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and the mothership was out. P-bass and flats to accompany it.

BB 735A vs BB 1025 (first impressions review) I've had the 735A for just a few days now, but managed to give it a bit of a spin including at band rehearsal on Thursday night and I'll also gig it tonight. Thought I'd share first impressions on this vs my BB 1025, which I'm very fond of. The 735A has newer strings and this would account for the 735A sounding a little brighter overall. Solo P setting - treble dialled off (passive) This is a classic 1025 "subby" / vintage tone and a much loved sound from this bass. It's not really something I've found any other basses I've played so far have done as well (other than, I guess other members of the BB passive family of basses, be interested if others agree?). The 735A in passive (but not so much in active) mode comes pretty close - it sounded a little brighter, less muddy, but that could be just down to the newer strings. With the treble back up for both basses, the 735A continued to feel a little brighter. 735A Passive vs Active With the 3 band EQ at neutral there was almost no difference between active and passive for 735A, which is a good sign. In terms of the EQ, bass cut worked to tighten the sound. Bass boost was less effective in increasing the low end thump (in the way that the Ibby SR EQ and, in especially, the BB NE2 delivers in spades). Mid cut to give a scooped tone or mid boost to cut through the mix both work well and the treble provides a decent range from very (too!) bright to nicely dialled down. As noted above for the most 'subby' tone I needed to switch to passive mode. The combination of passive and active modes delivers a significantly wider tonal palette than available with my BB 1025. Overall impressions so far This bass is growing on me very quickly. I love the fact that I can get pretty close to the vintage sound of the BB 1025 in passive mode and then, at the flick of a switch, get a much more modern punchy (or indeed scooped if I ever want it!) tone. I found myself making use of the both passive and active modes a fair bit at band rehearsal. This is not the case with my Ibby SRs where I have the bass just in active mode; the passive mode is just a nice emergency back-up should the battery ever fade mid set. The overall tone was a little sweeter than the BB 1025, but I'm not sure how much of that is simply down to the older strings on the 1025. I can see that the ease of ability to access such a broad tonal palette on one bass is going to totally appeal to the convenience junky in me, and that the BB 735A is going to become a 'goto' bass for me. It's been an itch that I first had back in March 2017 when I wandered into the London Yammy store and first started to seriously consider getting a Yammy bass. I'm very glad that I've finally got round to scratching that particular itch

I'm feeling immensely fortunate. After some toing and froing with the seller (all very good natured) I've snagged this bass. Built by Marko Ursin, a Finnish Luthier, it was a custom build in 2009 for the original owner, who I've just bought it from. I'd never really imagined having a single cut, but this was just so nice. I'm still getting used to the Aguilar OBP3 / Bartolini G6 combo, but it's such a responsive bass. I'd felt fortunate owning my Fame / Mayones 6 string, but this is every bit as special. Given it's A Finnish bass, crafted by a gent by the name of Ursin, it might gain an appropriate headstock logo. Finnish national animal is the bear and Ursin, must be derived from Ursine, for bear.

Keeping this short and sweet. I Picked up a lovely old Series 6 130 C7 Amp which bought from a basschat member. I am going to be pairing with this Trace 4x10 that I picked up for £50 on Facebook marketplace. The amp is fine, will need s couple of EQ slider caps but the £50 cabinet was in a shocking state, painted tolex, several coats black then white then black then something, clear coat... got the speakers out, all happy cones no wear or flap, no fixes no sprays... Everything was sprayed without any primer so rust got under and into everything and started making everything scabrous. Flappers, wire wool, sanding paper, scrapers all to the rescue... It was reassembled last night and it works beautifully, sounds amazing. My only break with tradition is to foam line the cab — older trace cabs didn’t, newer ones did. From DIY restorations in the past, I like and believe in foam and despite adding £40 to the repair (you’ll see I have reused as much as possible) — even going so far as to clean the corner bumpers and flap off the old paint and powder coat back to bare metal — as well as adding some castors for £20, the general feeling is this is money well spent.

