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Had to share this guidance to ensure we are all singing from same sheet. HOW TO REQUEST A SONG FROM THE BAND When requesting a song from the band, just say “Play my song.” We have chips implanted in our heads with an unlimited database of the favorite tunes of every patron who ever walked into a bar and all songs ever recorded so feel free to be vague, we love the challenge. If we say we really don’t remember that tune you want, we’re only kidding. Bands do know every song ever recorded, so keep humming. Hum harder if need be… it helps jog the memory, or just repeat your request over and over again. If a band tells you they do not know a song you want to hear, they either forgot they know the tune or they are just putting you on. Try singing a few words for the band, any words will do. It also helps to scream your request from across the room several times per set followed by the phrases, “AW, COME ON!” and “YOU SUCK!” Exaggerated hand gestures expressing disapproval from the dance floor are a big help as well, such as the thumbs down or your middle finger up. Put-downs are the best way to jog a band’s memory. This instantly promotes you to the status of “Personal Friend of the Band.” You can bet your request will be the next song we play. Entertainers are notorious fakers and jokesters and never really prepared for their shows. We simply walk on stage with no prior thought to what we will do once we arrive. We don’t actually make set lists or rehearse songs, we mostly just wait for you to yell something out, then fake it. An entertainer’s job is easy, even a monkey could do it, so don’t let them off the hook easily. Your request is all that matters. Once you’ve figured out what genre of music the band plays, please make your requests from a totally different genre, the more exaggerated the better. If it’s a blues band playing, yell for some Metallica, Black Sabbath or Motley Crue. If it’s a death-speed metal band be sure to request Brown Eyed Girl or some Grateful Dead. We musicians constantly need to broaden our horizons and it’s your job to see that it happens… immediately. TALKING WITH THE BAND The best time to discuss anything with the band in any meaningful way is at the middle of a song when all band members are singing at the same time. Our hearing is so advanced that we can pick out your tiny voice from the megawatt wall of sound blasting all around us. And we can converse with you in sign language while singing the song, so don’t worry that we’re in the middle of the chorus. Musicians are expert lip-readers too. If a musician does not reply to your question or comment during a tune, it’s because they didn’t get a good look at your mouth in order to read your lips. Simply continue to scream out your request and be sure to over emphasize the words with your lips. This helps immensely. Don’t be fooled. Singers have the innate ability to answer questions and sing at the same time. If the singer doesn’t answer your questions immediately, regardless of how stupid the question may seem, it’s because they are purposely ignoring you. If this happens, immediately cop an attitude. We love this. IMPORTANT TIP When an entertainer leans over to hear you better, grab his or her head in both hands and yell directly into their ear, while holding their head securely so they can’t pull away. This will be taken as an invitation to a friendly game of tug of war between their head and your hands. Don’t give up, hang on until the singer or guitar player submits. Drummers are often unavailable for this fun game since they usually sit at the back, protected by their drum kits. Keyboard players are protected by their instrument and only play the game when tricked into coming out from behind their instruments. Though difficult to get them to play, it’s not impossible, so keep trying. They’re especially vulnerable during the break between songs. HELPING THE BAND If you inform the band that you are a singer, the band will appreciate your help with the next few tunes, or however long you can remain standing on stage. If you’re too drunk to stand unassisted, simply lean on one of the band members or the most expensive piece of equipment you see. Just pretend you’re in a karaoke bar. Simply feel free to walk up on stage and join in the fun. By the way, the drunker you are, the better you sound, and the louder you should sing. If by chance you fall off the stage, be sure to crawl back up and attempt to sing harmony. Keep in mind that nothing assists the band more than outrageous dancing, fifth and sixth part harmonies or a tambourine played on one and three and out of tempo. Try the cowbell, they love the challenge. The band always needs the help and will take this as a compliment. Finally, the microphone and PA system are merely props, they don’t really amplify your voice, so when you grab the mic out of the singer’s hand, be sure to scream into it at the top of your lungs, otherwise nobody will hear what a great singer you are. Hearing is over-rated anyhow. The crowd and the sound tech will love you for it. BONUS TIP As a last resort, wait until the band takes a break and then get on stage and start playing their instruments. They love this. Even if you are ejected from the club, you can rest assured in the knowledge you have successfully completed your audition. The band will call you the following day to offer you a position.

