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On 5th November 2011, the fourth line-up of The Junkyard Dogs took to the stage, playing the George IV in Chiswick. There was Rick on vocals & slide guitar, Paul the Drums (known to many from SouthEast BassBashes), @Happy Jack on bass, and our newest recruits @MacDaddy on lead guitar and @Silvia Bluejay on photography. The new line-up suddenly became the closest thing there was to The Basschat Band. Eight years and 24 days later (and over 200 gigs later too) we played our final gig with that line-up, fittingly enough at the George IV in Chiswick ... it just panned out that way. By now Silvie and I have married, of course, and Silvie has become our sound engineer and videographer, but apart from that nothing has changed - except that we've got better.

I've always had a thing for blue basses, and my Sandberg collection has just grown by one...

And after all my moaning on here, when I got in touch Barefaced have refunded me the full difference between what I’d paid and the discount price. Anyone who wants to say “I told you so” is more than welcome to.

sorry, here you go

AC Guitars still make a filter per pickup system. While EQ01 is not currently available for sale I use the DFM (Dual Filter Modular) in my own instruments which is the fourth generation ACG dual filter preamp. There will also be a limited run of EQ02 preamps in the not to distant future.

OK, I'm doing a wipe-on finish on my Walnut Les Paul Guitar thingy, which means I have an inordinate amount of time between an inordinate number of coats. So rather than actually do useful stuff, I thought I would start planning my next build. I realise @Christine has pretty much done the definitive Les Paul bass build thread, but maybe mine will be just different enough to hold your interest. Anway, specs something like: 31" scale, 19 fret (is this too few??) Some sort of ridiculously over-laminated and accent-lined neck blank Slightly oversize Les Paul Body (though smaller than the official Gibson oversized) Slotted headstock Single humbucking pickup, probably in the 'P' position Birdseye Maple veneer top Figured Etimoe or Bosse Cedar veneer back Double bound with flame maple (umm...once I've learned to bend it) Guitar tuners Double 'f' hole Yet more pinstriping and veneering than you can shake a stick at. So there you have it. Short scale because I've never build one. I want it simple though, so I thought a single pickup would be good. I must do love the sound of a P bass though, so I'm thinking a Gibson humbucker in the P position would sound pretty similar but keep the Gibson look. Slotted headstock, because I just think they look great. The guitar tuners I'm going to try because bass tuners, even Ultralites, look a bit oversized and even they I think might cause neck dive, my pet hate. The Hofner Beatle bass uses guitar tuners, so I'm pretty confident it can be done, particularly with light-ish strings, but if anyone has done this please shout up. And they only weigh 20 grams each, ie half that of an USA Ultralite..... Veneer-wise, here's the top I'm thinking. Birdseyes. And lots and lots of them: For the back I'm thinking one of these. The first is Bosse Cedar, the second is Figured Etimoe. I've put the three together to see if you have a preference. The workshop strip light sucks the colour from everthing so here's the stock photos. Both look pretty amazing in natural light. Any thoughts? As for layout, here's a mock up of the slightly larger body and 31" scale with slotted headstock. As with the Walnut LP I'm just finishing, the lower horn is 'sharp' so that I can do a mitred joint in the binding, rather than trying to bend flamed maple (which has a reputation for splitting) round the more traditional rounded lower horn. But if I can practise a bit and I can manage it, then I may revert to the more traditional shape. So there you have it. Them's are my thoughts. This won't be a quick build cos I've still got two others to finish! But thanks so much for looking. And feel free to shout up with thoughts and criticisms🙄😎

I'm sure this is not news to some, but ive just found out i can switch channels on my GK MB800 using a normal jack to jack, between my Helix and my amp. The Helix lets you assign one of its foot switches to control the amp. You can even give the footswitch a name, and in my case also match the colour LED to the amp. How cool is that!!!

Me too! Hang on a minute - I AM the lucky owner 😃

Well, I drove through Andy's village a couple of nights ago. There was a strange glow in the night sky and a low, insistent hum audible above the sound of my car. I thought it was Santa's Elves starting their shift. But no, it's another wonderous creation in the making! I'd love to see this one for real before it goes to the lucky owner.

@PJ-Bassist The VMs just work really well for me.. every now and then I have basses in transit or stored with a production so it's nice to have consistency! The new one was ordered to the exact spec of the creme VM4 and they feel pretty much identical. Might delve into other models next year... Classic & Cool have a Forty Eight I rather like!

