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Refin on the way. My '97 USA P is due back to me next week from David Wilson who stripped the original black and repainted LPB. Here's some WIP shots from David - interesting that under the very tough poly black (factory original as I know the bass's history from new) it was sunburst - so even in the 90's Fender were still repainting bodies when they had their colour stocks wrong. I did find the original black amazingly resilient. I'd given it some fairly serious knocks over time and never broke through the black surface. Anyway, it's now nitro LPB so much less tough, a lot less paint on it so it might be a little more alive and rather more delicate. More pics later.

Four days in and I've failed spectacularly - I wandered in Oxford PMT today to kill time while my wife was having her nails permed (or something) and wandered out an hour later 1800 quid lighter and the owner of a rather splendid Sandberg bass - so that's me out for the year!

Big thank to to the many on here who helped on my other thread. In the end, I bought a Spector Legend after a wee haggle with Kenny's Music in Glasgow. Very impressed with their service after my experience at Guitar Guitar where I went in to buy a bass they said had been sold when it hadn't - wee bit of insider trading? Anyway, went in to look at their Spector NT Walnut and it was a thing of beauty with a great neck. This being said, it had a small electrical issue and so I tried... Spector Legend Custom NT Walnut Spector Legend Classic Tobacco Stain Fender Player PF Precision in Silver Fender Jazz Vintera in Gold To be honest, the last three impressed me immediately. I was surprised at how much I liked the Vintera neck and the Precision sounded like a Precision! I eventually chose the Spector because it was more versatile, had a lovely growl when required and a tone boost. The cheaper price saved me at least £200 too and being stingy this helped. Now, I usually get a No 1 or 2 haircut, but Spector provide some useful accessories including a cheap lead (don't bother Stuart!), some Allen Keys (have I lost them already?) and a haircut guide. According to their chart, I'm not allowed to play their bass in public until July. Hey ho!

I'm concerned that as I get older I might become less adventurous, more (small c) conservative, and happy to settle for tame little rigs. So I'm working on this three amp, three cab set up. Not only is it enormous fun, but actually sounds fabulous. I think of it as the Big Man Ting, Jamaican slang for no joke, which this rig certainly is. BMT also refers to Bass Middle Top which loosely is how it works. Trace head into 1X15 with eq pushing 60 and 100hz. BX4500 into 2x10 with tweeter bass cut mid boosted. TCE BG250 into 1X10 with horn bass cut to the bone treble and mids pushed. I shall be using three different effects set ups too but not finalised what will go where yet. I suspect I'll dirty up the top and use HPF on top and mid. Envelope and distortions on mid only to preserve the bottom end - that kind of thing.

Happy to join the 'New Year New Rig' gang...

I haven't forgotten the build diary I started for the Matt Freeman body, but I haven't found the right bit of wood so it's on the back burner for now. I'm going to do something much more interesting in the meantime. This bass is going to be made mostly of walnut, with a maple fretboard and some other maple detailing. 4 string, 34" scale - I'll be using it for Drop Bb tuning in the metal band I've just joined, with Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky strings. It'll have through body stringing and a similar open headstock to my last build. I'm going semi hollow again but with a more modern "f-hole" style the last one. The body will be single cut, which I know is not great for balance, but I've wanted a tele-ish bass for a while and I'm determined to give it a go. The neck will be pretty slinky and I'll try and make the headstock/tuners nice and light to mitigate it. I'm going to use two jazz pickups wired in series, out of curiosity more than anything else - probably wired to just a single volume pot - this bass will not be required to do a whole lot in the way of of subtlety. But the most exciting part for me is that I'll be making the pickups myself this time. I cobbled together a P-Bass pickup a few weeks ago, totally winging it and using a power drill for the winding, and was very surprised to find that a: it works and b: it pretty much sounds like a P-Bass pickup, albeit not an amazing one. I had no way to accurately count the turns, so did it by eye, but have since discovered an app for my phone that can count the turns by sensing a magnet stuck to the chuck of the drill as it passes. What amazing times we live in! There's not much to see except a rough drawing for now, but I have most of the wood so will start in earnest this weekend.

Unless you have a double neck in which case it's exactly the same instrument

Good God man! What are you doing? You’re removing all of my arguments for buying new basses in one sentence! Burn him, he’s a witch!

We are bass players! If I was waiting for paying gigs to support my GAS, I'd probably still be playing a Columbus Jazz Bass copy.

Sparkling...