A few weeks ago I was given the privilege to interview by phone one of my all-time bass heroes, Pete Trewavas from Marillion, for the Lyric Lounge Review web site. If you have a moment to spare, please feel free to have a look 🙂 This is my first ever interview for a web site, and I make no claims to be a great journalist or writer, but Pete was generous with his time and depth of answers, and came up with a few great anecdotes. Thanks for looking 🙂 https://tinyurl.com/y2l89c3e🎸🎸🎸

@Teebs can't be with us tonight, but I happen to know he'd like three or four thousand of his posts deleted, please? And he wants all of his daily reactions transferred to me, if that's OK. 👍

Well I do have information on it but it's 100% not for sale jezzaboy. I'll post more details and pictures once I get permission. I can say that I believe it to be made in 1961 and was refinished in the long distant past....possibly originally red, as so many were back then thanks to Jet Harris. It has some incredible play wear, has had many parts replaced over the years, has a Fender hipshot tuner as mentioned in the thread, and plays beautifully. The neck is to die for. I have this bass and Dave's spare in for a couple of very minor repairs so hopefully he won't mind me posting more close up pics of the bass soon. The thread metions Dave giving away a P Bass on the TV show Swap Shop. I'm reliably informed that the bass he gave away was one he made himself. Talented man.

Just watched a YouTube demo of the SY-1 by a bloke from the Sweetwater music shop who had made an elementary but catastrophic clothing error...

Just wanted to say what a top bunch EBS are. I recently bought a Multidrive pedal second hand and the Ebay seller failed to mention it had 3 of it's four screws missing. I couldn't work out the size I needed so asked EBS via Facebook- a few days later I have four shiny new screws all the way from Sweden at no charge. Great stuff 😁

My gig rig is now complete following the purchase of a 15" GK cabinet for £44 off of eBay (I sh*t you not). It works great... I even have the GK bi-amping running on it too. Hopefully I can convince the wife that we no longer need to use the front door... it fits so well in that little niche there. And if the police come to follow-up on the noise complaints, the cabinet stack makes for a nice barricade!

So nipped in to GuitarGuitar to give it a whirl. This bass is LOUD. 18V Active circuit and a simple bass treble control gives you loads of bass but not quite as much treble as I would have thought. Didn't get that MusicMan style treble I imagined but still nice. Couldn't give it a proper test as I was using a Rumble 50 while a kid picking out his first bass got the Markbass 2x10 and 1x15 rig😂 Fit and finish - feels like any other high end fender. Nice, I did notice a wee chip at the pickup rout and I would worry how easily damaged the matt finish could be out in the real world. Looks cool as though if pink is your thing, hopefully the pictures show the differences. It is more pink than the road worn Mexican one. I compared them and I would say the worn neck on the Mexican one feels nicer but still similar. If you like a humbucker but want a jazz bass and have £1500 ready I'd say this is a good shout.

I'm getting Tip-toe through the tulips by Tiny Tim but Heinz is definitely on bass, Joe Zawinal on keys, and Gordon Giltrap and Frank Gambale on guitars with Bernard Purdey on drums.

Well. This has been on the watch/want list for a while. Eventually got a deal sorted. Arrived today and I’m stunned. I’ve owned Ken Smiths, Warwick’s, Jaydees, Status’ etc and I’ve never had a bass which feels so well made. Absolutely bonkers. Sounds like a hammer too. Very very pleasing.

'Isolated Guitar' Recording Emerges of Hendrix Playing All Along The Watchtower Live and Guitarists Everywhere Suddenly Feel Better About Themselves

Vintage JayDee Celest. Just a few exist. Simple instrument with long sustain... http://www.jaydeecustomguitars.co.uk/

Taped off the body to do some pore filling on the mahogany Next I stained the top a light brown colour to make the flame pop Sanded it back to get a bit of contrast After much deliberation I chose blue (other options were bright red and naturel) Stained the back the same colour. But oddly enough the colour simply disappeared after several layers of clear coat... Looks almost black now. Top after a few coats of clear lacquer

You usually get a euro cable in the box but a lot of suppliers throw in a UK cable separately. They are so cheap it isn't worth the labour of removing the two pin cable. Just cut the end off and wire in a three pin UK plug. the amp is only 700Wrms so a 5A fuse will be plenty.

