Leaderboard

It's a...BB3000MA with org. hardcase and org. strap, tool and keys for the hardcase. I would love to have a green one but could not let this go by... When played it with the old strings (prob. org too) I thought it was DEAD. With new D'addario steel strings it sings and growls wonderful. How and why can anyone do this to an instrument ??? It had a thumb rest glued on that had to go. Silly thing! A wonderfull bass indeed!!! 🙂 Happy!

I'm not sure whether anyone is interested, but I've just finished a guitar with a brushed nitrocellulose lacquer finish. I always swore that I'd never use nitro - too poisenous both for me and the planet. However, a friend asked me to make them a Tele using a beautiful piece of flamed spalted maple, and nitro was the only finish that worked. Polyurethane, oil and CA glue turned the test pieces into a dull splodgy brown mess, not exactly the look I was going for. Nitro though brought out all the beautiful colours and let the flame really sing. Here's the piece of wood before I started.... Although I do spray waterbased polyurethane, there's no way I can spray nitro so I thought I'd try brushing it on. The internet though had almost no information about whether it was possible to brush it on, how to do it, or what the results would look like. So, hopefully this thread will help you decide if you want to do it. It is definitely not an easy option, but.....let me get up some finished pics, and you could decide whether it was worth it. This is what I used: This is Rothko & Frost's standard gloss nitro that they sell neat, ie not in aerosol. This was a 250ml bottle and I used the whole thing plus a bit more on the body. I brushed it on with an artist's brush, a trick I stole from @Andyjr1515. You need to make sure that it's a brush for oil paints, with natural bristles, otherwise the solvents can melt them. I used a Daler Rowney Bristlewhite hog hair fan brush, size 4 (though a size 6 might have made life a bit easier). They are comically long so I cut mine to a more manageable length. Schedule was something like this: 1. Sand to 220 2. Grain fill with Aqua Coat 3. Ignore the fact that the grain fill was pretty poor and crack on with finishing (john, john, john, will you never learn?🙄) 4. Brush on R&K Nitro, thinned with 30% R&K cellulose thinners, probaly about 10 coats. 5. Curse myself repeatedly for failing to grain fill properly. I've made enough guitars to know that preparation is everything, and if you want a smooth finish grain fill is critical. Impatience though sometimes clouds my already pretty poor judgement 5. Wet sand with Wet/Dry paper (water with a drop of Murphy's oil soap) with 600 grit. 6. Another unknown number of coats. It felt like hundreds, but was probably another 5 or so. 7. Wet sand 1000 grit 8. 'wet' sand with Gerlitz Carnauba wax on a piece of Mirka Abralon 1000 grit. This left exactly the satin sheen I was after. I found the key was to brush the nitro on in one stroke, never go back over somewhere you've just painted. Because the nitro dissolves the layer before, I found the brush would start 'sticking' as it got caught in the previous layer. My approach was to do lots and lots of layers, knowing that I would have to go back and wet sand quite a lot of it off to get it completely flat. In reality, because my grain fill was....well, shite.....I had to do many many more layers than I otherwise would have had to have done. If I ever do this again, I'm hoping that 10 layers in total would be enough, assuming a flat surface to begin with. I lay the guitar flat on a 'lazy susan' turntable, did the top and the sides at the start of the day then turned it over and did the back and sides. Would I do it again? Ummm....yes, and no. Yes, if the wood was crying out for nitro, as this piece was. I'd be a bit reluctant to do it again on an entire guitar body though. Even though it was brushed rather than sprayed, the fumes were still pretty bad, and I wore a proper mask with organic filters at all times. On a guitar with a binding like this one, next time I'd probably brush the top with nitro, as above, but do the rest of the body with something else, tru oil probably. The binding would provide a natural break between the two finishes, so the two finishes wouldn't ever touch. And on a flat surface like a guitar top (rather than the fiddly curved inner horns) you could whizz through the process in no time. It's worth mentioning that the Rothko & Frost nitro specifically says it is not suitable for brushing, though I'm not quite sure why, as far as I could tell it went on perfectly nicely. The process also used much less nitro than you would get through if spraying (I think). With a proper grain fill I'm pretty sure I could do a whole body with one 250ml bottle. An aerosol contains about 150ml of nitro, so I used probably the equivalent of two aerosols worth. I've never finished a guitar with rattlecans, but I'm pretty sure it would be many more than that. So all in all I'm pleased with the result (but the next one is going to be Danish Oil, which I can do on the kitchen table😂😁). And some photos.....

