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Or just teach your cat to sh!t in your neighbour's flower beds, like mine. Although in truth there wasn't much tuition involved. After he'd watched me demonstrate a couple of times he'd pretty much got the hang of it.

Step one: find a job you love Step two: become very, very good at it, to the point where you're successful, financially worry-free and world-famous Step three: sack it all off and live the quiet life. Sounds bloody marvelous to me. I don't know about you folks, but between Deacon, Taylor and May, I don't think that John is the crazy one here.

I saw the headline in my suggested content, saw that it was a Daily Mail article, ignored it. Hateful publication.

A picture of John in today's Daily Mail. Please leave the guy alone. I would kill for an hour with him to talk basses etc but he has no desire to delve into any aspect of his past and he deserves that privacy. Much less the fairly mocking tone of the opening lines.

Two weeks ago I was swimming in the Med, now my fingers hurt with the cold I forgot, the Lull pickup arrived while we were away so I got the pocket for that sorted, I thought I might need a slightly thicker riser under the chrome trim as the bridge is quite high but it looks like the one that came with it will be fine which saves some work. I did string the Maple one yesterday just to make sure, I was amazed how much flex there is in that neck even with the carbon rods. I was pleased with that as I was worried it might be too stiff with them but it has worked out better than I dared hope, I think the ultra thin neck will be amazing now (if you like thin necks). So I got the triplets out of the press and pulled off the masking tape, trimmed the edges quickly with a sander. I've brought them in the house overnight as it is getting too cold for them out there (poor things! Some pictures to try and show the final contouring of the backs Excuse the toaster!

As with @eude 's project, family commitments will halt progress on this for a few days but did get to finish off the rear carve. This is how it's looking: The top will be curved broadly parallel to this shape. I'll leave the neck until later because that will change from concave to convex as it approaches the heel. I'm hoping that my 'S' grain for the two wings and differing grain patterns works once the contrasting control chamber cover is there. It's something you can't do on the neck because you can get differential movement of the wood but, structurally, the wings will be fine. We'll see if I'm right or not about the visuals once the whole thing is finished

A chance photo of John Deacon used to trawl back over already known info, it’s pretty poor journalism...and I use that word loosely. I’ve got a lot of respect for John Deacon, he’s done the right thing IMO when it comes to Queen. Queen was the four of them, it doesn’t work without either of them. Taylor and May should have had some self respect, and respect for the band’s name, and known when to stop with Queen. The current incarnation is awful. And Roger Taylor needs a dictionary, sociopath? He sounds like he holds a grudge tbh that John won’t join in killing the band

Got a pic of some Australian lacewood. It's my vintage Overwater Deluxe ll. It's the outside wings

Not that many Basschatter's move any of their instruments on that often 🙄, but on the rare occasion a new For Sale thread appears, the question of weight rears it's ugly head with alarming regularity. I have just purchased this for £7.59 through Amazon (along with at least £12.41 worth of other assorted ephemera in order to qualify for free shipping ) and it is rather spiffing - and accurate. It does ounces, grams, pounds and kilos and has a nice soft noose for hanging a bass from the headstock. Just thought I would share. Here is the product link.

Let's not forget the Daily Mail running paedophiliac 'look at her all grown up' articles too. I can't see how that is anything like acceptable? Shitrag is too kind.

I don’t think there’s any issue, any post about a given product will always draw comparisons with other products, very very normal. Si

I completely agree with the comments above - I've only bought 3 out of the 6 or 7 Ricks I've owned brand new and 2 of them had finish issues. Personally I think that the main reason is that the finish they use takes a while to dry properly and given the backlog of orders that RIC have for these, they just can't keep them long enough for it to set properly before sending them out and so issues are going to arise. Well, the good news is that I did get a replacement which was perfect. I also swapped the surround with the thumb rest for one without and much prefer it. The pickup on this one isn't as wonky and, again, the setup out of the case was perfect. I did have to open up the nut a little on the D string to accommodate the D'addario EXL165s (original string being a 55 and this one was a 65) but I was careful and used an old string to gently rub the nut enough (ooer missus) to open the slot so that the string sat in the channel properly. I will be gigging this for the first time tonight at a corporate gig in Edinburgh and it will also be the first gig for my Behringer BDI21. I'll try to get some pics tonight at the gig

Agreed. I'd struggle to play most of my favourite basslines on that thing.

