Leaderboard

I, find, that I, can talk, as long, as I, do it, in time. S.P.

Finished work early yesterday and drove a 330 mile round trip to pick up a Fender American Standard Jaguar Bass (I don't trust couriers, too many horror stories on here!). I've always wanted a Jaguar since the original Japanese model came out, so when I could finally afford to treat myself I started looking for one and found there was a US version, only available for a couple of years. I found a couple for sale and went for this one. Looks great, is pretty light, and plays really nicely. Looking forward to figuring out the controls this weekend!

I love P-basses!!!

https://www.gumtree.com/p/other-musicians-wanted/bass-player-needed-for-function-band/1311925635

How can you not love this P bass blue and maple heaven? 😊

He should be put overboard for that crime 😡

No.

With a touch of Post Traumatic Binding Stress Disorder creeping in, I rock-hopped back to the neck and did a bit more on the heel. Still more to do to get a more interesting visual effect and get it looking a little slimmer, but it's starting to get there. I also remembered the final "once you've spent all that time joining the body parts and thicknessing them and fitting the braces and tap tuning the top and sorting the kerf strip and sorting the join shapes and cutting the soundhole and making the rosette and fitting it and the purfling around it and gluing the top on and fitting the back on and routing the binding slots and fitting the purfling and bending the binding and gluing it and stretching the fibreglass tape and next door neighbours kids bicycle tyres round then fixing the bits that didn't quite work and scraping the bits flush that did" - yes, after all THAT then..."You need to clamp the complete large dreadnought body somehow without crushing it and rout a large slot through the sides into the neck block with the hand router that you wreck most other things you use it on and which, if it is the slightest bit out alignment in any of the three planes, will render the guitar unfinishable." Hmmm...I think I might just go and have a gin instead.

being able to read/knowing music theory does not stop you being able to play by ear/jam etc.

I’ll come and bring the usual double bass and stuff. Might have some declutter to sell. Looking forward to trying OBBM’s Quilter. It’s always a great day for cake.

Just spotted this. Im sure the more experienced musicians out there are very aware. But some may not be. A good well thought out vid on why your place is your place and why your favourite licks are best kept for moments in a song.. Too many voices trying to put a point across in a conversation never works.

So often I see clips on You Tube and elsewhere where posters are in jawdropping awe of children playing bass, guitar or drums to a high standard. Thing is if a child starts learning at 3 or 4, with natural ability, being able to absorb information more efficiently than adults, having parental support and a good teacher by 10 they actually should be pretty advanced. At my school there were quite a number of boys who could play drums, piano, sax, violin, trumpet or guitar to a very high standard by the age 12 but given that they'd been playing for 7 or 8 years it was kind of expected. I wonder if these posters would be in such awe of an adult reaching a high level of musical proficiency in a just 2 or 3 years?

A couple of pics:

This is my perfect 😁

A busy day, I'm getting too old for all this, I'm looking forward to a holiday in a couple of weeks First job was to tidy up the veneers, trim the edges, open out the bridge recess and cut out the bit where the fretboards fit. I then cut the truss rods to size, threaded the ends and fitted the anchors, I flattened the threads to lock the anchors and I wrapped the rods in cling film to stop them getting glued in place, I also greased the adjusting threads with copperslip.. After that I fitted them and glued in the filler strip. When dry I planed that down and fitted the small wedge to go under the headstock veneer. Then I trimmed the headstock to shape and stuck on the veneers. Finally for the day I fretted the Satinwood board so that can be glued on tomorrow

I've always liked the look of them, and the idea of the semi thing appeals. The scientific name for my condition though, is Permaskint

My first ever bass was a Fender 57 reissue Precision bass, back in the 80s. It was made in Japan. Since then I have owned several P-basses (all Fender or Squier, from USA to Mexican) and they've all delivered. Standouts for me included, a 51 reissue, an all original 1978 and a 70s bitsa. However, they came and went. A couple of years ago I bought a new 57 reissue, also Japanese. It reminds me of my first bass. As others have said I've tried, owned and enjoyed several basses from Gibsons to Rickenbackers to Danelectros and beyond. There is something about the P-bass that means it will always be part of my life, even if I happen to be doing a gig on a Jazz or an upright. Anyhow, here's mine pictured just this afternoon.

