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Had a great day today and thanks to everyone who came along to make it yet another successful Bash! Got to say a very special thanks to Pete Stroud aka @mybass for being our guest speaker... Pete's talk was really enjoyable; full of humour and useful insights into his career, his playing and his very interesting approach to building basses! Thanks Pete - really appreciate it! 😊👍 Another big thanks also to Colin aka @Hamster, Sarah, aka Mrs Hamster and Gary aka @cetera - without their enthusiasm, energy and support, the Bash just wouldn't have happened this year! Great to see/hear some amazing gear in action today, from @cetera's amazing Spector custom shop, to @pete.young's Dusenberg, @orangefriday's LED home build bass, @Frank Blank's Godin...amongst many, many others!! We definitely appreciated all the help setting up and packing down btw, so thanks to all who contributed there.. Anyway, it was a fab day and thanks again Folks! Looking forward to reading Sivia' Bijou Blog when it's ready too.. 😁 Nik P. S. @The Greek - Mick, I'm so sorry I didn't get to see/meet Laurence Cottle, am gutted about that, but thanks for inviting him along.. And sorry not to see you either!

The Anderton's review reads like they've copy-pasted a sequence of posts from a slightly tedious BassChat thread: What do we think about the Precision? Frankly, I think we should sue their tits off for plagiarism.

Thanks to everyone for making it a really good day out 👍 There are too many to list. @orangefriday's bass had the most incredible fretboard. @MacDaddy's Shuker messed with my mind. @silverfoxnik's Roscoe Beck has fuelled my GAS even more. @Frank Blank deserves special mention for making it to every single Bass Bash this year! Pete's talk was excellent, and moves should be made to start the Fretless Deviants register for all of us round wound users...

...with my first band of 40+ years ago. Started out as a WMC band playing an odd set of country, 50’s & 60’s songs as 16/17 year olds with an ‘older’ bandleader - I joined on bass having replied to an ad for a guitarist as he was retiring as he was too old (he was 30!!) but by the time I got to the audition he’d realised that was BS, but they didn’t have a bass player so did I fancy the job? We did that for while and then as a three piece after he left and we carried on playing clubs, though we had to have a driver for gigs as none of us was old enough to drive. Started writing our own stuff in a punky vein and built up a good following and full gig list on the south coast - I used to have a gig flyer that covered three months and had around sixty dates, which would probably kill me now. Then ‘stuff’ happened and I carried on with the drummer and later vocalist addition but lost touch with the guitarist for some time. Cut to a couple of months back when our old ‘manager’ (ok mate who drove the van and desk) got in touch and we had a meet up in a pub to chew over old times - usual “...and do you remember when...” conversation that band mates have 🙂 Old/ancient copies of songs were shared by Dropbox, keys agreed, and all agreed that maybe we wouldn’t play them quite that fast now, and today we met up in a studio to bash through what we could remember and record what happened. Also a chance to get the cone on my new BF OneTen, picked up yesterday and lovely & easily able to keep up with a Blackstar 20 rig. Despite not having played together as a three piece for 40 years it was still bloody tight. The recordings will be interesting to hear. Despite being ‘punks’ the eclectic range of influences was interesting, Bill Nelson/Bebop Deluxe, Wishbone Ash, XTC, Wilko Johnson, Hendrix/Trower, shades of Motörhead, and many more.

Once again a very interesting day. Thanks to Nik, Colin and Mrs Hamster. Anyone know where I can get a Rob Allen Fretless Mouse?😁

Many thanks to Colin, Nik, Gary and Pete for organising a great get-together against a lot of difficulties and cancellations. @Happy Jack and I could only stay a couple of hours but thoroughly enjoyed Pete's talk and catching up with a lot of people we otherwise mostly see online. Below, Pete listening to a question Below, Orange Friday and his amazing technicolour fretboard (controlled by a dedicated app)! More on my forthcoming mini-blog.

