Leaderboard

Hey! It's @Dad3353's first kiloWatt! Powerful stuff!

Oh...and couldn't resist a quick mock-up

Well, this is a special build for a special birthday for a special guy...so I reckon it needs a special inlay. How about some New Zealand Paua? My normal method - cut the inlays, then draw round them: Then use a Dremel with a precision router base to cut out the chambers: Then glue them in and sand them flush, then slurry and wipe with tru-oil to fill any gaps: And that deserves another mock-up, followed by a Pimms in the garden. Here's the mock-up. You'll have to use your imagination for the Pimms

Valve or SS, when you turn down the volume control on a passive bass you change the tone, because the pickups get loaded down by the relatively low impedance of the volume control, which affects the highs more than the lows. That doesn't happen with actives, as the pickups see a constant high impedance load by the on-board pre, while the volume control being placed on the pre output, which is low impedance, doesn't affect the tone. Wanting the ability to use the instrument volume control without affecting tone is why I went active long before you could buy active basses.

I would say "kill it with fire" but it looks like someone's already tried that.

My greatest bugbear, apart from people who, when they do show up clearly haven't looked at what we are planning to rehearse. I understand people are busy and sometimes things come up which we can't control especially with young families but in the end if you can't rehearse you can't be in a band. If breaks between rehearsals get too great then you lose the advances you made last time and end up constantly rehearsing the same songs over and over. Most of us are just weekend warriors and family/relationships and work usually have to come first but then there are other priorities and being in a band is quite a commitment. For us music is a team sport and there has to be at least some sense of not letting the team/band down. I still play cricket from time to time and if I commit to playing on a Sat I know I am letting 21 other people down if I don't show, 21 people who have arranged their weekend and their families weekends around the game. If I fail to show or cancel at the last minute for a Tues rehearsal it's the same thing multiplied by the fact that four other people have spent the weekend finding time to practice/learn whatever we are going to rehearse. Generally it's the same people each time and what they are basically thinking is that their busy lives are more important than other people's busy lives. You can tell this is a recent experience Anyway, a couple of practical suggestions: In the end the only way I've ever known bands to work is to have a regular practice day. In the end there is always someone who cant do Mon, Tue, ….. or weekends. If you pick a day which suits the majority it is surprising how people rearrange if the alternative is leaving the band. Once you've settled on a day they'll book their pilates class another day and all will be fine, the band stop booking things in on a practice night because they know Tues is the day we all meet. Moveable days don't usually work as people forget and book something in, or their partners do. Bands work best IME when two people form an engine room driving the band. If you turn up and two people have been quietly working away together at new material it generally goes well. It's relatively easy to jam along if two people at least are solid, they'll end up sorting out chord sheets and the like and will generally pick up on most of the organisation and drive the band. If those core members get together maybe with a singer or guitarist as well it can be really productive. a random meeting of three musicians out of five less so. It takes organisation and a decent musical brain to isolate little bits of a set or song to work on, not three people who have all either not picked up their guitar or put the kit together in the intervening fortnight. Only 12 bar hell can emerge from that. If you are working with band members missing an acoustic workout sometimes goes well IME, sitting down where everyone can hear each other can really give you a different insight into songs and your role in them, and people get to talk when they aren't competing with a kit or a guitarist widdling away in the corner through a 4x12. Bitter, me????

I only ever get to practice on my own. Sometimes even I don't turn up for that.