Let's hear it for the ladies! Kim Deal, Divinity Roxx, Yolanda Charles and Sooze of course! 🙂 PS - good advice from Happy Jack as usual! x

My recently acquired Spectorcore 4 fret less wearing flat wounds. Simplicity itself..

Good way of looking at it if you didn't like them i suppose .Being a fan i think otherwise,its not like they were banging 3 chord tunes out . The sexy punk rockers were supporting them at their well attended regular gigs.Given how their music developed in a few short years they would have made it regardless of fads.Black and white went to number1 with no title or band name on its cover.A first iirc .That and The Raven were their peak for me ,never really heard a band sound like those albums before or since .Some of Jets drumming on them was way out there .Opinions like Aholes,we've all got one

I've had a bit of a reaction with the paint on the body so I'm sorting it out but here's the neck anyway I'm still going to give a few more coats so it will go a bit darker 😀

You know, I have been following this thread since it started and still have absolutely no idea what the point of it all is. Anyone else confused? Bean9seventy - you seem to have invented a whole new way of punctuation, let alone bass playing. On topic - or is it? - I do recall Mark King saying in an interview that he started playing the way he plays because he wanted to play like the start of 'Rise' by Herb Alpert. Which does sound exactly like a slowed down version of Love Games.

It's a Gibson! Two quick ways to tell A. Bridge placement B. Neck heel. With the Gibson, The Bridge is further back and they have a rounded heel. Epi Bridge is closer to the Bridge pickup volume pot, and the heel is almost squared. Also, this real or Epi thing is a bit off, my Classic Pro plays better than the Gibson I tried.

Anything you learn that enhances your knowledge and appreciation of music is important. I would place reading very high on the list.

These two notions are often lumped together (maybe rightly so..?), but are, in fact, quite distinct. One's prowess at reading does not impart knowledge of theory, harmony, musical styles (although helps considerably when studying those...), any more than the inverse; the study of music theory does not automatically make one a good reader, even less a good sight reader. Both skills, plus, of course, a degree of playing ability, are very useful indeed, but separate notions. Just sayin'.

Musical notation is just another form of communication, from a quick glance you know the key and time signatures, and the rhythmic and harmonic structure of a piece of music you may have never heard. As you play it you begin to commit it to memory and put your own stamp on it. I still learn stuff by ear, but if I am being paid to turn up and play the dots that what I do. I teach for a living so I use my reading skills everyday, but not everyday in my playing that's very situational. I play in a rock covers band, I don't read for that, but If I'm doing a theatre gig, or reading charts for a jazz gig that bit of music theory really helps. It just opens more doors for you. But there are plenty of great players out there who don't read or know a lot about music theory who are still great players.

I had you down as a coquettish debutant. Close enough.

Well - the results are largely OK for the top. A couple of places where it is a little bit iffy - and I had to heat a couple of the areas with and iron and clamp them properly down to the sides, but this is the sort of look it gives: The above looks OK but, I think binding of an acoustic sorts the men from the boys - and at the very best - I reckon I'm at the petulant adolescent stage, if that. For me, it's too hit and miss. But - curses to poor memory - fixing those couple of bits with the iron (which softened the PVA enough to be able to ease the miscreant binding into position and held until it glued - reminded me that a couple of years ago, I tried a completely different approach to binding - that worked! It was on this re-body of a Peavey EVH I did - where I wanted to put a similar type of binding on upside down to give me a feature line from the thin maple bar: The challenge here was that ANY misalignment would have meant sanding down - and potentially losing - the feature line. So I simply couldn't risk the 'strap it all up and hope for the best' approach. And so I came up with the crazy notion "Why don't I do it like I do veneering - iron it on! And that's what I tried - and it worked!!! And then I forgot all about doing that. So for the back binding - today's little least favourite job - that's what I'm going to do. If it works, I'll show you the shots of the technique (or just look up one of my veneering threads - it's exactly the same). If it doesn't work, I'll quietly sweep the idea under the carpet and get the inner tubes out again

The construct on this sentence could infer a couple of different things.

