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I have just complete a tremendous experience, ordered a bass for my 50th and it arrived early thanks to Alan. From start to finish Alan has been great. The bass on the other hand is fantastic. Full specs here: https://www.acguitars.co.uk/project/0328urecurve5/

Call me crazy, but I just met a chap in Buxton and did an eBay trade deal. Traded my PDN Musicman Starry Night Stingray for a Euro 5 LX. Couldn’t be happier!!!!

... but almost as good - I've just re-strung my Jazz Aerodyne BEAD. I'll have to play the strings in a bit, of course, but first impressions are excellent. The strings (basic D'Addario medium gauge rounds that I've been carrying around as spares) fit the bridge and nut nicely, the tension and action were fine without any tweaking, and the B string (which is supposed to be E) is better than the one on my Jazz V (which is supposed to be B). This is going to force me to use the B string in my main basslines rather than just for throwing in passing notes under them. I do tend to drift towards the higher end of the range, although I know that means my sound can get a bit lost in the mix - this should keep me away from that. It also gives me a new sound - and a new toy! - for a lot less trouble and money than buying a new bass! 🙂 Happy cat.

A completely unplanned ambush which left me with a fit of the giggles and slightly spoiled the rock'n'roll sneer that this song needs.

Plan is, try and remain cost neutral. If I want something, then I need to sell something to raise the funds. Thats 2019, still got a week of 2018 to shop in first and I’m going out in style. 😂

Merry Xmas Basschatters! Thought I'd share a quick arrangement of "Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi Trio, taken from the incredible "A Charlie Brown Christmas" album. Always loved Guaraldi's contrast of sweet melodies against unusual harmonies so thought I'd have a go at transcribing a piece finally! Have a great Xmas when it comes, all!

I thought I was going to be able to contain myself about this build, but the more pictures Chris sends me the more excited I am getting I can’t wait to get my hands on this thing! I cant recommend Alpher highly enough, anyone looking for a world class instrument should really give them a shout!

Otoh I stepped up at the jam at Carlisle Blues Festival last year and found myself playing with Matt Long from Catfish - possibly the best young blues/rock guitar player in the UK atm - and Connie Lush and Kaz Hawkins, definitely two of the best female singers (both in the loud unsubtle mould - hurricanes if you get anywhere near them on stage). Utterly intimidating (I've told the story in full on another thread) but Matt supported me brilliantly and I got through ok (on the cr@ppy recording on my phone I sound better than I thought I was at the time). Playing with better (in this case off-the-planet better) musicians is imho the best way to raise your game, if you get the chance. And that is now one of my all-time most cherished memories and motivations. If the chance comes again I'll be able to play better. Promise to myself.

I used to go to open nights when I lived in Chelmsford in the late 90's. I had some fun nights there, getting up to play on a few numbers. Then one night, Guthrie Govan turned up and joined in. I hid in the bog for half an hour until he went away.

It just has very serious look that says “I am capable of knocking down buildings”.

He was in Curved Air for a bit so he's alright by me.

And (if my Russian is at all reliable, which it may not be, because I studied it for only six months in 1969) the bass guitar was built in the Sverdlovsk factory of the Ural Musical Instrument company.

Damn! I just knew that I'd paid over the odds for this ...

Haha! Maybe, because "Santa Baby" got the best reception and the most people up dancing!

Black Lace. They just started taking themselves too seriously after Agadoo.

It's that orange that I thought they must have used Tango to stain it, I was thinking of leaving it near the window so the sun gets on it and it might lighten up a bit but then I realised I lived in Wales so not much sun so the UV lamp idea sounds like a good idea 😀

It's an illness, it sneaks up on you when you're not looking and causes you to make irrational decisions. It doesn't discriminate, it cares not of wealth, colour, sex, race or age. Be careful folks, it hides around every corner and pounces when your guard is down. I was totally happy with all my gear, even started working out what to sell in order to downsize to what I really need, and this time I really am going to sell stuff. Then in a 24 hour period I'd seen, pondered and spent the most I've ever spent on a bass, without even holding it. As I said be careful out there folks, beware of the classifieds, FB selling pages, instrument shops, even mates of mates who 'have this bass for sale', it's too late for me but if this cautionary tale helps just one person then it's been worth it. Stay wary! 😁

They have the suffix "M" if they have the magnetic pickups, so that would be (but isn't) a CR5M.

