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A neighbour found most of my things (except my phone) dumped a few miles from here!!

Good news that most of your gear ws found and i hope the thief gets caught too. Hanging's too good for them. string em up by the short and curlies and throw knives at them for fun. I'm not a vengeful person. Keep us posted on final outcome. I'm very curious about the phone thing to see if it was your neighbour. At least if it was he'll be finding a new home soon............sharing a small one-bedroom apartment with big hairy Bubba Dave

Its funny that. I've always had a fondness for delays on bass and long before I ever heard Tool. Funnily enough, I did a solo album last year and one of my mates said I'd went a bit Tool with this song. The fact I'm playing a Wal with delay on it is in no way a problem.

Oh, I'm not worrying. Far from it. I've never been one to care what other folk think about my gear. 😀 I'm more interested in what others would do really. If you read many of the posts on BC, I think folk love to pull gear to bits and over analyse it. Everything from patch leads to picks. There always seems to be a certain nuance that makes one item inferior to another. Cost is often a common denominator. I agree with virtually every reply so far and firmly believe that if it sounds good, its good enough whatever the cost!

Chaps, I never thought I'd ever see this day, so I think a little celebration is in order. 50 years ago today (just after lunch) I walked into Maurice Plaquet's music shop in Acton, West London, with £22 10/- in my pocket and bought my first bass, a Framus small body Star Bass. 6 weeks of hard graft on my Grandfather's nursery in Kent paid for it. It was easy to play and I played it at home for a year before I could afford an amp. Everything I know today I started on that bass. Unfortunately it began falling apart almost from day one. With an ever increasing number of repairs and mods I played that bass for 2 years and only stopped using it when I joined a pro band. [url="http://s293.photobucket.com/user/chris_b_photo/media/CopyofFSBme2.jpg.html"][/url] I've been a pro bass player twice, made a few records, been to some interesting places, played some great gigs in great bands with some fantastic players. I've also played in places and in bands that weren't any of those things. Ho hum! I have no idea where the time has gone. Anyway, my life started with that bass. Here's to the next 50.

My organs will have no re-sale value, I can assure you! Also, I shall be bringing my security detail with me (Mrs Teebs - she's ferocious! ) 🗡 🔫 ☢️🏑🎯⚡🔥

The bass baby is home, that's the best thing.

Teebs ➡️ ⬅️ BonyHerr

Not if you're away all weekend sky-diving, or whatever it is that you do... actually you were missed (though not by me, obviously).

I've got a '99 NS2000 (Korean) and she's coming to the grave with me. Nuff said! 😁 She's a bit of a case queen these days as I want to keep her a close to mint as possible, but on the occasions when I do get her out, I fall in love all over again. Tone monster!

Interesting video, thanks and the answer is YES, they ARE great basses. I currently own 27 of them, from an original 1977 SB1, thru pre-Kramer, Kramer-era, SSD, Euro and custom Woodstock models. All superbly made and with characters of their own. Your video states that you have 'upgraded' to Bartolini pickups? I'd argue that is not so much an upgrade as a change.... and Spector offering more options now is, imho, simply a way of widening their appeal (like different size engines in cars for different personal preferences) rather than heading in a certain sound direction. Personally, I've never found any of my EMG loaded Spectors to lack in versatility. Rolling off the tone with EMGs or using month old strings can produce a very similar sound to your demo. My most recent purchase of the new EuroLT model, which actually has custom wound Bartolini PJ pickups and a Darkglass pre, again sounds very different to your bass. Any preamp or pickup change is going to change the sound of any bass. Are your strings flatwound or just well played? I only ask because there's very little real crispness or punch coming from that bass.... unless of course that is the pickups or the pre-amp? You also don't state what preamp you have put in it.... If that sound suits you then that's great and enjoy this fabulous instrument! Personally, no offence, but I prefer a little more 'life' in my Spector sound :)

The thief was a Fender man?

We opened the main stage at Off The Tracks festival on Friday night, and then played the 2nd stage on Saturday night. The atmosphere was great, loads of people singing and dancing along, loved my new snare drum, enjoyed a few ales, brilliant!