Hello! Im a teenager who has picked up the bass guitar. My bass and amp are the Yamaha TRBX605 4-string, and the Fender Rumble 40. I've been playing for about 9 months now.

I'm thinking the spalted beech one would look nice with an ebony board and a maple neck. Nice, plain colour combination. This is the kind of thing (longer neck from another bass but this is how long the bass will be).

The World Is Not Enough- with the blatant caveat of shoe horning a name drop in. My band were doing a day at studio 1 at AIR in 99, and whilst there was a break in proceedings as the singer and drummer went to get some food. I was chatting to the producer when David Arnold walks in, says hi to the producer and asks if we wanted to hear the new bond theme as ‘nobody else has.' We didn't take much encouragement and sat there listening to the song on the enormous monitoring system grinning from ear to ear. Red letter day and then some.

OK - so why another Dreadnought Acoustic? Couple of reasons. A pro-player I know has been borrowing a number of my bass and guitar builds over the past 5-6 weeks to use in some videos he is recording. I'll post the links when they are done but he is planning to acknowledge me as the maker for...nothing at all! Based on that he has done a number of the demo videos for both Laney amps and Faith acoustic guitars, I class that as a bit of an honour! Secondly, and flattery gets folks everywhere with me , my dreadnought acoustic has caused a bit of a sensation: The tone had been remarked on before, but since then I changed to a mixed set of strings - 1st two are from a 10 gauge set and the other four are from an 11 gauge set. And WOW! Honestly, it sounds stunning. And he thinks so too! And so do his pupils! And he keeps on going on about how good it sounds. So...is it luck? Well, the original one I built for our band's vocalist is still going strong and sounds pretty close. So...hmmm...try for a hat-trick? And then I had a (admittedly) rare bright idea. A bottle of wine doesn't seem to do justice to half a dozen professional videos of my instruments being played. And he is primarily an acoustic player... So if I make this new one to his preferred spec (I know he prefers a slightly narrower neck)? And if it's as good mine, it's his. And if it's not quite, then mine above is his (I can reshape the neck easily enough) and the new one is mine. And "played by pro-players" wouldn't be a bad strap-line Sounds like a plan to me. What could possibly go wrong?

So? Still interesting, isn't it? Does playing bass matter? We're here to have fun, right?!

Playing Rebellion in Manchester on Sunday! Can't bloody wait!

What kind of music do you want to play? That should lead your choice. These Chorus - thickens up your sound and adds a 'shimmer' to the top end. Good for melodic lines, subtle, especially if you use a guitar flanger with bass (which can work well as it keeps the bottom end clear and spices up the higher tones). Flanger - deeper more in-your-face version of chorus, used slow can give a swooshing rather artificial sound. I tend to use it when I want an obvious effect. Phaser - gentler version of phase and chorus as it affects a broader range of sounds. I find this very lovely but less popular these days. [Use chorus+flanger at very different rates for really wild sounds as they intermodulate, good for 'psychedelic effects'.] EQ pedal - can be useful if used with care. Essential if you have to use other people's amps with lots of confusing dials as you can set up a 'neutral tone' and use the pedal to get the sound you like. Use to get two different sounds if you have a 1-pickup bass or to get a different sound for special effect. I prefer to use it with subtle bass boost if I need some welly when using the bridge pickup. Distortion - very personal. I have a HM2 for completely wrecked sounds, but most people want a much subtler effect. The higher harmonics ina distorted sound often make chorus/flange etc. more noticeable. Delay - Thickens your sound but can get rid of definition I find what sounds good to me sounds awful when played back as it ovewhelms other instruments, best used in small doses. Tremelo - very cheap effect that adds a wobble or even a stutter (depending on depth) without affecting the note pitch. Useful for some genres like surf music. Usually best used in a subtle way as too much and it can 'overlays' a rhythm on your playing (OK if you want this!). Compressor - vary from simple on/off effects on some amps to flight-deck complexity. I use mine with attack and sustain near middle values and adjust level so it matches me playing normally. My aim is to use fairly subtly to even out levels when playing varied lines. Slap players generally more compression to balance out the extreme differences between hard slaps and pops and gentler muted notes. Turn off when you want to emphasise dynamics (i.e. play soft and then loud). Tuner - really useful and most can also act as a mute pedal. Next to add for me? Octaver - I really like the sound. Main thing with effects is don't over-use them. Make sure you have a good sound without any effects (except perhaps EQ and compression) and rely on pickup switching/tone know for most changes of sound. Bring in effects only when needed, over-effected instruments can be tiring to listen to. That said, they can be great fun if you find an excuse for stomping on several at once!