Other than that the season going well so far?

Digging this thread up again - I joined a Kate Bush tribute band back in February this year and have had to learn a lot of these tunes, invest in a fretless and learn how to play the damn thing too. Agree that John Giblin is one hell of a player!

Forgot to add that when you start with a new band keep it simple and play the basics til you have settled in. Most bands don't want a flash git showing off in every song. They just want a solid reliable bass player that can hold a song together with a decent drummer. Dave

I love this kind of thing! I've been using suitcases from charity shops for a while now. My favourite is styled like an oversized school satchel and holds a square pedal board perfectly. Into the flap/pocket on the front I slid some big airwrap packaging so my pedals are protected from bumps. My most recent purchase came from Lidl middle aisle. It's a four socket extension lead designed with Christmas light enthusiasts in mind. Instead of one block of four sockets these are daisy chained a metre or so apart. Now when rocking up at awkward pub venues with only one bloody socket instead of plugging in a 4 gang which everyone else must then try to get to, I can lay out my lidl lead and sockets can be found at easy to access intervals.

Purchased this from our forum stalwart @TheGreek, I'm kind of at a loss what to say about it really, it’s actually jaw-dropping in every respect. I'm trying to piece together it's history, @skelf tells me the build was completed in Jan 2009 and according to @TheGreek it was built for @GreeneKing I am unsure who had it next? It would be lovely to have its family tree, if anyone can help me piece this together then great! In the meantime, check this mother out, f****** hell...

Hi to all of You music lovers. I am a bass player for more than 30 years now, playing in cover bands as with some famous musicians from Balkan. Found this place looking for some answers about setup of vintage Fender basses, and many other useful topics. Think that I can use Your group experience for many of my questions and dilemmas, and maybe I can help someone with mine. Having a lot of gear during past 30 years, and tried pretty much everything that was interesting to me from the market over the years. Hope to enjoy this chat with other bass players and to see and learn many interesting things. Here are some pics of part of my current gear... Cheers

D&B are the bomb.

It was Paul's question about his switch that made me think this one through. Although it's a basic feature without Midi, it's certainly a very welcome feature. Cant wait to try it with the Genzler (when i get it)

Other companies need to listen to this....

IME in a live band mix you are unlikely to hear any difference at all. What you tend to get with the more expensive DI boxes (that are just DI boxes with no features other than being able to take an unbalanced signal at a variety of different levels and convert it to a balanced line) is reliability and robustness. I have a couple of EMO DI boxes that I bought second hand about 30 years ago. One of them had obviously had a fairly hard life before I acquired it as most of the graphics on the casing had worn off, but it was working perfectly back then and it is still working perfectly now. Interested to see what exactly was inside, I once unscrewed the base to find that all the available space was completely taken up by the sockets and the transformers, with some fairly heavy duty wire joining them all together. There's no way any of the components can move and being a passive device housed in an extremely robust metal case, there's almost nothing that can go wrong. I've had "interesting" experiences with some of the more budget DI boxes in that they won't work properly with some equipment. Most notable was the Behringer DI that almost every PA seems to have that simply would not work with The Terrortones Etherwave Theremin. It wasn't an isolated experience either. If the PA was getting no signal from the Theremin, checking the DI box would show that it was the Behringer and replacing it with one of my EMOs would result in the Theremin signal getting to the desk. We never worked out why this was happening, but the theory was that the earthing system on the two devices was incompatible resulting the the output from the Theremin being shorted to earth. Not a good thing for a device that is supposed to sort out equipment interfacing problems.

I had to sell a bass that I really loved (a Yamaha BB) to fund mine. It does suck, and I really, really miss the Yamaha. But, it was a neccesary evil. The SL's really are very good though. It's a very tight and punchy jazz bass. Balances really nicely with a great neck and sounds great active/passive. Only downside is that I can probably never gig a 5er over 3.2kg again 😂😒

Oh of course, time for the regular biannual basschat compression bunfight, should really put it in my calendar.... Here we go:- Compression used properly doesn't smash your dynamics Compression is a much more subtle effect than preamp side effect compression due to time control of the effect. It's actually more of a transient control. You can't hear transparent compression on its own, hence the transparent... But it is still powerful in the mix. Effects obvious compression will change your dynamic range, cos you're smashing the stinky poo out of the signal... Cheap compressor pedals generally are only useful for heavy effect compression cos you can't tell what they're doing cos they have inadequate metering... There you go 🤩🤘