OK, "Gig" is perhaps not the right word as I was playing in our church band today with a 100+ congregation belting out the songs. A quick bit of background; I'm 67 years old. About 15 years ago I was part of a Christian music band that had around 15 members. There was a brass/horn section, drums, guitars, keyboards, clarinet, oboe, bass and sometimes a violin. I was more sound guy and backing vocals until the bass player moved away so I stepped in - having never played bass before. I just learned the bass parts by rote and didn't try anything more than root and fifth with the occasional third and chromatic approach. With so many members it was inevitable that people would drop out and leave the band so eventually we called it a day and my Tanglewood copy of the Hofner violin bass was retired to its case. Ten years on and attending a new church I let slip that I once played bass. The next thing I know I'm on the music rota! I took delivery of a Chowny SWB-1 in January and have been getting to grips with it (off and on) since then. My playing is basic and I'm still trying to get my fingers to do what my brain wants them to do. I'm left handed but play right handed and have a limited finger spread, which means one finger per fret is not on. The church has a pool of musicians and singers who are on a rota to provide the music each week. The rota means that you don't always play with the same people each time. Rehearsal is about an hour before the service on a Sunday morning where we run through the five songs we will be playing. There is no set band and no mid-week get together so I was in at the deep end today! I'd been practicing the songs to backing tracks using chord charts with the lyrics but today was the first time I had played with other band members. So there I was in the corner on bass, crammed between the keyboard and drum kit. The drummer forgot he was on the list to play so we had no drums! That was a relief because I was so close to the kit if the drummer had hit the cymbal it would have chopped my arm off! The rest of the band was; keyboard, flute, semi-acoustic guitar (band leader) and two female vocalists. I was sticking to root notes and the odd fifth or third except for one song for which I had the sheet music and bass line that was for the bass guitar as opposed to the keyboard player's left hand. Band leader decided to change the tempo of one song which made life interesting as I'd practiced it in standard 4/4! I think I did OK. There was the odd fumble for notes but, on the whole, I was fairly pleased with how it went. I was caught out on one song when BL decided to repeat a chorus causing me to have an Eric Morecambe moment for a couple of bars - playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order! Afterwards a "senior" member of the congregation came up and congratulated me on my playing and said how good it was to hear a solid bass line. Then a young lady (17 years old - half a century younger than me!) came across and said "Hey Mr cool bass player!" I wish I'd had that effect on 17 year old girls when I was young enough to do something about it! My next "gig" will be at the beginning of August with a different line up and no drummer. I can't wait!

F Fuzzy blue blobs are where it's at dude and my ditty is sketched out and recorded as a draft , it needs plenty of additions that I will have to negotiate , but I'm hopeful that the 'simplistic' nature of the picture will be reflected by my simplistic idea

Weirdly, I think it looks alright. And I don’t usually like relics. Or Warwicks. But I’d never spend 5k on any bass!

I think I'd rather take a turn in the apple barrel then walk the plank.

Oh the Irony I shouldn't have voted for him lol. 'Discreet' great track mate, well done, loved it.🤘 As for me second by one vote on my first try is not bad at all, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, especially seeing how good the competition was, great efforts all round... Right lets have another go...

Are those schaller straplock buttons? Wouldn't want to damage the finish.

Lucky Len.

Still got to drill the location prong holes at the back, but the tuner holes are positioned and drilled: Next...

Gained a bit of time over the past few days with a visit by MrsAndyjr1515's sister, which=the two of them going for trips out, which=building time for Andyjr1515 And so, it was an opportunity for starting the headstock. I sliced a 3mm plate from some poplar offcut and veneered the back with the redwood veneer, then added a couple of wings to the headstock cut from some neckwood offcut then, after carefully checking and double checking for straight string runs and room for each of the tuner blocks, finalised the shape: I've done the slight cutaway at the top, similar to some of the other recent builds: This afternoon, all being well, I'll drill the tuner holes and then work out where best to put a brace of swifts

Thanks folks, congratulations all round I think. It was actually a very close call!

It's now all filled and sanded, I like to put a coat of primer on so I can if there's any slumpage (I think that's a word 🤔 if it's not it should be !?!) But it looks like this had come out OK?

IMO the coolest bass gadget ever is. . . the chromatic tuner. I started out at a time when you either had a tuning fork, pitch pipes or you had to tune up to a trumpet, if you had a brass section, or an organ. Trying to stop the others making a noise when you needed to tune up was a nightmare. And forget it in a noisy night club. I just don't know how we managed to get a whole band in tune back then! Silent tuning is a wonderful evolution.

Bloody hell,it went for £175 !!! If someone stuck a new preamp in that they'd have a killer bass. @MoJo I know what I said about the electrics but the build quality is great. My first bout of GAS was for the Tune Maniac,back in the mid 80's, so I've a long term interest in them 🙂 Here's my take on TuneBasses. The Korean/Japanese thing is kind of muddled and not helped by folk on the various clubs/FB pages. Tune Guitar Technology started the ball rolling in Japan. Kawai,SGC Nanyo,Washburn and Ibanez quickly started with their takes on the Maniac. Late 80's Tune Guitar Tech got the contract for the Levinson Blades so started importing necks and bodies from Korea. This gave them more time for Levinson. At the end complete basses were imported from Korea. Then Tune goes tits up. The Koreans keep building under the Tune Guitar Technology name. Some luthiers in Japan started using Tune templates and called themselves Tune Guitar Maniac,they claim they own the Tune brand but the Koreans dispute this saying they had a "gentleman's agreement" to produce Tune basses. Said Gentleman being dead nobody knows the truth 😃 Upshot is there's a factory in Korea building Tunes and a luthier custom shop in Japan building Tunes,up until recently the Japanese shop still bought it's hardware from the Koreans. The so-called "bad blood" between the two is mostly the product of owners with Japanese built Tunes. Not surprising, I think Fender Master Built owners would get upset with MIM Fender owners claiming there's no difference between their basses. A basic Tune Maniac from Japan will be built by a small team and maybe fired in their PLEK machine, photos of it featured a lot on their FB page along with fancy inlay work on folk's Strats and LPs. It'll cost you about £1200 before shipping and VAT/import duty. £1500 shouldn't be far of the mark. A basic Korean Tune Maniac can be had from Ned at VSN in Canada for £404. With Shipping/tax etc £650 easy. A few years back Sam Ash over in the USA wanted to buy the brand name for another budget line of theirs. The Koreans said no and SA had a fire sale on Tune products,can't say if that was a deliberate attempt to damage the Tune brand name but that was the effect it had in the US.Both are recovering with the Japanese holding the upper hand,given the fantastic value they are for a hand built bass 👍 Fine basses no matter the flavour. My 30something Japanese fretless is a joy,the Korean parts but Japan assembly 90's Maniac is a cracking bass and if quality of the later Korean TWB-4Z is anything to go by the Japanese version will be outstanding. Best leave a photo after all this waffle.