I had a problem with a Bass IQ pedal that I bought second hand, emailed them to see if they'd seen the problem before and if it could be fixed. One the directors emailed straight back to say that it probably needed the PCB swapping out, they had a spare there and if I covered the postage costs each way he was happy to change it over for free. I'm a big fan of their products and customer service

Sounds awesome, great post my last 2 gigs were a bit like that as I depped for the band I left 9 months ago. a town called malice was one I had always wanted to play live , we tried it as a band in rehearsals years ago but the drummer could never come in on it. anyway the couple at the wedding had requested it and typical of the guitarist reckoned we were happy to busk it out. A couple of acoustic type run throughs the day before didn’t fill me with confidence but as I always wanted to do it I didn’t object too much. well muggins here got hung out on the intro , I launch into it and the drummers blank stare says it all . After some pulled expressions of disbelief from me , he starts hitting things. it took a bar to find out what he was doing and then ‘lock in’ and really hoped he just kept doing the same thing all song, I managed to communicate to the lads to ignore the bass solo as I didn’t want the same happening all over again. the song has now been played live by me and the audience didn’t throw anything at us , but a fantastic song to get right ...........I would imagine

Top job. That is really stunningly good. I love so many things about your builds, not just the precision and attention to detail,or the inventive design elements, but the fact that they look like they'd be worth paying for just to feel them! (Not to weird I hope?) You sir are an artist, hats off to you.

Impossible to find a hardshell case for this one, so I built this. Just need to finish the 2 compartments.

Hi KP, I would drop sandberg an email explaining your problem, I’ve spoke with holger many times, they are very helpful 🙂

Thanks, guys for the advice, refunded and relisted

Who said live music on TV was dead?? OK, so it's actually a football show but still... I'm actually a terrible choice for this as I have put considerable effort into avoiding sports since I left school and will therefore be invoking my session player rights so that I don't have to take a free kick on national TV.

At least the Queen track Brighton Rock at number 10 was a quality proper rock track from them, unlike a lot of their tracks that usually get played.

Truss rod is in. This bit always stresses me out. I find routers so brutal. But, all’s well that ends well. And this is a template for the neck And finally, everything glued together. My original idea of using cocktail sticks as locating pins turned out to exactly as idiotic as it sounds. Replaced them with little nails and all is well 👍

I live in the next village. If anyone is interested I could collect and then post it for you......

This is a cool idea. When I was in an originals band, I'd often work basslines around the vocal arrangements, never tried to follow the vocals though. Nice one. +1 on Anita too 👊🏻

So Jaco did it Frank's way ?

I can only think that there was some message from on high that 'black is the new black' or someone else had been listening to some Amy Winehouse that day and thought they had best get back to...or more likely they'd ordered too many black headstocks. 😀

I don’t know if it’s good that they did the setup when pointed out or bad that they waited until someone asked.

Maybe with a top like this....

I'd probably be aiming to get there with two pedals rather than one. Two reasonably priced pedals that come to mind are the EHX Pitchfork plus the TC Sub'n'Up which both have polyphonic capability. I see on another thread that you have a EHX Tri Parallel mixer - seems like that could come into play very nicely for this! The non-pedal route would be either a Bass VI or possible playing chordal patterns on an 8-string like the Schecter Stiletto 8 or the Spector Legend 8.

I've just looked inside my cajon - professionally built, don't know the make. Peering through the sound hole, I can see a 10" length of drum snare held onto the striking face of the box in a vertical orientation by metal clips at the ends. The snare is positioned in the bottom LH corner of the cajon. I can see a small wooden block pressing a foam strip onto the snare, held in place by a length of elastic stretched between the metal end-clips. Clearly, the idea is that the small block can be slid along the snare wire to change the tone. No idea how you actually reach it, though! I've attempted to photograph it. On a seperate note, I found it very uncomfortable sitting on top of the box and leaning forward. This playing position really hurt my back. So, I knocked together a folding stand that enables me to play while sitting on a comfy chair, with the striking face of the cajon at an angle between my legs. See photo.

With due respect Mark, you make more of your one bass than I do of my ten combined. No question. Hope all is going well down south!

That's kinda amusing. Well at least you know that I've got your best interests at heart with my earlier post i.e. I didn't take the opportunity to give my P35 a surreptitious plug! I guess part of me is hoping that folk will forget it's in the FS (which my head insists on it being left on) and I'll stick some flats on it and start using it as a goto gigging bass, which it truly deserves to be. @M@23 who had it before me had it set up beautifully. He's a pro bassist, so I would have expected nothing less! The reason for bringing Mark back into the conversation is actually a note forward to both of us - I'm hoping to get hold of a Gruv Gear Duo Neo strap shortly from @fretmeisterand, if it does the job I'm expecting it to, it will mean playing basses weighing 10lbs to 11lbs (or even heavier) should become a breeze and weight won't be a limiting factor in our choice of basses going forward.

