Leaderboard

OMG! It works!! 😮 It's much more inline (horizontally), with the standing position, and now there's a curve in the bass that fits my right moob nicely. 😬 Everything I thought I knew was wrong!

Progress. This is the first cab to come off the CNC machine and it looks fine to me - thanks to Chimike's sterling drawing work. That's also the metal grille wot I made. Grilles are still a work in progress as I'm exploring more avenues thanks to some bright ideas from Luke. It's going off tomorrow to Pete aka funkle. Unless he finds any serious shortcomings (unlikely), I'll be ordering the first batch next week.

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

Takes all sorts I guess

Left Left Leg? You are Jake the Peg and I claim my £25.00.

Its also a much more modest position if you're playing naked. 🤒

Can't stand REM. But Jane's Addiction are another story!

Or let's not...

*cough* black headstock *cough* 🤘🏻

What's that? Picture? OK OK here you are

I discovered recently that the Number One record in the UK charts on the day that I was born was "Double Barrel" by Dave and Ansell Collins. I like to think that this subliminally inspired my later love of dub and reggae, and my musical career as a low-note specialist.

I’ve finally got round to recording some clips of my C4 patches:

Seems like Atelier Z basses are a bit rare occurence on this forum so I thought about writing a bit about my recent purchase Having owned quite a few Japaneese basses over the years, mainly ones from the Fujigen factory like Yamaha TRB, Ibanez Prestiges, FGN basses, Fenders but others like a Sadowsky Metro as well, I have long been an admirer of the quality of the craftmanship that is put into these instruments over there. There is a bunch of smaller 'boutique' workshops like Atelier, Sugi, Devise that produce basses of the highst quality and standards - with prices to match. I've been long eyeing Atelier basses as I like their take on the classic Fender jazz design and they seem to carry everything that I like in these modern 'superjazz' basses. There are so many brands to choose from if one is heading into this direction and the options are almost endless, but I wanted to have something which is a bit unique here in Europe and wanted to know the next level of CIJ basses. So after months of checking out Ikebe's website (one of Japans biggest instrument store) this bass came up, I had the funds, the stars aligned and I made the purchase and imported this home. This was my second time dealing with Ikebe and I have to say they are top notch in customer service. It was a seamless transaction. Anyway, on to the most important thing. The bass is a Atelier Z M265 custom model. The M265 is basically their '70 5 string jazz bass. Ash body, one piece maple neck/board with block inlays and binding. they use in-house Atelier pickups and a selection of 2 band preamps. Hadware is a high mass Atelier bridge and Gotoh tuners. This custom M265 is a bit different, most notably in that it has a 3 band EQ (Bartonlini) and abalone inlays plus a brown red burst finish (which is more like amber in real life, the pics show this a bit more red that actually is) It is quite light and is a joy to play, the neck is really comfortable. It balances really well, that was one of my concerns as I was not able to try and see. I especially like the clean pickguard, it lets the grain shine through. The sound is a bit of a tipical '70 ash/maple, quite clean, sweet deeps with great highs and the slap is like Miller, only I don't have the chops.... It can get gritty if I dig in and it reacts very well to the different dinamics. The mid cut/boost is a nice addition, can't remember every having a jazz with a mid control but certainly helps at certain situations with the slightly scooped ash/maple sound. I bougth this bass untried and without ever trying an Atelier bass but it delivered on its promise big time. These above are my initial observations and for the time being I am very happy and a bit relieved as this distance purchase turned out great. Of course just like with other basses only time will tell how we are going to be in the long run. And now the pics (taken by Ikebe)

Inspired by the "show us your rig!" thread and being the owner of a, quite frankly, fugly Markbass head & cabinet setup I'm now on a quest to find a good looking (and great sounding ) rig. I'd love to see some glamour shots of your amps and cabs.. I grabbed some from the aforementioned thread as a starter for this gratuitous thread (hopefully I credited the right people). @Merton @VTypeV4 @Wavemerchant @DanEly @Paddy515 @wateroftyne @Cat Burrito @jrixn1 @l. W.

Just finished an afternoon recording a bass part for a couple of friends. Gave them the option of flats or rounds and they opted for flats. Realised that I'd never recorded with flatwounds before, and what a revelation! The best recorded bass sound I've ever enjoyed. So hard to put into words but it had an organic authenticity, and a fundamental thick rubbery satisfying sound. Great day. Used my B3 for a touch of compression and an amp sim and the engineer was pleasantly surprised with results. As I was myself.

NBD is imminent at Black Towers. Continuing my apparant quest to replace every instrument I own with a P Bass of one sort or another I have jettisoned a P/J and am eagerly awaiting the bass stork. I'm calling her my Stealth Bass.