Blues guitar players will come and go. Many play the blues because they want to, but there are some who play the blues because they have to. Rory was a member of the 'have to' club and right at the top of it.

Finally got myself an NS2! Too bad it is blue, but I can live with that until I find my ultimate NS2X...

Tried a few Dingwalls while I was there . Have never played a fanned fret bass before and I was blown away by the playability and sound of them . Beautifully put together basses

Eye candy 😂

Dressing like that is a Cardinal sin.... sorry...

You might have warned us about the drum solo!!!!

Been working on this for quite a while, shaping up to be a playable passive jazz bass.

I thought i could see this thread taking an awkward turn but SpondonBassed has returned it to a comedy thread after all. Time for a wee drinky poo..........Bottoms UP Dave

Big fan of the G man back in the day...still am but don't play his stuff much.....this has prompted me to get his albums out again. My first ever proper gig I went to was at the age of 14/15 was to see Rory at Birmingham Town Hall around 1972. I hadn't a clue who he was but my sister and her school mates were going and there was spare ticket. The support was Greenslade (remember them?) who were not my cup of tea, but even tho I hardly knew any of the songs, Rory blew me away with his passion and energy and of course his playing. He was on for ages, seemed like 3 hours and at the end, the stage manager kept coming out to get him to stop playing and Rory would play another song - talk about delivering value for money. I've seen him twice since, once at De Montfort hall in Leicester and the last time at the Hammersmith Odeon in about 1978. As always he played a blinding set and by this time I knew all the songs and all the words...a truly memorable experience. I've not read Gerry's book....I would imagine that Rory was hard work in the latter years when the alcohol abuse was ramping up. Some of the recordings I've listened to of gigs he did at Rockpalast, you can hear in his voice that he's out of his head....such a shame. I was so gutted when I heard he'd died, what a modest, unassuming and talented guitarist and songwriter he was.

I think it’s gonna have to be my next purchase

Well after my Sandberg arrived 3 weeks earlier than expected, I’ve spent most of the day fitting a set of smooth half rounds , and I play with a fairly light touch, so I lowered the action and it plays just beautiful. I’ve also been finding my way around the controls and even in passive mode this thing sounds great, I can’t put it down 😀

Yes, you can plug in any MIDI keyboard and it’ll play as soon as it detects a note-on message.

Dionysius the Greek philosopher c330 - 250 BC

Much too basic and rudimentary to be interesting. 8th note pentanonics with the odd blue note WOW! Zero melody or structure really. Also he fluffs his fingering which fails to sound the odd note properly, I think he is possibly drunk. Much prefer his Bullfrog Blues solo.

as above....so below....great flick btw.....back on topic....I've jumped in with the Future Impact 1....good deal on EvilBay....can't wait....saw a guy doing a Whitney Houston demo on that there uTube using a Deep Impact so I'm guessing I can achieve with the F1.....reading the guide on here is like re-visiting the 70's/80's music shop experience for me...not wanting to sound disparaging to the author as it's superb, but it makes me feel as small as the current 5 pence piece, or half pence piece for those that recall......I'll report back....jeez, I might even throw in a video...over to the watch list for suitable attire....

Right now I'm listening to foxes fighting... Which is still preferable to listening to One Direction.

A completely silent hotel room after this evenings rather raucous gig. Which is very pleasant.

Three Sides Live is mint. I'm glad it exists.

I think this might be my favourite song of all time...

Me too.

I think, it’s fair to say that you do.

I've gone for a satin nitro in the end for this one as the neck had already been finished in nitro. Quite chuffed how this is finishing. This is how it looks at the moment, still got quite a few jobs to do but it's getting there!!