Wharfdale is far from an obscure brand. Although granted they're not really known for producing guitar and bass amps. But having looked into these a bit more it would appear they they are actually Albion amps / cabs probably rebadged or built under licence by Wharfdale. The guy who actually designed them, Steve Grindrod (I think that must be his stripper name) is an absolute legend in amp building terms, having designed and build pretty much everything that came out of the Marshall factory for 20 years from 1980 then everything from the Vox relaunch including all their Valvetronic range, before going it alone with Albion. So forget the name badge, those cabs come with a surprising amount of pedigree. Here's an interesting article about Steve. He's had quite an illustrious career. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.guitarplayer.com/.amp/gear/meet-your-maker-amp-designer-steve-grindrod

Thought I might as well update this here. We did one rehearsal (without the singer) and it went quite well. Got a decent sound. Vibraslap on the go and everything. Currently half time at the gig and it's going ok so far. We've still got a totally unrehearsed "Santa Baby" to come though so it's all to play for! Surprised how good the congas sound for the songs we're doing, which we're playing quite laid back. Although I can't hear them too well from behind the PA.

Best bass purchase: my NS Design CR5 upright bass - Love it!!!! Worst bass purchase: Dunlop Super Bright bass strings. Dear goodness! At first they're all top and zingy, but without a solid bass fundamental to the tone. Then, as they bed in, they start to settle down. And then one day, overnight, the sound goes from zingy to sounding like someone is kicking a cardboard box down the street. Bloody awful strings!! (in my humble opinion)

In all fairness, you only have to play one note at a time so that's easy, right?

10 o'clock yesterday morning and I was just up and pottering around the flat when I received a phone call.. could I dep with a Rolling Stones trib band, performing that very afternoon? Load in time, 1pm!! I madly said yes. I depped with this band for a few gigs over the summer and really enjoyed it and I got to know the songs really well. However, I hadn't played any of them since the end of August and I didn't really feel 'match fit'. Still, it seems they were desperate. There had been some sort of falling out the night before, leading to the departure of both bass player and drummer. The gig was a 'Rock n Roll Circus' event, featuring a John Lennon trib, a Who trib and the Stones trib 'headlining'. I had in fact intended to go along to watch with a few friends, so I had to let them know I'd be going on ahead and actually playing!! The Who drummer agreed to be both Keith Moon and Charlie Watts for the night 🙂 It was a smashing afternoon. There was an MC all dressed up like a ring master and a very good magician doing conjouring tricks with balls (steady, discreet!) which all added to the rock on roll circus atmosphere. However, I felt very nervous as I was completely unrehearsed and was just hoping that it would all come flooding back. As we were last on, my nerves just grew throughout the afternoon. When I got up to play I decided not to do anything flashy, just concentrate on trying to remember it all, and to stay at the back and not to try to move around much. A pretty good Bill Wyman impression then, haha! 🙂 Afterwards everyone was very complimentary, especially the 'John Lennon' who I know slightly but who hadn't see me play rock n roll before. So I took that as the biggest compliment, as he made a point of coming up to speak to me. However I felt I had only just got through by the skin of my teeth and delivered quite an array of bum notes! Saw some vids of it on line today though, and I didn't sound as bad as I thought, so that was a relief. Looks like I'll be doing another one on Friday!! I'll be better prepared this time though 🙂 I love my life 🙂 🙂

That's a great band name regardless of anything ...

Thotch. /I am a Genesis fan, BTW. lol

Agreed! I've always found Genesis bass lines confusing though, probably cos I can never be quite sure if they are bass guitar, bass pedals or Tony Bank's left hand!

Agree 👍

I’ve had one prior, a few years back and loved it, although the colour wasn’t really me, (deep red) it actually dulled the flame on the top which was a shame, you couldn’t really see the figuring. But not with this one! Plus as a bonus the Mrs says “natural wood coloured basses suit you more because you’re a wood nut” Good enough excuse for me!

