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This kind of thing?

Fine. The music is separate from the media circus surrounding the man.

Back to knobs, two done (haven't put the MoP dot on yet) and one to go. Same method as last time: I use the 6mm i.d. grub-screw inserts sourced from Thonk: Then, having cut the walnut and purpleheart to thickness, first drill the clearance recess in the walnut: Then, without moving the wood or the press-drill, drill a 9.5mm hole: Then use a 25mm plug cutter to cut the knob bottom out: Same plug cutter to cut out a top disc of purpleheart: Glue the top disc to the back. Drill the side hole for access to the grubscrew. Carefully drive in the splined insert and we have a coordinating knob: What do you reckon?

I haven't been to BD for a few years now. I bought a lot of stuff from Mark in the early days, when he was selling from his band's rehearsal room on the farm. Mark has chosen a tough road by only selling top quality bass gear. I have nothing but positive experiences from BD and I hope he survives the trade "nuclear winter" that might be on the horizon.

It's very hard to say. It does make me sad, a brother of mine died very young and he loved 'Garold' Glitter's music. I recall being moved seeing Rolf Harris crying while singing (ironically) Two Little Boys on Crackerjack when the audience joined in. One of my steplads was massively into MJ as a teenager, now in his late 30s he's not sure how to feel about the music. 😞 Jimmy Page had a long and well documented relationship with a girl that started when she was 13 or 14. Outside rock, most people accept Wagner was an anti-semite whose music was much used to promote the Nazi's vision of 'Aryan' culture; but it doesn't stop his music being remarkable and widely performed. Churchill was a national hero, but also did some pretty foul things. We should also remember that no-one is perfect; where do you draw the line? Should you play music by someone who once bullied another kid in the school playground or smacked their children? Where do you draw the line? As a society we have to be mature about the difference between the deeds and doer. As things become historical we can enjoy the works but condemn the actions. That said, while things are still more or less contemporary we also have to realise some things might upset some audiences. Some people might get 'offended' by MJ music who just enjoy taking offence, but it might be genuinely quite upsetting to someone who has suffered abuse or be seen as 'flag waving' in support of MJ. I'd tend to err on the side of caution - there's lot's of other music to play while it's at the forefront of everyone's minds. But I wouldn't change radio channels just because Beat It came on.

Well, after around a year since placing the order, I got the go ahead that my brand new custom Alpher Mako Elite 5 is finished, and last Monday, I went and picked it up. I'll just let you look at the photos first... Alpher Mako Elite 5 by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr Alpher Mako Elite 5 by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr Alpher Mako Elite 5 by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr Alpher Mako Elite 5 by Dave Butterworth, on Flickr An absolute beauty. I'll take you through things! The body is a highly figured, single piece of maple, with a 'crazyburl' top, which for those who don't know, is basically a burl which has been impregnated with dyes, and stabilised with resin. The neck and control cavity plate is roasted birdseye maple. The electronics are Aguilar's super single pickups, three of them. There's one at the neck, and then two together to make a humbucker. These can be configured at the flick of a switch to be series, single or parallel, and then blended in with the neck pickup, giving a wide range of available tones before you even look at the preamp! The preamp itself is pretty simple, an Aguilar OBP-3, so three band with sweepable mids. Here's a quick video from the day I collected of how she sounds!

Yup, my recommendation was entirely empirical, as in "this worked for me, so it might work for you". Nothing I wrote should be misinterpreted as suggesting that I know what I'm doing. I wish, I really wish that last sentence was intended to be funny, but actually it's merely an accurate observation.

As has been mentioned, the difficulty lies with a lack of any distinct ruling on what happened. That said, we're talking about covers bands, which are usually about providing a service for someones happy event, whilst a lot of people at that event might argue that the music and the man are separate, all it takes is for one or more people to have had a similar experience, for that film or the wider conversation to resonate with them very personally, and suddenly the band looks very insensitive, might even affect potential bookings. Ultimately, it's about timing, would I play an MJ song now? Probably not, it's incredibly fresh in peoples minds. Would I play one in a few months time when it had died down? Possibly. It's nuanced and should be considered on a gig by gig basis I think. Si

Went in to buy a few things to upgrade the Sei Jazz bass, surrounded by some of the most expensive beautiful basses.Anyway, I wanted a pair of Nordy NJ5's but they didn't fit. So my second choice was the Bartolini B Axis, Ive heard great things about these pups. There a lot brighter than the regular classic Bart sound. So they came home with me. . Also I got some USA Lollypop Ultralight Hipshot tuners. I also wanted to try some new strings being a die hard DR man, but these have been in my mind for quite a while. Labella RX stainless steels.Talked for a while to the always knowledgable strong opinioned Mark who is a real gent. Anyway im fitting everything tomorrow so will give a review. And yes I do look like a redneck at a gun show.

Nice, thanks Tim. I've learned that ^^^, and to be fair its sounding pretty good to my ears, using my R-4000 with flats. What a sweet little bassline that is. 😎 Found this one too, really nice tune, and fun to play along sympathetically on the electric bass. 👍 I'll get the J bass back out and persevere with it a bit more...

So interesting to read the various posts on this topic. With Gary Glitter, Ian Watkins and the like it's been found in a court of law that they were guilty of the crimes. With others (MJ, and it would appear, a smorgasbord of 60s and 70s rock favourites) either dead or uncharged it's down to a moral call which will be swayed by your own judgement on that person's character, music, haircut or some other triviality. Certainly a moral minefield.

I guess the whole country will have to stop playing Rolling Stones songs? This trial by smear campaign is pretty sad. Start to take interest when there is a court case and make your decisions if anything is proven.