The quality of cheaper stuff these days is great. Not everything cheap is good, but there is good stuff that is cheap. If one has the money to spend, that's great as you get more to choose from, and having access to more expensive stuff usually means you have access to better stuff... but is the jump in quality similar to the jump in price? Nope. My current #1 setup live cost me a fair amount more than what I was playing 10 years ago, and I love it and I don't want to go back... but if I could not afford it I would not be 'suffering' (other than by lifting heavy cabs and amplifiers ) I've owned a string of Jazz basses from various makes and qualities... I own just one now, the survivor who saw all the others go. The survivor is a Korean Squier I paid £75 for. Yes, it has had the pickups changed etc, but it's still a relatively inexpensive bass and sounds and feels great. My fretless is a £60 Sue Ryder Precision that stayed while I sold my Japanese Fender 70s reissue... My girlfriend plays a Squier Standard P/J which is one of the lightest and most comfortable basses I've ever played. That again was under £100 at Cash Converters or similar. It's a good time to be a player. If you can't afford more upmarket stuff, you can still get more than adequate gear.

If it sounds right and plays right it is right.

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@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. 👍

1) Hofner Club. 2) Carefully crafted EQ 3) Played with a pick. 4) Compression on 11 5) Tina Weymouth. 😊

I’ve never deleted a post and I’ve said loads of stupid stuff. I found one the other day where I said P basses were only for old duffers in covers bands 😕 I’ve bought several myself since then... then again I am a bit older now 😕

But if you delete @Teebs thousands of innocent emoticons will be rendered homeless!

The answer is complicated, because most of the Thiele/Small specs contribute to the driver sensitivity, as does the enclosure. There's no reason why you'd need a lower sensitivity speaker per se, but by and large what contributes to higher sensitivity also contributes to less low end extension, and vice-versa. For that reason if you see a single driver speaker rated at more than 98dB/1w it probably doesn't go very low. By the same token if a single driver speaker claims to be -3dB at 35Hz it can't have much more than 93dB sensitivity. And lastly, if a small speaker claims both low extension and high sensitivity they are, in a word, lying. It's all summed up by Hoffman's Iron Law.

Ah I see you have fallen for my bumbling old man persona...Teebs certainly has. I have a few days to source untraceable forceps and a new scalpel ( the old one is very worn) and then I'll be ready. Oh don't let Teebs know will you? ...he thinks he is going on a non organ donating night out and I'd like him to keep that illusion for a little while longer🤐

Do i detect a little bromance in the air? Hmmm? Just be careful meeting strangers off the internet - especially as they don't come no stranger than Young Teebs! Enjoy the gig - but make sure you see the bottles opened and let someone know where you'll be

That's the key question. Some manufacturers play fast and loose with their sensitivity ratings, quoting, for instance, what it measures in the midrange, rather than in the lows where it really matters. For this reason ignore sensitivity ratings that aren't accompanied by a chart of sensitivity across the full frequency spectrum. SPL (sound pressure level) charts are common with better PA speakers, but they're totally unknown in the electric bass cab industry.

Thanks Ricky

Yes I do! And no I didn't. If you're not going to be at your desk - at least pass your reactions over to somebody who can do some good with them! 👍

