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TBPH when I first came to BassChat I was astonished by the rather narrow focus on bass guitars, bass amps and double basses. Where was the tuba section? What did the forum have against alpenhorns? Why nothing about those big f*ck-off church bells that go Bong rather than Bing? I was so disappointed I never came back.

Above: Swiss chaps shuffle their feet nervously as someone turns up with the Alpenhorn equivalent of an SVT and an 8x10 cab.

I have always wanted one of these. All parts were sourced on Basschat . The body consists of a one piece 1 " 1/4 ash slab with a mahogany "stripe" and a bookmatched ash top. Ash through neck with rosewood finger board, Music man tuners / Nordstrand PU / John East MM preamp Khaler bridge Dunlop strap locks all bought on site .

This thread is useless without 'that' Partridge clip...

Reminds me of the joke about the man who goes to the doctor complaining that his penis has turned orange. After running a load of tests, the doctor is out of ideas, so asks the man what he does for a living. Nothing, says the man, just spend all day eating wotsits and watching porn.

Sorry if it’s the wrong thread but here are some of mine on the settee ...

I can't remember why, but my mum bought me a guitar and tiny amp from an older lad's mum from over the road. Turned out it was a short bass guitar (Musicmaster). I suppose from then on I listened out for the bass on records, and liked a lot of what I heard... then I became friends with an older lad who was already playing bass in bands, and he kindly taught me the first steps - tuning up (I hated how long that took, using a crappy tuning pipe!), and some basic walking basslines... And my best mate was a drummer - so that fitted in nicely. Even though he didn't actually have a drum kit until a bit later on, that didn't stop us from saying that we were a great rhythm section! 😃 Hearing the bass on recordings wasn't so easy in the 1970s, as most household TVs radios and record players didn't seem to have any bass... then came compact cassette recorders and car cassette players - which also didn't have any bass. Luckily though, the following decades contained plenty of bass. 👍

One crucial aspect in my formative years from a bass point of view totally slipped my mind, until a conversation with my mum this morning took me back to 1977 and the summer we spent living with my grandparents on a council estate in Stafford. We were relocating to north Oxfordshire (where I still live) due to my dad’s job but our new house wasn’t quite ready and so we spent about eight weeks living in Stafford with my grandparents until it was. The estate they lived on had a sizeable West Indian population, and everywhere we went we’d hear reggae and dub coming out of the houses and flats. Of course as an eight year old boy I didn’t know what dub reggae was, but I remember loving how it sounded. I had no clue what I was hearing, no idea what bass was but I remember how it seemed to travel through the air and through the ground. Years later I started listening to Culture, King Tubby, Burning Spear, and many more, all of which I still love, so I guess it must’ve all sunk in!

I started with a guitar but found it very fiddly. First time I tried a bass, it seemed to fit my hands much better. That was in 1974 (I think). Never looked back!

That’s not a Geddy neck, they don’t have black plastic inserts at the truss rod. Definitely a bogus neck plate, Corona font is all wrong. Look at the scratchplate on the lower horn. Not a Fender body. It’s junk. Walk away. Also, a three inch strap is useless, it needs to be at least a couple of feet long.

I first came to the Basschat site in 1974, looking forward to chatting about bass and the like. I was very disappointed, as people weren't discussing bass, but some weird guitar things. Not a single mention of the best bait to use, or most common habitat of the bass. Disgusting really - I shall be contacting advertising standards. Yours disappointedly, Tarquinne De Pfeffel-Smythe (BrGen [ret.]).

Rehearsal tonight

One for the quotes thread

After messing around with pre and power amps for many years and growing ever more tired of the sound of fans, I decided to go back to all-in-one peace and quiet amps. This arrived today - built mid-May 1993 (about the time I met Mrs. Pook as it happens) and in good condition bar some crackles that some switch cleaner sorted out very quickly. Sounds lovely, except for one niggle - there's a slight buzz though the speakers even when the unit is on standby - I'm guessing this is the call for new power supply capacitors, an easy fix and I think overdue for an amp this age. There, back in the Big Green club

So, can we all just agree that I have the best looking rigs here on Basschat 😁😎 The rig on the left is an Ashdown CTM-15 and Ashdown MiBass 1x10. It’s just my practice rig for home but sounds absolutely amazing. The rig on the right is an Ampeg PF500 and Barefaced Two10. I only got the Barefaced the other week and the Ampeg today so not gigged it yet but in the kitchen today it sounded awesome. Three gigs next week so hoping it delivers. The two basses are a Fender American Vintage Reissue 75 Jazz and a Fender FSR 70’s Reissue Precision. The Precision is off to Shuker tomorrow to have a fretless maple neck made for it 😁 Anyway, so love my two little rigs 🥰

Oh, and part of my decision to pick up the bass was that all my keyboard gear was so expensive and had such limited life spans. Then, in just three years I spent more on bass gear than I've spent on keyboard gear during my lifetime. 😮