Thanks Paul, didn`t think of on-line, doh. Just read it and far from a character assassination I think it portrays him as a fairly ordinary, genuine man, who was in one of the best/biggest bands in the world, and a man who was devastated by the death of a mate. Also seems pretty grounded and down to earth, which must have been rather hard to keep a grip of, being in Queen, the most flamboyant, over the top band ever.

Typical no news article, the quotes probably aren’t even true. Can’t blame him wanting nothing to do with Queen these days. Their forays with new singers and now this terrible film. Wrote some iconic bass lines, made huge money, happy family, golf everyday, no TV work or touring to worry about. He’s living the dream.

Absolutely. As for the DM just don’t buy it, truly dreadful newspaper.

I have something similar. My main issue with the bathroom scales method was the constant reminders of how much I weigh.

No. No, you wouldn't. And do you know why? Because thanks to the unelected faceless bureaucratic dictatorial unelected quasi-fascist bullying faceless unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, you can't buy a GALLON of petrol. You can only buy it in euros now. And even if you could, the unelected faceless bureaucratic dictatorial unelected quasi-fascist bullying faceless unelected Health & Safety bureaucrats won't let us burn ourselves even if we want to. The sooner we are free of the EU's unelected faceless eurocratic dictatorial (cont'd p.94 of tomorrow's Daily Express, and every other day in fact)

Rock hopping a little bit on this. Carbon rods and truss rod are on order and I've got a few days of family commitment coming up (I know.... ) so thought I'd just start a fill in job - working out the best way to carve the body. Although I have one of these: ...I'm not letting that anywhere near the body. Too possible to wreck it! But the katalox is tough stuff and the ash is, well, ash. I tried a concave spokeshave, scrapers, micro-planes, Shinto rasp and sanding. And concluded that it needed all of those! Full curve not yet achieved but I think that combination is probably the way based on how it's going so far: So no more progress likely until well into next week but then I have a fairly clear stretch

Further from the seller (after pointing him in the direction of this thread): Hi, Thanks for that. Not sure I'm any the wiser but to be on the safe side I've ended the listing, and the SQ series Squier neck listing as well. As I say, I'm more interested in clearing out my studio than making a few hundred quid if it means destroying my feedback score! Best regards, Rog All part of the service, Rog...TBH though I question his sincerity in his "Thanks" and "Best Regards".

My bro and I were discussing Queen this week and how John Deacon (who was apparently born a couple of streets away from where I live) has completely retired from the public eye, probably quite content to enjoy his old age with zillions of pounds and relative anonymity. Fair play to him. He's done his bit. I won't be visiting the Daily Mail website tho. As the awesome joke goes: "I used a copy of the Daily Mail to kill a fly yesterday. I read the first three pages out loud and it shot itself."

If I ever happened to read the Daily Mail - even if by accident and only for a few seconds - I'd be so ashamed I'd literally have to apologise in writing to everyone I know. Then I'd go into town and buy a box of matches and a gallon of petrol and set myself on fire. The Daily Mail supported Hitler, you know.

From the seller: Could you tell me what problem you've identified with the bass? Obviously I'd like to get as much as possible for it but with a score of nearly 600 at 100% I don't want to risk anything. My main objective is to clear the 40-odd items in my studio now that I don't play anymore. I don't have the skills or the equipment to put a guitar or bass together but I could dismantle one, and I can get to my start price by selling the parts separately, which I would be committing myself to doing once I take it apart. Before I go down that route I'd like to know what I'm looking for! Best regards, Rog

My ex used to read it avidly - one of the (many) reasons she's 'ex' ................. 😎

He plays in those old lead diving boots.