I saw that bass. Martin Kemp's JG with the leather scratch plate and the switch on the pickups. Maybe slightly before 2000. One of the best sounding basses I've ever heard. They wanted £1000 for it, which I thought was too much for me, as a 5 string player, to pay for a 4 string bass. Even one that good. It was gone by the next day. I mentioned it to Pete Stevens and it was bought by someone in South Wales, who had dropped it over to get Pete to look at it, on his way home. Pete thought that those basses sounded so much better because they were made before the switch to metric sized wire. The imperial size wire in the pickups made a difference to the windings and so to the sound.

We had a problem at a gig last weekend - a pub local to me that we've done about 6 times without issues but suffered from Xmas p***head syndrome last week. Some old girl kept getting on stage and groping the guitarist (she did it on 3 separate occasions), 6 young blokes that could barely stand up throwing beer about at the front of the stage and we we were just waiting for one of them to trip over the monitors (and they knocked a few drinkers clean over a few times!) And all the time the landlord was just filling them up with more beer and laughing at the old girl. We tried slowing the pace of the set down to diffuse the situation but i got to the point at 11.40pm where i just said, thats it, i ain't doing anything else until its calmed down and we have a bit of protection at the front. It took 10 minutes of silence to reinforce the point and we eventually played 2 more songs then packed up. Never had to do that before and it really spoilt the night. The landlord was trying to be all matey after so he knew it had gone too far. We have 4 more booked next year and we're going to pull them if we can replace them. So FFWD to yesterday.....a gig we were looking forward to finishing the year up with thats always been a good one before. Again a lively pub that we always go down a storm at. And i get a message from a mate who played there last week saying to be careful as they changed the door staff, let a load of idiots in who were getting onstage and trying to grab instruments, the venue didn't manage the situation and the band ended up getting threatened by the punters. Fisticuffs were involved. Great...just what i needed to hear after last weekend! Its the first time i've ever been nervous about a gig...i could just smell a difficult night coming and i wasn't in the mood for a punch up. We came up with a plan - first sign of anything uncomfortable happening and we would stop playing until it settled down, breakables firmly away from the crowd and we used some low cases to build a stage edge. We told the manager when we arrived what we were doing and why (he denied there was any bother last week.....) and we cracked on with the show..... And had a blinder! Great crowd who danced and sang all night from the first song, the manager told a member of staff to stay at the stage all night to keep an eye but there was no trouble anyway, we played well and the sound was brilliant apparently (I even had a few bass players come up personally after to compliment my sound!) Balance has been restored. It just goes to show that it just takes one decent gig can lay a lot of ghosts to rest. Next weekend off and then get cracking on January :-)

Try TouchOSC first, it’s free and pretty powerful (though it has couple of quirks such as toggle buttons sending midi in both press and release with no way to disable one or the other). You could actually get a hardware MIDI controller for it as all parameter are controlled via CCs. There are some products which are just units with a bunch of knobs that can be freely assigned. I really hope Meris refine it too. Angelo seemed to be taking the stance that it was complete as is, which is a little disappointing - admittedly it’s pretty amazing the way it is but surely there’s room for improvement if the hardware and firmware allows. I certainly wouldn’t mind getting one. I wish this had been around when I first started buying pedals as it would have saved me much time and money (though I have enjoyed the journey and have learned a lot on the way).

How does this work if you are unlucky enough to be one of the few to have been born with a deficiency in the leg dept? I, for example, have only two legs. Bit tricky making a triangle with only two sides, surely?

So in an effort to sit firmly on the fence of Killing Rock N Roll (see several other threads), alongside my DI/In-ears setup, I sometimes have need of backline for the Rawk band I play in. I'd been using my Walkabout into my Barefaced Super Twin to very satisfactory results, but a while back I picked up a Compact, just to get all modular for smaller gigs and a slightly (15lbs or so) lighter load. I'm sure you can guess what happened next, on an idle afternoon while everyone else was out... Soooo, it's got the best thing about a proper stack, in that it's much, much nearer my ears, but sweet guinea pig of Winnipeg, what a noiiiiiiiise...ok, I've not gigged it yet, but I nearly dismantled the back half of the house with it. I used to have an SVT/810, and I'd put this up against one for sheer thunder. The WA will be putting out a fair bit more than 300w into the 2.67 ohm load (and it was loud enough anyway), but those cabs get every db out of every watt... And the whole thing weighs 80lb or so. 😀