I decided to give it a go on the body to see how it looks??................. 😀

@Shmeo welcome to Basschat and more importantly to the world of bass! There are a lot of bass players who don't use any pedals at all and simply go bass to amp. If you're not sure where to start a multi-fx is a great introduction to the typical sounds and tones that a pedal can provide (and they usually have a built in tuner as well). Very happy to recommend getting any of the Zoom pedals as they are really good value e.g. the newly released Zoom B1-4 or B1X-4.

I've just got back from my first gig since 1995, the 'Abbey Road Army' one. We were the 'Grizzly Beers' and on second. The sound was spot on as you might expect from a venue with a proper stage and a list of past bands like this: Were were hoping not to make fools of our selves but in the end we had a great reception and everyone was saying how good we were, especially how we fitted all the instruments together. We started with Going Back Home as easy to play and a crowd pleaser. The Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting which is a tad more challenging! Our secret weapon was Boulevard of Broken dreams where we got all those stops spot on, including the end - our effort to practice endings really paid off. We did 40 minutes and finished with My My, Hey Hey. I started it with my HM2 pedal dialled and a plaintive howl of feedback, calmed down a bit for most of the song, and finished with HM2, tremelo, flanger, EQ and chorus on and the compressor off! The plan was to go out with a bang and it turned out we managed to make a picture fall off the wall at the far end of the building in the next room 🙂 We ended witha group hug! A few moments of sheer terror, but in the end we all had a brilliant time and the other bands were great too! We are meeting up in a couple of weeks top discuss a plan for world domination!

With the retirement of Michael Pedulla, the shift in production of Ken Smith basses and the transition to the use of new apprentices by Vinnie Fodera etc I think we’ll see basses ‘made by the original’ becoming sought after, regardless of whether the instruments are any different. It’s happened before; isn’t there a ‘Dan Smith’ era fender from the 80s or something that for some reason is worth more? A lot of the innovators from the 70s/80s are retiring or dying and I don’t know if we’ll ever have that same era of ‘new’ ideas like that, on the same scale (although I’m all for innovation, collectors don’t think like that). So the basses will be worth more and newer ones take inspiration from them. So for a bass to be considered valuable in the future I’d say it would have to be made ‘in house’ by one of the original ‘masters’. Do you think a Sadowsky made by someone after Roger retires will be worth as much as one he made? Folks on TB are already saying that Smith basses from the ‘Ken era’ will be sought after, even though production has always been outsourced to some extent. Any plastic components will be valuable when we run out of oil

Went to see my old Guitarist in his band on Saturday night and our Bassist was there as well (I was Frontman/Vocalist) we all got chatting and all agreed we'd like to get together again for a jam and see were it goes...unfortunately we parted company in 2011 because our Drummer was in so many bands it was causing friction, we tried to find a replacement but to no avail and we all went our separate ways, we have all toyed with re-forming in the past but nothing came of it, but now myself and the Bassist have been bandless for quite sometime the Guitarist is with his band but in my opinion wasted in them, so fingers crossed we'll get together and see how things go and hopefully re-form.

After playing in various bands for the past 35 years my current band have recorded a decent video of a Black Sabbath cover."Lord of this World" Please have a watch & feel free to comment. Ta

I acquired most of the bits for this before moving. My music room is all set up now so it seemed rude not to put it together 🙂 It's a no-name P neck on a Kit Built Guitars Jazz body. Everything black except the SD bridge pickup. Delano neck pickup, Gotoh bridge, Schaller tuners. Klogon loom and silver screws for a bit of rock and roll contrast. I've strung it with Roto black nylons to continue the black theme so it's got a lovely mellow tone. I'm letting it settle for a couple of days before the final setup tweaks. Need to find some black strap buttons too...

Not only is The Man with the Golden Gun by far the funkiest Bond song, I believe it's also the only one that includes key plot elements in the lyrics. If you listen to the opening song, you pretty much know all you need to know about the villainous Scaramanga's backstory before the film even properly starts.

Vigier, Kubicki, Overwater, tune, Parker, Peavey, Status, De Gier, Schack... Every builder today is interesting after +50 years. Or if some player "finds" certain brand, the prices will rise. Remember Nirvana and the sky-high prices of those lousy Fenders? But, this is hard to digest: the instrument is not the one that produces that sound. It is the player. Sorry, secret revealed. If I wanted to sound like Geddy Lee, I should learn his playing style. The work in finding a similar instrument just does not help, but only consumes time - while I should play and learn.

