Leaderboard

One of my favourites is ..."You're The One That I Want"...from Grease.

Well, here is the latest family photo. Don't hate me for buying them all... but I think I have a problem... 😉 Top Left to Right TT4 Creme - Masterpiece TM2 Orange - HCA Panther - Bocote Top & H/Stock Bottom Left to Right UMBO Red - HCA 48 Red - HCA Grand Dark San Remo Blue 😀

Guess most of you have seen this, but it's interesting if you haven't

That’s funny - someone took the graphite thing a bit too literally! Leave it as it is - it’s a great conversation piece!

Forgive me Basschat, for I have sinned. On my way home with a matte black BB735a from Wunjo 😬 😈

Artists would often record different versions of the same song, sometimes with different arrangements, sometimes with different musicians. I'm not overly familiar with Jameson's or Kaye's history, but it's quite probable that each would have been called in for different takes/versions of the same song. As time goes by, for some songs, even for the featured artist and producer, knowing exactly whose bass part ended up on the released version would be nigh on impossible to ascertain.

My latest offering to the pedal gods...

I think the binding is going to work well. Once the fingerboard has been scraped and finished and the binding corner rounded off, it should look pretty integral and - more to the point - it should work well from a playing perspective. I think this may well become my preferred method: Next task will be to cut the pickup chambers but that will probably be at the weekend earliest

Color sample time. Gold over pick guard material scrap, both black and white. I use Didspade pigments. Very economical and available in small quantities. Satin gold pearl powder in clear acrylic lacquer. Pearl gray primer/ surfacer is the way to go.Touch up gun for samples. Matching headstock on this one.

Blah blah blah weight blah tone blah blah. Get a grip everyone. Matching black headstock trumps everything.

So the most important head is the only one you can't change? Though filling it with oil seems strangely attractive 🙂

How would it defeat the point? You have an accelerator on your car... you decide how far to push it down. I also don't need to know how much 'power' I'm putting into a cab, it is irrelevant. I turn up the volume, it complains, I turn it down... I've ran a 200 watt cab with a 2000 watt power amp and never once had a problem; because I used the gain/volume controls. Not trying to be awkward but folks are seriously wrapped up in the numbers and seem to forget that the obvious deciding factor in all of this is 'human' and you are in control. Just to throw this in the mix; my present set-up is a 750 watt amp which I use with a 2x10 cab (or two) and have done for some years, I recently trialled a 100 watt amp with the same cab(s) and I managed to continue gigging without killing any piece of equipment or ANY detriment in tone that the audience heard (no trickery with PA back-up).

Whoah! That’s a WHOPPER!! Look at how big it is compared to that house.. Is it 34 foot scale?!

Why is no one discussing that blue LED? Very subtle - less is more.

Father, forgive me for I have sinned. I didst count the strings to four and all was good. And then I didst count yet another string. Five was the number of strings and the number of the strings was five. And yea, did I allow myself to yet pluck the string and the sound was good. I turned aside from the path of righteousness and found within myself that I did yet make music that was pleasing to the Lord God of Bass with sinful lack of effort, and the music didst exceed that which I could yet play when the number of strings was but four. And Lo! The band of disciples - for always shalt the other players of strings follow the Lord God of Bass - did say that it was good and did promise to wreak a plague of locusts upon my soul should I worship at the Temple with but four strings. They spake in tongues and didst proclaim 'thou now hast a decent instrument and we do dig thy grooves, man'.

That looks great! Can you do one in roasted flamed maple?!? Mmm, roasted maple...

I stick to the Holy Scripture, as outlined below: A Reading from the Book of Bass, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20: 'First enter thou the purveyors of the Holy Bass. Then thou must count the strings to four. Four shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be four. Five shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count three, excepting that thou then proceedeth to four. Six is right out.' 🙂

The Christmas gig offer was lovely “Trav, I need a bass player for a high profile gig in Manchester - I don’t want anyone else, but I appreciate you’re on a break. Would you consider it?” Suppose it’s nice to be wanted 🤔😂

We'll you should see my new Kramer Forum IV !!! .... Purple/Pink animal print body wrap, Spector pickups, Kent Armstrong 2 band active, not sure if that’s original but sounds beefy ... Mr Leopard will be very happy \m/

I bought on of these v for a project Aria Pro II Magna: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MADE-JAPAN-High-Quality-Brass/dp/B00IC9QW1C/ref=sr_1_15?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1542014383&sr=1-15&keywords=bass+nut+brass Seems to be good quality & works a treat. Was posted from Japan & arrived fairly quickly. I'd replace the nut, add new strings & then set-up. If you've still got dead spots, maybe look at tweaking the truss-rod (if you think it needs it), adjust the bridge. If all else fails, get a quote for a luthier set-up. Good luck!

If you wear a glove to pluck, why not sew a pup into the palm - then you can learn to move up and down the neck to always be on the 'sweet spot', and subtle shifts in intensity will be possible too. Shouldn't be too difficult to master.

I had the pleasure of opening for Lindisfarne last night and what a nice bunch they were! The bass player Ian Thompson was particularly chatty and was intrigued by my bitsa tele bass. He was playing an Epiphone EB3 with a £10 chinese soap bar pickup in the bridge. We talked about the various spare parts we had that may turn into something ebay permitting and our mutual love of Entwistle pickups. They aren't a band I've paid too much attention to in the past but we stayed and enjoyed the show and popped back stage after to say goodbye. They seemed genuinely pleased that we'd stayed (despite 400 others in the audience) . I am pleased to report that they are a thoroughly nice bunch, my faith in humanity is in part restored.

