Leaderboard

Emotional. You may remember I mentioned a few weeks ago that my friend and long-standing duo partner, who has been ill for some time, was taken into care the night before we were going to play our local om together for the first time in months. He has been allowed home, at least for now, and emailed me late this afternoon to say he wanted to come out and play "The Weight" tonight (one we've enjoyed playing together before) and would I join him? First time I've gigged my new Ibby 6 - a complete joy - I cut loose and used all six strings to put a bit of variation and sparkle into what can be quite a dull song, and his rhythm guitar and vocals were strong as always. Good harmonica and cajon sitting in with us too. Real synergy, strong groove. I don't think I've ever heard quite so heartfelt a roar of applause there as we got. We were mobbed afterwards by people saying how good it was. And we were - but it was mostly an expression of the love and respect that community has for him. There are many reasons why I so much value my relatively new ability to play bass, but the privilege of supporting him tonight is one I never expected. Proud and humble. The joy and healing in his face... priceless.

3" is ideal for me but it can vary according to the material it is made from. Wider is nice of if is well cushioned and soft.

So recently I`ve had 2 dead A strings in packs of Warwick Red Label Steel Roundwounds. Contacted them as although I buy in bulk and had other sets which I could nick the A from, this left me short on full sets. This was on Sunday btw. Sunday evening I received a reply stating they would send out 2 replacement packs - I would have been more than satisfied with just 2 A strings alone - which arrived today. Quality customer service imo, and the fact that my message was read and replied to late on Sunday really adds to it, a company that looks after its customers.

How could it be wrong? DO IT DO IT DO IT

Well, I checked the bass today. It's not a '69, it's a '72. The neck (including tuners, frets and neck plate) is 100% original. So are the finish (which is a lot prettier in real life), the bridge and the control plate. The pickup, pickguard and pots are replacements and they haven't been very subtle in putting them in. The soldering on the pots is sloppy, the cavity for the pickup is kinda ugly and the knobs are hídeous. Looking through that, however, it has some real potential. It plays great. The original shielding copper plates are still there. I want to buy it (depending on the price) and reinstate its beauty. Cool detail: this mr. Torres (who was an employee at Fender in the late 60's and 70's) made the neck on this bass. He also made the neck on my '71 Precision.

Its just GAS. I love the Sei, But the Shuker's look lovely. Holy Moly.

I was so expecting you to conclude with ' and there in the corner was none other than, John Deacon'.

I bought one about a week ago. A 2009 Musicman Stingray. 3 band EQ, single pickup. Candy red, rosewood fretboard I've only really had Fenders before, so I can only describe it relative to those... Build quality is great. Components seem excellent quality, and the fit and finish is great. If you've played fenders before, you'll find the neck is very much like a Precision. It's quite heavy, but not too heavy. Nice and solid. Sounds nice acoustically. The G string was a bit quieter than the others. I'm convinced it's because the pickup polepiece doesn't line up properly with the G string. This is apparently a common issue with Stingrays. I fixed it by raising the pickup at the treble side, and managed to get the string volumes balanced enough to where it isn't an issue. You'd think in an otherwise very well designed bass they would have fixed this years ago. But no. Apparently the new ones DO have the polepieces in the right place... but 2 grand's a lot to pay imo for that My takeaway from the G string polepiece issue is that it's pretty sensitive to how you have your pickup height set - so be aware of that Re the sound and having a single pickup. The most noticable thing is that the kinds of warm, vocal mids you might get from a precision are totally absent. And the second thing is that the low end is deep and tight. I heard the preamp has a high pass filter, and it sounds like it. There's loads of thick, punchy bass, but it somehow has a tightness to it. As if it rolls off quickly below 40hz. My main bass is/was a precision, and I use an SVT. So my go-to sound is that classic grindy rock tone (with a plectrum) with the SVT deep switch in, and a bit of mid scoop. Loads of low end, but it's more of a fat and woolly low end, and those precisiony, expressive mids. You can't get anything close to that with the Stingray. With a plectrum, you get LOADS of zingy top end, and that tight bass, with no real Fendery mids no matter what you do. It's very scooped, even when you goose the mids on the EQ For a punk or rock gig I would leave the Stingray at home and take the Precision, unless it was something modern like RATM or RHCP etc For a pop/funk/disco type gigs, the Stingray would be perfect. It seems to have been primarily intended for fingerstyle players. The frequencies that the pickup and preamp accentuate are ideal for a nice tight, modern fingerstyle sound. Lovely for fingerstyle The 3 band EQ is interesting. I tend to leave everything centered. Sounds best to me that way. The treble and bass tend to either let you take far too much off, or add far too much on. The middle isn't really a traditional mid frequency knob like on a fender amp, it's more like a knob that lets you make the sound go from fairly scooped to very scooped... whatever you do, there isn't much mids I heard someone say (and I agree) that a fender jazz (both pickups on) is more scooped than a precision, with deeper lows and higher mids. And that the Stingray is even more scooped - deeper lows and has even higher frequency mids. I think that's a good way of putting it. If there's a path from P to J, then the Stingray is the next step along I think no matter what you do it'll sound like a Stingray. But I think it has enough to make it a fantastic bass in the right context. It's certainly not a swiss army knife, and almost certainly the wrong bass for certain things I really do like mine. Got it off eBay for £900, and I'm glad I got it. Not sure I'd buy a new one for the prices they're asking now