I use them, you’ll get used to it, try wearing them 20-30mins before you start playing to acclimatise. If you’ve come to using them from nothing, or even crappy foam things etc, they’re a big jump. Ultimately, it’s use them, or ‘get into the atmosphere’ and lose/damage your hearing quicker. Si

I just traded my mother 32, DAFM, and minitaur for a Subsequent 37 and very much loving it. The little boxes are awsome , and different to the sub, but I just wanted one big deep synth with presets since I’m not using the modular stuff in a “performance” way. If I need to switch between bass and synth, I need presets. Andwith my clumsy sausages I just find the ARP and sequencing easier on the sub.

Guitarist in my band uses one of these. Apologies for the ridiculously long url: https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Palmer-CAB-M-Passive-Cabinet-Merger/T2K?origin=product-ads&campaign=PLA+Shop+-+GENERIC&adgroup=GENERIC&medium=vertical_search&network=google&merchant_id=1279443&product_id=37676d1&product_country=GB&product_partition_id=127201494799&gclid=CjwKCAjw9-HZBRAwEiwAGw0QcQ-aNao-LxDaZXMmoGSYO4FQkX801vR70WaBEZKYw-RNscyWMu8HehoCDdcQAvD_BwE

Oh that's interesting, I have a J Retro on my Jazz. I get lovely sounds at home and through headphones in particular but in noisy environments have had problems with not being able to pick out the bass. Swapping to a P the problem disappears and on days when I record the gig there is always plenty of sound out there from the J, I'm just not getting it. I've even wondered about going back to passive. The J retro has bass boost only so unless the bass is turned right down you can have a lot of bass boost without realising it. 3dB of boost is going to double the demand for power from your amp for a fairly subtle change in tone. I used to get some nice tones from the j-Retro with my old Hartke but with some strange shapes on the graphic. If you have a range of basses it might be worth investigating.

Jesus H Christ and Holy Mother of God!! There's 'relic' and there's 'been under the sea for 100 years'. Is this really a commercial bass produced by Warwick for general sale? How is that neck joint going to be at all stable? What the hell is happening? I don't care if it's the best-sounding and best-playing bass in the world, I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot-long bass pole! At least not without a tetanus shot.

One Two Three Yes, it's a word according to some dictionaries. It is mildly amusing to find that neither Oxford, Cambridge nor Collins online dictionaries seem to carry a definition of the word whilst happily promoting the use of amazeballs with impunity. Good grief. If you do get as far as the third link, there are a couple of interesting variations of the root word - slump

You get used to it. I was on/off about earplugs years ago for the same reason... but realising just how many people I met with bad hearing due to years of playing without protection made me switch, and bought my girlfriend some too, as she often mentioned ringing in her ears after gigs and going out to bars... It did take a little to get used to them, but now it's natural and I hear everything much better every time. No enjoyment lost, and my ears are a lot happier. Yesterday we were playing at an open air fest and while getting ready, something went wrong and there was this loud screech... my experienced yet non-plug-wearing bandmates looked like they had been shot with an invisible weapon and winced and covered their ears (late). I was just fine. Protect your ears. It may be a bit less fun while you get used to them, but it'll be a lot more fun than it'll be when your hearing is permanently damaged.

Treble..? I thought this was a bass forum..? Confused, from Norwich

That's a scary enough prospect to bring on a heavy bout of constipation. I bet your acquaintance ran straight back to the muggle line.