Here you are The plain cabinet scraper is a vastly under rated tool, properly sharpened and prepared it can remove wood from the most difficult grain imaginable or it can smooth out a freshly sprayed or brushed lacquer in readiness for the next coat with absolute finesse. Sharpening it is usually a problem, I'm not sure why, it's not really that difficult but it does need a little care to get right but it's not a long or difficult job. You'll need, a sharp engineers file, a set of sharpening stones, I use Japanese water stones 1000 grit (coarse) and a 6000 frit (fine),a vice, a wooden guide block about 150mm long 75mm high and 40mm thick planed exactly square and a simple burnisher (a good quality screwdriver will do for this). The first thing you need to do is file the 2 working edges square so clamp your scraper in the vice alongside the wooden guide block so the top edge of the scraper is a hair above the wood. Now using the wooden block as a guide file the edge of the scraper flat without damaging the guide block unduly. You have now removed the remains of the last sharpening in readiness for the new one. Now to hone the working edges: on the coarse stone which must be perfectly flat by the way hold the working edge of the scraper against it so the scraper is vertical using your guide block as a guide to keep it exactly square and flat. When the edge shows no more marks left from the file move on to the fine stone. Do the same again, then put the scraper flat on the stone and hone both of the faces. Go back to the guide block and do the edge again, then the sides. What you are aiming for is a perfectly square edge with a near mirror finish all round. Your scraper is now sharp but still useless. Finally we need to raise the burr that does the work. Put the scraper in the vice so the edge is about 40mm above it. Take your burnisher, hold it horizontally, with firm pressure run it backwards and forwards about 10 times, this will harden the edge. After that continue but one side at a time carry on burnishing but ever so slightly tilt the burnisher down on the side you are working on, bit by bit until you get to about 5 degrees, with luck you should have a good burr, test it with your thumb. If it's there do the same again on the other edge before turning the scraper over and doing the other side. You should have 4 working burrs that will or at least should be capable of producing a near perfect finish. That's about it really, it does take a couple of goes to learn how hard to press to get your burr how you like it. With time and experience you can skip using the guide block but I wouldn't recommend it for a good while and then only if you sharpen very regularly, it's very hard to keep that edge perfectly square while honing otherwise.

Ah ok. Definitely dead so! Those SMX heads are great. Thick and punchy. I still have a great love for Trace. Have a few heads here. This is the main one. Have it since 1993 more or less (sold it for a short while and bought it back). Still a great thump, despite weighing a ton.

I've always got a perverse challenge out of trying to get the very best out of cheap gear, whether musical instruments or sports equipment. In my 20s and 30s I did a lot of gigging, own bands and as a dep, playing either bass, guitar or drums. My only bass was an anonymous EB short scale copy. My drum set was a 2nd hand Premier 4 piece and my only electric guitar was a Hohner 'strat' which was £100 new in the late 80s. I just had one amp, a 100w Marshall keyboard job which I used both for bass and guitar. In answer to the OP, you bet I would!

I recently acquired a Squier Bass VI from the estimable @Al Krow and found that I get the best results when playing it with a plectrum, partly due to the narrow string spacing but also largely because I'm (whisper it!!) a guitarist as well as a bass player and so using a pick is pretty much second nature. Anyway, getting into playing a few tunes with that bass, and then catching the recent SBL course with Bobby Vega and yes, you guessed it, I suddenly found myself thinking about maybe trying out lots more stuff with a pick. Now you should know that I don't play that rawk'n'roll stuff, I play jazz of both funky and straight-ahead types, and the like. Playing with a pick wouldn't particularly be my first thought when it comes to playing technique, especially the sound of a plectrum with flatwound strings. I know that people will come up with lots of examples of how that might sound good in rock and pop and stuff, but the sheer horror of my parents' records by the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra - bass with the treble right up, pick, flats, horrendous clicky noise with a dead note sound - still makes me wince even now. (Swinging Safari, anyone?) So I tried it with care at Saturday's Jazz Workshop - lo and behold, reasonable results were achieved!! Sufficient to make me want to give it a proper try on all of my basses, even the fretless. After all, Steve Swallow uses a copper pick on his Harvey Citron semi-acoustic 5-string in jazz music, achieving a very nice tone; so no reason not to give it a go.

Lovely bass - I hope the courier *finds* it.

This. If you need more volume, add a power amp and extra cab and drive them from the TE preamp. You'll get the same tone but louder. Job done. Don't be daft like us and spend all your hard-earned on gear if what you have does the trick.

Looks like you have found the holy grail - A rig you are fully happy with! On top of that it only cost £130. My advice would be stop worrying about what others will think and start enjoying the bliss that is loving your rig!

I have a load of this sheeting, so if anyone wants any to try this with, PM me your address and I'll post some!

