Leaderboard

Bit of a novelty this morning, no mad dash and I get a few minutes to tidy my home studio and plug in the new amp. Having got the new amp and cab I’m now considering getting the TC HoF reverb (version 2 looks nice) and there are some recommendations for it on here. I might do that and play with the six for a short while before considering what to do next ie active/fretless/both. Common sense is controlling my desire for all of them and the Cort A5 plus. I hate common sense. Rant... My new bass students leave a lot to be desired. The grade 8 distinction (classical double bass) barely knows her major scale harmonies ie major/minor chords and then 7ths. This is what annoys me about the grade system. You can get to grade 8 WITHOUT any theory. I have to give this one student a crash course in basic harmony (grade 5 stuff) so they can play in the school jazz band. Granted jazz and classical are completely different disciplines so it’ll be hard for them anyway, but no theory? It should be compulsory to have grade 5 theory BEFORE doing grade 8 practical. 😡😡😡. Once they’ve done that teaching them to walk should be fun! ...and finally, having met my new students what do most them want to do? Ed Sheeran! I suspect it has nothing to do with the music. Last student of the day walked in and sat down. Lower 6th (aged 16/17) Me: (sighing, expecting the worst) So, what do you want to learn, who are your favourite artists? Ed Sheeran? Student: (rather cautiously) Can we do some Led Zeppelin? oh yeah! Bring it on! Thursday last lesson is gonna be good!

I hold certain members of BC responsible for this latest NBD. Few year back there was a post on Revelation guitars and this eejit had a look at their site,always a dangerous move 🙂 The P-bass looked good,there's a cracking jazz model and there was the RPBX. Double split-P basses always catch my interest and when those split-Ps are Entwistle Neos I knew I was doomed. Kept strong for a couple of years then the RPB-65 post start of this week caused me to crack 🤬 Ordered the bass on Tuesday night,UK Mail dropped it off on Thursday morning. A tidy sunburst bass was in the box 🙂 My lightest T40 weighs 10.5lb,this weighs-in at 10lb so pretty decent weight-wise. Neck has a gloss finish and there's a nice bit of maple under there. Good fret work and the wide/slim profile is comfortable. Balances great. Controls are simple - 2 vol,1 tone. The basic BBOT has been placed perfectly 👍 Bass came strung with roundwound 😕 Not really a huge fan of RWs and when they're getting sent through Entwistle Neos it's too much for this fella 😄 Changing the pickup height along with adjustable pole pieces I'm sure I could fine tune . When you 22 sets of flats in the cupboard though why bother. First pack I grabbed were TIs 😎 I'll try and borrow a Harley Benton JB-75 with Wilkinsons over the weekend. See how Trev's pickups compare against Alan's.

Probably playing bass in a half arsed cabaret band in an extremely rough pub in North Wales (that narrows it down !) Singer was rather drunk and very high and was becoming more and more mouthy during the first set. Oblivious to the way his humour was going down, and the massing of ‘the lads’ at the back of the venue, he kept notching it up, and up, and up Having heard what said lads were going to do to the singer during the intermission, we shipped him off in a taxi, reassembled as our day job (thrash band) and didn’t get a kicking at the end. Result !

Maybe worse, and relayed before: "Final night" drum concert, and Bill Bruford, who'd instructed the drummers at our music college for a week, sits in a front row seat in the audience. I'd been asked to do a simple piano part: "Easy stuff! Just sight-reading!", so I'd naively agreed. Get handed the dots, and note that the part is very demanding and very short, and requires counting bars of different lengths for what seems like half an hour before the piano comes in with some explosives. I give up, look sheepishly at Bruford, and either stay silent for the whole piece or (this is what I seem to remember but I'm not sure anymore) play just a few notes at instances where I feel confident enough that those notes contribute something. Mind you: not notes from the sheet. Just stuff I think fits. The next day, I'm told by different persons that I'd better hide, as Bruford is searching the whole building for me, as he wants to kick my behind slightly. Me, I fear his mouth more than his boot. 🤘

1978. I'm playing a my college band. A cross between Dr Feelgood and The Clash. My car has been totalled in a crash but a friend can lend me his Mini van. It's cold (and very snowy), the car heater doesn't work. As I get to the gig the back fills up with smoke and the engine overheats. We push the car about 400 yards to the gig and play to people who couldn't have carted less. We're keen and confident so we had agreed to play for a whip-round. 65p. 16p each. I am reduced to trying to shovel snow into the radiator to try and get some water into the system to drive home. I fail.