I just think its a useful tool for learning any song. I'm all for making life easier and using whatever tools are available when learning songs. I've seen me using my ear, bass tab and manuscripts when its a tricky song to learn so anything that's available is a useful tool. Dave

I spent 30 years playing (percussion) in orchestras, theatre bands, brass bands and such, where good sight-reading skills were vital. I now play bass in a pub band and I hardly ever read at all. However, I'm really glad I *can*. It's very useful every so often. Not for a minute do I think it doesn't matter to me. It's been an important part of my musical "journey".

Check out Xotic bass, I really like these.

I've burbled on about mine too often on too many threads before... But there's nothing quite like the lightness and vibrancy of that semi-hollow body combined with that punch and growl with the bass boost kicked in. Nothing. Plus feeling 50 years of music history flowing through your hands. Do it. Save up for it. Keep your eyes open and they do turn up now and then.

Not an urban myth - I remember Blackie Lawless having to talk about that in interviews even years after it happened. Talkbass has an interesting post about this episode and other accident-prone rockstars.

Really? Yeah i can think of hardly anyone who uses a precision.... I'd list them here but there's probably so few.

Please forgive the ostentatious title, some of you will remember a discussion a while ago regarding tool sharpening and my insistence that sharpening jigs are not needed; well I was asked to write this about how edge tools are sharpened in a professional cabinet making shop. Now please don't try and compare how a jobbing chippy sharpens his or her tools on site that is a different story but cabinetry and Luthiery have a similar need for tools that are precisely sharp as opposed to being sharp enough. I will honestly say the one machine/power tool I would not do without is a wet grinder, I would rather rip boards up with a ripsaw and plane them flat and to size by hand than do without that and have done in the past. Why you may ask? Well when you are trying to do fine work in wood the single most important thing you need is control and with cutting tools the only way you can get that control is with very sharp tools, not almost sharp or even sharp enough, to get precise cuts first time and every time they need to be sharper than that razor you shave with each morning and kept that way. It is a job that can be tedious if you let it be, the trick is to let it not be and to do that it needs to be quick and easy then it can be seen as a way of releiving your mind from the concentration levels of doing careful work for long periods. Lets have a look at my sharpening area What you see is a wetstone grinder, a tub of water and two Japanese water stones which a are wedged into wooden blocks to keep them from sliding in use; they are then kept in the tub of water when not being used. Above these I have a variety of gadgets that are associated with sharpening various tools but there is only one of note, the grinding angle gauge The wetstone grinder is used to give a hollow grind to the edge on a the cutting tool at a set angle which is determined by a little gauge. Mine is a 25 degree gauge which is a good all round angle for many tools giving a nice balance between durability and sharpness. The blade is clamped into a sliding carriage at the correct angle like this Then it is simply a matter of switching on and moving the blade from side to side until you have a fully ground hollow edge that is square. I've tried to illustrate that with these photos as best I can You can just make it out but notice that ragged burr on the edge. All we have done is to prepare our blade for the real sharpening: In days gone by various types of oilstones were the way to go, when I was an apprentice I had a prized set of Arkansas stones but things thankfully have moved on some since then, we have the waterstones, diamond impregnated tiles, ceramic stones.... My own favourites are the waterstones and I'll explain why. Waterstones are a man made brick for want of a better term, made of precisely graded grits, they are bound together quite loosely so they actually wear quite quickly in comparison to other types but that to me is an advantage. When you sharpen a tool you abbraide it's surface so tiny particles are removed, these can become embedded quite firmly in the stone and cause something called glazing which reduces it's efficiency. Waterstones on the other hand break up very slowly so the particles are freed stopping that glazing. The downside of that of course is that the stone can quickly wear out of true, thankfully it is so easy to flatten unlike the old Arkansas stones that needed taking to a stone mason. To flatten a waterstone just get a strip of 80 grit sandpaper taped to a flat surface and give the stone half a dozen rubs on that and the job is done, easy. Another great advantage is that water is used a s a lubricant so rather than having oily hands after sharpening they are merely wet and the stones can just be put back in the tub with not further cleaning or drying needed. I have two stones, the large red one which is a 1000 grit stone and the yellow one which is a 6000 grit, I use one at a time, they are both out above just for illustration. I don't have photos of the actual procedure but it is easy to understand. To start sharpening you stand in front of the stone (1000 grit), one foot in front of the other (important). You take the blade in both hands with some fingers from each hand on top of the blade to give it full support. Place the blade on the stone and feel for that hollow grind, there is a point where it sits flat and stable. Now you can either sharpen at that or as I do lift the blade a tiny amount so I only grind the front edge. Lock your elbows tight into your rib cage to lock your arms rigid, then rock backwards using your legs, so weight shifting from the front foot to the back foot, that stops the blade rocking. Do that four times and you should be left with a tiny shiny flat across the whole front edge of your blade. If you look closely mine isn't even, my stone needs flattening (OOPS!) but looking closely notice the burr Change the stone to the 6000 grit and do the same again, remember this must only be done backwards never forwards, the stones are too soft. So four times then flip the blade over and place it flat on the stone, slide the blade over the stone backwards four times. Repeat that two or three more times until when you examine the edge there is absolutely no sign of any burr and the back face should be almost a mirror finish. That should give you a wholly flat edge, for a bench plane you may want to give that edge a slight curve, to do this I use an extra pass over the 6000 stone with pressure on one outside edge then the other and that will be enough to give you a nice edge for a plane And that is it, just give the blade a quick dry on a towel along with your hands and back to work but be careful, that blade will be sharp and i mean sharp. The grinding procedure isn't done every time, just when the sharpening procedure starts taking longer as the flats get bigger; typically I sharpen four times then regrind. Even with regrinding a single blade can be processed within a couple of minutes. I keep four to six plane blades above my bench and sharpen all of them at once, that way I am less likely to be tempted to use a dulling iron when it is so easy to quickly change and it is quicker to sharpen six once then one six times. I hope you can see the logic in that method, every cabinet shop I have been into uses that exact method so I assume that it is probably the best and easiest way of doing it, being quick and easy you are more likely to want to do it and the more likely your work will improve. One last thing and this is actually the very first thing with any flat blade. The back face of a cutting tool needs to be flat, when you buy it it won't be, not even close. The first job with any new chisel or plane blade is to flatten it; how depends on how bad it is. Sometimes 10 minutes on a 1000 grit stone will do it flattening the stone a couple of times, if it is really bad then some 80 grit carborundum powder and a piece of glass it the way to go. Once it's flat then it will stay flat as long as you keep your stones flat but that back face MUST be flat to get the best out of your tools. Very briefly the reason why: A chisel is used mostly but supporting the back edge on work that has previously been cut, either to the side or behind the cutting edge. The back of the chisel is used as a rest and as a guide for progression, if your blade isn't flat then it will either dig in (blade concave) or ride up (blade convex) and that will never ever let you produce good work. Plane blades Other than you wont be able to sharpen properly a bade that is hollow along it's length one of the most important pasts of a bench plane is the cap iron, unless that is in intimate contact with the blade face it will clog up and even with the sharpest blade in the world that plane will not work or certainly won't be capable of quality work but more on that again.