Last night's gig. Hmmm, going to sub title this post as "How to make an emergency snare drum" First two things you need are an idiot french drummer who's left his on the kitchen table and then driven 120 kms to a gig thus, removing the possibility of going back for it. Secondly, you need British resolve. Next, remove his 14" tom whilst he's sitting outside telling everyone we can't play tonight and tighten to nearly breaking point. Look in boot of your car for anything handy. Somehow find a bathroom plug on 2ft of chain. Secure on edge of floating drum rim, drape across top head and fix with Gaffa tape on other side. Voila, one not too clever sounding but very funky gig-able makeshift snare. We were still playing at 2.30 this morning. Went down a treat. We'll see what he forgets at tonight's gig😂

I blame that picture of Blue holding that lovely, red Gibson... I picked up a slightly tatty, but generally intact semi-acoustic bass - an Eros Mark II - with a view to replacing pretty much everything except the body and neck. "All the hardware will terrible and made of either tin or cheese and the intonation will be so bad, it'll be unplayable beyond the second fret", thought I. Well, that's not the case. Once I'd scraped off the filth and given it a very quick set up, it seemed to play quite nicely. Pots were very scratchy and it had the weirdest fret buzz I had ever heard - a sort of fretless "mwah" noise, but just on three frets of the "D" string. A turn of the bridge height screw and bobs-yer-proverbial. A quick squirt of switch cleaner, followed by the dreary task of putting the thing back together (seriously... trying to put the pots back into a semi-acoustic is like trying to perform gynaecology through a letterbox) and it sounds way better than it has a right to. The action is medium low, there's no mains hum and the tone controls actually make a difference to the sound. Who'd have thought it? It took quite a bit of cleaning and there were some nasty, but shallow scratches to deal with. Out came the rubbing compound and some elbow grease and it looks the business. Well, I think so. Has anyone else had any experience with one of these? I've seen a few Eros basses, but they always seem to be generic Fender copies. The only info I could find online, was from a 1975 Rosetti catalogue, where I found out they were a bargain at £65.

1 of 100 is worth £40,000? my custom shop is 1 of 1. must be worth £4m then. excellent.

The online version is a mixture of stories from the print version, liberally interspersed with clickbait, much of it lifted directly from other websites such as Reddit or Bored Panda and even other online newspapers. The John Deacon article is classic 'clickbait', there's nothing new or newsworthy in the article, it's just a headline designed to attract traffic to the site from people searching online for info on the new Queen film.

Likewise. I completely forgot to try out the Roscoe Beck V, despite saying I would earlier in the day (possibly sensory overload, but more likely a senior moment). I had a watch of the videos and I think they convey a pretty accurate aural account of what we heard in the hall (don't you just hate it when you hear your own voice?). Top work Silvia (as always), thank you for making the effort to take the pics and record the videos.

I don't really understand why someone would want that.

Not read it, and won`t. Nothing to do with the hysterical hate the mail ethos, it`s just that I don`t buy the paper, and no-one at work today has a copy either. I`m pretty much in agreement that JD from the tv show last night seemed the most grounded, and from what I understand his reasons for slipping away from the public eye seem to be pretty sensible to me.

I've anyways thought of the Holy Trinity of bass as being Fender Precision, Fender Jazz and Musicman Stingray (Honorable mention to Saint Gibson of Thunderbird). Today's new arrival has completed what I'm now thinking of as my UNholy Trinity. Unholy? Well firstly - as you might notice - they're all five strings. Secondly because the Precision is a (much modified) Squier rather than an actual Fender, the Jazz is a real (albeit Chinese made) Fender but has coil tappable Humbuckers rather than the traditional single coils and now the newest addition is a Sterling by Musicman Ray CA25. Anyway, not had much time with it yet other than to give it a good set-up with a nice low action and to temporarily stick a bit of black adhesive vinyl over the (in my opinion) cheap looking white scratchplate but so far it's looking good. Sounds like a Stingray. Plays nicely. Looks pretty good to me. Now looking forward to giving it a run out at Saturday night's gig. Also, any help choosing between these three scratchplate materials I've narrowed it down to to permanently replace the white plate with would be appreciated. 🙂

Went to gear4music this morning to try this head out & I just can't get over how awesome it really is. It must be impossible to make it sound bad,it is the best head I have ever used & the two distortions are fantastic too. I had to sell my ctm100 due to having arthritis in my knees & was worried I would miss the "heft" but I am happy to report that this is one "heafty" mofo 😁 Just need to move my 4x10 & get a pair of 1x12's now.

