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Ten strings sell but who's buying? 💀

All the more headstock to smack mr mustaine with The punishment due? 😂

All of it. The HX software models are (IIRC) 4 to 6 times larger than the old tech. Far more detail in the modelling process. Apparently down to modelling each individual component in the signal path rather than just trying to model what comes out of a speaker.

All finished and back together, just a quick little project 😀

Hi all. I’ve just put together this little home rig and I’m super pleased. I purchased the empty Ampeg mini stack cab first, then picked up two old Trace Elliot speakers on EBay that used to live in a 1048 TE cab. Finally I took the plunge and purchased the Hotone Thunder Bass head. The whole thing sounds amazing with my P basses and the tone is superb and would make a great recording set up too. Super pleased with this rig and the head has a surprising array of tones. Cheers all

I'll be playing a favourite venue on Sunday. It's a festival held in the centre of a local small town between here and Swindon. Faringdon has held its annual 3 day Follyfest for some time, the Wirebirds will be making their sixth consecutive appearance there this Sunday, when we bring the festival to a close. We don't get paid to do it, parking is a pain, but the audience is always great, and there's a good PA and a well organised team to run everything. The summer wouldn't feel quite right without our annual pilgrimage to Faringdon.

These basses, contrary to my initial misgivings, sound very good indeed and the light weight and new contours promise a much more ergonomic Stingray. However, I don't like black hardware on a traditional 4 string Stingray. I'm not keen on ebony fingerboards either. Or sparkle finishes.And the white ones are the wrong shade of white to go with the roasted maple. The overall reaction to how these basses look has been very positive, but i am struggling to find one I could live with, to be honest. I don't like the bridge, either. No Stingray really looks right without the big old-style mute bridge. I will still probably buy one, anyway. And then not be happy with it.

In a previous life, I worked as a sound engineer at a venue in the UK. It would have been mid 90's when a band turned up with four keyboards and a drummer with an electronic kit. As usual, I gave them time to set their stage and then wandered over to cable up. I remember thinking to myself, they're just sat around here relaxed and they haven't even bothered to bring their amps on stage..! This was my first real introduction to IEM. They did their own mix on stage and required only one mic for chatting to the audience, no vocals for the songs. It was one of the easiest gigs I've ever done. I went on stage during the soundcheck (having turned off FOH) and the only noise was the drummer hitting the pads. Quite surreal... And no mike bleed from coughs, sneezes and farts...! Getting back to the thread, I've been using an amp and vocal processor for a couple of years now. I haven't used an amp onstage for years. I recently bought a Line 6 module for amp sim and use it with either my Bose array pa or an RCF powered cab, the ART 310a. I can easily switch from acoustic to electric guitar. OK, time to fess up, I dont play bass.!! It's been a revelation to me, much easier to pack in the car and much more consistency at the gig. It's a million miles from you guys with Kemplers and Helix, but it works for me. Great thread by the way..!

Boards of Canada. loving the moods of it

I got the bass back from Laurence Dixon (The Bass Place, Herne Hill) today. He installed a Realist pickup (at my request, and in addition to the existing one), replaced the bridge with an adjustable (again at my request), shaved & profiled the fingerboard to match the new bridge, sorted out the twin soundposts so that they are correctly positioned and work properly, and did some corrective work on the end-pin structure. His work was every bit as good as Clarky told me it would be, and the bass is instantly far more playable and more comfortable to play. It also sounds noticeably better. I wanted the Realist since the existing pickup arrangement did a great job of picking up the sounds of the strings and of the slapping, but disguised (almost completely) the sound of the oil-drum. The Realist picks up far more of its sound from the resonating body and that means that you can actually hear the aluminium. All I need now is to run the two outputs through a blender and I will be able to control how much oil-drum the audience hears. The adjustable bridge allows me to switch between a rockabilly setup and a blues/jazz setup at will. The rest of the work was, frankly, remedial. As I mentioned before, Dave Gartland is not a professional DB luthier and he doesn't claim to be one. The bass as delivered had a few flaws which were easily fixed (well, "easily" by someone like Laurence), plus one which it is stuck with. As far as I'm concerned, it is now fully giggable and I'm looking forward to doing exactly that. I'm also expecting a fair bit of trepidation from any sound engineers who have to deal with it ...

My offer was accepted. Personalised orange bass on its way for mr orange.......