Whatever you choose MAKE SURE you save your back if its telling you to. I didn't (work not bass related) and my back went, and it was literally 4 years of not being able to properly move, bend or walk for longer than 10 minutes. The irony is is that the damage had been done, but I didn't know, then one day I lifted a light box and BANG the back went. Oh and you become really grumpy if you have a bad back - it just seems to affect all your body. I've gone the following: Quilter 800 - awesome and 2kg. Trace Elf - even smaller and lighter - great. Line 6 helix. Laney nexus cabs - 23kg for a 4x10. 19kg for a 2x10. And now, an active bass, as well as a passive precision v4, giving me all the tone I need. I could take any combination of those to a gig - even just the active bass and elf and 2x10 and be very happy with the tone. And when i get home, I'm still full of life, not bent over in pain.

My account has been suspended for the same reason. Their argument was that I should agree to buy something and then reject it if not satisfied (alloy wheels with tyres) I have subsequently arranged to purchase items advertised on eBay for cash by simply messaging a photo of my phone number written on a piece of paper. Ironically if I had been permitted to view before buying the transactions would have gone through eBay but after the way they treated me I decided they can fcuk off!

The fan is dead silent to the point I wondered if it actually works - and it does! Even after playing a 2 and a half hour set with a 4 ohm load, the amps have never been any warmer than ambient temperature. So efficient as well as silent.

Theres quite a bit , Fearful 15-6-1 + 15 sub GB shuttlemax 9.2 Trace AH250 GB 12 cab Status kingbass, blackbeauty 3 ibanez basses Jim.

Thank you @TonyMontana I've not had a problem with background noise or hiss with either of my Magellans. I should probably say that I tend to favour passive basses and use a relatively flat EQ setting and I'm not one for using super bright sounds. My cab has a horn but I tend to keep it turned down low, around 20-30% of full whack. The usual caveats will apply though depending on what else is going on in your signal chain; if you use an active bass with the treble boosted, apply compression with a high threshold, have a bass that isn't particularly well shielded, use loads of pedals including additional pre-amps and or distortion, have a cab with a cheap horn etc then obviously you risk introducing additional noise into your rig. But the amp itself does not have any additional inherent noise that is obtrusive. There is a very slight touch of background noise if you turn it up very loud as you will get with any amplifier but at sensible volumes I don't notice it and I doubt if anyone else would either. There's no noticeable noise or hiss through the DI either. Hope this helps!

Update! Glad to be back! My custom Overwater should be here within the month & I've been successfully nominated to the Musicians Union Exec Committee

This

Billy No-Mates, in the bedroom, on his own

I googled this Nad Sylvan bloke. he looks like Bette Midler after a night on the lash. Very disturbing

I’ve gone through my whole life having just one knob and it’s served me well…maybe could’ve been a bit bigger though. I might end up giving the Spectracomp another go as it’d be useful to run compression into the Future Impact for more even response.

So as well as Monday night's experience, we were also asked to support Erja Lyytinen at the very charming Bridport Electric Palace last night. Fabulous setting, nice roomy stage, great sound engineer, and about 200 people who, unlike on Monday, where there were a good number of our friends attending, had no idea who we were. Such a thrill getting a great response from this type of audience. It is so different playing original material to a paying audience than playing covers in a pub. I'm finding it so rewarding, and thrilled to think people actually genuinely like us! Oh, and amazingly, one guy came to both gigs. Big downer at the end, blooming road closure an the A31 - had to follow a diversion through Poole (oh, and had to go back to the day job today) 😕

I’ve relocated, so you might want to edit my location. I’m now in the Outer Hebrides (still furthest north though). I’ll help out anyone in the islands, sure .... provided I’m not the only bass player here 🤔 Anyway, I can do set-ups, fingerboard/ fretboard/ fret work, basic electronic repairs, certain types of refinishing, and my forte ... metalware/ hardware modifications. I’ve been confidently working on my own basses for the last 20-odd years. I’m a silversmith by trade, so I’m familiar with working to high technical standards 👍🏻

Me too - though mine's gone to the great bass sale in the sky. Set neck, single pup, SB700. I also has a fretless before the fretted