I've been getting on with some shaping and other bits and bobs on this neck. First the neck was marked up to give the rough shape (and so I don't get carried away and remove wood from the wrong place....it has happened...got carried away once and cut the channel for a truss rod on the wrong side of a blank so ended up having to make an upside down neck!) I've also fitted the side dots. Firstly need to find the middle point between the two frets then draw a line. I then use a drilling template to ensure that all holes are in the same line on the fretboard: Once these are done, the plastic dot rods are inserted: Then cut flush: I've started the neck shaping and working out where the logo will go so this can then be routed out with a Dremel and inlayed.

I put the mobile on the floor in front of a 25 watts Hartke combo. I think it sounds great! 🙂 Q1111.m4a

Tough choice between the majesty of Barry's OHMSS, and Chris Cornell's epic vocal contribution to Casino Royale. The oldie won a toss of the coin.

I really like the theme tune to Casino Royale and Chris Cornell’s vocals on it are brilliant. However, the orchestration doesn’t make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up the way Barry’s strings on OHMS does.

Hi Al. I was going to order it from Handbox , but was intercepted by Dan ( member DeeDee of this parish) who had just received his brand new r400 but due to personal circumstances was unable to play it....... So he offered it me ( it's brand new). So i can't answer questions about ordering etc ( sure wateroftyne could help there?). I really don't want to gush too much about this amp( hard not to, trust me) ,as I have with previous amps on here in the past, only to discover niggles with them. In the mix this is AMAZING,I can hear every note fantastically...most amps I've had I've always had some sort of preamp pedal ( VT bass,tone hammer etc) as a safety net valve esq sound......but my VT seriously adds no improvements to this amp whatsoever ( much nicer o natural)its a proper plug in and play head. Compared to the tte 800 amp they have a similar valve like thump feel but the r400 has super clarity and is mighty nice in the upper mid's.....the main thing that let the markbass down was the lack of good mid's. If I can get hold of a decent video recorder I'll try and do a snippet of rehearsals to show how it cuts in a fairly heavy band. If anyone has the chance to try this head do it! I am right in love with it 🙂

For E's and wizz?

The speaker impedance ratings for valves is the maximum, that for SS is the minimum. Use the tap on a valve head that's equal to or more than the speaker impedance, use a total speaker load on an SS amp that's equal to or greater than the amp rating.

If the Almighty had intended basses to have more than 5 strings surely he / she would have given us more fingers? 😂

The correct answer to the question is no-one cares what colour it is. All that people care about is how does it sound played in drop E through loads of Darkglass pedals by Nolly Getgood. Does it djent? Does it sound "sick?" We'll never know the answer to these questions if we stop to think what colour it actually is depending on what angle the light strikes it at.

I liked the look of them too - but that money for a passive P bass? Nah.

Nice work :). Never tried brushing it! In case you haven’t already figured out what went wrong with the grain filling, it’s not you...it’s aquacoat. I’m surprised they get away with selling it, it’s really ineffective at filling grain and worst of all it shrinks like crazy. Which is a shame as I loved the idea and how easy it should be to use, but I’ve given it a fair trial on a number of builds and every time it’s disappointed. Get some z poxy instead, not as easy to work with but is totally stable. The RF thixotropic grain fillers work well also, not quite as effective as the z poxy, but a bit quicker.

Good tuner pedal. Worth it’s weight

Being fairly new to the site and not that familiar with how it works, I felt that although the repair and tech forum was the right place for it I wasn't sure it might reach more people in general discussion so I did both.

I liked the look of them but it was silly money for passive P and PJ basses. There's no shortage of well made basses out there that do the same thing for half of what Music Man were charging for these two models.