My favorite place is a small bar called Aribas. Here's why; 1. It's a great sounding room. Low ceilings and carpeted flooring. 2. The bar is right next to the spot we play in, no stage. 3. The crowd is primarily made up of live music lovers. The average age is probably 65. These folks were probably Hippies back in the 60s and love the vintage 70s based blues & rock we play. I love the place. Blue

'Frolicking' comes across more as a triplet, don't you think? I've heard that some people think us bass players are a bit weird. Can't imagine why. Edit: Douglas beat me to it. See, that's two of us think it's a triplet so we must be right.

Voted. I may as well produce certificates for everyone, right..? (... although, to be fair, they'd be merited...)

My work here is done. 🎸🔊🙂

The HD500X is a country mile behind the HX models though.

No. This one.

To be fair, there is a nut.

Thanks everyone. Going to get some D'addario pro steels today and see how it goes...

Arguing over string choices, is this TB?

I don’t listen to much classical music, mainly due to my own lack of knowledge. I like what I like, but it’s such a broad umbrella covering so many genres and sub-genres it’s difficult to know where to start. I feel the same about jazz to some extent too. So I’ve been exploring and last week I came across Vaughn Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’, which I think must be one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Hearing it led me back to Górecki’s Symphony No.3, which I am familiar with and is similarly enthralling.

It’s the drums that make you tap your feet, the bass that makes you swing your hips. To my knowledge it’s only Penguins that tap their feet as a come-on.

Yes, I remember the endless debates about Geddy Lee switching between his 4001 and his Jazz, and how he clearly unmistakably used the 4001 recording tom sawyer, as it sounded so much like it and he used it in the video. Until he came out and said it was recorded using the jazz.

Some good discounts have just appeared on these! https://mackie.com/products/onyx-series-usb-interfaces Gear4music and Amazon have the Producer 2.2 for £69 Gear4music also have the Artist 2.1 for £45

Fixed.

Jaco only needed.........hahahahaha Looks a beast of a bass. I like it when Dug P plays his 12 string basses - adds such a depth.

Marco Bass Guitars TFL5:

Fair point. Make that one and a 'maybe'.

Don't worry mate I don't take offence to anything you say if everybody liked the same things life would be a very bland and boring place Thanks for the nice comments aswell I never use emoji's (smilies ha ha!) anywhere else but on here as a couple of my earlier posts a few people took my sense of humour the wrong way so I started using them to stop any confusion I do have a certain style that reflects in my builds/projects which suits my personality which is bold and brash, if I was selling the basses then I would probably would tone it down a bit unless that's what people wanted but because they are for me I can have fun with the colour schemes and as you've seen lots of times if I'm not happy with it I'll change it 👍

I don't sweat much and wash my hands before every gig. I can't remember ever cleaning strings. I change my strings every 12 months, whether they need it or not. That's enough maintenance for me. I don't particularly like the "zing" of new rounds. My DR Lo-Riders have been on since last Christmas and are just coming into their prime.

Thanks for all who contributed to my thought process. I picked up a s/h NY121 last night in virtually new condition. First impressions are really good. Thanks to @Sparky Mark for spotting the cab for sale on Gumtree. The guy who was selling it had bought it to go with his 1x12 combo but found he never really needed it - ironic or what!

