Leaderboard

Well it turns out it’s never too late to give up on your dreams. This is my band from the 80s with yours truly on bass!

Right. Been away all weekend in a studio with 20 guitarists, a drummer and a studio engineer for a Jam weekend. Took the k10.2 and borrowed a preamp with a valve in it. It lapped it up. Sounded brilliant. Was loud enough to balance against a drummer 3 feet away in a room 6m square, with up to 3 guitarists all thrashing it through some pretty big expensive amps with 2x12’s and 4x12’s plus vocals PA. Didn’t flinch once and never felt I didn’t have enough welly. Stuck a lot of drive on the Preamp pedal - and on one song I hit a massive low E at one point and got stares from 3 guitarists, a vocalist and a drummer who all had a “wtf where did THAT come from?!” Chuffed.

Here's where I'm up to. Reshaped Headstock, decal added, tinted neck, sprayed scratchplate cream. Just a bridge ashtray and then I'll decide if I wanna smash the body up a bit! It's been fun.

And here’s the actual Stingray in about 1986. I’ll be wheeling it out again for the album launch gig at The Troubador on 7/9/18!

Some people become musicians with a deep abiding love of music as their main motivation, there are also plenty who see playing an instrument as a good way to be perceived as cool or impress members of the opposite sex. Different genres have different skill requirements to get to the point where you can start making music with other people. Of course I'm sure someone is going to find an interview from 'The Strad' where a noted classical musician when asked what got them into music answers along the lines of "Well I started out playing electric guitar in a rock band in high school, but took up the viola when I realised all the hot girls were queueing up backstage to fellate the string section the first time the school orchestra got through Beethoven 2 without trainwrecking during the trio."

Now's the time to spring like a panther: send your drummer down to audition. When he gets the gig he can tell them he'll only join if he can bring his friend (you) in on bass. Then you both turn up for the rehearsal and sack the other band members. Then book some gigs in this band's name; leave it a while then cancel them at the last minute while savagely insulting the bookers down the phone. Then announce the band is folding. Arm long, vengeance total. Proper job.

https://www.facebook.com/giginked/ our very own @TimAl sorted me a new look

From such a great album and musician. Mark Kings bass playing is just superb..

Sorry guys, I get it. Cue or que, drummers switching beats and not paying attention makes our job twice as hard. Blue

There was an awkward silence, and the party-goers paused their revelry to stare. It was only then I realised the heart in my mouth wasn't mine...

OK - rapidly onto the go/no-go stage. Basically, if I split the sides when bending them, then the project is dead. So I'm going to do that early on. A few tips if anyone is thinking of tackling their first acoustic guitar (some of which will apply to acoustic basses too): There are lots of 'I didn't know that' factors There are lots of things that aren't as they seem Such as that a flat-top guitar is usually not flat. Almost all of them have a slight dish - typically 25 feet radius The backs are also not flat. These are usually dished to around 15 feet radius There are lots of pretty essential jigs you need to make. Body mould; radius dishes (25' & 15'); go-bar deck to mould backs and tops to their respective radii Martin made a bracing pattern in the 30's (?) that happened to work and 90+ % of acoustic guitars use this EXACT pattern I follow every single hint and tip that successful luthiers suggest. No rebellious-against-convention Rogers here! So - the sides. First, I found my dreadnought mould that I knocked together for Chris's build. I then put a card former in with the back and front dimensions marked in a straight line: OK - so that's easy. So just cut the blank with that straight taper, right? Wrong. Look at what a straight taper does seen from the front: Imagine the left side doing the same thing and you have a 'v' shaped back So the shape of the sides needs to be more like this: I will fine tune it with some sand paper on the radius dish (don't worry - I will explain if it gets that far!) But the next stage is cut the sides to that paper template: And soak them. Am I using MrsAndyjr1515's leftover bubble bath water? No - I am following a respected acoustic luthier's conviction that fabric softener make a big difference to the bendability of figured woods. I question not. I just follow. And on goes the bending iron: So in the next couple of hours, the project continues or ends. Wish me luck

Every day I thank God I'm currently in a band with a truly great pro drummer who has perfect timing, can tune his drums, sounds fantastic AND can do what he does quietly when necessary. He's a nice chap, too. Apologies if this is annoying. But I've played with my share of crap drummers over the years. I deserve this!

Well I hope you are all happy with yourself. If it’s not bad enough having the loss of Barry Chuckle to deal with, Rock n Roll is a tall order.

