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The Squier JV-P fiesta red - pic requested

A Danelectro Longhorn, bought secondhand in 1969! Here I am playing in a folk rock band in Exeter in 1971 called Retrospect. I think that's a pick hanging out of my mouth, not a fag. We won the Melody Maker rock contest for the South West area, and then bombed miserably at the finals held at The Roundhouse in Camden. I remember we really felt like innocent country bumpkins up in The Big City. A young Phil Beer is the violin player here, since these early days he's had a long a well respected career playing with Paul Downs as 'Show of Hands' - well known on the folk circuit for many years. In 1972 I sent the Danelectro up to John Birch in Birmingham to fit a Rickenbacker back pup to this - hoping to get more punch and sustain. The result was an iconic bass ruined for no gain and quite a lot of expense, I recall. The stupidity of youth, as ever.

Already restricted, thanks. We’ve previously banned him but this time we’re going to make his posts and PMs visible to him only so he’ll have no idea. Theres a warning at the top of the wanted forum Cheers

Not easy, but while the two older daughters (2 and 9) played shop in the bedroom. Iris and I did some practice with the blue monkey keeping time. Anyone else got innovative ideas to keep playing while interacting with the kids...

Four more coats of gloss on the tops again today, I put the first two on with standard thinners and the last two with anti bloom to let the last coat flow a bit better. After about half an hour I pulled the masking tape of the fretboards. I think they are good now, they certainly look good (as in blemish free), the anti bloom should have gassed off well by tomorrow so I'll have a good look then to see if they are really done but I'm quietly confident tonight. So for the first time here's a hint of the finished things, once I'm happy they are good I'll grab a quick picture upright before hanging them up for a week or two to fully harden

I'm not certain yet that I will go for the maple neck but have started to work on it. First time in real terms using the router table. Fantastic! Neatest truss rod channel yet (small beginnings, but beginnings nevertheless ) And then the side profile band-sawn: The heel will have to have an extension added whatever, but the maple blank isn't deep enough to do that with just one - it will end up being a three piece heel. I'll have a think whether I can add a contrasting wood in there or whether that would look naff. If so, I'll revert to the mahogany / walnut blank I've also got and which is a touch deeper and would do achieve a two piece heel. I tell you what, after neck through basses, these necks are TIDDLY!

Dave Grohl seems like a lovely chap but the Foo Fighters are rock music for people who don’t like rock music.

The big gloves give it away.

Made his fortune when the previous owner of this bass had to buy a spare set of strings?

take of your knob and put a rubber washer under it, will still turn but will take more force to do so

This is going in the same direction as "what direction should I place my bass knobs" thread. There is a reason why you have never thought about it before. Because it is totally irrelevant.

I must be practicing too much I’ve only got 2 kids

As someone who works in the construction industry, my considered opinion is that you'll be ok with a Trace combo, as its gravitational pull is exactly equal to that exerted by the world, so the concrete flooring slab will be sandwiched between them quite safely 🤣

Haha! No, she doesn't want a natural finish on hers.. This one is purely for backup purposes, er, or something like that (depends on who is asking). She did say that she likes me making partscasters as it keeps me happy and gets me from "being under her feet too much" Which is a blatant pass to spend money to keep her happy...

Nothing virtual about it.....

I can’t remember the specifics, but there’s an audio clip on Youtube of a Rush gig where one of ‘em does a flub, and for a few seconds it collapses into a proper tuneless cacophony. just listen to that section on repeat.

I think Bilbo’s always struggled to understand why he should stoop to the levels of entertaining people less clever than himself 😄

nope, my playing is equally inept whatever colour bass I'm using.

The fretboard colour doesn`t make me play any differently but I do find that the colour of the bass itself influences my stage performance - with my black basses I`m more subdued, but when playing the white ones I tend to move about a bit more. Of course at 52 that really means shuffle around more on the same spot, but mentally I`m leaping and running around when the white bass is on.

Why is it pointless? I don't get comments like yours,it would seem that anything that isn't jazz is pointless to some people. Surely you play jazz classics,so that must be pointless too.

Our keyboard player used to travel with the drummer. Usually they would meet up half way and load into one car. At the end of one evening they loaded up the keyboard players car and he drove home. The next morning he found that one of his keyboards was missing. It had been left on the pavement leaning against a tree! 2 days later he got a call from a local music shop saying someone was trying to get in touch. They had found the keyboard and wanted to return it. All they had to go on was his name on the case and an internet search!! He gave the guy £50.

Yup it's happened to me. Left my bass, my amp head and a bag of leads/bits in the boot of the car while I dropped my then-girlfriend off at her house one night. When I came out half hour later the car was gone. I was working as a signwriter at the time in some pawn shops and gave them a list of the missing kit. Unbelievably I popped in a couple of days later to check up and a guy got off the bus outside carrying my bass on his back and came in to sell it so we nabbed him and called the police. Turns out he was very well known to them. Another shop rang about half an hour later with the rest of my stuff. The car was found dumped in a nearby alley the next day. Really shook me up and I immediately went and insured all my kit! Very fortunate that the thieves didn't know what any of it was and just tried to offload it locally - ironically to the people I was working for. Very lucky escape and three days I never want to relive!