We did our first gig of the new decade last night in our hometown of Hull. It’s always a bit of pressure on everyone after the December lay off, in front of some 1200 people who have followed us since we started out over 12 years ago. To add to this it was the first big gig with our new keyboard player too, so everyone very wired as we went on. Needn’t have worried though, despite a few ‘moments’ we managed to do pretty well, and the audience were so up for it and supportive which made it fly by. We had the PA stacks positioned differently from previous years, which meant there was more sound leaking on stage so I had to turn my amp up a bit more than usual. Made me realise that it’s always handy to have that extra headroom available. My GK 1001 / Neo 410 still didn’t break into a sweat though, so happy days.

Ok so cassette is not reel to reel for one thing. The noise floor on reel to reel is way way way lower than cassette. Tape compression and saturation is a huge part of the sound of vintage recording techniques. I can't stress that enough. People didn't have millions of plugins. They didn't even have dozens of pieces of outboard gear. Even Motown. They built what they needed themselves. Including the DI that Jameson used to get his bass down, yep Motown bass was DI'ed! But they did have tape, which as you start to drive it saturates really nicely and compresses too. But these days you can get lovely tape compression/saturation emulation on all channels. It's more the room and players IMO. Watch Standing In The Shadow of Motown.

Haha. It’s staying. Stress not...although I know there’s a queue of vultures lined up 😂

I’ve not been playing much over Christmas, busy with visitors from Australia, kids, a poorly pair of grandmothers (one who actually passed away On the 2nd Jan) and just loads going on in my head. i think I just got Bogged down in “do I need all this stuff...” territory. Appreciate all the replies and thoughts. think the fender Power Jazz selling has lifted the guilt complex a bit.

Indeed, one might argue that in some instances the seeming collision between presentation and expectations are transactional in nature. Let us imagine a faraway planet where androgyny is the norm. Mr David Bowie, struggling to launch his career, might have adopted a basso-profundo singing style, glued on a chest-wig and drawn further attention to himself by wrestling a tiger onstage while smoking a briar pipe stuffed with Capstan Navy Cut shag tobacco. Older inhabitants of Planet Androgyne might have pointed a scornful finger and said "Look at that! You can tell whether it's a boy or a girl!". The planet's youth might have risen in reaction against this simply appalling prejudice and in consequence purchased Mr Bowie's records by the barrow-load. Sales of Norfolk jackets and riggers' gloves might have gone through the roof until - horror - Mr Bowie might have ditched his 'genderised' look at the peak of its popularity and gone back to wearing shorty kimonos and mascara. All of which is to say that there's money to be made in looking different and provoking a response, though not so different as The Elephant Man, obvs.

Looks like a Dalek!

it was getting messy by this stage

This ^ There are things on one you can't do the other, however there is plenty you can do on both.

I've told the story many times about how my EBMM Sterling sounded more like the Stingray sound I heard in records than any Stingray I had owned, well: About 10 years ago I was fortunate enough to have a Warwick NT5 Thumb and a silver sparkle Modulus Flea bass at the same time. Try as I might I just could not get a sound I liked with the Modulus yet the Thumb sounded exactly like Flea's Modulus in the Off the Map DVD. More recently I have been struggling to get a proper P bass sound with my Player Precision and almost ended up selling it. I bought a cheap Behringer compressor sustainer and it has completely transformed the sound to the familiar, almost slightly overdriven sound that I know and love from all of those old Queen albums. This cheap, plastic £17 pedal is absolutely incredible and have it switched on all of the time with both my Jazz and Precision. I would say to persevere with what you have. I've had many Precisions and Jazzes over the years and never bonded with them but I am now at the point where I have no interest in getting anything else. I generally use the Precision for the first set and the Jazz for the second as I love playing both basses.

+1 The most annoying thing for me is all the motorway closures in the early hours that lead to huge detours. Getting home before sunrise in the summer feels like quite an achievement sometimes.

I have it on good authority that these suits were from Next.

Yes it is

@LeftyP Your bass gig is a mirror image of mine, I would be part of a pool of musicians and I would expect to play about once or twice a month. The songs are a mixture of modern and traditional hymns, and the level of musicianship is varied. I'm going to keep my playing appropriate to where I am and what each song needs, to go in tapping and slapping would detract from the words of the songs/hymns. Everyone's there to praise Christ and not witness my 4 string athletics.

Finally, it appears someone took a short video but no photos What The Funk ( us ) at NYE Buckingham move on up.mp4

I found a tea chest floating in the bristol channel. It appears to hve been packed with plaster llamas, most of which have disintegrated. Can anyone suggest a way to safely dispose of the fifty kilos of white powder?