I would guess he just likes a P Bass or that’s what people want to see/hear him play at a session? I don’t think it has anything to do with being offered money or falling out with anyone. He has always played a pretty big selection of basses by different brands, he used a Bongo for a while and I saw him on the internet somewhere using one of the new passive MusicMan basses. He used a 5 string single humbucker Lakland with the pickup in the sweet spot for a while as well as a custom made 5 string fretless Stingray copy so I guess like a lot of pro players he used whatever suits the music and the artist. I have seen him use a Moon jazz a lot too and no one really associates him with that brand or a Jazz Bass.

Why would a bass need to be recyclable? They live forever don't they? In a "journeyman" existence, slowly being sold/traded amongst the BC collective...

I suppose the upside is, anyone can go onto YouTube type in Snarky Puppy and any video they see is going to be awesome.

I must admit that I often cringe when we get to that line in Nite Klub: "I won't dance in a club like this, all the girls are slags and the beer tastes just like p*ss". Not because I have a problem with the lyric -- I don't, and it's a brilliant tune -- but because the vast majority of our venues are very nice places with decent beer and pleasant patrons

Interestingly nobody here has mentioned the idea of keeping your own sound? For me the key thing is that if I’m using my own DI box I’ve got more control of my sound at all times. If I’m working abroad I often have no idea of what amp i’ll be given (sometimes great / sometimes awful) and what DI box might be provided. I’ve played what I consider to be good venues who have provided £10 DI boxes....! If the amp (and or DI) is absolutely shocking then at least I have the comfort of knowing that the sound going to the FOH is excellent because it’s from my own high quality DI box so I just have to suck up the onstage sound. Secondly with an external DI box you can send a signal to the FOH which is ‘full’ and then EQ the onstage amp as required - in some venues this is really useful without changing the FOH sound. Yes you could argue this could be done with a pre-EQ switch but often for me who knows what the quality of the in-amp DI is. Thirdly - strikes me that most amps aren’t going to contain the highest quality DI anyway so spending money on a good quality DI seems to me a good investment long term. Fourth - having my own DI allows me to record myself at home and make sense of exactly what signal I’m sending to the FOH in a live situation. (Fifth - this is a niche point, but if you use an external DI you can then use the amp DI pre-eq to record the bass live as well - often do this to check my sound and it’s a useful thing!). If you always use the same amp and you like the DI then great. I don’t so prefer to keep my sound in my DI rather than in an amp. **I’m just sitting on the train home after a tour of Germany, DI in hand luggage. Different amps (see pics) every night of last week but same sound with my DI. Works great for me**

My heart was in my mouth as I sidled into the crowded room wearing nothing more than a smear of lipstick, a tri-lobal posing pouch and a pair of shiny, patent leather dance pumps.

How many chisels do you actually use though? If I could recommend but one tool, actually three it would be a wetstone grinder a 1000 and 6000 grit waterstones. The grinder helps you keep a tool be it a chisel, plane iron or carving tool in a condition where it is easy to sharpen and sharpen quickly. If you can do that then you are more likely to keep your tools very sharp and honestly that is the key. Admittedly quality tools can hold a good edge for longer, when I was starting out I saved up and bought myself a set of four Norris planes at huge expense, I used them for a while and they were very good but I stopped using them because I soon learned that my cheaper Record planes when set up correctly were almost as good. I sold my Norris planes some years ago and I have never come across any job that I really needed them for. I suppose I might take it for granted that I know how to make a plane work well, maybe that is something that isn't common knowledge? Or sharpening, other than the wetstone grinder no jigs, just a quick way of getting the correct angle every time first time. If enough people are interested I could write a how to on those?

A chap we know uses steam. I seem to remember that he pointed to a device that was basically a hot water tank that you hold the piece over before using a former. Kenneth Smith Ukuleles Maybe worth an enquiry? He lives in north Derbyshire, Clay Mills if I recall, and is a master joiner, a bass player and easy to get on with. He gave us more information than we could take in each time we visited.