Exactly the opposite of this. I love most jazz, but can't bear Trad/Dixie. Part of that, I suppose, is due the standard line-up including two instruments I hate to hear - banjo and clarinet. Two things that I can't stand, when you turn up to a "Jazz" night at a venue:- 1) The bloke in a tux, with backing tracks and no musicians, doing Rat Pack material 2) The Brit Trad Jazz band that's given themselves "Dixieland" or "Chicago-style" nicknames ('Kid' Brown, 'Spats' Smith, etc.), all wearing matching stripey waistcoats and straw boaters - and when the drummer hits a one-bar break in a tune, and everyone shouts "ooyah! ooyah!". Time to go........

Just my take but playing with others, making music on the fly, Is what it has always been about. Nothing gives me the buzz like playing with other musicians when that "Magic" happens and you float. Almost anyone can play along to recorded tracks in the bedroom, or practice for decades to play at 200 MPH, but without the context of doing it in a live music situation it is fairly meaningless to me. Anyway, currently most pro acts or artists make the vast majority of their money from playing live, only the biggest make money from recorded music.

Not really to do with age though. Would you Say Ed Sheeran has invented a new form or genre of music, or even pushed the genre of solo singer song writer to new areas of creativity? He is simply very popular with lots of people, and who knows if he will still be played in 20 years time. Lots of kids and young musicians find Zep relevant and enjoyable, or why ask to play it. I was in a music shop a few years ago and a kid who was about 12 years old, at most, was drooling over the Gibsons and Fenders on the wall whilst humming Voodoo Chile. Music has nowt to do with age, my playlist has stuff from 1940 and from this year. If it moves you its good. And If I remember correctly KT Tunstall did the looper pedal thing a number of years ago, so its hardly new or groundbreaking. Songs are what its about and I don't find Ed's songs to be very good. Led Zep also did a lot of stuff that was meh, but at their best they gave me shivers up the spine. Its not the age or the genre, its the quality of the song.

I noticed pretty early, but couldn't sumner up a suitable pun.

Hi Honza, Just found the receipt - I used a company called Doug Taylor Metal Finishing who did a nice job. The last plate I had done was £24 - which I think is fair enough for a one off small item. The plates I've made are brass 1.5mm thick. This is what I made - my reasons for making the plates was because I wanted something to follow the curve of the bass as it looks more pleasing, which sounds like where you might be going. I drilled and countersunk the holes in the plates before plating (one plate was made for a piezo only bass with no controls, just a jack socket) Cheers Jez

A short groove from who I think is possibly one of the best bass players in the world today. Depending on your taste of course. Ive heard him come out with fills and grooves that IMO are better than Sharay Reed. subjective of course. The guy is as close to a virtuoso on the bass that I have seen thus far.

The "Total Mass Retain" segment from the song "Close to the Edge". I've mentioned it before. but at the time it was a moment of: "Can that even be done?" Apparently, it could:

There are not many bass lines that can match (Imo) this absolute classic. it seems very simple to the ones posted before, but I think its a bass line that make people tap there feet more. And isn't that what a bass line should do.? I think the former posted above are more bass performances than a solid bassline.

5 hr drive to South Wales, unwelcoming social club for five young lads, told to get off after 5 songs ‘you are the worst band we have ever seen’ make it your last. Packing up the van hurriedly feeling like we are about to be lynched. Never got paid. great gig.

Stumbled across this just now - Software modelled guitar Amps/FX, digital Hammond organ and electronic drums. Sadly no bass guitar but still. I bet these guys had a wonderfully chilled load in/out. Playing starts around 2:45. Who can deny it sounds great??

And lets not forget sheer dogged determination, hard graft - 600+ gigs in 2 or 3 years, sleeping on people's sofas, the underground. He's paid his dues and deserves all the success he's had if you ask me.

I am depping for the Charlton Blues Kings on Saturday night. Be good to see anyone there.

There's a hell of a lot worse out there than Ed Sheeran. I'm looking at you Sam Smith 😂

Surely that should be 'Bring It On Home' 😉

I didn't hear Led Zeppelin until the mid-90s, having grown up mostly ignoring the pre-punks (aka boring prog-head old hippies) going on about 'Zep' and therefore was used to Guns'n'roses, Nirvana and Therapy? et all (aka very noisy RAWK) being played on daytime radio 1. I hate to say it but i found it simplistic, 3 chord blues rock'n'roll and about has heavy as a not heavy thing... Its context innit? I don't like Ed Sheeran either BUT he represents more what people are going now - Ableton, loop pedals, amp modellers... All the stuff that makes 'recording sessions and video shoots' something you can do in your bedroom...

