Leaderboard

Right.. here's more pics & the lowdown. It's had one previous owner, who bought it new in San Bernardino, CA in 1972. He's played it ever since. and did the usual tinkering 1980s (Dimarzio pickups, Badass, replacement pickguard). Dave Wilson has restored to its former glory, with a couple of bits from Limelight, and it's a beaut. Light (7.5lbs-ish) and incredibly resonant. It lives again, and it's going to get gigged to hell. Happy days.

Ready to entertain the tourists. DB750 & DB410. Lakland Joe Osborn J Bass.

That after meeting at a gig and having watched my band play all night, this beautiful young lady then actualy agreed to go out for the rest of the evening with me - and eventually to marry me. 😊

I know. When the Nazis secretly stepped up re-armament in 1934 it was discovered that German domestic production of aluminium was insufficient to meet the Luftwaffe's needs. Increasing imports of block aluminium would have tipped off foreign intelligence services. Ernst Udet Goring's Director of Aircraft Research and Development the veteran WW1 fighter ace Ernst Udet hit upon a cunning plan to secretly acquire the aluminium necessary for air frames. Through intermediaries in Portugal, Spain and Switzerland Udet purchased 40,000 Rickenbacker Frying Pan guitars, the bodies of which were made of cast aluminium. The guitars arrived in Lisbon, Madrid and Basel and then secretly shipped to an off-the-books foundry in the Ruhr where they were melted down and recast for use as aircraft components such as fuselage longerons, ending up in Junkers bombers including the much-feared Ju87 'Stuka' dive bomber. Due to combat attrition in Spain 1937-1938 and replacement for wear and tear it is unlikely (though not impossible) that any of the Rickenbackerkampfflugzeuge (Rickenbacker war planes) flew in action during the period 1939-1940. As every schoolboy knows, the ME109E's which fought the RAF during the Battle of Britain had nothing to do with Rickenbacker, being constructed from melted-down Kramer necks.

Hello! I didn't do a build diary for my first build, and my second one was a g***ar so I didn't post it here, but I'm onto my third now so I figured I'd post the progress in case anyone is interested. The plan is a maple neck through neck, bocote fretboard, walnut strips either side of the neck and poplar for the wings. The discrepancy in colour between the maple and the poplar might end up being a bit ugly, in which case I'll stain it, though I'm unsure as to how to go about staining the neck but not the fretboard. I don't really fancy trying to neatly attach a fretboard to an already completed neck. We'll see. 34 inch scale - I had planned to do a shorter scale but then I forgot an ordered a full length truss rod. Maybe next time. I am as yet undecided on the body shape. It might be a bit thunderbirdy, just for a change, but we'll see what the wood has to say for itself. I'm going for a 4 in line flat headstock - maybe reversed. I was originally going to do a scarf jointed angled one, but I don't want a veneer on it, so changed my mind. My last build had a single p pickup so the plan was for this to be a jazz, especially as I'm almost certainly about to sell my Fender Jazz. But I realise now that I'm not all that into the jazz sound, so it will probably just be a P again. Maybe a PJ, just for the the hell of it. I don't have a bandsaw in the half of a box room that I ridiculously refer to as a workshop, so I have glued another piece of maple to the neck blank to double the thickness in the body area, rather than having to try and get rid of a load of waste wood. And that's where I'm up to for now. Hopefully there will be more interesting updates in the future! As an aside, I ordered the wrong size fretboard blank, so I cut it into shorter lengths, laminated them together and made a little plague doctor. Might try and incorporate this sort of thing into a guitar somehow

Thar she blows! @Al Krow

Calm down, dear. My associate @lozkerr is totally across this. She'll be coming down in a Wallis Arnold coach with her silent disco radio jammer, the cast of the Edinburgh Tattoo and a couple of tasty* Albanian geezers. The kiddie-winkies'll be home in no time. As for the other matter... * Albanian gangsters taste like smoky bacon crisps. Fact.

He says "If he's coming for me -- tell him he best come heavy" 😮 He's got my kids, Skank -- My kids!!! 😬

And if you play a bum note shoot the guitarist a dirty look, always works for me.

Almost finished!! I’ve still got to respray the neck...............😀

I give it two weeks 🤣

For me it would be The Yes Album, then Fragile with Close To The Edge 3rd. Relayer would be my 4th choice tied with Going For The One. I also think if I had to choose one, in a Desert Island Discs stylee, it would be YesSongs, which is pretty much my top 3 albums all in one. I love the extra energy on the live album. Saw them live many times all of which were fab.