They switch the coils on each pickup. Series/single/parallel. With regard to the tonal range from the filters. The lowpass filters in your version of the EQ01 go as high as 6.5kHz the newer version was brought down in line with the current DFM to 3.5kHz. This increases the resolution of the pot giving more control over the mids and it also reduces the overlap with the highpass filter. While both the EQ01 and DFM share the same control layout the newer restricted version of the lowpass filter does make it easier to dial in. Less being more in this case. This was done after the EQ03 where myself and John took things a bit to far. The preamp was hugely versatile but difficult to use. We only really worked that out once we went to far. Dialled it back to make the DFM which would be the EQ04. I don’t see it being developed any further. As far as I am concerned it ticks all the boxes I set out to tick. It took 4 versions over 9 years a fair bit of cash a few mistakes and me being the blight of John existence. Full credit to John East for putting up with me and his brilliant design work to get me to where I am and wanted to be Regarding using it. I only use about 20% of what the preamp can do. That produces what I like so it is what I use. However the other 80% has to be there because it may well produce the 20% you like. Don’t see anyway round that. If you want a versatile bass, and that has always been my goal, then there will be a degree of complexity and redundancy in the system. Bottom line use what you like ignore the rest. I look on it as a bass with two tone controls one for each pickup. I setup what I like on each pickup and use the blend. The blend is your friend. Because of the independent EQ it is way more powerful than in a 3 band EQ. All you have there is the difference between the pickups and their placement. With the filters the two pickups can have radically different sounds making the blend much more important. Live the blend makes changes easy. However once you have spent time with the preamp and I am the first to admit it has a learning curve changing on the fly is certainly possible I know many players who are totally comfortable with it live. Equally there are people that just don’t get them or get on with them which is why the East Uni-Pre is always available in all my builds except for the Uber Series. The other thing to point out is that the filters give you an option you don’t have. You have at least a 3 band cut and boost EQ in your amp Filters give you sounds you can’t get with a 3 band. Conversely a 3 band is better at some things than the filters. You have the option of best of both. And finally for those that wish to know. Flat in a filter preamp is not entirely possible because the filters are engaged all the time.So the control setting for flat are not all in the middle as would be the norm. However you can get close with the following. Both lowpass filters fully open, upper ring fully of. Upper ring on the highpass fully of. With the active/passive that is available with the DFM A/B the above with the passive and tone fully up there is not a lot of difference. So should you want to try flat that is as close as you can get.

Just thought I'd post on here for anyone doubting whether an Elf is loud enough to gig with. Last night we were playing at The 100 Club in Oxford St. Hugh - The bass player from the support band - the excellent 'Pig Iron' had asked if he could use my rig, obviously to save bringing a car into London. I'd set up my Elf as a spare and sat it on top of the amp I was using. After we'd sound checked, I had the idea of swapping the amps over so that Hugh could use the Elf and dial his sound in without us having to worry about getting my settings back at changeover. I put this to Hugh and he was quite happy - I was more than willing to let him use my main rig if he didn't think the Elf would be loud enough. Anyway - it was set up going through a Barefaced Big Baby 2, which was sat on top of a little Eden EX112. Hugh was playing a Rik straight into the amp. It sounded like a Rik should in a rock band, warm - defined and growly. Any worries I had about it being loud enough were dispelled when the sound engineer asked him to turn the rig down! It sounded great. So if you're playing with PA support and the stage isn't mahoosive, and you're using efficient cabs - then yes - the Elf is plenty loud enough.

The WB-100, however...!

Also rifle bags are sometimes a good fit as gig bags for smaller basses. I have a scoped rifle bag that is a perfect fit for a Mustang and others that are excellent for the Hohner B2A sized cricket bats. I suppose you might have to be careful if you keep Googling rifle bags, don't want Black Ops boshing in your front and back doors in a coordinated raid.

I don’t know if it’s been mention earlier in this thread, but for some full on Giblin action, check out John Martyn’s Grace & Danger, which I was steered towards in another thread.

Yes, or at least it will be when I get it back from the menders ☹️ but these are getting GAS igniting reviews and the svt is so heavy and and and, oh God you're right. I don't need any more gear.

My first band morphed from a fairly dreary blues band into a pop/rock covers band, minus the keys and with a new drummer. Mrs S came up with the name 'May Contain Nuts' and that is what stuck.