Hi there.. I recently joined a band as a Bass guitarist, my first time in such a role as I'm a six-stringer ordinarily. The band have been extremely helpful in supporting my transition and to be honest without that it would probably still something that remained a "nice-to-do" but never actually happen. They have provided access to all equipment thus far, including instrument and amp; a DeArmond Pilot DLX and an Ampeg SVT valve stack. I thought it best to show willing and get myself an instrument, so I bought myself an Ibanez SR300EB in weathered black.. love it.. slightly shorter scale that the DeArmond and has some great tonal variety. I expect to buy myself an amp in due course. This place was recommended to me by a good friend @Bridgehouse It's a mine of information already..

My methdodology for the neck was roughly the same as the body. Here's a completely rubbish photo: Necks are really hard to photo, but the tru oil finish came out really really nicely. It has a great clarity to the finish and gives enough colour to really warm it up with a nice amber tone, but without going over the top. I hate those necks that look like they've been covered in fake tan. The finish is very very smooth but with none of the 'squeakyness' that you get with gloss finishes which I hate. I think this may well now be my go-to neck finish. It's really hard to fault. The process was as follows: 1. Sand to 400. 2. Two seal coats, 24 hours apart, wiped on with cotton rag. 3. Slurry sanding using either wet/dry paper or Abralon pads (I had a mixture of grits), sanding with the grain. Wiping off really carefully with kitchen paper. Grits were 400, 600, 800 & 1000, 24 hrs apart. The last couple of grits you have to be really careful to wipe off the excess pretty quickly (no more than a few minutes max) and make sure you get all of it off, or you'll get ridges that are impossbile to sand away with the higher grits. And that was it. Because maple is closed grain wood, the whole process is much much quicker than the body as no grain fill was necessary. For my logo I waited 7 days for the Tru Oil to be really dry then I applied a water-slide decal - I get mine from Rothko & Frost, they are really expensive but worth it. The paper they use is very thin and can be buried in many fewer coats than previously when I've used decals I've printed myself on paper bought off t'internet. Once the logo was on, I waited overnight for it to dry then sprayed 4 coats of General Finishes High Performance top coat, which is a water based polyurethane. GFHP works really well being sprayed over Tru Oil (in the past I've finished entire necks in this way). I think I did them all in one day, then the next day I lightly dry- sanded with 1000 and then 1500 Abralon. I taped off round the face of the headstock, so the join (ie where the polyurethane started) was right on the roundover. Because GFHP is crystal clear, it's really hard to tell that the face of the headstock isn't finished in exactly the same way as the rest of the neck. Again, this is now my standard finishing procedure for headstocks & logos. As you can see, the finish is consistent with the rest of the neck, and no lines at all round the edge of the logo: Finally, a quick word about the fretboard, which was a lovely piece of pau ferro: I've started doing all of my fretboard finishing before fretting. Trying to do anything once the frets are in is really really hard, almost impossible to get a consistent finish. So for this one I sanded to 1000 before fretting, then applied 3 coats of Liberon Finishing Oil, just wiping on with a rag, once per day. I used this rather than Tru Oil mostly because it's a lot thinner, which allows it to sink down really easily into the quite open grain. It's a lovely combination of browns, reds and oranges that is brought to life by an oil finish. And that's it. A Tru Oil guitar, apart from the fretboard done with Liberon Finishing Oil, and a polyurethan clear top coat to hide the logo. Job done.

This was a birthday gift to myself 3 years ago 😀

Da daaaa! the inlays are only bloody in!! little bit of super glue and wenge dust to start with... ] followed by a fairly intense sanding session... and heres the reults! theyre not perfect i know, but in the end im sure they'll be a nice flourish. im happy so thats the main thing! im not totally sure whether or not to darken the ziricote with some oil to help them stand out... what do you guys think? in the meantime... the headstock has had the wings glued and cut, and i got a nice cocobolo headstock piece cut as well: And, i also managed to get the tops off the pickups, and cut out some nice bookmatch pieces of cocobolo for the covers to match the top! its all coming along fairly nicely at this point next step will be to trim those down and sand them, then later in the week ill be working on the body again... hopefully removing some of the weight.

