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Take 1 x rack of basses, 1 x old wardrobe, 1 x dull afternoon, a selection of hand tools and several cups of coffee.

Hiya Lemonstar The technical side is pixies and magic dust, I assume... (and hard work from the admins / moderators / other technical bods). From a content perspective: - Massive amount of experience and knowledge shared freely; - Kindness; - Humour; - Friendliness; - Silliness.

1/ One of my customers is just learning to play guitar, he's in his mid 50s. His guitar tutor asked what his aim was and the chap said he just wanted to play one gig. The guitar tutor replied that he'd need a better guitar. The guitar in question is an Epiphone Les Paul copy. It's in good condition and very playable. My customer asked me what I thought, I said I thought his tutor was talking out of his rear exhaust pipe. 2/ The music teacher at my son's school told my son that bass players don't play with plectrums, so he should only use fingers when he was playing the bass at school. My son told me this so I suggested next time he 'plays' bass at school and the subject of plectrums comes up he just says Bobby Vega or Carol Kaye. I then told my son, who is learning to play guitar, that anyone who wants to be a well rounded player should try to get to grips with all techniques on their instrument. Being deadly serious, I don't think people, who regard themselves as Music Teachers, and make such nonsense statements should be teaching at all. They're doing a disservice to those they are supposed to be teaching. It may seem minor, however, such narrow minded ridiculousness...well, it boils my waste water!!!

Sometimes you need to give a big hug to the people you hate. That way you'll know how big a hole to dig.

I think I've just had the best photo of me taken ever for any of the bands I've ever been in.

The unscrupulous, the conmen, those hell bent on trickery and skullduggery , are soon dealt with by Ped and a vigilant team. Anything more serious that needs the introduction of a set of stairs to the offender, and my boys will sort it, pronto, because we're watching you too. Sleep well

Well, that went well. 😡 So, just to help some people, I break all my ethical rules and "like" the page of an unknown-to-me band. Then Facebook immediately gives me my receipt: "You probably know Silvia" and "You probably don't know Jack".

I'll chime in first, with my unscientific observations: The site is well designed and uses a very intuitive interface. Try using Thefretboard site and see how frustrating a poor interface can be. Fair bit of chat suggesting here that bassist seem to be more 'reasonable' compared to other instrumentalists. I'd like to think this is the case! The mods do a very good job of responding to feedback, scammers and threads going off the rails. I don't know the stats, but I'd say there is a good core of people who chip in more than most and are happy to help folks.

"What makes this site work?" Elastic bands, bits of chewing gum and the knicker elastic from the last pair of knickers that Valerie Singleton wore on Blue Peter... mainly.

Have you ever shaved collies in the Outer Hebrides?

Sounds familiar. I was in (& managed) a well known tribute for 26 years and shared the social media control with my fellow founding member. We agreed many times that, when either of us decided to call it a day, the band would fold so as not to dilute our hard earned excellent reputation or confuse venues/fans etc. If the other person still wanted to continue then the band could change its name and find a replacement member. Sadly, haven given months of notice, the day after I played my final show I was ejected from the band page & blocked.... and the band continued on with the same name. 26 years of supposed friendship & loyalty gone overnight - and this guy was even Best Man at my wedding. Oh well, seems loyalty counts for nothing.... and his speech was shite tbh! lol! I'm pleased to say that the 2 other (non-founding) band members then jumped ship leaving him having to make replacements for 3 of us. The new version now play to half the audiences and gig reports suggest they aren't anywhere near as good or authentic. Karma is a beach... especially as I'm now out doing bigger and better gigs with superior musicians & singers Onwards and upwards.... living well is the best revenge!

Great idea Chris. About six months too late, but a great idea. I’ll tell you what, ignoring for one moment all the time, effort, cost of fuel, rescheduling of other band and family commitments etc etc that I’ve personally put in for this event (which is the thirteenth by the way), I will match any donation you care to make. Let’s set the cap at the price of the Deacon P bass I had built. Let’s call it a round £1000 shall we?

I suppose it would be invidious to ask who thought it was a good idea to sack the band's social media manager before torturing him for the passwords.