New kid on the block! https://www.seattleguitarstore.com/mxr-vintage-bass-octave-pedal/

Just lovely! 😎

You can tweak settings to suit Dave, though on a normal big club type stage it isn’t noticeable on the standard setting. Mine has been foolproof even in bad rf situations.

I'm using a BH250 into a One10. Both fit neatly into a Tiger cajon bag. I chose the head for convenience with the built in tuner and spectracomp loaded. I paid £222 but they're now down to £181. Alternatives - the Elf and MB-200 seem popular and also the Peavey Minimax.

(Just for clarity, my “effectively zero” is about 0.03ms I reckon, assuming that the cable is pretty efficient and the signal is close to SOL)

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Bridge turned up today and so did the neck screws and ferrules

A witch! She turned me into a newt! I got better... 🙂

It seems that modern retail chemical paint removers are useless, especially on what I think is powder coat. A few coats softened the paint enough for me to wire wheel it back to bare metal. A rub down afterwards with wire wool and white spirit, then a few light coats of Hammerite satin spray and it’s good as new

Mini rig held its own tonight at rehearsal with 2 guitarists giving it large. impressed with the Elf

It does so much depend on both the style of music and the mix of the band. My ex-band - indie-pop - gave me a lot of scope to mix deep broody prog with bright disco-pop and all things in between - a 6 would have been perfect, but ironically I left before buying one. Now with Plastic Mojo, while we had our excellent lead guitarist, I used the low B a lot to put some depth under his high bright leads, but now that he's left (no blame, change of personal circumstances) we just have rhythm guitar (and keys) and I'm using the high C to add some detail and sparkle. If I could only have one gigging bass it would be the 6.

The best effect I use is standing there looking vaguely confident whilst desperately trying to remember what song we are playing.... 🤪

I have six guitars, one of which is a Burns Steer , (not bass), I bought it because it was quirky in style and the colour goes exactly with the room decor, just get on with it !!

Thanks Dad! I really appreciate that. The lines still need a fair bit of work - some of it feels cringey and it doesn't flow as well as I'd like - but I think the overall feeling is about there. There is some personal stuff in it - the last few years haven't been the easiest for me - but it's not relating a specific experience. I just let my imagination wander about a bit. The sound I have in my head is something like this: Tanita Tikaram - Little Sister Leaving Town and Tanita Tikaram - Preyed Upon Not an exact copy, but that sort of moody, sad and empty feeling. I think the drums are a tad too intrusive on Preyed Upon, but that's likely just me. Plenty of slides on the bass and yes, a distant sustained guitar would work well. I'll have to persuade my other half to dust off her Gibson 🙂 I think the trick will be to see what sort of bassline seems to work and build it from there. Melodies aren't my strong point though, so it might be a bit hit and miss. And 100% agreed - no bagpipes! The chap on Castlehill was squawking away when I was jotting some of that down earlier and it was really jarring.

Notwithstanding the Edinburgh locale I would - speaking only for myself - avoid the use of bagpipes to any significant degree.

Been thinking about a compact low wattage/valvey set up for home practice for a while. Two things happened over the last fortnight that turned it into a reality : Local dealer dropped the new price on the Ampeg PF20-T and then these two Ashdown cabs came up for sale 2nd hand just along the road from someone who it turns out is a friend of a friend. The cabs are RM110's but they've had Ashdown CL/AAA red grilles added which I think makes them look pretty classy. In fact it's pretty enough that I'm allowed to keep it in the dining room and don't have to relegate it to the spare room! Sounds-wise is really lovely and warm - especially with my flatwound loaded P with the tone nearly all the way off. Perfect output and volume for home practice as I can get the tone without waking the neighbourhood. I'm a happy bunny.

No need to be rude, we were just asking a question! 😂

Used my new RM500 with 210 and 115 RM cabs last night for the first time and I'm well chuffed! Finally I have the sound and portability I have been craving for with little or no compromise in tone. One happy Ashdown user! 🙂 😮 🙂

Change the nut and the strings.

After 40 years or more on four strings, I bought a couple of sixers, and after two or three months of playing only them, my fours seems very limited and he necks very narrow. I would need a week or two or re-familiarising myself before i was willing to gig a four string again.

@Bearfist FYI, this is a reverse headstock....

There isn't a bass on earth worth buying over 1500 quid. I really believe that. Music, soul, love, groove, is created by the fingers and the heart of the player. It's ace to have a lovely quality bass (or any instrument), something well made, that feels great, looks great and sounds great. But to me, you can achieve nirvana on an Ibanez, a Mexican P bass, Yamaha.... or a used Stingray, Lakland.... whatever, etc etc.... I just can't believe that in the hands of 90 percent of us, anything more than that is required. The chosen few, I guess, can afford a Fodera or similar... but honestly... why? Especially when Vinny can't come up with a better headstock.... There's WAY too much emphasis on expensive gear. Amps included. Treat yourself to a Peavey TNT 1x15 off eBay and kick some donkey..... Anyway... I expect I'll get shot down for that. Back to headstocks....

Someone on Facebook was wondering if Frippertronics could be done with the Line 6 Helix. Curious, I had a look at the delays and sure enough there are a few with 4 second delays, just right for the job. Played on my Status S2 fretless with an Ebow.

I'm deep into the neck carve at the moment. This time I'm doing it slightly different to my normal method. Only slightly differently, mind, and if you look away you;ll not notice. But, this time I have cut my facets only as far as the start of the transitions like this....(rather than trying to cut facets through the transitions, if you see what I mean). And I sanded the bulk of the neck to 90% of the finished shape before starting work on the transitions. It's worked out really well. Having the neck virtually finished meant I could 'feel' the transitions more clearly somehow. I should finish the carve tomorrow and I'll post some pictures....