Sounds like they have their first BC customer! 😀

Haha - I know what you mean! Actually if we include his HX Stomp and the fact that SA Aftershock is really a drive multifx, Al Krow is on at least 5 and potentially up to as many as 50+ different drives. Now that is a hoard, agreed? 😂

I love a bit of Ashdown, I’m a massive fan and their after sales service is superb 🙂

Let's tread gently here. If we start a trend for Ashdown gear other people will catch on, the prices will shoot up and then where will we be? Scuppered.

Clamp , clamping, clamped. The face is now trimmed to fit and the neck pocket routed. Next comes sanding and finishing the sides and neck before final assembly. The F holes look a bit out of line (further from the bottom edge than the top) it looked worse in the picture than it real life but I have since trimmed the body a bit more to rectify it.

I was just sitting here, looking forward to my dinner. Now, I'm just sitting here.

One time I boiled my strings, got a spoon and drank some of the scummy water so I could say I'd cooked and eaten myself. IIRC, I didn't taste very nice.

Peter Hook: “I’ve never liked to be hidden, and I don’t like to be patronised. I don’t buy into the idea that the bass player is the quiet one” The Joy Division and New Order hero looks back on his genre-defining legacy “I guess I was just lucky with the riffs,” reckons Peter Hook, the founding member of Joy Division and New Order, who now heads up his own group, The Light. Seated across the table from him in an upmarket Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Manchester, this thoughtful nugget feels like a front-runner for understatement of the year. On Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980), Joy Division’s two albums before the tragic death of their singer Ian Curtis, Hooky invented a style of bass playing that continues to register and inspire to this day, with his moody post-punk grit sitting at the very forefront of the mix. The guy in the shop asked which one I wanted and that stumped me, I just kept saying ‘bass’ guitar In New Order, he experimented even further, embracing the new technology of the 80s to mutate his acerbic low end into electro-pop, once again doing what had never been done. As readers of this magazine know perfectly well, it is no stretch at all to consider the man one of the most influential English players since Sir Paul McCartney himself. “We went to a Sex Pistols gig and decided to form a band and the next day [guitarist] Bernard Sumner said ‘Go get a bass’,” relates Hook, taking us back to that life-changing day as lunch is prepared in the kitchen. He jokes that the idea to start the band was a case of realising that “we could just as easily stand there telling everyone to flip off, if that’s what groups did”. Borrowing £35 from his mother, he went to Mazel’s in Manchester in search of a bass, but there was one slight problem - he didn’t quite know what a bass guitar was or did. “The guy in the shop asked which one I wanted and that stumped me, I just kept saying ‘bass’ guitar. He must have thought, ‘God, I’ve got a right one here, another idiot from that Sex Pistols gig!’ When he grabbed the nearest one, I said it wouldn’t do because there was only four strings - and that’s when he told me, ‘No son, basses only have four’.” The punk convert proudly rode the bus home with his new Gibson EB-0 replica wrapped in a black binliner and its headstock poking out. He “plinked and plonked” that night and then began rehearsing with Bernard the following day, with no idea of even how to tune the thing. “It really was the most inauspicious start,” he laughs, adding: “if the bookies had a bet on these two idiots amounting to anything, the odds against us would have been pretty high. To go on and be in two earth- changing bands was pretty surprising for me as well, you know...” Looking back on the impact of Unknown Pleasures - recently repackaged on limited edition vinyl for its 40th anniversary - it almost feels inevitable that it became such a landmark release in rock music. Hook’s driving bass-lines had all the aggression of punk, funnelled into an outside suspense, creating a new sonic blueprint that felt every bit as expressive as music could be. At the time, however, it was more as if they were making it up as they went along. “We were teenagers - confused, anxious and rebellious - because that’s what teenagers are,” shrugs Hook, before the cheeky wink that comes ahead of all his classic one-liners. “Guess it’s my hormones I need to thank, then!” I never needed a compressor, because I hit my guitars so hard they just flatline completely every time When we point out that it’s hard to imagine Unknown Pleasures sounding the same if it