This build might take a while as I'm not really sure what I'm doing but the three main points I'm aiming for, in reverse order are, something that looks good, something that sounds good and last, but certainly not least, not to die! Oh yeah, and if I do you can all blame @rubis as it was his B15 build thread that got my idle mind thinking. 😉 The back story; I was having a clear out and found an old Dynacord amp with the front and back plates and all the knobs missing at the bottom of a chest. It had been given to me years ago and I'd pulled it apart to give it a clean as, from memory, something was noisy. The stripped parts had long since been thrown out and the newly discovered amp was about to go to the tip. At the last minute I thought I'll just put it to one side as it's an old valve amp and who knows, it could be alright. In my shed/workshop I also have my old home built (rediculous) bass rig, a bi-amped set up with a pair of 15" celestions as the bottom end that is just in the way and will most likely never be used again due to size, a pre-amp/crossover, stereo graphic EQ and stereo power amp in a rack with a 2x10 for the high end and two 1x15s for the bottom, it used to have a 4x12 for the high end but that's just silly, right? 😁 Anyway it has virtually no resale value but has to go. So I have this gear in the way when I read Rubis' thread about his Ampeg-esque cab build a light bulb came on. I've always loved the Ashdown Drophead with the Little Bastard head, and the classic Ampeg fliptop, in fact any fliptop but have absolutely no use for one so could never justify buying one just because they're pretty. Then it dawns on me, I have an old valve amp and some lovely sounding celestions. I give the amp the once over inside and all seems OK and plug it into one of the 15" cabs, plug in a Precision and it sounds pretty good, albeit at low volume. So my mind's made up, I'm going to build a fliptop and re-house the amps internals to have the cool (or should that be hot?) bits on display and put it all in a new cabinet, it will hopefully be a nice combo to keep that doesn't take up much storage and won't cost very much, mainly just my time. The amp is a Dynacord Imperator which manages 80watts by putting 750volts through it's pair of EL34 valves, which would normally only produce 50watts. The amp query thread is here if anyone's interested, This is what I started with, and after some careful de-soldering, chassis cutting and most importantly labelling wires, this is where I'm at. I'm planning to build something along the lines of the classic look of the exposed transformers at either end with the valves in the middle all above a housing with the controls on. I'm no electrician, but I'm not stupid either, but as long as everything is wired back to where it came from, what can go wrong. It's only 750 volts after all. 🤪 Both the amp and speaker, from quick research, seem to be early 70s so it's nice to pair them being a similar vintage. Anyway enough rambling, I just thought if I start this thread then I'll have more incentive to carry on, I'm in no hurry so this may take a while though.

My great-niece wanted to learn guitar. She's left-handed and left-footed at everything. I told my niece to get her a lefty guitar. Left-handed guitar arrives. Great-niece insists on playing it right-handed. 😞

Bassists. Cos we are the best.

Add to that the dreaded 3/ Oh you are left-handed? Nah, just learn right-handed, it's always difficult at the start anyway, and there are more right-handed models available on the market. [More or less the equivalent of: 'Oh, you are gay? Nah, only sleep with the opposite sex from now on, it'll make your life easier']

This is where experience really comes into its own. Someone doing this the first time might naively think that the original finish has been removed But not so. The experienced know that there are eons of tortuous sanding sessions after which your fingers have been worn down to stumps and everyone refers to you as The Dust Man in your vain attempt to actually reach bare wood through the fiendish sealing coats that guitar and bass manufacturers put on for the express purpose of deterring maniacs such as Andyjr1515 who wish to attack their beautiful products. Or in short...quite a bit more to do but at least the green is off

If the feet are too short it has the same effect as being too close to the wall with rear ports, although what happens probably isn't what you might think. When the distance is short enough the space between the speaker and the floor/wall becomes an extension of the port, lowering the tuning frequency of the cabinet. That's not a good thing. OTOH a well engineered bottom ported cab would take advantage of this and make the feet the right size so that the length of the port inside the cabinet could be shortened, allowing a reduction in the cabinet size.

This is my favourite photo of me. Mainly because my lovely Shuker is in it but my face isn't.

For me BC is a font of knowledge about basses, amps, pedals, equipment, recording, ohms, etc, I’ve learned so much from here, any questions anyone asks is answered , there’s everyone from bedroom bassists to professionals, it’s a great community, full of great people , where everyone can have their say 🙂

Basschat hasn't been the same since The Big Beef Chief was banned ...

Well, what a morning. Spoke to a guy at Sims (apparently Martin is a bit part-time these days and wasn't there but their paint guy spoke to me). So, bass dismantled but poly finish left on for them to strip, then poly new colour, approx £650. Nitro add 50% to the paint part, comes in about £870... fork a duck. As an aside spoke with Mark at Limelight recently and he will do me a 60s LPB Precision for a grand, so for £130 more than a nitro refin I'd get a whole extra bass - and a right nice one too. SO> spoke (well FB'd) David Wilson - we're on. Around £310-ish for a full strip and nitro refin solid colour (3TSB may be more, dunno). He sounds ace, nice work on FB page. 6 - 8 weeks but I'll get some pics of the body in it's current black and then WIP and back in the LPB - just to share experiences and spread the word. As usual on BC, if you ask for help you get it quick, good and true. Big thanks to all above👍 The Limelight will need to wait... sorely tempting tho'

Why don't you just take some bass lessons and join a band - its the best way to improve your playing and you can learn the rest as you go along.

Mine came through today. Really good fun. Here's a quick demo having spent 5 minutes with it:

So, The Last Resort gig happened last night and we had a blast. The Deacon P sounded fab - not just my opinion, the sound guys thought so too 😀. I'm not quite sure how many thousands we raised. I think they're still counting. Hard to choose a favourite from the 6 songs we played, but this one does have a certain grin factor to it.

Played at a local venue last week, and they had a pro photographer in. He got some rather nice shots of my BB435. 😉👌

Have you seen his avator animation. I would be too !!

nervous?