Either this...or it is a trap So run, run now as fast as you can!

Lots of videos of kittens.

black gloss on maple

Something a bit more upto date for yall, check these out from Estonia, great stage craft live, and have loads of great ideas, have to say we are doing a cover version of beef grinder its so good. welcome to Lexsoul Dancemachine

I've just had a good listen to this new album. Ties to Bluey from Incognito of course. Some great modern jazz funk that just better and better as the record progresses.

This. Absolutely this.

The Korgs are ancient by today’s standards, processing power is limited and modelling very basic, the Pandora I had was also very hissy. I’d stick to Zoom personally. For me, headphone out is a bit lonely without an aux in to play against, so if you want that, you are left with the B1on and B3n. The former is much cheaper, battery powered, more fiddly to use. The latter is more expensive, requires a power socket, but is much nicer to use and comes with much better Ampeg models as well as Darkglass distortion sims if that kind of stuff floats your boat! You did say it seemed a bit big, but the B3n is pretty compact. Not sure what your portability requirements are, but it takes up about the same footprint as a standard iPad and would fit in a gig bag pocket.

Isn’t doing well interpreted Jazz ‘standards’ effectively a tribute act - a tribute to all the jazz greats? A tribute band is interpreting tunes of one set of writers/musicians rather than a mixed catalogue. That’s a covers band...😉 erm.

Reasons I have quit tend to be around members I want to beat to death with their own shoes... I have generally taken the shithouse way out via group message as I don’t hold my tongue well when I’m angry. It’s usually down to laziness, wanting the world at their feet but without putting effort in. Turning up late, not helping move gear, losing gear on packing down. I don’t need to gig to pay bills so I’m probably not as patient as some might be.

Some pedals, like some Digitech ones actually provide stomp locks with their pedals to combat this. Ibanez had a tone lock series which allows you to push the knobs in to stop them changing I've seen pros just tape them down.

I've had no problems at all with EBS ones, but the Warwick ones are trouble IME. I've had many sudden failures - sudden noise issues and total loss of signal - and even a dead cable straight from the pack. For some reason the shorter ones seem to be the ones that fail most and I've ditched all of mine.

That's two thirds of a house jam without having to leave the house itself. Nice.

A book which in its British publication stumbled over the years through various titles from the original (as above) to Ten Little Indians to Ten Little Soldiers and eventually ending up with the current iteration And Then There Were None, the latter being the title of the US version as first published back in the 1930's. At the time the Yanks saw issues of sensitivity where - it would seem - the Brits did not.

I get it, and I'll check out the video tonight, I suspect it's pretty good ...but standard FF arrangement is verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus-chorus

Fantastic service as always! I was aware of the issue from the warning but thought it was worth flagging up just in case. They are damn persistent.

I get real pleasure at seeing that, and in knowing it is used and loved. Thanks just a quick one Lidl's have a special offer on table saws. 10" 2000W saw for £99. That's a bargain. I've used one of these aluminium topped little table saws for years before upgrading to something more professional. If you are cutting a lot of panels or just slicing up offcuts for bracing a cab then they are way better than a circular saw. Set up carefully they can be very accurate but they are fiddly (I built windows and doors including all the tenons with my old one) and less repeatable than a pro bench saw. Lidl's are also doing corner clamps for £5.99 useful if you are about to build.

Hmmmm Nice! ….spoken in a Whispering Bob Harris style😎

I know what you mean, Paul. I had a 78 Precision that sounded pretty much unlike any other I`ve ever had, I named it Ian Paisley as it just barked at you, was really aggressive sounding. Sometimes you get one that just has a different voice, for no specific reason.

No, it doesn't attach, but it IS small enough to fit under the handle of many cabs! I've rehearsed with mine many times, and gigged it a few times (usually when playing gigs where I'm mostly going through the PA), and I haven't had a problem yet. Linus, there's a country band I play with that rehearses at loud but less-than-gig volumes, right on the cusp of should-I-wear-earplugs? I play a Precision through the Elf into a Crazy 88 and it's (i) more than capable of holding its own, and (ii) utterly righteous. Like any good, small cab it's significantly heavier than you think. My Crazy 8 weighs less than my old Barefaced OneTen, but not by that much. The Crazy 88 is definitely heavier.

She had 13 years in which to do it had she wanted.

