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Looks like I will be able to attend this year! I don't usually bring gear, but I was thinking I might bring my new rig this time. It consists of an Ashdown OriginAL head and two Trace Elliot ELF cabs, a 1x10 and a 2x8. It's all very small and lightweight but really packs a punch. If there's still room for more gear I'll add it to the list (along with my trusty MIM Fender P)

Sounds grand to me

Just because a bass is being sold for a high price doesn’t mean the seller isn’t trying to sell it - just means they have a price they would accept for it which they aren’t willing to go below. Not all sale ads are urgent and therefore some people are willing to hold out for the right price. Members are free to PM the seller and attempt to negotiate on price if they wish. Again, it’s up to the seller if they’re willing to go down or not. Also, the value of something in the UK doesn’t always translate directly to the value of something in mainland Europe, for example. Sometimes the exchange rate is a factor. As far as I’m aware, there are no laws dictating what a “realistic” price is for an instrument. If the seller has paid their subscription fee then they have just as much right to sell a bass as anyone else, regardless of price. Surely to strip them of an ad that they’ve paid for would be unfair.

SELECT * FROM Basschat WHERE Location < 50M AND Cost < 500 AND Cost > 500 AND Wear=notroadworn AND Weight < 10lb AND Wood.Neck=Rosewood AND Wood.Cites=NO AND Heft=High AND AND Strings > 3 AND Strings < 6 AND GoodForMetal=No AND Overpriced=NO AND AgeOnForum < 7months

For some time I've been planning to do 'play along' YouTube videos where I do the bass lines that were on the original tracks, starting with Whitesnake, and that's getting a lot closer to coming to fruition. HOWEVER, it seems that Universal Music Group, who own the rights to Whitesnake songs, are the most notorious company for either getting videos taken down or not permitting anything to be earned from them (ad revenue etc), so I'm now debating whether it's workable, or else find a different way of doing it. As far as I know, they use an algorithm which compares the video's audio with tracks in their database, so theoretically if one changes the speed or the key (not very helpful) it might be possible to get round that. On a related matter, a US journalist did a very accurate transcription of the live Fool For Your Loving from Live In The Heart Of The City, and had it accepted, along with an article that I was interviewed for, by US Bass Player magazine. Then the publishers refused to give permission for the transcription to be used, even though I came up with the bass part, not the composers of the song. That was that, then this year the idea was submitted to UK Bass Magazine (who now own Bass Player), but just with short extracts instead of the whole transcription. The extracts were too similar to what I actually played, so now the article might come out, but with no transcribed parts at all, which is a bit pointless.

I'm attempting to make a bass from scrap pianos. This is a prototype short scale bass called T800 because it's telecaster shaped and has an 800mm scale length. Wherever possible I'll be using wood from defunct pianos, mostly poplar with mahogany veneer and oak for the fretboard. As far as I can I will attempt to keep the original finish and use whatever screws I can salvage from the donor pianos.

Here's a new video of a song I wrote a while back. Always curious to get your thoughts on this since I play the Stick from the perspective of a bass player. Hope you like it! Kevin Keith

For some time now I've been keen on the fabulous basses being made by Alan at ACG. The idea of having a bass which was made in your home town was rather appealing, especially when your home town is a tiny wee place like Moffat. The fact that they look amazing and had consistently great reviews also helps. I wouldn't quite have called it GAS, but I was certainly an interested observer. A few years back I had big plans for a 40th birthday commission, but having tried a couple at a Bass Bash, I discovered I really couldn't get to grips with the asymmetric neck carve and flat board. Coupled with the fact that I wasn't playing in a band anymore, and I couldn't honestly justify the outlay. So, back to a watching brief... Until, that is, Alan advertised a couple of stock basses he had, on here recently. Oh dear. A couple of hypothetical "What if..." conversations with the Management; a quick calculation of the finances; and a trip to Moffat under the pretence of visiting my folks so I could try it out... As mentioned in the Gear Abstinence thread, I was kidding no one, least of all myself and was doomed. But in a good way! 😉 I am now the proud owner of an ACG RetroB, J5! - Maple body with an acrylic impregnated spalted maple top, and a Black Walnut accent layer. The spalted maple is just amazing. - 3 piece Wenge/Maple with Wenge headstock and a spalted maple overlay. Fingerboard is the same acrylic impregnated spalted maple as the body and it runs together beautifully. 20" radius board and although it has the asymmetric neck carve, it's a lot subtler than the normal ACG profile. - John East Uni pre-amp, which has such a bewildering array of tones, it'll take me a while to get to grips with. Linky thing to ACG website If anyone has any helpful tips or resources for transitioning from 4 to 5 strings, especially when you haven't played at all for a long while, it would be muh appreciated!

Could be that an item has limited appeal and so hangs around for a long while, not just inflated prices.