Uprooting the Hip Hop. This is just fabulous from the old school master KRS1 and DJ Premier.

I tend to only sell on BC now, or on the noticeboard at work. 😀

Fixed, looks like there was a minor update to the article the next day, and as a result their date-based URL changed. Gotta love content management systems

I had a Gibson and an Epiphone last year. I sold the Gibson because the Epiphone was a better bass all round (I bought it second hand and it did come with a Babicz bridge, to be fair).

I always think candy apple red when I see that in capittles 😆

When would you need a guitarist??

I’ve got a set of Dunlop flats in the same gauge on my ‘covers band’ bass and they’re great. Had them for a couple of years now and I’m still loving them. I’ve had super brights before though, and they were great too.

Who is buying his "creations" ??? Because surely they can't know any better.

Yes, it happens to me every couple of years too. I love the look of Jazz basses, think they`re extra cool looking, and I love the sound of them - when someone else is playing them that is. When I get one I just try and make it sound like a Precision, which I know is pointless, but that`s the sound I like to hear when i play bass. As such I`m trying to never buy one again but it`s a battle I know I`ll lose at some point.

Saw them live at the Dartford Festival a couple of months back I think. Was groovy.

Brilliant, mate. It certainly does tie it all together. Plus I find written music is a beautiful thing, especially hand written Mike

I'm talking about pressing in a depression to locate the tiny drill and stop it wandering. As you say, bradawls and the like are far too big