HI Guys Just seen the Facebook event - so excited to be able to make my first Bash! Was wondering if there would be any interest in me bringing along: Darkglass Microtubes 900 head Barefaced Big Twin T, BB2, Super Compact Warwick Corvette $$, Streamer $$, The Alien Various pedals including MXR, AudioSource (inc a Hothand) and a couple of Darkglass bits and Phil Jone EarBox might be something people are interested in trying out... Cant wait to meet up and geek out with fellow bass players - sick of having to talk about strats, teles and LPs for a good old nerdy tech session! Best regards to all - Rod

Fantastic build! There's a DIY alternative to chrome plating. Solid nickel silver stock. Here's a control plate from aluminium prototype to polished piece. .040 thick. about $3 USD for material. V Tailpiece, bridge channel and pickup rings are also nickel silver. Pickup covers are also DIY.

In my twenties I was a complete c*** but I managed, somehow, to doss around having a gas. As I’d been kicked out of ‘home’ at the age of sixteen I’d had to very quickly become adept at living without an income, I became very good at it indeed. I was a drummer at this point but was always sneaking a go on the bass during rehearsal fag breaks. By the end of my twenties I was a drum and/or bass tech for touring bands. I didn’t get a full-time ‘straight’ job until I was thirty eight. I realise I was a complete c*** in my youth but I was too ignorant and selfish to care. Now, in my mid-fifties, I am still a c***, albeit a much wiser one but, having scrutinised and analysed myself quite critically, I find that I really just don’t care about anything, none of it. I play bass badly, pick my nose, take a lot of photographs that invariably don’t include people and write bleak abstract lyrics that would depress a Norwegian death metal crowd. I never had any illusions of ‘making it’ as a musician, I never made mainstream music and I quickly learned what a trompe l'oeil successful rock and roll was during my years as a tech. The two constant threads throughout my life have been ontological nausea and train spotting. in summary... 20s - deluded participant. 50s - informed, ambivalent misanthropic observer.

Today I glued in the MOP blocks. I used West Systems Epoxy which is great, but is a pain if you are only using small quantities, as I normally do. So I've started using medicine syringes to meausre out very small quantities, taken direct from the can. No waste, no scales, no hassle. I use a children's Nurofen syringe for the Resin (half a syringe is 2.5ml) and a Vitabotics one (0.5ml). It really works great, and a vast improvement over the pumps that West Systems sell that only measure out large quantities and leak all over the place. And cost twenty quid... I started off with some rosewood sanding dust (400 grit) but on my test piece I found that it was a bit light. So I added some black powder, in this case Behlen's black furniture powder. It's been sitting on a shelf for years and I've never used it. No idea why I bought it, but this seemed like the ideal time to bring it out. Anyway, I added maybe 20% black to end up with this... Then I syringed on 2.5ml of resin onto the top of the sawdust, mixed it well then added 0.5ml or 205 hardener. Mixed it well for a minute or two, then glued on the blocks... Following @Christine's advice, I just held them in using finger pressure, no clamps or anything. Tomorrow I'll sand, and judgement will follow😲

I've used my router table and trimmed the neck. I must improve my technique here as the router (again) decided to have a little nibble when going across the grain. Nothing major that can't be sorted but annoying all the same. Next task are to put the side dots in and sort the logo inlay thing for the headstock. I'm going to use the same shape logo that I have on the two previous basses of this shape. I'm wasn't entirely sure on whether to use plain ebony or to use a lighter wood with a veneer line around it so I made both to see. First off, I got made a photocopies of a previous spare logo and stuck these to some slices of ebony and a slice of the birds eye maple from the neck. I used a fine saw to cut the bulk of the excess off. I've mounted my Dremel like a mini router table to trim the edges of the logos tight to the photo copy lines. For the lighter coloured one I trimmed it further as this will have veneer glued around the edge. I used superglue to stick two layers around the logo - not the easiest job as the superglue wants to run and the veneer wants to split, but with a bit of patience I ended up with these: I'm going to use the light one with the veneer edge - I think that will look the best when fitted.