The Total Watts bit on my profile now says "69 Excellent" which isn't in the least bit funny.

If I see an ad for a piece of gear that I own, or have owned, I see no harm in putting up a favourable comment if it deserves one. If I’ve had a contrary experience I keep quiet. I see no problem with that.

Things have really picked up out of nowhere with all these acoustic gigs. Well, not really out of nowhere. I have a suspition about why I started getting these acoustic offers. I played Cafe Soeurette Saturday night from 7-10 ,great hours and a nice engaged crowd. I'm playing a Sprecher Micro Brewery gig this Saturday night. I also found out my primary band will be opening for a national headliner at a large country festival this summer. 3 weeks ago I had nothing. Blue

How does it matter the way it's advertised? The owner of whatever item for sale has the right to name their price, and telling them it's too much, publicly, is tacky at best. If someone is advertising something fraudulently, I understand getting involved (although reporting it to the mods is probable a better option), but otherwise, why would you want to contribute anything that potentially causes the seller to lose sales/money? The old "If you don't have anything nice to say, best not to say anything" I think applies very nicely. When you see something on a High St shop that you think is overpriced, do you stand at their door telling everybody who walks in that the shop is charging too much? No, right? It would seem very weird... and the shop owner might want to come out and have an 'energic word' with you...

IMO an absolutely stunning bass! But a couple of REALLY inappropriate comments by one individual. I'm generally a fan of enthusiastic discussion on FS threads but this, for me, is a very good example of where a comment crosses the line:

Event added to Basschat Facebook!

Hello, technical dept - How may I help you today? 😃

My bass & other music related purchases this year are still zero, and I have sold three basses - so I'm still in!

Crikey 😬 For anyone that wants to luxuriate in the finer details of the bassline and drums without Mr Astley, then here is the actual mastertape, just drum and bass tracks - nice!:

Started when I picked up a 2010 Hi-1 Jazz through FB recently. I'd done a bit of research and was interested by the graphite neck in particular (more of why later), the BadAss II bridge, the dot markers because I prefer them to the blocks, and the supposedly thin nitro finish. The one I got was satin black so there's an immediate problem. My '97 Precision is black and it needs to stay that way. So I messaged @rubis about the paint process on his year of birth P. He gave me some useful tips and referred me to Manchester Guitar Tech so I spoke to Steve there just to check what I was in for. I've ordered the stuff I need to do a Lake Placid Blue, with a tiny hint of aging (just 9 years worth, hardly anything but not 'straight out of the paint shop' look). I've taken the bass apart with care. I even used new screwdrivers although I suspect the screws are actually Phillips head. Anyway, all that went fine. Noticed the final couple of winds on front pup were hanging a bit loose - worrying as they are like human hair thickness so considerable care required now and later. I do like seeing all the stamps and other marks in the neck cavity and on the heel - I'll get pics done but the neck and head are both dated late-ish 2010. I know this is the first time the bass has been touched, it still had the clear plastic film on the scratchplate when I got it (and some rounds of a fair vintage !). I plan to get down to the wood on the body (not hard at all as the paint is really thin, as advertised). Once I get to see the wood* I am considering an investment in new pups - maybe Fender vintage Custom Shop, ADVICE and opinions welcome please. I want pure JB sound but gooder Was fairly knocked out with this Hi-1 by the way. The neck is excellent and I'm sure the graphite makes a difference - that common resonance around Bflat - D on the G is gone. It plays and sounds great so probably a keeper. Back soon with progress

I was casually playing along to Aleem - Release Yourself last night, and I found myself really getting into the details of trying to play exactly like an 80s sequencer - trying to get 'machine like' timing, exact note length, dynamics etc. No fills, no little extra bits chucked in! I really enjoyed playing like that, especially the lack of fills and 'decoration'. I can't say I sounded much like a sequencer tbh but nevermind. I think it might be the future for me. I Am A Robot. 🤖 Anyone else enjoy like playing like this?! Sorry if this a daft question.