My apologies for the error above. This should have read: 'a Wallis Simpson coach'. 1936: Mrs Simpson and King Edward VIII prior to the abdication

I have tried nearly every Flatwound string going, and if you are looking for the brightest then that would be EB Cobalts. Before they came on the market the brightest were Chromes, and as for TI's well they don't come close to Cobalts for brightness but have more midrange qualities.......So go for EB Cobalts.

I can almost feel it from here. You've made a middle-aged man very happy.

Woo, my preset made the cut 😂

Flash little oik. I've sent my colleagues round

Bit of final sanding to do, but the neck is pretty much done: This shot is particularly for the member who "does like a nice volute". I hope it meets his approval

[Pedantry] With which to knock me about the head [/Pedantry] Anyway, I'd like to see him try. Take him easy. At NAMM 2017 Chris Martin IV (who's a little skinny bloke maybe 9 stone wringing wet) put him in a headlock and simultaneously gave him a wedgie. Of course, Hall went on the Rick Resource and claimed he'd won and they all went 'Woo-woo! Mr Hall, we love you, you're such a dude!' Then the pictures came out and he was reduced to saying it was just play-fighting. Another time, he got into it with teeny-tiny Susanna Hoffs out of The Bangles over a QC issue and she cleaned his clock, knocked three of his teeth out and sent him home in a f*cking ambulance. So, no. He could try and then I'd go...

I’m just glad I got to see him (and the band of course) several times and got to meet him twice. The first time, I shook his hand and told him that in my opinion he was the best. He seemed genuinely touched.

Note for note, BUT I've found there's time to be saved by playing the song or piece many times first so you get to know it so well that the note-for-note thing becomes somewhat of a theme-for-theme thing - depending on circumstances. BTW, I've done classical and jazz mostly, little pop or rock.

If it's not been said already, then the best beginners bass is one that you can't walk past when it's on the stand at home without picking it up for a noodle.

No. It was only bloody closed, wasn't it? I was all keyed up to play chopsticks on it. *sobs*

Very similar. I do try and find a chord sequence and a lead/vocal part to give me some grounding. I have just begun transcribing big band stuff. Currently working on Lady Day and John Coltrane then hopefully Thinking by Louis Cole. If I ever get my buttock area in gear that is!

The 1975 are awful. I try to not listen to bands like that as it makes me feel sad that they've got a deal and someone, somewhere with better music didn't.

Not all flats are the same. Some are very dark and woolly and others very bright. Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats are a pretty good compromise, the feel of flats and a sound that can be very bright but tweaked into standard flat territory if you want them to sound that way.

I have to say that I think the early, vinyl albums were enhanced by being able to listen to them, whilst poring over the artwork. CD inserts just aren’t the same.

Well I'm kicking off with these, although I suspect will only be of interest to other Becos Stella owners, of which there is just one other BCer as far I'm aware! (1) Comp at 9 o'clock = 2:1 light touch compression (2) Threshold at 10 o'clock (3) Gain set to ensure no increase or decrease in volume when engaged (although less of an issue if this becomes always on) (4) Auto Fast - for attack / release (5) Soft knee (vs hard knee => which is more suitable for limiting rather than 'musical' compression) (6) EQ pivot set 'Low' at 330Hz for bass (vs High / 1kHz for guitar) (7) Side Chain Filter ('SCF') set 'Low' (but not all the way to 'Deep') giving a more fulsome low end. (8) 60 wet / 40 dry (9) Saturation and dry level - currently off / min [I should maybe boost the clean dry level a touch] That may change over time and with experience!

Definitely “The Yes Album” then “Fragile” and “Close to the edge”, then “Yessongs” for the energy and sheer joy (live versions of the first three albums). Though they are my favourite band they seemed to lose something after this. “Relayer” and “Topographic...” are good, “Going for the one” and “Talk” are my other faves, but everything else has the odd moment but that’s it. Needless to say I have vinyl and cd copies, and bonus discs, of everything (lol but only ever listen to “yes album” to “Yessongs”. So, that’s my recommendation! I am rediscovering Rush at the moment! The later stuff is fab!

You should be able to use Audacity to record from Youtube, Spotify, or any other audio stream. Have a look at the options in the dropdown menu next to the microphone icon - you want one that includes "loopback", "what u hear" (sic), or "stereo mix". This treats your audio output as a microphone input, so you end up recording all sounds currently playing on your PC. Start recording in Audacity, go to Youtube, play the video, wait for the song to end, stop recording, save. As others have described, you can then do your looping, speed changing, pitchshifting, EQ, etc. in Audacity as well. Though personally I prefer Transcribe! for this part - it feels a lot less clunky.