First gig with our new lead guitarist and vocalist. He replaced a 14 year founding member. Initially I had my doubts. It was a private retirement party at Ron's Cozy Inn. I assumed it would be a group of uninterested friends & family. I was wrong. Great crowd and they were gracious and engaged us. Our new 25 year old guitarist had great stage presence and a real good feel for 70s style blues rock. Plenty of space for us in the bar. The place was brand new really a great looking room. The band was well lit , we looked good. The drummer from 80s hit makers The Bodeans was there and sat in on three Tom Petty songs. This was a 6-10 gig and a 40 minute commute. Good pay and good tips. Blue

Really good day. As ever, I got to make the acquaintance of some smashing people who have mildly foolish board names but also amazingly brilliant bass kit. Nice long chats with BassAce and I got to try his EUB, also MacDaddy’s Rob Allen Mouse, some astonishingly fab basses from the remarkably modest Jabba, and huge thanks to Cetera for letting me play the winner of the Mangotango “THIS is the bass I most want to nick today” Award, for that wonderful Spectorbird. People had a go on my Aria EUB, some of them making it sound much better than I do (bah!☺️) and then we had a good talk filled with interesting stuff, from today’s guest Pete Stroud.👍👍 OK, it wasn’t a perfect day - nobody bought any of my Gear For Sale, dagnabbit; the traffic on the way home was a bit cr@p, and annoyingly Liv’pewl failed to beat That Scummy Lot; but bass-wise, it was pretty darned fine. Huge praise to all who organised the event, and as ever to Hamster for MC’ing raffle proceedings so we’ll.

Well mine is like this currently: The sides are all on and glued, the top and the bottom aren't connected as yet, just there to make sure everything is square (it wasn't earlier, seems to have straightened up!) I have everything now apart from the corners and the grill, so enough to get on with for the moment. I will glue the bottom on tomorrow and leave the top for a bit later.

It was yesterday, not today.

And now the clean, set up and re-strung result... Love these basses...

Can we ban the “I don’t get relics” threads? They come up every 2 months and in every case the OP thinks they are making an original point when in fact it’s the exactly same point. i am yearning for a “I don’t get neon colours” thread just for a change! because that’s all it is. It’s just a different finish option that takes more time and so costs more money. Nobody flips through a catalogue and stops to write a thread about graphic finishes or neons, or even pooburst. There is nothing to “understand.” Some like it, some don’t. I don’t understand baked beans. I might do a thread.

Q: How many BassChatters does It take to change a lightbulb? A: It takes: Four to say they'd be all over it if only it was a 5 string lightbulb ... Six to ask how much the lightbulb weighs Fourteen to say all you really need is a Precision lightbulb Nine to say they used to have a lightbulb just like that, but it was an original '63 and how they regretted selling it Three to say how great the service is at Bass Direct and how if they were in the market for a lightbulb, that's where they'd go Seven to wonder how the lightbulb would sound if it had different capacitors Eleven to say that the bulbs are less bright with flats but that's how they like it Fifteen to say they have not changed their lightbulbs in over a decade ... Oh, and one to actually change the bulb .... 🙂

Only ever had two problems with stuff bought from Thomann, a clip on tuner which arrived broken and more recently a pedal which just suddenly packed up. Today I received a replacement for the pedal, no quibbles, just like the last time, two emails and a replacement was shipped to me. Customer service? Yup, no complaints here.

I didn’t make it as I wasn’t feeling so great. Glad it was yet another triumph (I’ve met Pete Stroud before and seen him play; top fella). The thing I’m most sad about is not being able to see, hear and play @Jabba_the_gut’s fine creations, it was a highlight for me last year. Perhaps in 2020.

Thanks to all the usual suspects for organising another excellent Bass Bash. I managed not to attend the talk, nor participate in the raffle and I managed to give @Jabba_the_gut double homework, which appealed to my officious nature and infect @obbm with the Rob Allen virus. Thanks @BreadBin for saving my back. All in all a splendid day.

Makes you wonder why anybody ever bought one 😎😃

Jameson & ' Arry, some one trick 😙

He’s not joking, my fault again, RA is making me a partner.

Absolute cobblers.

Thanks to all the organisers and the great people I met today. Was great fun!

The greatest 'break up' song ever: And Dave's BVs weren't half bad, neither. 👍

Dave outta Chas & Dave. He's a really good bass player actually.