I was doing my first summer season back then , I’m old now but was a great time to be learning bass lines .. Remember playing loads of Nik Kershaw in our sets ..The Riddle , wide boy .etc Also Level 42 , Toto , Prince and many others of that era ..I’d only been playing a couple of years so there were some challenging basslines to learn for me at the time .. I went on to work in many bands after .. but think this was my favourite time being a bass player .. skin tight jeans , yellow converse and a bleached mullet .. the fashion however sucked 😀

I've got a TC Mic Mechanic and it does provide a gentle bit of assistance. As it happens I only use that bit of it when I have a bad cold. But the other bits - the D-esser, compression, and the excellent EQ built in is superb. Far better than on most pub grade desks.

Good point re the TB position. I live the TB tone but I do not like the look and the neck dive even less. Food for thought. Re the body, true it would be easier and I could put it together again as a P. I like no finish (well just oil), and a new body would give me the option of just going oil finish. Going to let it sink in.

Not sure about that. It might make you a happier player, maybe. It will make you a poorer player too. :p

Remind me never to p*ss you off....

I’ve had to bow to the inevitable and accept that I’m playing more and more 9th and 13th chords and gettin*dangerously close to playing jazz. As a result, I’ve been hankering after a jazz box for a while and had pretty much settled on an Epi Joe Pass Emperor as being the right sort of blend of money, quality and value at about £475. And then I spotted a black Epi ES175 in Sixty Sixty on Denmark St at nearer £600 and that gave me a bit of a dilemma....nice guitar but a bit more than I’d planned on spending....which was then solved when I spotted this beauty in Peach Guitars in Colchester. £499 including a Hiscox case for a four year old Epi 175 Premium (that’s the one with the Gibson pickups). It came beautifully set up and sounds fantastic. I love it. Just needed to share....

Wotcha talking about..that's a self portrait I'll have you know!! 😂

Surely something "offensive" is something which is defined as contravening the overarching social/legal/personal/sexual norms of the day/region/person. So, I suppose, yes nothing is intrinsically offensive in a way that you might be able to apply a physical test to it - but only in the same way that nothing is intrinsically "red": that is simply a word which we use to describe a phenomenon that satisfies certain criteria. I'm not sure how useful it is focus on this point. Two thoughts occurred to me while reading through this thread, as a white male of just less than 40 with a very foreign name and 50% Asian parents: 1) As a youngster on holiday, the wee chap who came up to me and announced "you're a Paki" was using that language deliberately to offend, intimidate and injure. The word may not be intrinsically offensive but his use of it was deliberately so. Ditto the woman who came up to my mum in a shop, pointed at my dad and said "my father was killed by one of them in the war" (one of what? - no epithet was used but the insult is explicit.) 2) A more trite example. There are probably over 30 of us at work who share the communal milk. There are no rules applied to its use but if someone came in and used all of it to themselves every day, it would not make them a champion of libertarian values: it would make them a selfish oaf, unwilling or unable to see the consequences of their actions on others. Which is my long-winded way of saying that while I would in no way support a ban on any language that pub covers bands might choose to use, it has to be acknowledged that language is a phenomenally powerful tool, even a weapon, and those that use it indiscriminately (or childishly seek to offend simply for the sake of doing so) must be prepared to accept to the opprobrium of those with a broader scope of experience.

Can't argue with that

Haven't given much attention to Hofner in the past but I think this is great, they've released a bass which is 100% recyclable and has no plastic parts. Looks pretty nice to me, and it sounds good too.

... but clearly not as much as this guy:

Absolutely, and will be playing it at the album launch gig at The Troubador in London on 7/9/18

Whilst it gets sorted out, two bass legends for the price of one.

OK - we have a live project These need a touch more bending to take some of the stresses out, but I will let them fully dry, clamped to the formers and then do any extra bending at specific points where needed tomorrow. Minor rant. This bending iron isn't cheap and is pretty much the only one you can get: The heating scale goes from 'Low' through 1 - 6 to 'High' There is a slip of paper that comes with it that says something on the lines that you should never go higher than 4 as it will burn out the element. Well - I had forgotten but soon remembered when there was a lot of steam but then sounds of grain splitting and no magical 'relaxation' of the wood - you need to be on at least 5 for it actually to do its job. So what, I surmise, the makers/suppliers are saying is - 'we have underspecced the heating element and a lot of people have complained that their heating elements are burning out so don't try and claim warranty because if you have actually bent some wood then we know that you must have used it above 4 and so we won't cover the replacement element' Some very well respected suppliers sell these - and at a hefty price. Shoddy.

Yeah I’ve noticed that too. It’s a bit of a lottery! Just means folk like us are on the edge of our seats constantly refreshing the website in case a nice deal pops up - this being a good example.