had been made by more theoretically enlightened musicians, Hooky nods in wholehearted agreement. Although Joy Division may have been playing a more intelligent form of punk rock, it was punk rock nonetheless. “We made glorious mistakes because we were self-taught,” he muses. “There’s this theory that when any punk band tries to learn the rules, they can’t do it any more. There’s evidence for that, they can get too conscious. Still, some of our songs are hard to play even now. It’s all down-picking. I never needed a compressor, because I hit my guitars so hard they just flatline completely every time. I never step back. Songs like Transmission can make your hand feel like it’s about to drop off. But I never warm up. I don’t even practise at home, I find it boring.” Hook regards Joy Division’s debut as “more of a jam record with as many bum notes as any of your favourite albums from the 60s, 70s or 80s”. Whenever producer Martin Hannett felt the bass chords needed more clarity, they would record notes separately and simply add them together. The members would talk about their ambitions but rarely discussed the music itself - exploring a creative subconscious through a natural, primitive instinct. There was also the fact they didn’t have the time or money to fix the mistakes they inevitably made. “People would ask why the first verse was 16 bars and the second only eight,” says Hook, “but there’s no cataclysmic reason behind it. We just counted wrong, but it sounded good, so that was that. Martin helped me design the loudest flipping bass rig you’ve ever heard in your life - an Alembic Stereo preamp going into a Amcron DC-300A, which is 1000 watts a channel, in stereo, through two 1500 watt speakers. Once I put the chorus on, it was just mental. I was never going to hide behind a bush after that.” (Image credit: Phil Barker / Future) Hearing ghosts On Joy Division’s defining moment - the 1980 non-album single, Love Will Tear Us Apart - it was Hook’s contrasting open strings against notes high up the neck of a Hondo II Rickenbacker copy that inspired its sullen, era-defining vocal melody. This came from his refusal to stay in the background. “They tried telling me once, asking if I could just follow the root,” laughs Hooky. “I said, ‘No - how about you flipin’ follow me?’ - probably out of ignorance, because I didn’t know what a root note even was. I’ve never liked to be hidden, and I don’t like to be patronised. I don’t buy into the idea that the bass player is the quiet one who drives the van...” and there’s that cheeky wink again, before the admission that he was in fact behind the wheel for most tours. [Trying a six-string bass] The devil in me realised that no-one else had one of these. It meant that I could play even more chords Quiet he certainly wasn’t, and with encouragement from producer Hannett and singer Curtis, Hook soon discovered that the higher frets were where his potency was at its most ripe. “Berny had a really loud amp right from the word go. I couldn’t hear myself at practice if I played low, so I went high - and that’s when Ian would be shouting, ‘Sounds great, do that, go high Hooky, go high!’ It was nice to be encouraged. A lot of those bass riffs were at his insistence.” At the time, Hook recalls that Joy Division’s biggest single didn’t feel any more revolutionary than their other material. What did feel cutting-edge, however, was the Shergold Marathon Custom six-string bass that ended up on Joy Division’s final album, as well as later New Order tracks, thanks to a recommendation from the owner of their local Mamelok music shop. “He probably wondered what kind of lunatics would play it... ‘Oh, I know!’ So I went and tried it. The devil in me realised that no-one else had one of these. It meant that I could play even more chords, which proved hugely inspirational on songs like ‘Passover’. I still love playing six-string basses: they don’t need to be as overdriven. The clarity makes them easier to use, but they’re also difficult because of the monster neck.” It was the same shop owner who introduced them to Electro-Harmonix pedals, most notably the Clone Theory chorus which he told Hook could help fatten up the lower register even more. Tracks such as ‘24 Hours’ from Joy Division’s swansong album saw the final elements of that signature Hooky sound come to fruition. “Those early EHX boxes are fantastic,” continues Hook. “I did have a collection at one point but it got stolen. What I loved about them was the sheer amount of noise, almost like birds tweeting. I took great delight in that, because Martin kept thinking he could hear ghosts.” Another wink. “He made me get a noise gate in the end...” After lunch and a round of coffees, we head to Hook’s home