I’d probably say to go from The Yes Album to Relayer, skip Tales (could have been a great single album) and then carry on- always a bit of filler but a lot of class

Lutes and theorbo’s et al are such glorious instruments! They sound so warm and “olde”, unlike the modern classical guitar. I play lute, not terribly well. There isn’t a great deal of consistency in the written music as there are at least four ways of writing a score - French, German, Italian and then modern piano. If I have it right the French and German methods use letters instead of numbers for the frets (a = open, b= 1st fret etc) and the Italian method uses numbers. They were not always written the same way up, either! Generally, the Italian method could be written “right way up” (high string = on top of the tab staff), or upside down, and you don’t know until you start playing the piece which way up you are supposed to be reading. Note values are written once at the first occurrence of that value and stay in place until the value changes - it makes so much sense when you play it! Much better than the modern piano nonsense. Tuning - well, my lute is in Renaissance tuning. From low to high it runs ... D F G C f a d g. 8 courses but fifteen strings. Octave pairs until “f” then they are unison until “g” which is a single string. Many guitar chord shapes work very well in this tuning, thankfully, as the G-d strings are a tone down from standard guitar tuning. Lutes with free floating ie no neck, bass strings are generally tuned in some kind of scale. I don’t know enough about this has I can neither afford nor justify one of these baroque lutes, but I’d like one! Needless to say, it’s a bugger to play and tune!

The Yes Album is the one for me. Still regularly play it and just love listening to it on headphones, just so involving. Fragile second. I also like The Ladder, well, most of it.

Yeah I agree. The thing is, I love to play, and I love to hang around with my mates making music. That's very much where the enjoyable "hobby" side of things sits for me. The problem is, the ultimate conclusion to this is to go out gigging. At least for most people who play instruments, and most people you're likely to form a band with. So it's kind of a catch 22.

Poke the string down the bloody hole first. I'm mixing up the two stroke as we speak! 😄

If you don’t enjoy it, and you don’t need to do it to make a living, then don’t do it. What’s the point? Everyone is different. I see people doing all sorts of hobbies I would never do, they probably wouldn’t want to do what I do.

a well, if we're going to get all sciencey about it..... I've been playing the bass guitar ever since I started - which I think we can all agree qualifies me. I've only ever been told I was too loud on two occasions Once playing through a big old Trace Elliot stack and once through an Orange Terror. QED. 👨‍🔬

Thanks folks, it was the cables. Got a third cable to try and all good.

Bridge lift as illustrated by a lift bridge* *OK It's a bascule bridge but you know what I mean.

I agree very strongly with your second point and totally disagree with your first and third points. Point 1. Most beginners are poor. A "good" cheap bass is therefore very important. Point 3. Many "budget" basses are excellent and could be used for a lifetime of gigging. Frank.

After reading the Rose Morris article, you'd think they'd make more of all those Rickenbackers they sold to Hitler.

Ooh, ooh, ooh me next. Yes rule the universe. So to the OP's question: Close to the Edge - so good I rarely listen to it. I check it now and again to see if it's perfect. And it is. So I need working Yes albums to listen to so that would be Fragile, The Yes Album and Relayer. I'm fond of Topographic too. Going for the One is wonderful. Tormato was flawed but fun. Thereafter, not really Yes for me. Classic line-up for me were: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe & Squire. Each with their own brilliant voice...

A common dab writes: "Frankly I'm getting a bit peed off at the constant misuse of my name. Whether it's contemporary dance or those infernal sherbet things, although ironically I'm quite partial to liquorice actually, I think it's because the aniseed helps to cut through the overwhelmingly seaweedy flavour of pretty much everything in my diet, which I suppose isn't all that surprising when you think about it. Well for god's sake, you try eating anything else with your mouth on bloody sideways, see how you get on. And yes, I think you look bloody silly too. Where was I?"

Favourite? The Yes Album. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was 14 as a budding bass player, sitting there with my Eros EB copy and listening to Chris Squire and wondering how the hell he did it. That perfect time when they were really breaking free from their constraints and starting to realise their potential, still full of youthful abandon but before they realised their genius. The joy of this album is palpable. And Chris Squire's bass playing is just wonderful - that little run up to the high registers on Starship Trooper is still my favourite Squire moment. The production is still quite raw and basic but this allows each instrument to shine, but there is still a lot of space for everything to breathe, something they had forgotten about when they got to Tormato As for their best, it has to be Close To The Edge. The very pinnacle of the genre, unsurpassable.

Being able to do this last weekend, biggest gig I've done! and people came to watch . .

Recently, I left a good band as it was no longer working for me. It was a blessed relief, surprisingly. No more late nights/early mornings; humping gear; awful gigs; lack of appreciation, generally, though there have been many nice comments for which I am humbly grateful and a few great gigs; Band politics (at my age you’d think they wouldn’t exist) etc. Never say never, and I do miss playing with other musicians, but I am taking a break from live performance (and possibly retiring from gigs). So, OP, you are not alone.