long... Why a human drummer..? He (or she, of course, but I'll stick to the 'he'; it's a bit more friendly that 'it'...) is able to bring his own savoir-faire to the party, and come up with maybe a better (read 'more suitable', or 'original', or'more technical' etc...) drum line than someone using a drum machine. He's also able to play with suitable dynamic for the piece, accenting or holding back, listening to the singer, for instance, or picking up on the play of the other instruments. Timing could be better, too; it's not always best to be 'metronomic' (although it can be...); a human touch induces the famous 'swing' that makes such a difference, especially when being sympathetic to the push-pull of the rest of the band, and the needs of the composition. He'll be able to make rapid changes to the sound of the drums, by means of tuning, and/or damping, choice of sticks, brushes, hot-rods, mallets... What about drum machines, then..? No good..? Yes; excellent, in fact, but quite different skills needed for getting a 'better' result. One enormous advantage over an acoustic kit is the ease in which one may swap the entire kit, or merely some elements, to change to whole timbre of the session. A 'metal ' kit, a cabaret jazz kit, three rack toms or none at all, timpani, steel drums... Again, the list becomes very long. Much less expensive, with no logistics involved in storage or carting stuff around. Metronomic..? Pretty much perfect, of course, but 'humanisation' is usually possible, although the technology used for such is not up to the ear of a 'real' drummer, it's often enough to prevent the 'machine gun' effect and maybe well be sufficient. A major benefit, of course, is 'wear and tear', by which I mean the lassitude that most drummers would feel if the same piece was to be repeated persistently, either in the rehearsal stage, or even, in extreme cases, throughout each song of an album... A drum machine will not tire, and will 'remember' each programmed pattern, day after day, even when changing the batteries..! Once the initial investment 'swallowed', a drum machine may be less expensive 'by the hour' than a 'live' drummer, too. I could go on (and will, if asked politely enough...); hoping this gives some food for thought, and maybe provoke more responses from others...

Am I the only one who read this topic title as Guest Beer at gigs? Wishful thinking or dementia, I fear

Purchased this 2006 CIJ Fiesta Red Mustang a couple of weeks ago, very cool! Especially with some La Bella flats fitted! Si