Actually I think Mark is better at sales than almost anyone else I have met. Unfortunately for my wallet Firstly, he knows his gear, secondly he is very very adept at 'reading' his customer (well me anyway) and having a really good idea of what might float their boat, and lastly, and frankly most crucially, he just lets you faff about for an hour with a few choice items until you're hopelessly in lust for one of the precious pieces of GASeous lovelies.... Ahem, sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, by that point I'm entirely undone, as is my wallet.... Its pitiful really

Get in!

I saw the partly obscured header and thought this was about Jacko covering Topographic Oceans

Depends which 80s basses you're talking about, and also the (sometimes hilarious) disconnect between what some sellers ask for & what people will actually pay. By way of an example, I give you: Fantasy Reality

Try a Peerless Retromatic, made by the people who make the parts for Duesenbergs. Half the price and just as good.

A good mate of mine worked on the film Baby Driver with flea and as a result, he invited him and a mate to see him perform at the O2. Luckily I happened to be THAT mate. It was a very spoilt backstage affair with all friends and family hospitality, and I made sure I was prepared with a sharpie for him to sign my bass clef. He was incredibly generous with his time and chatted with us for a good 20 minutes after he’d just performed. A night I will never forget and I subsequently got his sharpie scribbles tattooed the next day.

Chuck a dumbbell weight on the central shaft (ooh err) so it sits across the opened legs (crikey).

Great stuff ..its made me want to dig my acoustic out Clinton Fearon and the Gladiators are superb

...Which contains no actual explanation, so appears to be nothing but random rules-for-the-sake-of-rules. Gumtree's owned by Ebay, so wtf is the difference?

...one element of the nascent Cat Air Force - part of the feline plot to take over the world finally coming to fruition... 😺

OMG it was a cat they saw at Gatwick...

Great job. Bass looks killer now.

https://xkcd.com/20/ The ferret has reappeared off and on in the intervening years

I still have this one that I may be putting up for sale on here

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Don't start pulling Michael Jackson. That's what got him into trouble in the first place.

Rightly or wrongly I can't see any mileage in a cover band doing MJ songs now. Last thing I want at a gig is to be defending my choice of songs to a punter or punters over an issue like this. Les

I've even got the day off work - was actually to sit around while a plumber sorts out my heating, but the stars have aligned!

Here's a thread that going to divide opinion - expect this to go pear shaped quickly. I didn't see the Neverland documentary but my understanding is that there are allegations but no proof. As I said, this is bound to divide opinion (at the end of the day that's all we have.)

This sounds like very sound advice - especially this last paragraph. It might be seen as being in poor taste while the new film is fresh in people's minds, and he's in the headlines again. Once the dust has settled, it's probably safer to test the waters with your audiences. It is an enduring and morally murky problem, that some great art is made by some truly terrible people. In some cases, it's easy to dismiss the music along with its creator - Lostprophets and Gary Glitter being obvious examples - as they were popular at one point, but haven't pervaded popular culture to the same extent as Michael Jackson. See also Chris Brown, convicted for domestic violence - reviews of an album he released not long after his conviction focused on what an awful man he was, and barely discussed the music within. But plenty of his fans were quite prepared to treat the album and its creator as two separate entities. I expect plenty of Jackson fans will be prepared to do the same - you could argue that they've been doing it for decades - but while he's in the news, you'd be right to worry about objections from other people.

My pet hate was salesmen talking nonsense to sell what they happened to have in stock. I have always trusted Mark since he advised me to buy a cab that he didn't have from someone else because he reckoned (quite correctly) that it was just what I needed.

We will leave them in our set unless there's an actual posthumous conviction.

I saw Are you getting the headstock reshaped?

In Mesa's defence the price of the WD-800 and D800 series is a lot lower than the 'new' prices of the original Walkabout (circa £1500 a few years ago) or amps such as the Big Block 750, M6 and M9 that were about £1800 or above to be purchased 'as new' when they were on the market. In that sense, I was honestly expecting the price point of the WD-800 to be in the £1,500 - £2,000 region given its 'newness' and the feature set. For me, I can live with the price of the WD-800, in the sense that Mesa new premium bass head is £1300 rather than £2,000. However the cost of the new line cabs (£2,175 for the 2x15 and 4x10, £1,575 for the 2x12) is really prohibitive for potential purchasers in the UK, no matter how good the cabs are (I have no doubt that they are exceptional, but so is a lot of the competition).

Change the words. Smooth Pederast.

First off, my profile pic looks exactly like me, obviously. Secondly, you got out off bassdirect having spent less than a grand? What foul majick is this!! How? I am so glad I live a 2 and a half hour drive away! I remember it when it was literally a shed in a field, it's luxurious nowadays 😁 Don't know about the two younguns but Mark has always been a top chap to me and has some of the nicest kit under one roof anywhere...

If price is set by the dealer, are you suggesting a conspiracy among dealers in Europe who all agree to set the price at around £500 above the USA level?

Enjoy... https://theproaudiofiles.com/compression-and-timbre/

I disagree. Most people would assume "Big Balls" is quite unambiguously referring to the size of Bon' Scott's testicles, whereas if you read the lyrics carefully, it's actually a celebration of joyous high society occasions involving revelry and dancing.

One thing that annoys me is demonstrating a two pickup bass, maybe in a multi-bass review, and not telling you what pickups are selected or tone knob settings. Next to useless. The Bass Whisperer is one of the best reviewers I've seen. Frank.

Quite. I don't mind if the review contains a brief demonstration of what the thing-in-question sounds like when slapped, or played finger style or picked - or even used for metal. But there are so many out there that are just some sweaty bloke in shorts and bare feet sat in his bedroom having a ten minute slap-w#nk. There should be a warning at the start....