I meant well done for picking it, it's a beautiful song.

Speakers don't deliver watts, and Hoffman's Iron Law is immutable. That doesn't necessarily mean it's not a decent enough piece of kit, but I'd have to see some real data before making any assumptions about how well it compares to the competition.

Remember: One active component in the chain and you are lo-Z = no more passive. Passive system with two mics just has its drawbacks or sounds, depending on one's attitude. There have been trials to modify the instrument's active output to hi-Z with transformers and whatever but let's say that the results vary. Of course, there is a possibility to build step attenuators that work as mentioned. I have used rotary ELMA switches and metal film resistors. The maths is pretty easy to handle - you can make 3 or 6 dB steps or what ever else you want. Then it is just soldering.

Ah damn, hoped I could sneak it in cos Les Claypool seemed to be well known round these parts

Great photos - I had a great day out, but I also missed a heck of a lot!

The PH212 really is an excellent cab! It has a punch, clarity and warmth to rival / surpass some of the "best-in-class" rivals. E.g. my PH212 stands up very well against both my VK 210 LNT and my BF SC. Thank you for reminding me about ohm rating, though - I got in touch with the retailer a while back and they confirmed with Mesa that mine was the 4 ohm version (i.e. 2 x 8 ohm speakers in parallel), which allows the full 600W through from my Mesa M6 head - I guess that makes very good sense in a standalone combo housing. I need to update my ad to include that key point (and please excuse shameless plug on your thread Dave!):

BB2024 not available in white. Only BB2024X

From the OC-3 manual "RANGE This functions as a RANGE knob when the MODE knob is set to POLY. This adjusts the range in which the octave effect is applied. The effect extends into higher frequencies as the knob is turned to the right; turning the knob to the left limits the effect to lower frequencies." Yup agreed on the surface this seems pretty cool (and also not something I was aware it was capable of doing). It's interesting how it works though; it's actually the wrong way around from what I'd find useful as a bass player (and remember this was launched as a guitar pedal) i.e. I'd prefer to be able to cut off the octaver below a certain frequency where it gets muddy / glitchy on bass (say the low A string) and have it available only for the higher frequencies where filling out the sound with an octave down adds something.

I'd go for the Fender 500 too. It'll do most gigs alone and all gigs with PA. They sound lovely as well and are lightweight. A winner all round. Frank.

Welcome! I was a big fan of Man and Deke Leonard (he was best man, no pun intended, at my wedding) so Rockfield and S Wales are close to my heart...

I would like to say that of myself too - but sadly, it's not my ONLY fault Hello and Shwmae from a fellow South Walian I was in Monmouth a couple of weeks back - it still has a guitar shop!

I have plenty of PJ bases so not interested in the 2000 and 1024. Also not interested in the 1024 because of the pickups and the configuration of the P pickup. 2 of my three BB1200 are very good condition and cost me about that much. One came with the original case in very good condition. No duct tape on the handle even. The third one has some scratches here and there and cost less.

Quarter-sawn means that the wood mill has cut the tree in to planks. The quarter sawn part (or section) gives more inherent stability due to the direction the grain pattern runs in the neck. There should be less warp, cupping, twisting, etc... over years or even when temperature and humidity change. There may even be some benefit to structural integrity. However, every tree is different and even quarter dawn parts from the same tree can be different. It’s up to the timber specialist within the companies such as Fender to source the best quarter sawn bits and pieces for their best instruments. If I remember rightly Warmoth have an explanation and you can see the difference in cost of necks there