studio for an exclusive look at the equipment in his current rig. He points to various amps and speakers, including a couple of Yamaha BB1200S basses, a series that has been the staple of his sound since New Order started. As we learn, this long-enduring love affair was born purely out of chance. “My Gibson EB-0 got stolen in America, but it was stinky poo and kept going out of tune,” he admits. “So I went to Manny’s on 48th Street and the only thing that was any good was their Yamaha BB600. It felt perfect. I traded in for the 1000 and after that the 1200, which had a straight-through neck and two non-active pickups. Then someone from a shop called me up saying there was now a three-way active 1200S. I went straight there and never looked back. I’ve tried every other guitar in the world, but they just don’t do anything for me.” Forget the awards and the money, I finally got my own signature bass! Despite the music history on the walls and in the room around us, we learn of a recent development that’s given this world-renowned icon a well-overdue sense of having made it. There’s a Yamaha Peter Hook model on the way. “Forget the awards and the money, I finally got my own signature bass!” he grins, explaining how Yamaha only caught wind through his son Jack Bates, currently playing bass in Smashing Pumpkins. “He told the reps I’d been using the same Yamaha for 39 years. They couldn’t believe it and wanted to do a version to my spec. I’m playing the prototype right now, it’s sounding lovely.” Also in the room are Hook’s custom-made Chris Eccleshall basses, which he jokes are the instruments Yamaha refused to make him. By his own admission, the guitars are a “half-Yamaha, half semi-acoustic hybrid that only a nutter would want to play”. And of course, that makes them perfect for him. Before long the conversation turns to the equipment and personal archive that was auctioned earlier this year. Treasures that went under the hammer included his very first EB-0 bass, the original Clone Theory pedal and the Shergold six-string. “I actually sold pretty much all of my Joy Division and New Order memorabilia,” he says, adding that he shared the profits with three charities close to his heart. “I could play any six-string but it wouldn’t be the one used on those tracks. It was very special... the chemistry we had back then was perfect and rare, but that same chemistry is what splits you up because of a million other reasons. It was like a romantic breakup - instead of getting a haircut, I got new guitars.” Since forming Peter Hook & The Light in 2010, in which his son Jack also played, Hook has been able to revisit his past in a way that’s truly faithful to its roots - performing his classic albums in their entirety. He describes the experience by comparing it to finding an old toy in the back of the cupboard. The rediscovery leaves him less concerned with looking for new ones. If he gets to retread former glories and continue to inspire, even learning a thing or two along the way, he’s more than happy. I love going online to watch people playing my parts “I love going online to watch people playing my parts,” he grins. “I haven’t seen one kid yet - and they’re all great players - that can do it the whole way through. They’ll nearly get there and flip up, leaving me shouting, ‘Yes!’ I take great delight in watching people get 24 Hours wrong. The only person who can play like me is Jack. He pulls me up on things - saying I shouldn’t do it like that, telling me how to play my own riffs. And he’s usually right, to be fair!” Advertisement Holding his soon-to-be signature Yamaha bass up for our camera, and looking every bit the punk legend he is, Hooky regales us with a few lesser-known facts about his genre-shaping career. His sense of humour is every bit as razor-sharp as his tone. “People used to tell me that as soon they heard the bass-line, they’d know it was me and I took that as bad - so I tried playing differently,” he shrugs. “I even had a friend show me how to slap, which ended with him saying, ‘Don’t bother!’ I’ve been offered so many gigs - Echobelly, Elastica, Primal Scream and Killing Joke - but I couldn’t do them. I’d be all over the place. I recently found out I was fifth in line for the Rolling Stones when Bill Wyman left...” One last wink before we leave. “Luckily number four got it!” cackles Hooky. “If Mick Jagger held a gun to my head, telling me to play Satisfaction I’d have said, ‘Just shoot me. There’s no flipping way I can play that stinky poo.’ I’ve never been good at playing other people’s music, which is a strange thing to admit. I’ve been lucky with what I do.” Peter Hook & the Light will be touring the UK until September, and the USA and Canada in October and November.