I use a SC with a GK Fusion 500 and usually get a sound that I'm very happy with. It has most definitely improved with use and seems to respond extremely well when driven quite hard.

Iirc, the spec for the super Compact is 97dB as opposed to 98 for the original Compact. This and a playing in period might just account for the perceived difference in volume. The new driver might have less distortion too (can't really verify this ) and the cleaner sound could be cutting through the mix less due to fewer higher harmonics.

Maybe it just needs running in?

Sorry no pissoire stories!! 😬 However I watched some of it - particularly noticed the bit in the studio recording one of the newer albums with John Taylor filmed using Bernard Edwards' Stingray. As a Stingray nerd, it doesn't get much better than that!!! Some nice bass playing on the Duran songs.

Well done Mark , well deserved win 👍

No, not that one. You know what the judge said, last time...

Well, I gave it a second listen (quite rare for me...) as it didn't 'click' first time through, and didn't regret it. Good Stuff; much, much better with the visuals, so thanks for the video.

I suppose it depends a lot on the cab that the amps are connected to, but the best Class D amp I`ve used is the Ashdown RM-500, there`s just a lot more depth to the sound than any of the others I`ve had, of which there were a fair few (GK, Markbass, Aguilar, Ampeg). I thought all of them were great, none of them lacking at all but for me the RM-500 has them beat. I should add that I use mine connected to an 8ohm Ashdown 410 and it has power for days, a startling amount in fact.

A GK MB800 could do the job

Some of you may have followed the diary in the build forum, but for those of you who don't frequent those parts, here's my new ACG Krell E-Type 6: These are Alan's photos, but it arrived yesterday. Spec: Alder body Indian Cedar top 33" scale 24 frets Ash neck Macassar Ebony fingerboard (with a very slight radius) ACG RFB dual coils East Uni-Pre 4K I believe it's also one of the first with Alan's new headpiece, which really tidies up the string ends on headless basses! I've already recorded the theme for the new Basschat Podcast with it, loving the sound, so make sure you download that and have a listen when it's available in the next few days. Si

Did I ever tell you about the time I was next to Shakin Stevens in the Gents...?

"BANDMASTER, BASSMAN, BULLET, CHAMP, DELUXE REVERB, DURA-TONE, ESQUIRE, Stylized F (in Thick & Thin Script), FENDER (standard and in Stylized Thick & Thin Script), FRONTMAN, the two dimensional guitar headstock profiles commonly found on FENDER TELECASTER, STRATOCASTER, PRECISION BASS and JAZZ BASS electric guitars, J BASS, JAG-STANG, JAGUAR, JAZZ BASS, JAZZMASTER, MUSTANG, NOCASTER, P BASS, PASSPORT, PRECISION BASS, PRINCETON, RELIC, ROAD WORN, SFX, SHOWMAN, SHOWMASTER, SQUIER, STARCASTER, STRAT, STRATOCASTER, SUNN, SUPER BULLETS, SUPER REVERB, TELE, TELECASTER, THE SPIRIT OF ROCK-N-ROLL, TONE MASTER, TWIN REVERB, VIBRO CHAMP, VIBRO-KING, and VIBROLUX are the trademarks of Fender that may appear in this Fender Property and that are registered in one or several categories of goods with the United States Patent & Trademark Office." Outstanding work by their lawyers! I can't wait to see then try to sue someone for using BULLET, CHAMP, FRONTMAN, JAGUAR, PASSPORT or SHOWMAN. In other news, I have now trademarked CAR, BANANA, OAK TREE and FRUSTRATION. If you wish to use any of these terms, please contact my lawyers for my licensing terms ...

I've had them in Status basses. Very useful on dark stages. But neck LEDS are for amateurs. I want this:

My Jazz, 2003 MIM, Inca Silver with Fender high mass bridge, multicolour shell pickguard, Entwhistle JBXN pickups and stack-pot controls I built myself with CTS pots, old Russian caps and cheap knobs (have you seen the price of genuine ones ffs) topped of with HB7 machine heads and wearing Maruszczyk flats Bass was an impulse off Ebay buy, slapped to death, so needed a fret level and crown and a general makeover so I took the opportunity to go the whole hog and learn some new skills at the same time Not your usual with tort look and it sounds great to my ears, I'd love to hear a really good player play it

Not only have I just bought some pickups and a pre from Pete, we also have had the mutual pleasure of dealing with bad service, scum of the earth type couriers together. A true gent throughout and everything that could be done on his end was done. Would deal/trade again in an instance. Top fella!

I find it is so strong that when you try to decouple the two items (whatever they are) the velcro remains stuck together and the glue fails.