Definitely. And conversely, there are genres of music that discourage any ambitions to play. Namely ALL of the tunes in Bert Weedon's Play in a Day. I was bought that as a child in the seventies and it put me off learning the guitar for many years after.

Currently ten: Wal Pro IIE Shuker custom 5-string Sire V7 5-string Yamaha RBX765A defretted 5-string Homemade 'bitsa' P bass OLP Stingray with Jaydee fretless neck Ibanez BTB 6-string Tanglewood Rosewood Reserve acoustic bass 1965 Hofner Artist 2 (my first ever bass) Overwater short scale 'school bass', long term rebuild/resto-mod

When I have enough time to play bass, I’ll start looking at a guitar again. Used to have two wonderful telecasters. A mate has a relic 52 he might sell me.

Or a shop...

Here's mine I went for a bit brighter orange That yellow one would look awesome with black hardware!

My one and only bass, always wanted one and have zero interest in any other. Teal green and does everything I want for the bands I have played in, never fiddle with the EQ, everything just set flat out, may just knock the tone pot back a bit on some numbers.

To be fair I think you have to count it until you “feel” it

Tell him to listen to Charlie Watts

What you really want is an Enfield with the SimS system installed. You get J/P/H options and combinations. The pick ups are available individually - a bit pricey but if you're planning on keeping the bass, it's money well spent. After all, who's more deserving than ourselves??

I think part of the issue that is that some people find it difficult to see the subtle but important difference between 'P*ssy Power' & 'P*ssy Melter', therein lies an issue of a wider understanding of gender issues. It's worth highlighting that it's almost certainly not the word 'P*ssy' that is 'offensive' to people, it's the aggressive nature of the full name (backed up by the tone prints description). Now, of course, Steel Panther are a complete parody, they very much subscribe to the South Park/Team America ethos of 'as long as you take the pee out of everyone equally, you're fine', which actually I'm fine with.....they're fully aware that they come across as sad, washed up old rockers with outdated views on women....that's the point, it's a commentary on the 80's & 90's rock scene......just so happens they can shred too. Without knowing any numbers, I suspect SP have as many female fans as they do male fans, because everyone understands the parody, and they like the comedic music. If there is a lack of understanding as to what the band is exactly, again, that's a damning indictment of a wider lack of education around gender issues. Again, it's important to re-iterate that SP are characters, when Satchell responded about the TC thing, that was Satchell typing from his account, not Russ Parrish, the married 47yr old dad who plays the character. However, take Steel Panther's approach out of context, take it away from the show and the fans and the bands self-effacing ridiculousness, and it starts to hit a little bit close to home for a lot of women's everyday experiences. Parody is a fine line, and it requires a fair amount of set-up and context in order to work, which is why I suspect TC took it down......should someone at TC have figured this out before they posted it like 2 years ago? Probably, how many females are working in their marketing department I wonder, let alone their engineering team?! (Women in engineering is a whole other discussion). But as this, and the few other examples of mildly misogynistic names highlights, the gear industry has had some catching up to do. Fortunately, the prevalence of things like 'booth girls' at NAMM and other such shows being something that has (thankfully) decreased as manufacturers realise that they are simply alienating potential customers (Fender cite that 50% of their new customers are female: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercarbonara/2018/03/28/for-fender-guitars-the-future-is-digital-and-female/#1f1f3d7e4a37). Names of products I feel are simply on the company, if they want to alienate and exclude certain potential customers, fine, if they wish to attract the wrong type of male customer who misunderstand the 'joke', let them, it's their livelihood. Again, I suspect that's why TC took it down, not because they felt the need to censor after a petition forced their hand, but because they feel they made a mistake about something and would prefer not to lose customers over it. As to why people have picked up on this as opposed to focussing on sexism in rap music? I suspect it's because for female guitarist who's onto rock music, this is in their back-yard and one that has been difficult enough to get accepted by as it is. If they have no interest in rap, they're probably not going to jump in on issues within a world they don't understand, especially if they're white. However, if something becomes important to them within the world that they reside (the guitar gear world), they're going to jump on it as something they're directly involved with. It's a massive discussion, and clearly goes much further than just women who play guitar, but with this forum being overwhelmingly made up of what I suspect is to be white men, it's worth us checking our understanding and approach before crying 'the worlds gone mad' (not aimed at anyone, just a general statement). Si