Excited doesn't really cover it mate!

Those of you who follow my builds know that I give the wood a coat of slurried tru-oil quite early in the process. This because it needs a 'soak in' coat anyway and I find it easier to spot if there are any lumps and bumps in the carve or sanding scratches. These shots were taken in rapidly losing light but probably give a reasonable representation of what the final colour tones and overall look will be:

Here are my lovelies 👌

The new stingrays that were recently released look great. Lighter, roasted necks, more musical preamp and even better hardware. I'd be really tempted to look at those first.

IMO a Hackintosh completely defeats the object of having a Mac in the first place. One of the reasons why Macs tend to "just work" is that the OS only has to support a minuscule set of hardware options compared with what Windows or Linux have to contend with. The moment you try and force Mac OS to run on something other than Apple hardware you start getting all the sorts of problems and incompatibilities that other OS users have to contend with - and more because none of it is officially supported by Apple so you are very much on your own when it comes to voting out exactly why your chosen set of components won't work. The Hacktintosh is fine is a proof of concept and for people who really want to just geek about with computers, but for those of us who have chosen the Mac platform because it lets us get on with our work they are IMO a complete waste of time.

I wasn't gonna get into that - as I didn't want to get too salesy and annoy anybody (and by extension the mods). But since you ask :

I guess you probably would... lol.. but I'll use this as my supporting argument at this time 🙂

One thing overlooked here is; what type of music does the drummer listen to outside the band. I played with a rock drummer in a function band. It was a constant battle. He wanted his drum kit to sound a certain way that really didn’t fit with the band. Trying to explain to him that he was a member of the band accompanying the vocals, not the centre of attention for everyone in the audience was impossible. Trying to explain that we couldn’t make his bass drum sound how he wanted because a PA amplifies what you put in and SISO applies, was impossible. Riding in his car was a painful experience as his music was constantly at 11 with all the bass turned up to 11 creating an unlistenable sludge. I sat in a mixing session with him and after an hour the mix was unrecognisable as us and sounded awful. Luckily we ran out of time and left the engineer to sort the mix in his own and he undid all the mess after we had gone. I genuinely think drummers hear things differently to the rest of us. Might be worth finding out what sound he is trying to get and then having the discussion as to whether that sound is possible and if it is how to achieve it or maybe for the drummer to have a rethink about his sound or his position in the band.

if you invent your own smiles or try other codes that's not already being used here - so then you still can use text ones, like these - one of my fav ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

So much vitality, creativity, positive energy, and genuine human feeling is in it. In a world of types, stereotypes and marketing, jazz offers us the possibility of transcendence. Jazz is not a limited or limiting music, it is not the "property" of any era or group or place, but it is something that reaches each of us in our own way.

That’s beautiful - probably my ideal Ray! It’s a shame the new Specials all have such dark necks/boards as I feel the roasted maple clashes with some of the body colours on offer. @Bob Lord, thanks for your write-up above. I found it a really useful read!

Okay, it's a five string but been using this for a few months now and before a USA SUB5 so have the choice of 2 band or 3 band EQ. This one really does everything I need in the band. We cover everything from Edith Piaf to the Ramones, Queen, AC/DC, Chic and beyond to fairly modern stuff like Cake by the ocean and Feel it still. Fab tonal palette, comfortable, good balance and great string spacing. This one had a preamp change which also gives me the passive option. Only downside, I wish it were the classic shape body hence I also have the old USA SUB5. Go for it.