Sellers can be freaks as well, I had a right one on a Facebook selling page. I wanted to buy a VCR to convert some old videos of the kids to DVD. I work in Plymouth and saw one for sale in Plymouth, ideal I'll swing by one the way home from work. "Is it still for sale?" "Yes." 'I'll have it, I'll pick it this evening at half five." "Yes." “Can I have you address please?“ “Yes." After about an hour, " Can I have your address please so I can pick it up this evening?“ “Yes." Another half an hour goes by, “Address?“ “I'm not giving out my address over Facebook, here's my mobile number, if you text when you're five minutes away, I'll give it to you then". "How the feck will I know when I'm five minutes away, five minutes away from where? This is too difficult, you can keep it!“

This is not aimed at BC members, but other advertising platforms. I have a Jazz for sale, and ive had. What nut width is it.? Im used to 38mm Jazz neck width. Me.... its 36mm.. Buyer... oh no that's 2mm too thin for my liking. Whats the weight.? Me.... It's 4.2kg.. Buyer.... Sorry thats 2 pounds over my preferred weight. The bass is £485. Buyer.... Is this a Skyline or a USA Lakland.? "Ive been after a Jazz for ages, love the look and sound". Me... Ok, do you want to come and play it?... Buyer. (2 days later) "Ive decided I dont like Jazz Basses" I can go on. Its staggering how many idiotic time wasters are out there.

Hello everybody ! I recently bought quite an old Schecter PJ bass which is with my "guitar doc" at the moment to get a new brass nut and new frets. The body is made from Koa but I am not really sure what the neck is made of. Unfortunately only the serial number and not the "article number" is branded in the neck heel as you can see on the attached pictures. I am tending towards Cocobolo but I am not sure. Is there anyone around, maybe with a luthier background, who can help me with identifiying the wood ? I attached one page of an old catalog which lists all possibilities. Thank you very much, Dan

I agree the flavour here. Too much money for a bass that can be obtained much more cheaply in a competitor. The new prices on MM basses are frankly ludicrous as well. Boutique level prices for mass produced instruments. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of EBMM basses. I’ve owned or played most of them and love the Sterling HH I have. But I would never have parted with the cash for a new one. Just insaaaaaaaaane money. Secondhand (here or elsewhere) has sorted me for most instruments I own. Love me a secondhand bass...lol

As a moment of slight relief, take inspiration from the extra-Short Scale here:

Welcome. You've single-handedly lowered the average age on here and raised the average IQ. Nice work. 😀

There is another book, Fender Bass for Britain . . . https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Bass-for-Britain-The-History-of-the-1966-Slab-Bodied-Precision-Bass/382933872967?epid=1319999442&hash=item5928a33147:g:UIQAAOSw4uhczP2A . . . and, reading reviews of the latter on Amazon, maybe some “issues” between the two authors? Looks like there’s a story there as interesting as the one about the bass itself!

Isn't it just a preamp like most DI pedals?

Once, like TOTP in the 70s and 80s, there was a goodly amount of cheesy fun to laff at, you know, entries from the Netherlands or Luxembourg that went ' she went ning nang nong with a bang tiddle bong' . Now it's all sensitive young men with well groomed facial hair yearning earnestly into the camera or East European porno starlets howling at the top of their lungs in a Mariah Carey stylee. Our kids like this kind of tosh so I turned the TV off after 9 episodes of torture finishing with another dismal effort from the UK.

More pics... trial fitting of the machine heads, I've also oiled the poplar wood on the face of the headstock with linseed and it's given it pleasing colour. Headstock from the back, I'll keep the veneer on this bit . In order to test out a few tools , techniques, ideas, etc and use up a few spare parts and end up with an interesting bitsa I'm also working on this: Bitsa body with contours and staining on the carved areas to blend withe the veneer. T800 neck with dots made from ebony from the black keys.

Upper fret access you say? 😀

I rounded the fingerboard edges off a bit more than Musikraft did, at the business end where I think it would wear more, and then used some of this leather dye, which others have recommended for darkening the fingerboard. It also darkens the 'clay' dots down a bit which I prefer the look of now. I may add some boiled linseed oil later to give it more of a shiny, gunky old look. I also rounded the end of the fingerboard off a bit at the neck pocket end, as they also seem to wear down there. I have done the date stamp on the heel of the neck, as I said at the start I purposely made it to show my date of birth, rather than copying the manufacturing marks Fender would have or still do, put on their necks. The Fender decal was given a light coat of amber, the instructions advised doing it, but I have noticed that the decal on old Fenders is often slightly darker than the headstock Then I give the neck a light dusting of amber lacquer before masking off parts of the neck, the same way I did on the body, that would discolour differently, due to not getting exposure to light, and then applied a bit more amber. Again, I know it's not going to be seen, but a big part of the enjoyment for me is seeing how these little touches are created and applying them to something of mine. It makes a difference to me. I also made a decal with 'Rubis' on it, my date of birth and a little shamrock, in plain view and to be clear coated over to permanently seal it in, a bit like Limelight do on the back of their headstocks.