My 2016 MIJ 'FSR' & '78 Mustangs

I've been telling you that for ages! But would you listen...!?!

You'd think, but it doesn't quite work like that for me 😇

Finally got back from Spain ...

If I put the Shukerbird or the Dingwall on my left leg I can barely see the first fret, let alone reach it...

I'm pleased I chose someone who knows how to work under pressure. 🙂 I've revised the crossover and am building it now. So it will probably be early next week before I can send it on. I'm still working on the screws. It's a lot more complicated than I thought. I've ordered some samples so that I can direct everyone to the right (and cheapest) suppliers. On the matter of painting the port tube.... I carried out an experiment using a typical blackboard paint (needed two coats), black car spray paint (cellulose), and the normal black Tuffcab paint. They all go on and cover the white. I expect they will stay on but you can remove them easily by scratching with a fingernail. So, the adhesion isn't as good as a specialist plastic paint. You can buy a small jar of Humbrol plastic enamel, which is supposed to work on PVC, for about £1.80 from your local model shop. That could be worth a try.

We do unless the venue specifically requests us not to. We're an 80s covers band too so the playlist reflects this. It helps set the mood. I also use it to sneak in tunes we're thinking of adding to the set so I can see how they go down.

Same here, but my decade starts with a 6 now. I have never played to such enthusiastic audiences, in such good venues, with such good musicians or been as well paid as I am now. Being in a rather niche tribute band (Grateful Dead) does slightly restrict the number of gigs we play, but those that we do are real events to remember. Two years ago, I could never have dreamt I'd be playing a three night run in the main band at a German festival - but I've done that this year. It's still hard work catching up with the very experienced other guys in the band, but it's worth it.

OK - coming from your phone, plug in a 3.5mm stereo cable. Split this to two unbalanced cables, one with a jack to go to your DI box. Plug this jack into your DI box and then from that, a XLR to the PA. The other side, with your click on, you can't just plug a set of headphones in as you'll only get it out of one ear. You could bridge but then you won't be summing correctly or presenting the correct load to your phone amp. Additionally, to control the level of the click, you would be turning up and down the volume, which won't necessarily be giving you the best signal to the PA... one feed is impacting the other. What I would suggest, ia splitting as above and then getting something like a Behringer P2 - that has it's own amplifier and will correctly sum the click. This is easy to do, just a simple insert cable, y cable... e.g. TRS (stereo) from your phone to TS (mono) and TS cable (mono). One side into your DI box and onto the PA, the other side to the P2 to do the amplification and the summing so the click comes out of both ears. What I would really suggest though, is running both the LR to the PA and sending the drummer back a mix from one of the desks auxes into a P2* *this is the correct solution.

Oh, and a chrome fender decal on the headstock. Clean af 😎

Nae pressure @funkle....

Nice clips @Quatschmacher! I'm more interested in the straight envelope filter sounds and I like the MF-101 preset, I'd love to hear the Meatball and Mutron models if you're up for doing more.

Well, she's arrived. Via Hermes (terrifying) and yet not in Hermes usual self assembly pack. Thank you all for spotting the deliberate mistake I was mentally prepared and got straight to work. Neck seemed to be in the right place, snugly in its pocket and wasn't squiggly shaped which I like in a neck. So to the bridge. Not only was it in the original factory drilled holes and the appropriate size, but was soundly fitted. However, it was pink torpedo eyed to the tune of a whole 8th of an inch and fitted a similar distance too low. I filled the holes, redrilled and shifted it. Players like a dream. Light as a feather and a nice growl. Flats to come next.

I've actually got a patch on my B3n that goes Octave up, Fuzz, Octave down, auto-wah, SVT, whammy. It sounds like Satan's fairground organ... ;D

By the time you've done that to it, whatever 5-string you started with will be plenty cheap ...

Not forgetting @KiOgon and @obbm for looms and cables - every wirey bit bar the mains lead and pickups is theirs!

Hard to take in just how tiny a rig this is! And it sounds so nice, and will get nicer yet as it breaks in a bit. Astounding!

My introduction/inspiration to start playing bass was Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, way back in '84 , but when the rest of the family is out I still stick on Aces High, and do the 'Maiden race' to the front of the stage to get prime position with foot up on the monitor and air bassing like a fury. 🤘 I say monitor, I mean sofa. Always careful to make sure the sofa has no other air instruments on it. 👍

Nope, neither of them. I don't watch TV and don't listen to the radio, so I am not exposed to modern music except when in a pub or shop where music is played, but I have no idea what I am listening to. If I heard something I liked, I would make an effort to find out what it was, but can't remember the last time that happened.