On which subject... Taking A Little Trip Back With Father Tiresias. Being a serious Genesis fan in my youth (losing interest with the 3-piece pop group version, even though they named an album after me), after having followed this thread, I looked up SH with Nad Whatsit on YouTube, just so I could see what all the fuss was about. Not too much, from what I could see. Anyway, while I was there, I saw various other Genesis items on the YouTube sidebar; one of which was the live version of I Know What I Like from Bingley Hall. Now I actually did go to that show, so I thought that I'd check it out. Thing is, someone I know swore blind that he'd seen me in the film of that gig.......yeh, right. SO I watched it...... ...and there, at 45 seconds, as the crowd rises up when Phil Collins starts to sing, there's a young guy with glasses on who throws up his arms... ....and it's an 18 year-old Mangotango, (with both a hairline and a waistline, unlike now), and all of his life ahead of him....... hadn't seen that before last night and it made me want to weep for no known reason. Not for the Genesis track at all, I can assure you.

There was a tutor on my BMus course who kept making stupid comments about me playing a 6 string bass. You just ignore these people, if you’re happy playing what you play, how you play, then that’s all that matters. The problem is, novice players take notice, and end up spending money they don’t need to spend.

Me too. Let’s face it though, particularly in the case of bass players playing with plectrums, a fair percentage of musicians (including many bassists) seem to think the same! I learned to play with a plectrum first and foremost and it has saved my bass playing life. The prolapsed discs in my neck affect the nerves in my arm and make a lot of fingerstyle things that I used to be able to play very difficult, if not impossible, for me. If I’d only played fingerstyle, I’d now be incapable of playing many of the bass lines I’ve written over the years. I remember when I was starting, a more experienced mainly- fingerstyle player told me to stick with my plectrum playing as it could become my “thing”. He’ll never know how prophetic that was! Oh, FWIW, I had an (admittedly exceptional) Epi Les Paul Custom Plus for awhile. For some reason it was chambered. It remains one of the 3 best sounding LPs I’ve ever played, and I’m an LP nut. It cost £320 used. The other two were well in excess of £2.5k. I sold it because I thought I needed the real thing. Wrong! Admittedly the hardware was ropey and the finishing a bit iffy, but it sounded fabulous. I wish I could get it back!

That’s about the size if it for me too. However if we’re booked for a party (ie in a venue, and we’re booked on the basis that it’s a party) we charge double or triple what we do a pub gig for, owing to the generally increased faff.

Pixies. They come out at night when we're all asleep -- well, most of us -- and they tidy the place up a bit**, stick a new hamster in the wheel and away it goes. ** they have a request for Teebs, by the way; if you're going to leave those things hanging around, could you at least put them in a bin bag. One of the pixies is having great difficulty getting the stains out of his tunic. Yup, it's been a lot nicer.

I wondered why I have to keep pulling them up!

This is where @scrumpymike says, "Just saw your post, Andy. No - those lines aren't where I want it cut - that was just marks on the scanner glass." and then I say, "Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Because this is how interpreted the lines: Which, with a quick visit to the band saw became: with this left over: Don't worry Mike. It'll glue back. Bit of David's Isopon I'm sure you won't be even able to see it...

OK so I made the big purchase of a P7 Version 2 from Andertons along with a Rumble 100. The variation of sound is quite massive and its certainly a nice bit of kit. I tried a MIM P Bass and while lighter I prefered the narrower neck on the P7. Now to get practising :) Thx for all the support, Matt

The only issue I would have is if you've been promoting it as a pub gig, open to everybody, and any fans of the band arrive to find that they can't get in because it'd a private party - the band doesn't look great If there's a party happening but it's still open to the public, no problem, just extra punters

In a Post Script... being a bit sad like that I looked up the credits for the Frozen II soundtrack. Turns out that bass is courtesy of Abe Laboriel Sr, percussion by Alex Acuna (ex of Weather Report) and the absolutely spot on 80s power ballad parody guitar lines were by Dean Parks. Which is appropriate since, between them, he and Steve Lukather probably provided the guitar on 90% of those big, cheesy 80s power ballads in the first place! No wonder it sounded so perfect (and so good).

If it's a pub gig, in a pub, usual load-in, start and stop times, then it's a pub gig. Pub gig money. I always think if there's a party in there, more people will see the band that probably wouldn't have bothered. I've even done private functions for pub gig money. I tell them, 'if I can treat it like a pub gig, arrive at 7.30, start at 9 finish by 11.30, then I'll do it for pub gig money.

Good Grief! That place sounds like my worst nightmare. Did you get offered a 'pod' for the night?

Paddle faster. I hear banjos 😁

Yep it's a great cab. Very nearly picked up another at a bargain price but it had some unspecified fault which the bargain price wasn't quite bargain enough to tempt me. A little 4x8 stack with the 250w head would, I fancy, rattle some glass.

Hmmm, was just thinking of moving my sub on. Don’t like the sound of this sellers remorse.

It's actually 31... you forgot to include the stacked knobs and the one holding the camera.

Or Rastaglo?

That looks really good! I’m also enjoying the “Changing Rooms” updates in the background!!

Ah, Black Friday. The chance for retailers to clear their shelves of old stock whilst convincing us we're getting a bargain. Super.