Anything by the Who. Terrible

Yes - I've gone for the maple fretboard, undotted, paddle head. Leaves the options open. It's taken less than two days to get to Heathrow...I'm expecting it to take a lot longer to get here from Heathrow!

I can't stand Maiden with Knob Dickinson signing for them ... much prefer Paul Dianno. Kit doesn't look bad though all things considered. I met Steve Harris at a game once back in the late 1980s. He had stripy spandex leggings on. Jesus, he looked like he'd just finished the Jane Fonda workout. Lovely bloke all the same. As for the new ground - they found an unexploded WWII German bomb near the site and I really wanted it to go off and destroy the Olympic Stadium so we'd never have to play in that souless bowl ever again. Bloody Luftwaffe, couldn't even get that right ! I got the old crest tattooed on my leg - just in time for the Dildo brothers and that witch Karen Brady to change it. I'll never forgive them for moving from the old ground. I've been to the Tax Payer's Stadium about five times since we moved. I've vowed I'll never go again. It's a karzi. You need binoculars to see the pitch, they've totally killed the atmophere and the transport arrangements are a complete joke. We've lost 7 of our last 9 games and we're playing like we're an amateur side. Even Douglas Bader could get a game for us and probably get man of the match too ! We're about to sack our manager and it looks like we'll be in a relegation battle this season. Again. And in honour of our midfield they will be reissuing their classic song, Jog to the hills ..... and breathe ....

So glad to finally see someone who agrees with me on this song. The longer it goes on...

Thunderstruck

Congrats! What a beautiful bass. I am lucky enough to own a Recurve... I think ACG basses are the best built instruments in the UK. You can barely even fit a cigarette paper into the pickup routing on mine. Alan's finishing is sublime.

John East ACG EQ-01? Have one on my fretless Jazz Bass. HUGE tonal palette; a bit TOO huge. Best to find a sound you like and superglue the knobs in that position, as you may never find it again. Looking at John East's website I notice that he doesn't list the ACG EQ-01 any more. Shame, as it means no-one but Wal make a filter per pickup system now (I suppose you could fit two NB: I don't generally like the look single cut basses much (I understand the advantages .. they just look ODD).. but this one is rather special.

Quite like their amps too. I have five 🤣

My opinion on compressors is the same as my opinion on a*sholes .... They are both useful for getting rid of excess volume.

There's a built-in compressor on my Eden WTDI pedal, which I use sparingly at open mic night. For 'proper' gigs, I use one of these: Ingersoll-Rand IR175. Sorry! I meant one of these: Palmer Bass Deepressor. Really good & solid as a rock!

I loved the sound of my old Peavey TNT combo, but after lumping it up and down the long, narrow stairs at The Bartons Arms in Brum, I came to the conclusion that I was too old (and weedy) for those shenanigans. After a year or two of unsettled panic-buying of unsuitable gear (please don't talk to me about Ashdown combos...) I settled on my delightful Genz Benz Contour Combo. It's a comfortable, one handed carry and is loud enough for pub/club gigs with no PA support. It sounds great too - very simple EQ setup and is rock-solid reliable. A recent change of band means I'm playing small theatres/art centres etc now and my backline is becoming less important, but I'm reticent to go down the "monitors only" route. I still like to hear most of my bass noise coming from my amp, as does the drummer in the band. No-one in the band is using in ears (apart from our saxophonist) so it's nice to have a decent sound level on stage, which is well balanced and not too loud. I find that the sound coming from my combo is more "me" than the sound which comes out of the monitor. "Go figure", as the young people say. I love going to gigs and seeing huge bass rigs (even if they are just for show), but I'm also incredibly glad that I don't need to move them around. Would I go back to my old, back-breaking Peavey? No. I've now got the power and the sound, but with about half the weight. And I guess that's the point.

Slightly better group.

No, I wasn't lucky enough to own that particular ACG. Ever since going down the custom route I've been going shorter and shorter, and I've settled on 31.5" now for all my basses bar one shorty which is 30.5". A full scale bass would've been too big... I've owned and sold a lot of ACGs on my journey, but I doubt the ones I have now will ever leave. Here's my main squeeze for reference... Eude

I attach this to this with this still on that to weigh it down. Then at the end of the night there is no stand to pack away and the heavy thing is still on the wheelie thing and ready (literally) to roll. Now if there was a way to grow a mic stand out of the wheelie thing then possibly this could sit on this and weigh it down whilst being protected by that from drunken punters. The main problem is it would be as sin.