Thunderbird... I'm probably going to Guitar Guitar this weekend to see what these are like to play. They have a couple of Gibsons and Epiphones in stock... I really don't want to like them. However... Tonestyler... whoa! Love it! This afternoon, the lovely @krispn delivered his Precision with Thunderbird pickup and Tonestyler module (see page 1) to me while I was at work. The bass is a lot prettier in person and I loved it. It's got some kind of flats on, which I don't usually play, but it sounded really good, and the Tonestyler is a zero-gimmick tone control as far as I'm concerned, I'm converted. I played with it by myself, every click made a distinct difference and I really liked a couple of positions around half way (they dial in the midrange 'just so') and another position just before its bassiest tone, where it retained definition but sounded fat fat fat. With a touch of light overdrive, the kind that you don't really hear as distorted, it was glorious. Then I played it along to recorded music, including some of my own stuff from own of my bands. That's where the Tonestyler proved its worth. Or maybe it's just the combination of this bass+pickup+Tonestyler!!! Whatever, it was really good. The Tonestyler covers a wide range, from bright (as bright as flats get) to very dark an dense, and I could easily find a couple of spots that gave me some very distinct tones that I would probably switch between in a live situation. I imagine that with different basses the positions may vary, maybe you can get 3 different sounds using bright roundwound strings? I like passive tone controls, I like to roll off the top end a bit, but often things get a little muddy after that. Here I retained very good definition and the midrange peak seems to move over a certain range which makes me think that it would allow me to find its sweet spot with different basses/pickups. It's not a "here! have 10 sounds!" but more like an improved version of a passive tone control, and on this bass, it *rawks*. Tomorrow I'll get to try it with Urang Matang at rehearsal, with drummer, guitar, two vocals, keyboard, sax and trumpet, playing ska/reggae mostly with a bit of funk. Can't wait!!! @krispn, you are a star!!! Thank you so much! Although... it seems that everytime you lend me something, I end up spending money. We shouldn't do this often

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you....

Well, I’ve only bought strings. They’re just very expensive and come with a free bass .

So here's the thing: it's not your bass. Why should you care how long it hangs around in the for sale? If you were genuinely concerned for the guy you would send him a private message. If you're after the bass and you want to put in a much lower offer, then send him a private message. When someone pointed out in that thread that the OP wasn't looking for price advice, that post got a LOT of likes from your fellow BCers, but you didn't get the hint... So please, get off this particular seller's case. He's selling a lovely bass and the 'market' will decide on what is a fair price. If he wants your advice I'm sure he will ask you for it.

I had one of those on my last ebay deal, someone said 'this sale here went for a lot less than you are selling for', to which he got a response of 'well, he got a bargain then, shame you didn't bid on that'. I don't think that is what he was hoping for.

Ok.... I’ll start off. I can bring : funky Status S2 Fender CS 64 Shuker flea custom Mesa Boogie M6 Carbine Bergantino CN212 assuming anyone wants me to. 😃 @redbandit599 a rather nice dingwall?? @Dood everything you own related to Bass. 😂 especially a B/amp, a gorgeous P Bass and some lovely flip flop basses Just my thoughts....

Not sure you’re being clear there, are you saying it’s worse? 😜

There’s no point in making it compulsory because it would be impossible to enforce. If people want to make selling something more difficult for themselves that’s up to them.. we just provide the platform.

Ah, what a great question. 😎 So, when I went to learn this kind of stuff, I found that it takes a different mindset and approach to it. The bass isn't going to be the only thing quantized to the track. The drums/percussion and even other bits within the track will be quantized. Essentially, the tracks are divided. (for the techie geeks, engineers and nerds amongst us - I wonder if how we refer to subdivisions of bars in sheet music perfectly correlates to binary, hexidecimal etc? 1-2-4-8-16-32 being the denominator to a note subdivision?). In your mind, how do you think a digitally expressed music motif would be played? Under the constraints of the technology of the time, I'd think of these; - Dynamics. They usually stay relatively the same throughout. - Do they drag, push or play dead on in the pocket? Dead on. - If you can read music, look at the sheet as if it's a grid divided into 16th notes (32nds if you're playing the likes of Michael Jackson's 'Speed Demon' 🤣). Whilst it's also a great groove exercise, it's also helpful to see where the bass synchronises with the other instruments on the track. If a track is all digitally composed, they will be exactly on. I can't imagine the tolerance (or 'humanising' as Logic Pro would tell you) to be very much, if at all, in terms of 'pocket'. - On the topic of eliminating 'humanising' in your basslines, I'd recommend some exercises that'll not only help your playing in this realm but they will make your playing so much cleaner in general. If you set your metronome to below 15bpm, leave it running and see if you can hit your notes as accurately as possible to that click. Don't be tempted to embellish or go astray from it. The signs of agitation and frustration are symptomatic of significant improvement. Notice how different your playing is afterwards and be prepared to grin like Cheshire Cat, my low end friend. I call this 'Anti-microflamming'. - If the bass line goes below a standard low 'E', can your 5 string handle it without going 'floppy'? Your ye olde Casios and Yamaha DX-7s never have/had this issue. - A bass mute (I know, Motown, right?) is surprisingly helpful. Pop some foam under the strings and right by the bridge for an experiment. Play along with the tracks you so wish to and see if it helps your playing. I do hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions. If not, my apologies for over indulging here.

Titebond and loads of clamps

I have sold my Future Impact so my Roland UM-One midi to USB interface is surplus to requirements. I have listed it for sale in the 'Other Musically Related Items For Sale' section.