Best bass purchase - Lakland skyline 55-02. It''s the first bass I've bought in a few years, and it's really wonderful. Superb build quality, really lightweight and has a great sound, it sits really well in the mix for everything I've used it for so far. Very happy with it and it's making me consider getting a skyline precision now of some sort too... Worst bass Purchase - Haven't actually bought anything else in a while, and definitely not something that I wasn't pleased with. Possibly a set of TI flats, which to be honest I didn't dislike them, liked the feel of them but in the end just decided I preferred the La Bellas that I already had. Here's a photo of the beauty, took the day I got it back in April.

not wired yet.

I only tend to contribute if I think it will be of use to someone, which this may well do, so.... Best: Fender Bassman 100T. It's bulky and heavy but I don't care; it's great. The EQ and blend etc takes some getting used to but I do rather like it. The 25W and silent modes are most useful and it's going through a Barefaced Two10, which is a good match I think. Worst: Olympic Shift Line Mk3 preamp. It sounds excellent in the videos, I just couldn't get it to come alive as a lone pedal without something else driving it. Maybe I was expecting too much of it going straight to a PA, but I found the GK Plex for me is a better piece of kit - far more versatile and a digital fuzz tone when the gain is set high.

@mhoss32 How are you getting on with this, dude?!

We're still experimenting with colours and contrasts. I always find that it is only when you pin down one element that you can see the valid options of the next and, with the fretboard and neck now the colour the owner wants, it is time to look at the other elements. And hmmmm….the back.... While the ash was quite dark alongside white maple, this neck is now SUCH a strong colour, the ash looks a bit wishy washy? Also the yellow tint from the strong amber clashes with the brown tint of the ash - certainly when you see it in real life. With a bolt-on you can often get away with this, but a through-neck, in my view, needs to coordinate (whether with contrasts or complimentary shades) between back, sides, top, neck and fretboard and this doesn't yet do that. So time for some more experimenting. One thought was to maybe go for complimentary colour between the back and neck and a greater contrast between sides and top. So I did loads of colour checks with some ash offcut until I came up with this one. The dye on the ash is a totally different mix of dyes in a different strength to that applied to the neck but the result is quite close to each other in the colour spectrum. This is a test only so don't worry that it's a bit patchy! It's sufficiently different to still have a distinct through neck-look but now both back wings and neck have an amber hue on the orange/yellow side And, to my eye, the depth of colour makes the sides contrast better with the top: I've sent the shots across to 'our man in Hawaii' to see if this is getting close to the overall look he had in mind.

Twins you say...

The only problem, and it is one I have come across in a couple of the bands I have played in recently, as well as at jam nights, is the nightmare of the left handed guitarist. I find it very difficult to 'read' the chords from the guitarists hands when it's al the 'wrong' way round for me! Some of the best guitarists I have had the pleasure of playing have been left handed....

If you want to support a British firm making strings have a look at Newtone.

A cheap way to try is to buy the Legacy brand sold by Strings Direct. They are re-badged Rotosounds but nearly half the price

I only put my head above the parapet at blues jams, where a basic 12-bar can take you most of the way, but "Hey Joe" keeps coming up, "Black Magic Woman" and "Hooch Coochie Man" and "Crossroads" are usual suspects too. And "The Thrill is Gone". It does bug me that the bass player is expected to just know anything that comes up. I play as many open blues jams as I can - it's really good experience - but almost all the time either the guitar player(s) just announce what they're going to play, or (even worse) everyone else gets together on the other side of the stage and then someone walks across and tells me what they've decided to play. I've had to learn to listen for the first few bars and then blag it, but that's good experience too and I'm slowly getting better at it.

Bongo Fury

No doubt there will be plenty of Pedaltrain recommendations made shortly but be sure to also check out the new Rockboard by Warwick range. They have nice little design feature tweaks from the PT range which really work.