Finally I manage to update this thread. Albeit I'm going to cut it into a few different posts. I'll cover the body first, then the neck in another post. I took the guitar home and took a couple of photos in natural light coming in through the window. By some bizarre, never-to-be-repeated, quirk of fate, Nottingham wasn't grey and overcast. This is what the Tru Oil finish looks like in natural light, really nice colour and chatoyance: I would describe the finish as being a high satin, or very low gloss. I'm sure it could be polished to a much higher gloss, but it's not the look I was after. It's 90% grain filled, meaning it feels incredibly smooth and shiny, but has a tiny bit of texture to it. It's lush! I could have gone for a complete grain fill...but again, not the look I was after. There's definitely a time and a place for a dipped-in-glass type high-gloss finish (Mmmm....sadowsky), but not when I was asked to create a Bruce Springsteen inspired guitar. Anyway, here's the lustre: Here's my finishing schedule. 1. Sand to 400, 600 on the end grain. Obviously, sanding is critical. All scratches have to be gone otherwise they get amplified by the oil. The end grain is always difficult, especially on baseball-bat ash (which this was). Wetting the body with a sponge helps identify scratches (and raises the grain prior to finishing) as does going outside into natural light where the scratches are easier to see. 2. Seal the wood. I applied two coats of Tru Oil using a cotton rag. There's no science to this bit. Squirt some oil on the rag or the guitar then rub it in. I wiped off any excess after 5 minutes. I did this twice, 24 hours apart. 3. Grain fill using the slurry method. Using wet/dry paper on the back of a sanding block (a bit of scrap MDF) I sanded with the grain using Tru Oil as the lubricant. I know other people sand in circles (including the chap who made the video above, and his results look great) but that just makes me nervous - I don't ever like sanding other than with the grain. The idea is that the sanding dust/slurry gets trapped in the grain. I found that sanding with the grain, then using my finger to 'swirl' the slurry around worked well, and there was no danger of visible sanding scratches (which is the danger when using a circular motion). I found the best way was to divide the body up into sections and move from one section to the next (the top for example I would divide into 4), rather than trying to do the whole thing in one go. You then want to wipe across the grain to get rid of the excess. You do want to make sure you wipe off all the excess, otherwise you find that you end up with ridges or streaks, which can then be hard to sand away when you move up to the finer grits. If you are anythnig like me you'll find it a pretty messy business - always dripping down the sides, or onto the top you've just wiped, and onto your work surface which then get's smudged onto you newly wiped guitar top etc etc. None of which is a problem, just wipe. I wiped off with standard kitchen paper. Keep lots and lots to hand. I repeated this process twice, both times using 400 wet/dry and seperated by 24 hrs. I found that his filled the grain to a bout 90%, which was the look I was after. A third time would probably have been enough to get the grain completely filled, if you were wanting a completely smooth surface on which to build a high gloss finish. I found the slurry was very happy to stay in the grain, wiping with the kitchen paper took the oil off the surface but leaving the grain nicely filled. 3. Smoothing. I find it usefull to seperate in my head the process of grain fill, and sanding smooth. The process is much the same as above - using wet/dry paper on a sanding block, sanding with the grain then throroughly wiping off the excess. I did the following grits: 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000. It was really at 1500 where there was a sudden change in lustre, from what I would call satin to a low gloss. The great thing about tru oil is that you really just keep going until either your arms fall off, or you've got the appearance you want. It is quite a physical process - from 800 and above I would vigorously rub off the excess oil (again, in the direction of the grain), pressing hard to generate a tiny bit of heat. I did only one grit per day, but I'm told doing 2 per day is no problem. Another thing I tried was using Mirka Abralon sanding pads rather than wet/dry paper. It worked really well, and was definitely less messy as the oil gets absorved into the foam of the pad. It did, though, use a lot more oil. I'm not sure the effect was any different though, both worked just as well. I left it at that, ie my last coast was sanded with 2000 grit. For a higher gloss (without buffing) I understand you can just apply a very thin coat with a cotton rag as your final coat. I didin't as I liked the finish as it was. 4. Waiting.......I wait at least a week before putting the guitar together. I think Tru Oil takes that long to harden sufficiently. Overall, I'm very happy with how it turned out. Using Tru Oil on ash is not an easy option. Then again, ash is never an easy option whatever the finish you're using, the grain is just so open. But if you don't want to spray then it's a finish you can apply on the kitchen table. Just make sure that you have wiped away every trace of oil at the end of each session or you'll have to go back down the grits to get out the ridges. I'll go through the process for the neck tomorrow. Cheers all. And thanks very much to @Andyjr1515 for his help and advice re Tru Oil (amongst many other things!)

RRP of £1169 😶 Si

These types of ads seem to be prevalent in all sectors now. There are similar sites advertising £3k bikes for hundreds of pounds. They all "take" paypal. I get a feeling that the real scam is the harvesting of your PayPal details via a phishing site that looks like PayPal.

Jon is an incredible Luthier. He has an attention to detail that is revered amongst his peers. His basses are beautiful and you aren’t alone with the dribbling that’s for sure. The Bass Players United page went in to overdrive when one of Jon’s Fretless Uberhorn basses was posted. Thousands upon thousands of likes and every single comment a positive one. Crazy! Anyway, from experience of lots of Jon’s basses, I’m afraid I have to tell you that you need to follow your heart, otherwise you’ll always wonder if....if.... Shuker is my bass brand of choice.