Hmmm...not sure who the current BB 435 owners are, hopefully one will crawl out of the woodwork shortly and give you an idea on weight. There's definitely a step up in construction and some parts, plus higher end pups between the 435 and P35 which probably accounts for a fair chunk of the price differential, the rest would be due to more expensive labour costs of MIJ vs Indonesia and whether that justifies paying extra is a topic in itself. If you can, get yourself along to the Yammy store in Central London or one local to you that stocks them. Whether overall the price difference is 'worth it' will be down to individual preference. Personally I would be happy to pay the used difference in prices, but I'm far too tight on the purse-strings to buy a P35 new! FWIW - my advice would be to kick-off with a 435 and if you find you're loving it, think about getting a P35 down the line - you'll then be very familiar with the 435 and be able to easily tell whether the P35 justifies the extra spend.

They used to be up the road from me in Letchworth.... I blew a fuse in my 350 head, couldn't find it, contacted the CS dept who took me through where it was and sent me 6, yes 6, replacement fuses FOC. Proper customer service. I've been looking for a good NeoGorm combo for a while now, nobody sells them on...there must be a good reason.

this is an area where the friendly local guitar shop will be sorely missed, any newbie reading this thread would be thoroughly confused by now. What are set ups like on cheap mail order basses? I got a new Vintage off ebay, excellent bass after a set up, was unplayable when it arrived, a newbie wouldn't have a clue about setting up a bass or even if it needed it

How many £1000 basses did you compare it against?

Wouldn't be any good for a female bass player as she'd keep putting it down.

Stuck on Apache for me. I was hoping to see Avengers Endgame for free...

Our drummer wants to do it, he complains most bassists slow down by the end - but he very kindly suggested he thought I could keep up!

This is the bass which inspired the musicman bongo

Not at all!! I'm having a complete "I agree with Mick day today" 😀 Surely we and nobody else, other than maybe our other halves, get to choose exactly what we do with our own bass gear? Dunno about you, but I find it incredibly patronising when folk think they have a right to say "you need to be gigging X, Y or Z bits of your kit to get the best out of it", or "it's pointless having that pedal unless it's being used in a band mix." If you or I want to enjoy some or all of our gear in the comfort of our own home, to put to one side for a season while we get on with other bits of gear or none, IMO that's our choice. Other folk can do exactly what they like with the gear they've spent their hard earned cash on, where and when they use it or not at all - that is entirely their prerogative and not something you'll ever find me proroguing.

I realise that a build diary without images is not worth much, so here are some progress pics I bought a neck plate from Taiwan via eBay and very nice it is too and I finally took the plunge and drilled some holes for the bridge, control pots and pick guard The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that a pick guard screw protrudes into the control cavity – I plan to put a small dowel plug here for the screw to go in to – also, the body maker has drilled one of the neck plate holes about 2mm off Now it's advice time – what's the best approach for positioning the battery in the control cavity? Maybe I'll go 18v if there's room – is it worth it though? The preamp is an ACG-01 I'm still testing black dye/stain which is being dealt with in the repair/tech section

A few changes on and off my board, since my last post on here a couple of months back. Final piece of the jigsaw, the Boss SY-1 arrived earlier today and is sitting snugly in it's place, giving my board a smug 'finished' feel to it (famous last words!) The SY-1 tracks like a deer hunter. I'm venison-ly happy 😊 For any of you interested in the signal chain, it's as follows: BASS ‘Clean’ input Smoothhound (wireless) Thumpinator (hpf) Becos Stella (comp) Boss SY1 (synth) Early mid-board: drive / fuzz Grizzly Bass (analogue) SA Aftershock (digital) Mastotron (gated fuzz) Red Ripper (ungated fuzz) Late mid-board: filters SA Manta (digital) 3Leaf GR2 (analogue) End board: modulation / delay Digitech Mosaic (octave up) HX Stomp (multifx +DI +headphone amp) AMP Total power draw, excluding the Stomp which has it's own PSU, is 1.3A and all powered by a MXR IsoBrick under the board.

I can't argue with the No 1 choice but most of the rest leave me cold. The thing that makes Comfortably Numb so brilliant is the guitar solos feel an integral part of the song rather than, "eh up, here comes the guitar solo". I can't stand guitar -w&nkery. This is why Hendrix, Billy Gibbons, Gilmour, Clapton, John Mayer are top of my list. And the Isley Brothers Guitarist ... Davo

Blimey, once you start looking they turn up in all sorts of places!

I’m enjoying the Gladiators basslines lately 🙂