Loads of types... from 20-30s swing bands through Wes Montgomery and Dave Brubeck to Joe Pass, Larry Carlton, smooth jazz to souly, funky, acidy jazz... so many great artists and styles to explore.

Big fan. Used to have lots of the magazines under my bed.

Danuman you just reminded me of this. Probably the best finger style for the record bass playing I've ever heard. Apart from some of James Jamerson's playing .

It makes me very happy to read this. Well done and best of luck for the future. I fell off the cliff psychologically a few years back and am currently undergoing EMDR and on medication. Probable PTSD in my case.

I used to play various odd folk instruments in a band with other similar obscure things (bagpipes , hurdy gurdies etc) we were booked to play at a fair in Hartlepool. The week before the gig our gurdy player had to drop out for personal reasons, being a super obscure instrument there was no way of finding a dep in time so my brother was to join us on bouzouki. He got the CD on Thursday and the rest of of drove up from the south coast on Friday and stayed at his place in Bradford that night. We got wasted on his home brew and the next morning feeling somewhat jaded we set of for Hartlepool in the rain. When we arrived we were told we were playing on a flat bed truck in a nearby car park but only if the rain stopped. We waited in a pub confident that we wouldn't have to play our set that day ...with two minutes to spare the sound man came in a said "it's stopped raining, you're on!" We set up and launched into our set , we were hung over our instruments were horribly out of tune and getting worse due to cold and damp , my brother had barely heard the set let alone learned it. The audience consisted of the proverbial two men and a dog standing in a wet car park. During the first number they left. We played on for 45 minutes with only the puddles for company.

Mine is a wedding gig too. We're not a wedding band by any sense of the term. Typical story. The wedding couple were fans of the band and booked us. They never considered their guest we're not fans of us or live music. The event was held in the basement of a Church, the guests sat at card tables. Not a high end event. We were completely ignored. It was like the band was inaudible and invisible. We served no purpose being there. Nobody and I mean nobody even spoke to us. Longest 4 hours of my life. Blue

Sorry I’m not keeping up, we’re on holiday and I struggle looking at anything on my phone, I’ll have a big catch up when I’m back Grandad

It's feels good to me. It ergonomics seem to suit a higher head position than my Stingray when standing. Nice and confortable

Yes - it was based on your experience that I opted to try it the other way round

Agreed, that seems absolutely ridiculous. Presumably said Grade 8er can read, but it seems to me that having the mechanical skills and the chart knowledge without any of the underpinning basics is pretty ridiculous. Having said that, I can't read a note and my theory knowledge is non-existent, but there y'go... Still, it could have been so much worse than Ed Sheeran. "What do you want to learn, who's your favourite artist?" "Errm, I'd like to do some Kanye West stuff..." *awaits wave of "god you're so old" derision*

Even if you don't like his music, (card carrying Led Zep fan here), you've got to admire someone who can entertain a whole stadium of people by himself playing just a travel guitar.

I like that. I am not a fan of chrome plate. When it fails it looks shoddy and raises sharp edges in some cases. If I see it used on plastic parts, they get replaced in short order. I'm assuming it isn't a pain in the 'arris to keep in "as new" condition.

Brass is a lovely metal to work with. Just make sure not to distort the sheet by using tin snips to cut your outline. I'd recommend using a similar set up to what you'd use for fretwork - the decorative sort. It saws and files really well as it is a self lubricating metal.

Fleabay is your friend here. Most of the control knobs I've ever bought have come either from there or from Fuzzdog.

Yup - happy with that: What with all the dashing up to Aberdeen and such, have only just ordered the trussrod so can't fit the fretboard and carve the neck yet. Still, plenty more to do in the meantime - not least the final sanding and finishing on the body, which needs to be done in any case before the neck and bridge can be fitted. As always, by the way, thanks for the great feedback

What is nice about building for yourself is that you can try new things (well, new to me) without experimenting on someone else's build. Never tried binding a headstock plate before but I reckon this works pretty well: I cut and filed the neck fairly closely so there's no chance of accidentally taking off the binding when cutting the neck headstock outline: ...and ready to glue.

Newly Discovered Band Of The Day - The Main Squeeze. Fuzzy, funky goodness 🤙

Personally I love Kirsty McColl's version of A New England!

...especially, you would think, with a 12" speaker on board? I've never much liked the tweeter sound, but in my experience they are sometimes useful in just helping you cut through enough to hear yourself. Can't comment on the Markbass stuff though, as I've never owned one!