I respect the spirit of this position but I have a caveat to it. Jazz is whatever you want it to be unless it is something else. The problem I have with the idea that 'anything goes' is that this is OK to a point but, put simply, some things are not Jazz not because they 'don' t swing' or some other genre specific details or whatever. They are not Jazz because they are Funk or Torch Songs or Blues or Pop. Rod Stewart doesn't become a Jazz singer just because he puts on a beret.

Ooh lots of yummy wood. Lovely minimalist approach, and a real respect for the materials. I will watch this with interest. But not the headstock...

Problem solved (I think). Only had to go as far as the speakon connectors: one of the yellow clips was lose: two minutes of gentle crimping with some pliers and it all seems to be functioning correctly again.

Good bass playing impresses me. I really don't care whether it's achieved with fingers, picks, toes, elbows or by throwing rocks at the bass, if it sounds right for the piece of music, that's all that matters. I played finger stye only for 40 years, but had to change to a pick a couple of years ago following an accident which badly damaged my right hand. For the first year I struggled with the damn bit of plastic between my fingers, but now I can't really tell the difference between what I play now and what I used to play if I hear a recording of myself.

There is a very simple mod that involves unsold eering one side of one resistor on the - 2 circuit that adds 3db to the output. @dodge_bass can tell you more than I can

That jazz does nothing for me but thankfully you're not me 😃 Buy it. We get one chance at this life so enjoy it 👍

Love this. I like the the music you're making these days Kevin. Developing nicely.

I tru oiled a P bass neck a few months back and now gig with it most weeks. I think I probably used a few more coats than you and then rubbed back with micromesh. After that, for a few evenings, I sat with the bass on my lap whilst watching t.v. and using an old t shirt, just gently buffed the finish. No vigorous, breaking in to a sweat buffing, just gently gently. It feels quite lovely now

Yes. The Boogie eq has always been a sensitive beast and the controls all interact too. Back in 1988, when I got my Bass 400, I actually stopped using it for a short while because I couldn't figure it out. After a while I decided to persevere and it paid off. It does take a while to get to grips with the way it all works but it soon becomes automatic - and very worthwhile. Whenever I read a thread where people say it didn't sound right I remember how long it took me to get to grips with it. I have always maintained (and still do) that any Boogie amp is capable of producing exactly the sound you want. Whether or not you can find it is down to you!!

I had a J-Retro Deluxe on a Modern Player Jazz which worked well (and later had one on a Dingwalls Super J, but that now has a Sadowsky pre instead).

Hackintosh need maintenance, and it can have issue after an update. I suggest it ONLY if someone want make music with Logic; build a machine, intall OS X, make all work and not update it. Anyway Reddit have pages of information. For daily/standard use Windows and Linux work great. Some Linux distro, with an SSD, are fast, easy and secure (and cheaper).

If this is true (and I haven't seen the film) it's a bit naughty.

I'm still gutted that I had to miss the recent SEBB but I have to say, for sheer value and personal enjoyment, I would rather attend a bass bash than that there LBGS!

Agree completely with this - recently bought an Ibanez six that someone had put an East pre-amp into in place of the original. Used the bass at a Dudes gig on Saturday, MarkBass amp which I set to neutral, and adjusted the bass's tone using the pre-amp alone, and by far the most important and powerful control is that sweepable mid range. I think I had the blend slightly favouring the bridge pick up and the bass control to give slight cut, then dialled in the sound I wanted with the mid. I've been listening to a recording of the gig this morning, and the sound out front is just what I had hoped for.

You might recognise my latest Rickenfaker...

I like the picture on the wall

Looking around... The 1966 EB2 with my son in Nashville doesn't count. The cheap Encore P in my office doesn't count. The Jazz+V and Warwick Thumb 6 on sale for commission in my local guitar shop don't count. The GMR single cut 5 in my BL's house doesn't count. That leaves six - GMR 5 - my first and still true love and main squeeze GMR fretless 4 - with flat-wounds, can sound almost like a sitar when I want it to Fender Jazz Aerodyne 2002 - gorgeous, I gig this to watch peoples' eyes come out on stalks, as well as how good it sounds Ibanez 1406 - in serious danger of becoming my main squeeze Martin Kelly acoustic Club 5 - the wood grain is a work of art and sound is wonderful Martin Kelly acoustic Dragonfly fretless 5 - as above and silver-shimmers with flats All of these have been gigged except for the Ibby which will be at our next gig 🙂 Happy cat 🙂

Anyway, back on subject, sometimes mic'ing up the percussion can get a little ... strange.