Firstly look out for anyone you know who's got a larger than life personality and is maybe a bit of a showoff. Whether he can sing that well is of secondary importance. I'm not being facetious. There are many bands out there with good enough singers but few who are larger than life showmen/women who can command a stage

My best mate got a drum kit for Christmas and picked it up really quickly so decided he should start a band. Seeing as I was his best mate he asked me if I'd like to join rather than try to find somebody that could actualy play already. He suggested bass as I wouldn't have to learn to play chords so we could start playing sooner. Because he was really into Nirvana at the time he gave me a cassette copy of Unplugged in New York to learn and an old acoustic guitar with only the E and A strings on it. Within a week I'd learned the bass parts by ear (pretty accurately to be fair looking back) to about 2/3 of the album and I was hooked. So that I could be heard against his drum kit, my mate then lent me the money to buy the cheapest bass that was available in that week's Free Ads paper - a Hohner B2a for £70. I didn't have an amp so I plugged into his Goodmans twin cassette home karaoke machine which was just about audible over the drums with the volume on full but distorted horribly. My older sister then introduced us to one of her husband's friends who played guitar and sang so I had to get my first bass amp (a Laney Linebacker 30) so that the karaoke machine could be our vocal PA. We were terrible but it was a start and within a year I'd joined the band that I'm with today and have been gigging with for over 23 years!

This^^^ 😜 I was at college in 1991 and still considered myself a g****rist. Then a funk band with two gorgeous female singers came along. The guitar chair was filled, but they needed a bass player. I had a bass, but no bass amp, so played through my 100W Laney Linebacker guitar combo, so I must've sounded awful. I was blagging it terribly, but the rest of the band were a talented lot, and we were well received wherever we played. Though I failed to seduce either singer, I was myself seduced by the ways of the low note. People started calling me 'Dave Bass', and it stuck. (On reflection, I do actually remember a successful liasion with our backing dancer, so perhaps the low-notes did the trick in the end - My playing hasn't inspired anyone else to take their clothes off since, mind.) 😕

Birmingham. My elder brother and his mate were both in bands through the 60's. I used to follow them around and act as a roadie so, although underage, it got me into clubs and pubs. Along the way I learned to strum a few chords. Their claims to fame - one once shared a stage jamming with The Move, the other did a stint in Germany a la Beatles. But like many others they got married, settled down, had kids and worked at their day jobs for a secure income as did I. Fast forward to 1998, (with all our children grown up and all of us settled and prospering in our respective careers), at my 50th birthday party, brother and mate had a strum together in my back garden on acoustics, singing and playing 60's tunes. "We should get together and form a group", said one to the other. "You'll can play bass" they said pointing to me. I was loaned a no-name P Bass and an amp. Another old friend took up drums and another thought he could sing! Weekend get togethers ensued and we started playing at family parties, (to the amusement/embarassment of our collective teenage off-spring). The journey then began that would be familiar to many: new drummers and singers, new and better instruments and amps, pub gigs, club gigs, weddings, functions and local summer festivals. Our playlist consisted of Shadows/Ventures instrumentals and early Cliff stuff, Beatles and Kinks, Animals and Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, Hollies and Searchers, etc, the usual 50's, 60's, 70's hits: much like hundreds of other cover bands. After 15 years or so we found gigs fewer and far between with venues closing and the remuneration poor for the all the effort involved, and we were all getting older, (those 3 a.m. Sunday mornings after unloading and stowing all the P.A. etc back in the garage didn't seem so much fun anymore. We stopped being weekend warriors but now run a music club for has-beens and wannabes at Quarry Bank community centre. Oh, I was also invited to play with a local amateur Jazz quartet, so I'm learning to play properly now. The question 'Why?' could have been answered by just saying that I thought Jet Harris looked cool, as I I later found him to be when I had a nice chat with him. Just bumped into him at the NEC around 1999ish at a 'Mad About Guitars' show where he and Hank were separately doing demo's/workshops. Now that was a really nice day out because the first LP we had for Xmas, must have been 1961, to play on our new Portadyne record player was The Shadows first LP. We played it to death through it's 4" elliptical speaker. Those tunes are stuck in my head. We still play them at the music club sometimes. It's about time I shut up, I've got the grass to cut today, front and back lawns. But that's uninteresting and belongs in another thread along with the cup of coffee I'm about to make and enjoy whilst I have a read of yesterdays Daily Mail. Can't you just tell I'm retired with far to much time on my hands?

Might the deterioration in quality have something to do with losing Scott Litt as a producer? I also suspect the band outlasted their natural longevity in the musical ecosystem and then broke up before there was any chance of a reinvention or a sustainable late style. Eventual loss of purpose isn't the worst fate for an influential band, I suppose. Some of their earlier work still sounds like it could have been made last week, which is probably as good a legacy as any.

Wanted to play bass from the age of about thirteen. John Ford, John Entwistle and Chris Squire were my inspirations and i fell in love with the shape of the Rickenbacker. Finally started learning when i turned fifty. It takes me a while to get round to things...

Like what, exactly?

I tried playing air guitar to a Jean-Michel Jarre album. It turned out to be a waste of oxygene.