Not a bass I know, but a cool story so thought I'd share. The guitar is an EKO Ranger, made in Italy in the 1960s. While it's nothing really special in itself, it has great sentimental value to the owner as he has had the guitar since new, when it was given to him by his wife as a present. Disaster was just around the corner though as early on he tried to fit an output jack to the lower bout, unfortunately instead of fitting an endpin jack, he decided he was going to fit it on the lower bout... in the thin side wood. So when he came to drill for it, the side split and it generally made a mess. He repaired it, but the fix was....umm how shall we say - less than professional! So I was asked to put it right. Here's the mess, while it's certainly ugly looking now, it's about to get a lot worse. Some sanding revealed the repair, there's wood filler, screw holes and a piece of plywood around 3 times the thickness of the side! You can see by all the light coming under the straight edge here how far it's been pulled in and distorted. Without drastic measures (coming up!) nothing can be done to make this look right again. Obviously having a 1/4 piece of ply stuck to the side of the guitar is less than ideal also... Problem solved...an extra sound hole (joking of course). In case it's not obvious, here I have cut out the damaged, distorted, ugly wood and removed all traces of the repair. Here's the "repair" I dug out. As mentioned above, he used a very thick piece of ply, then drilled holes in the side of the guitar to insert screws to pull in the repair to the side. It was never going to work and there was still a decent sized void between the ply and the side, so he filled that with expanding polyurethane foam! Now onto my repair and filling the large gaping hole. The best material to fill it with (and any hole in wood) is wood of the same species, being a guitar builder I have no shortage of Mahogany and some of it is quite old, meaning it's very stable. It's also nice to replace material with wood of a similar vintage. But first I need to make a frame to support the new patch of Mahogany. I also make this frame out of strips of vintage Mahogany, making sure the strips are a good deal longer than the patch to give plenty of gluing surface. They also need to be bent to match the side of the guitar, this is done with steam (and patience!). In this picture you can see I have bent all the frame material and the patch itself (on the left). You'll have to ignore the dodgy pickguard on the guitar, I'm guessing that's another story! Here's the frame all glued into place. I used traditional hot hide glue, which is exceptionally strong and period correct. The strips are glued to the side of the guitar and also to the kerfing on the bottom edges. Now I glue in the patch, using a caul which I made up to match the profile of the side, this is made up of two pieces off a body blank screwed together to give the required width. This caul ensures even pressure during the glue up. A nice tight fitting patch all glued into place. It needs to be a tight fit as if there were any gaps you could get problems with the patch "telegraphing" it's outline through the new finish over time. Fortunately no gaps here, just a few lacquer chips round the edge which will need to be taken care of during finish prep. I mask off anywhere I don't want lacquer and spray a couple of coats of clear Nitro to get an idea of anywhere which may need more work/levelling. I repeat this process until I'm 100% happy before spraying the colour coats. Then I mix up some black Nitro to match the original finishes colour. Here the colour coats have been sprayed, the masking on the binding removed (the binding gets clear coated, but obviously not painted black!). This is the clear coat straight out of the gun so there's a very slight spray texture, but so minor it won't require too much wetsanding and it's reflecting a clear image (i.e me!) without too much distortion. I now need to leave this for a month before proceeding with 1000 grit and through the grades before buffing. The finished article! No trace of the repair and straight sides! Thanks for watching.

FLATS seriously if funds are tight, put Chromes on, plenty of bite and they'll last a decade

I have this album on vinyl! I found it as a teen and, well.. I keep it very safe, all wrapped up! A prized album for me.

Clearly given the shape of the case, the guitar is a Mustang.

fender P = Fender J= Ricks=

Not this again? Geddy's on record as having used his Jazz as well as his Ric to record with (on plenty of songs considered to be iconic to the Ric sound), and he's dropped the Ric completely...pushing forty years ago. Similar situation with Foxton and his Precision. I should have written 'didn't use them exclusively' with the studio recordings in my post above, so apologies for that, but the fact remains, however inconvenient. I've never played a '72, they may well have something the ones I have played (and owned) didn't have...and I've moved on basses by Alembic, Warwick, Status, Sei, and all the more usual suspects like Fender, Gibson and MM, and settled with what I like and won't sell. It's a nice place to be, and I'm glad your Rics are that for you. That brand new one I bought was still nowhere near good enough build and finish-wise for a £1600 bass. For the record, I was gutted.

This is quite simply, the most important part of bass playing.

This was exactly the reason that I sold my one. You have to have it so loud to get the GK growl that it's too loud - the 700RB was easy to get the growl from

To be honest, part of my excitement is the idea of a different tonal platform for a bass I'm familiar with. We have a lot of basses out there that proscribe to a specific formula: Split P pickup on P body 2x Jazz Singles on a J body 1xMM Humbucker on a MM body And so the list goes on. Now, I did a PJ partscaster last year and I have to say, I found the combination of the two to offer some tonal difference, but for me, it wasn't huge. I'm interested in the idea of a bass with something out of the ordinary. Ric pickups use ceramic bar magnets and oversize slugs with 44awg wire in a specific wind shape - it does make them different to a Jazz or a 51P single coil. I really like the idea of getting that different formula and sticking it in a 51P body made of swamp ash or the hollow variant I have just done to see what it sounds like. Will it sound exactly like a Ric? Don't care frankly. For me the experiment is "how different will it sound to a normal 51P single coil?" Ultimately, it will sound like me playing that bass - but I hope to do a compare and contrast for the interested amongst you

Here's a brief walkthrough of the amp, for anyone who's interested...

Mikan is a great guy to deal with. I’ve just sold a jazz bass to him, really a great communication, everything went to the best direction from the beginning up to the end of the transaction, really recommended! alberto