And now a minty Series 6 AH100 tops my Trace Elliot stack.😊

My gig was a bit like this -

What you have to appreciate is there are new members who might not have seen the offending post. Then there are people like me who have been a member for a while but have not been on for a while for whatever reason. So when I see a new person asking which string to use, I will still give my opinion, not moan that this has been asked so many times. I think some folks need to chill and realise that some subjects are new to others.

Currently on route back from London with my new prize... a very nice Yamaha TRB6P in turquoise blue. It is in desperate need of a thorough set up, clean and new strings and has a nasty but very stable crack between the pots, but it was nothing short of a steal. Looking forward to spending the afternoon giving it some well needed TLC. This is how it looks now... not terrible, will hopefully look better later today!

I was actually waiting for Benjamin from the props dept to furnish me with a large Churchillian cigar but then @silverfoxnik started randomly snapping before I had time to explain, ahem.

Bass of the Bash (AFAIC) Cake of the Bash

Last of my photos..

And more photos..

Guitarists reviewing basses is as insightful as Clarkson writing the forward in Greta Thunberg’s biography. 🙄

I remember telling my dad I wanted to learn bass guitar, so, being a good dad, he gave me every Led Zeppelin, Free and Wishbone Ash LP he had and told me to listen to them all. That was it, I knew it was right fit for me! Obviously along the way Cliff Burton, Flea et al have made their impression too, but John Paul Jones man... What a dude 🤘

I picked up this mini-beast yesterday for what I think is a very decent price. It's an Ashdown ABM 48 mini. 4x8, 600w at 8Ohms and, despite its small size and from the weight, apparently constructed from the heart of a neutron star. Our lead guitarist recently took a power amp with a blown transformer in for repair with a local amp tech but the guy made a mess of it and then promptly folded his business. The guy offered our guitarist this cab as compensation for the damage and he has now sold it on to me for the measly sum of £60. 🙂 I'm going to use this in smaller venues where there either isn't space or access is difficult for me to use my ABM 610 cab. I gave it a quick blast during last night's sound check and, while it obviously can't really compete with the 610, it's was a surprisingly loud and full but precise sound - certainly enough for on stage monitoring with PA support and probably enough on its own in the kind of smaller venues where I intend to use it. Great little cab and I'm now actually looking forward to the next time we play a tiny little pub with a stage area the same size as the pool table.

A great day, thanks Nick, Colin and Sarah. Pete’s talk was pure gold, a lot of sense there!

None, the keyboardist does it with his left hand.

After 4 gigs and 4 rehearsals, I’m very, very pleased with the Labella 760s. They are a very similar tension to my preferred 45-105 rounds but sound helluva lot better - fuller lower end, more punchy mids, less clank. Sounds great in a mix and I’m sold on flats on a jazz. Very happy. They also sound great slapped! The Tonerider pickups are well worth a mention as they are extraordinary for the money. They’re not quite as meaty as the medium set on the studio bass, but they are 85% of the beef and tone but much easier to play. They feel beautiful on your fingers as well. Great purchase and highly recommended.

Whoever played bass on Seasons in The Sun, though I didn’t realise it at the time, then punk in general. A few obvious contenders being Sid Vicious (yes he wasn’t a great bassist but played for the best punk band and looked great), and JJ Burnell & Bruce Foxton who made the bass almost a lead instrument.

Funky 80s soul from the multi-instrumentalist Keni Burke Keni Burke - Risin' To The Top | Bass Transcription | Keni Burke

Which is why, come the uprising, the couriers will be the first against the wall!!!

Small Wonder Guitar Parts http://www.smallwonder-music.co.uk/ All hand cut

3 to say how Barefaced lightbulbs shine so much brighter.....

Its not just bassists.....

I was having a Hoover up this morning and took a quick pic of one end of my practice room 🙂

If MDP was a taxidermist.....

Hey bass players ! Here’s a short lesson on chord tones and 4 ways to play them. We call them inversions, and it gives us many more interesting sounds and ways around creating bass parts and neck theory from one simple starting point. Please like, share, comment.... And, if you have any lesson ideas you’d like me to post please let me know. Darren. https://youtu.be/QBXqyor2Szc