It's a perfectly reasonable question. My layman's answer is this. For each given musical note, a string has to vibrate at a specific frequency. Regardless of what the string is made of, the tighter it is, the faster those vibrations are and the slacker it is, the more the string flaps about at a lower frequency. So you can get a rubber band to vibrate at the same frequency (and therefore musical pitch) as a piece of string, or as a piece of wire. The material used, and the size within each material will affect how much you need to stretch them to get the same note. So you will have to stretch a thick rubber band differently to a thin rubber band to get the same note. And - for the same size - you will need to stretch a silicone rubber band differently to an india rubber rubber band for the same note. Guitar and bass strings are just the same. It's not just the size that is different, but the metals they use, and the windings they have around them and event the shape of the windings. And everyone of those differences will affect how much you have to stretch (tension) the string to vibrate at the desired frequency. So if a maker has a combination of metals and windings they are happy with for strength and durability and feel and corrosion resistance and wear resistance and makes ALL of their strings with the same materials, then the only thing that will affect how much you need to stretch the string is going to be thickness. Hence the grades of strings. And - to have compatibility of nut slots, playing feel, etc, most makers have dropped into a convention of the broad size ranges they offer. But if, say, D'Addario, want to make their strings at the same thicknesses as Ernie Ball...but they want to use different metals, with different windings, etc., then the amount they will need to be stretched to produce each frequency, will be different to the Ernie Balls. Somewhere around there is a database of all of the strings from all of the manufacturers with the string tension for a fixed note - they vary CONSIDERABLY across manufacturers and across types of strings from the same manufacturer. Final point. For a given string, how you set up the bass (with one exception) WILL NOT affect the tension at all. You will still have to stretch the string the same amount whether you fit the string on a bass or between two vices! (The exception is an extreme - if your bridge lets you wind back your saddles to the extent where you actually change the scale length, then yes, technically, it will affect the tension). But the opposite is certainly true - the tension of the strings WILL affect the setup. The tension higher or lower will pull on the neck more or less meaning that the trussrod will need loosening or tightening to compensate. Hope the above makes some sort of sense. I'm sure there are more accurate scientific factors I've missed or misunderstood...

I never really had any aspirations to be a "musician" in my teens. Now in my mid 40's, and I still don't. I started playing bass at 15, because a few of my mates wanted to start a band and needed a bass player. I liked hanging out with my mates so figured I'd give it a shot. 30 years later and my motivations are pretty much still the same. I love hanging out with my mates and making music, but dislike most other aspects of being in a band. I really hate gigging, and generally, having done a series of jobs over the years dealing with idiots on a daily basis (bus driver, doorman etc), I have absolutely no time for the great unwashed, so I have no desire to mix with them in any context. Not even as part of a band. I can't stand the endless discussions about what song we're going to learn next, what will get people dancing, where we're going to play. Etc, etc. I'd happily just sit in a room every day, jamming with a small number of people, just for the pleasure of making music and hanging out. Sadly (although understandably) the rest of the band don't see it this way. So i think my days as a bass player are numbered. I've never really seen the bass as a "solo" instrument, and if I wasn't playing with other people I don't think I'd even bother to pick it up.

You want locking up. 🙄 With nothing to play but a Rickenbacker! 😃

Doubtless this may have been the case for many dab consumers and I wish them joy of it. But liquorice is a line beyond which I will not go and my aversion goes so far back that I cannot now recall its genesis. I may as a small child have once choked upon a Liquorice Allsort. Perhaps Bertie Bassett awakens an unreasoning primal animus deep in my psyche. It is all rather difficult and even discussing liquorice is putting me on edge. Deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in, deep breath out.

Status mm5 neck. Go!

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.

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 did the same to take a photo but when packing them away in their cases there was a knock at the door. I answered it and it was my neighbour, I had taken delivery of a parcel for him earlier, anyway I invited him in while I fetched the parcel from the dining room, it was quite big so I stored it in there out the way. On my return he was in a right state as he'd only gone and sat on the sofa and sat right on the one bass left there after the photoshoot. He was so apologetic and it really wasn't his fault so said not to worry and reassured him I could fix it. I couldn't, the bloody body had a dirty great crack right through the control cavity. Luckily the neck was fine so having always secretly lusted after a flying V (it's all about the looks with me) I had a new body made for it. And what a body it is, such beautiful craftsmanship and it's so lightweight it's unreal, that coupled with what was probably my favourite neck and I have my dream airbass, so much so that the others rarely get played now. Here's an arty little shot of Vee (short for Vera which I named her) reclining in a Chesterfield, I think you'll agree she's a beauty. Now every time my neighbour pops in he does a little jokey feel around of the chair or sofa before he sits down and says "No basses here today then?", and we both roar with laughter.

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

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