Because of the overwhelming importance of freedom of speech/expression. I'm a white bloke and I'd happily say "nigger" or any other lyric. It's important I'm clear about this so I'll try my best to expand on my position; in this sense "nigger" has the meta context of "lyric", even if it's being used as a pejorative term in the context of the song. As a performer playing a cover; I am a glorified CD player and if Kendrick Lamar's coming out of the speakers, no-one starts to impose narratives onto the CD player, no-one starts asserting the CD player has a certain set of motivations behind reproduceing the acoustic wave of a small mouth noise produced by a bipedal ape. That's a double standard in my eyes. I quote the great philosopher Bob Marley; "one good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain." Being offended by music/language is something you have to activatly engage in, it's not something that's imposed on you, it's a stance you choose to take, thus it's on the shoulders of the offended not the offenders. And I don't want to spend my weekend defending this, that's just my take but I'm open to being wrong if someone points out a flaw in my logic. Love you all so let's keep this discussion, as a discussion and not an argument. 🙏

I love tort on black, but for me it only works with a dark wood fingerboard 🤷‍♂️

So the PA outfront - people seeing a gig is usually an isolated event where if they are uncomfortable with the volume, should be standing further back. Most gigs are too loud anyway and will cause permanent hearing damage.... but you can always take earplugs... but again, that isnt rock and roll is it? When playing regularly in a band, this problem is compounded further as despite what the literature says, playing with earplugs doesn't attenuate across the frequency range like one big volume knob... so a lot of people still play without them. Standing next to a drum kit with loads of splashy cymbals and amps running flat out is also going to play havoc with your hearing. Buy hey, as long as it's flapping those trousers, all is good. Here's the rub - those amps running loud are going to bleed absolutely everywhere... straight into the mics, muddying up the mix somewhat rotten. That will make the band sound worse out front. Everybody knows, whether you are in the studio, or live, mic bleed is not a sound mans friend. Similarly, running amps so loud you can hear them over the PA is equally frustrating, as you can't get a good mix and you can't get a good balance between the left and right speakers because those loud guitar amps are highly directional. Pity the guy in the audience who is getting blasted by it. Pity the guy who has come to the gig and is off axis to the guitar amp and can't hear the guitar. Yes, the sound guy could put more of it through the PA... but then poor guy getting blasted is now getting full on assaulted and everybody is questioning whether the sound guy is deaf because there is so much guitar in the mix. You yourself have stated that bleed into mics (from the cymbals etc) is a problem. It is - so by having the onstage volumes more quiet alleviates this. Yes, I know you are going to say that it's just not rock and roll to not be smashing seven shades of sh** out of a kit... but you should be playing for your audience... not for self indulgence. Your band will sound better with a smaller / less loud kit and darker cymbals to avoid all the shrillness coming over the cymbals. Will make your vocal sound infinitely better too. So lets talk in ears. Which inears were you using? When I am talking about inears, I talk of inears that give you 26db attenuation - much more than your typical 17db attenuation that you typically get from ear plugs. Note - 17 to 26dB is a big amount. 26 is like putting your fingers deep into your ear holes. If you had to turn your inears up so loud, I guarantee that you did not have a good seal on them. If you did, you can do a gig on inears at whisper volumes. Fact. Standing 1 metre or 1 mile from the drum kit will make no difference when the band is playing because the isolation provided by the inears means you can't hear the ambient drums with any clarity or volume. So when you say the snare is too loud in your ears, it's because it's too loud in the mix being supplied to your inears... not because you are standing too close to the drums. If this indeed the case, I know everything I need to know about your IEMs. They either don't provide any serious attenuation or they are a poor fit. This isn't my opinion. This is fact. Theres guys out there using IEMs in tiny venues every day - and it's arguably better to use them in those type of venues than the stadiums because you will be usually standing a lot close to the drums due to the reduced stage areas. So you tried the Helix instore? I'm glad you had that time to learn the system intimately in order to form a good opinion on how it can work for you. I guarantee that the store would have set it up in it's optimum setting and nobody had messed around with the presets or anything like that too. Likewise, I'm sure your rock and roll ears are a good medium to draw such statements. Should also point out that modelling from the Pod and Eleven Rack is very, very old and not in the same category as the modern offerings from the main players, Helix, Kemper and Axe FX. If I was to blind test you with a Kemper, there is zero chance that you'd be able to tell the difference between the two... even with your golden ears. This isn't me saying this... this is the industry. These great bass players that you talk of - most of them don't. They have roadies. On theatre shows, they will have carriage (this in particular will determine what they choose to use - the truth is, they'll use what ever is the least hassle - they won't even care if it sounds any good or not most of the time). And again, a lot of the time, it's stage dressing... because the audience want to see something on stage, even if the sound isn't coming from it. A lot of these great players ARE using modellers - because they can take their rig with them on a USB stick. It makes it more consistent when the hire stock hasn't got your amp and cab of choice. What you have to remember also, is that a lot of these guys are using the gear because they are either endorsed to do so, ego driven because they want to see their image in the bass rags or because they are dinosaurs. As I've stated, theres nothing wrong with dino gear... but things can be done differently. There is a load of backlash against inears and modellers... and as demonstrated by yourself, those opinions are usually strongest from the people who haven't tried the gear properly. Your inears experience is typical - using the buds you got free with your phone does not count as trying inears in anger. I, along with a load of other guys have been the dinosaurs.... and thats cool... because modelling was pants compared to where it is now. But I kept my eye on the modelling market as I knew that if they got it nailed, thats where we should be... in terms of tone and portability... and safety to our own ears. Im sorry that dinosaurs are insulted by such a label. I kinda get fed up of being called a sound geek. Ah well, this is the snowflakeosaurus generation after all. Right, I'm going to find a corner to cry in because I think somebody accused me of not knowing sh**.