A Fender Precision 😉

My case is slightly different, I chose a specialist courier, accepted their quote for a 'specialist job', £72 - not your average cheap as chips service. I don't have any problems (touch wood) with the regulars, Hermes, Yodel, DPD, TNT and others, even Royal Mail!!

I don't excuse what happens, but I thoroughly understand it. I was talking, quickly, to the guy who delivers for Hermes. His "patch" is huge, and he regularly gets just under 100 items a day. Approximately 50% of recipients will be out. If he doesn't get rid on day 1 he has to try again on day 2. Say he gets rid of some to neighbours, he could have another 35-40 on top of the 100ish he was already struggling to deliver. So he "doorsteps". That's the way it is. Corners aren't just cut, they're axed. It'll be an unpopular observation, however, online retailers use the cheapest courier because consumers don't want to pay for delivery. This just creates an ever downward spiral.

This is underplaying things slightly - my dad played bass, I was surrounded by it in my first years. After he gave up playing one of the jobs my dad had was to setup Mike Oldfield's studio at Througham Slad, and then engineer for him. https://images.app.goo.gl/JPAsYqNcJPTixr4E8 I always wanted to play the P-bass in this photo whenever I saw it leant against the wall, of course I was forbidden to touch it at 5 years old! I grew up listening to Mike Oldfield, Pierre Moerlen, Ian Dury, Peter Gabriel and The Stranglers. It was inevitable I would play bass.

This sounds very similar to me as a kid , only I was on a council estate in east London, great story, thanks for sharing BrunoBass 🙂

That's really cool Dave. Played to my largest crowd ever when we opened for The Charlie Daniels Band. When I was on stage and looked out at the crowd I also felt like all my hard work had paid off. Blue

Absolutely. It's a fantastic little thing. It was the only small format mixer I could find with proper XLR outs for the odd times it actually leaves my desk.

Get Valerie Singleton to raid her drawers.

Actually no, the best seamed stockings are made in the UK, could have problems with knicker elastic though

I bet you used to draw a pencil line down the backs of your legs during the great nylon stocking shortage of WWII and all.

Me and a couple of similarly underage schoolmates sneaked into a pub to see a punky/pub rock band who were getting a bit of a local reputation. That experience of up-close, sweaty live music in a tiny, packed venue, so different from the couple of "big" gigs I'd seen, convinced me that was what I had to do. Inspired, (and lubricated by a pint or two of illicit bitter top), me & the other guys formed a band & chose our instruments on the way home. Bass was a (mostly) rational decision based on the fact I only had a little bedroom & wouldn't be able to fit a drum kit into it! And talking my Mum into letting me get a bass would be easier... Anyway, me & my "band" mates all got instruments and went on to do various musical things - apart from ever playing together.

Discuss! 😉 To those who haven't read the relevant thread: this is a bad joke. I'm not in need of info about this thing. Don't even know what it is (but guess it's a PA amp).

You are so right, the frontman in our "Feelgood" band definitely has a larger than life personality, whenever people start videoing us on their phones, he closes in on them and sings straight into the lens, he wanders around with his wireless mic, sometimes goes behind the bar or even out in the street. Here's an example:

As it only has 4 strings I thought it'd be 33.334% easier /quicker than learning guitar.

I don't really have a favourite album per se (although my favourite track is The trees) but the album I appreciate the most is Vapor trails as it marks the return of Neil from one of the darkest places imaginable. The intro to One little victory gets me going every time.

Yes, I occasionally play air bass Turns out, I'm much better at playing slap air bass.....

I stopped having Alpenhorn for breakfast and went back to Cheerios...have to say the Tesco home delivery guy was pretty relieved!

At University from 1978 I was an avid keyboards player, (classically trained pianist) and played some great gigs with a bank of keyboards, synths, piano, organ etc. Then I had to spend an year in a bedsit in Germany as part of the Uni course. Whilst there, I missed the music so I bought a beaten up Framus jazz bass, with black nylon wound strings, to give me something to do. With no amp in the bedsit, I just learned to play acoustically, plucking along to songs on the radio. When I returned to Blighty, I sold the Framus for almost nothing (I obviously had no idea what I had in my hands) bought a spanking new Ibanez Roadster, and joined a new wave pop band. The keyboards were also sold to finance this bass obsession (still have sellers regret selling a beautiful Vox Continental organ) and I never looked back. Totally hooked. I think the classical piano training in my youth paid dividends understanding the backbone of the music and song structures, which gave me a leg up.

You haven't, we are watching you Mr Blank...........................................

Can't remember the last time I saw this, here or in a pub.

What about those giant Spanish (or Mexican) guitars, that are like massive Spanish guitars? I saw a film once (or an advert), where this like Mexican band wearing sombreros were working a restaurant, going from table to table playing... there was about five of them fellas, and one had a much bigger guitar than the others - so I figured it was a kind of bass... do we have a section for that? No? Disgusting is what I call it.

Forgetting to stomp back on the Tuner/Mute Pedal when your hear the 4 count into the next song 😅