It's a similar-ish shape to my Overwater (I think this is the Deluxe model - I got it in the 1980's). Lovely shape but an absolute pain to get a gig bag for it!! Edit: I got this bass off another kid when I was at school. It had fallen off a stand and taken the head off. I was going to have a go at making a bass back then so I bought it for parts. My dad glued the head back on and it's remained like that since - perfectly usable! I keep threatening to get the finish redone by the guys at Overwater but have never got round to it. Not a bad bass for £60....

Culturally we tend to blame people for their mental health. His mental health appears to be part of the problem of both the backlog and his apparent aggression. It’s tough. Had the guy been fighting cancer for ten years, been in and out of hospital and was able to say ‘it’s the chemo, it makes me aggressive’, things would probably have been different.

Inspired by all the threads in this here sub forum, I've decided to take the plunge and build my first ever bass body. I made a J bass from a kit last year and enjoyed doing that, which has given me the bug for it. I'm enlisting the help of my Dad, who has more woodworking skills than I (i.e. more than none). Mainly I thought it'd be a good excuse for us to spend some time together at something. Pa_User found some reclaimed mahogany in an antiques shop that'd work as the body: Out of this he's cut a shape from a template I made on the computer and printed out: Meanwhile I've been scouring eBay for the cheapest bits and pieces I can find to complete the build. The mahogany is only 35mm thick, so to get it up to 4mm (which is the thickness of my Squire P and kit build J) I got some top wood. It was the cheapest I could find and I thought it was alright from the pictures, but since I actually received it I think it looks absolutely gorgeous. I plan to go round tomorrow to see if we can work out a plan for putting all these bits together in something like the right order. Maybe have a test go with the router I bought and have no idea how to use. I'm hoping for the benefit of the experience of you all along the way. My tentative plan is that the next jobs are routing out the control cavity in the body along with any channels for wires to go through to pickup holes and behind the bridge, etc.. Then to try and get the top on. After that cut the neck pocket. Am I missing anything from that? Wish us luck!

Agreed - I would have been a lot less polite with them. I hadn't seen that there. I had seen it a few times on the facebook bass players marketplace, which doesn't have a swear filter! I have seen some basses that seemed overpriced and wasn't surprised that they hung round for a while, but I manage to deal with that by not buying them. The only time I have commented on was when someone was selling some TC speakers at £100 off full price, where I sent a pm to notify them that they might be worth waiting as GAK had them on currently at half price (£200 off, new and posted), which I knew as I had bought some. I have also had basses on here that havent sold (in fact most haven't here, the last ones all went on ebay and facebook), but with some of those, I haven't reduced them to a bargain price because I don't mind waiting and don't need the money, as is they have all gone apart from the epi, and frankly I am not unhappy about that!

Yes, terrible (by a couple of contributors). I guess the silence on my thread is much better 😎

+1 Dry coats are your friend Soledad Try and get hold of some tack cloths for a gentle wipe over between coats, it will remove any little fibres that have a habit of sticking to your work best of luck, it will look awesome, it's a great colour

But who would that benefit? It doesn’t benefit the seller if the item is actually still for sale, and it doesn’t benefit a potential buyer who might log in 7 months after the ad was posted and never see it because it was auto-deleted. If a seller wants an item to sell, it’s surely in their own best interests to bump the thread every couple of days. If they don’t, it goes to the bottom of the pile and doesn’t get seen by any but the most tenacious (read: willing to use the search function, or scroll through many pages) buyers.

If that was a 5 string...fortunately it's not! (Love the fact that he prefers 'burst': only 'cos I know that some folk make out that particular finish causes their eyes to bleed 😂 )

If my post got you thinking about what is music to you, then I can take all the hullabaloo thrown at me. Musically I was brought up on trad Irish and Country. I have broadened my listening in the intervening years but I like my music to have clearly defined structure, verse, chorus, bridge etc. A track that goes nowhere irritates me, like so called chill out music. YMMV.

What is about this talented, successful & professional musician that people don't like? 😉

Hawkwind, Gong, Soft Machine. 😥 The poor Yankees had to make do with the likes of the Grateful Dead.

Kingston town by UB40... I prefer the original by Lord Creator, but it was relatively unknown... There's a heart-warming story about the effect that UB40 had on him... "In 1989, the British group UB40 recorded Kingston Town. There is a story that after this, Eccles saw Creator, who had become homeless and destitute, on a Kingston street. When Eccles called out to him, Creator fled thinking Eccles had come to collect $30 he owed him. Eccles chased him down and told him UB40 had recorded Kingston Town and that Creator had earned substantial royalties. With the money he earned in royalties, Creator revitalized his life and career. He appeared in oldies shows in Jamaica, and even toured Japan." https://www.westburymusic.net/ArtistDetails?Aid=WBM_AR_274