A friend of mine from waaaay back in the 80`s bought an Overwater brand new, his pride and joy so much so he wouldn`t let anyone else play it, now jump forward about 36 years to last week and I got a message on Facebook asking me if I was who I am off said mate bearing in mind we`ve not seen each other for the 36 years, first question I asked him, do you still have the Overwater......`yes do you want to buy it!` So in less than a week of being reunited I now have the Overwater Original, one owner from new in my sweaty hands. Its in pretty decent shape as well considering he was in a punk band back in the day, a little tweak of the truss rod and it`s good to go, I`ll put some new strings on when I get the ones I won off the SIT facebook page when they eventually turn up but it sounds massive! I`ll get more pics up soon as it`s too bloody long for my phone camera to capture in one go! Anyway without further ado here it is.

My Jake (Delano P pickup + Humbucker) has had roundwounds on it since I bought it a couple of years ago, and I've never really managed to get the sound I wanted. I've got an Elwood (Haussel J pickups) with TI flats but that hasn't really done it either. So, over xmas I put some TI flats on the Jake... wow. That's the sound I want, bang on. They need to play in a bit so I might need minor tweaks, but with any of my favourite amps from the Multiamp (mainly the MB ones) it just sounds perfect to me. Why I've not done it until now I do not know, my previous bass (Ibby BTB) had TI flats and I loved it. Maybe because I've not had a Jazz style bass before and didn't realise how much difference there would be. It's just a genuine "finally nailed it" moment, getting a Barefaced cab for the multiamp really brought the amp / cab sims to life and now the bass is sounding spot on as well. Sorted! Time to put some roundwounds on the Elwood I suppose. I'll try and stick a clip of it on soundcloud when I get chance.

Wise words above, 100% keep the Flea Andy

Here are mine - Brown: '86 MIJ. This one's got a Wizard 84 at the bridge, and the paint had been stripped before it came to me. It's my number one when gigging - it's lovely. Black: only just picked this up - bista using an S9 neck and an early '70s body (the bridge is mounted further back than usual which I think places it as a '69-'72). The neck's in good shape but the body's lived a life, including having a DiMarzio Ultra J added and the thumbrest moved above the strings late-70s style. It's not quite where I want it to be in how it plays, but it sounds wonderful. White: largely original '77. I've owned it for about 15 years and will never sell it. Sounds immense and plays well but it's not light!

Yeah an equivalent quality 212 is going to beat a 112 every time in a band mix, IMO, and even in a quieter venue setting you can just turn the volume down! That Berg 212 is a superb cab and completely deserves to be gigged, which it will now be getting, rather than just being there for home use. The Fearless F112 will, however, be perfect for home use for me and will also much more likely get gigged as there will be space for it and a RCF sub in the back of my car (boot already full with the rest of the PA!) So win win with this particular trade!

Yes, was going to do that, don't want anyone else to see those photos (Basses..)

No, it's Tom Baker. Ah, Jon Pertwee. His son looks just like him, y'know. © Everybody's Dad 1966-1978

I don’t know if this helps at all, but I always find that when I only own my main gigging basses (all Rics) I don’t really play them at home, so I practice less. I only use them for rehearsals, gigs and recordings. Whereas if I have something a bit different in the collection, even if I don’t gig it, I tend to play it at home a lot more, simply because it keeps things interesting and changes things up a bit.

I few more,slowly taking shape and waiting for a few bits n bobs from across the pond.

It is. Had an hour with it earlier. Bonkers good. Plays so well

We do our own version of: Cake by the Ocean, I can’t feel my face and hold on we’re going home. I’d like to add Juice but that’s work in progress with singer.

I find fretless way easier and more fun to play than fretted. It sounds better (I very rarely use mwah and have the bass trimmed to avoid it). Even chords are OK on fretless.The only way it's harder is in remembering where the 'in between the marks' notes go, especially high up on the fb - but then I do play unlined.

@AndyTravis I have a similar set up to you as I've just picked up a Japanese Fender Marcus Miller to go with my 97 Flea. I'm however finding my experience the total opposite. My Flea cuts through so much more in the mix than the Marcus Miller. Moreso than any bass I've owned. If I remember correctly, your preamp is the Aguilar? I had that on my first Flea, but I did find the level of boost available, overpowering. The bass control could get swampy very quickly. It's probably an obvious thing to say but try cutting back on the bass more than you usually would and you'll find the mids come back. Selling my first Flea was something I regretted heavily and it took years to find another, let alone a sparkly one! Don't do it!

I'm doing the opposite, I seem to play fretless like a fretted. The trouble is when I try and sound 'fretless' it all gets a bit early eighties and I feel like Alan Partridge playing Music For Chameleons.

I've wondered that too, and I cannae escape the suspicion that it's largely because it has the L-word in its title, and the tone of the title track captures the post-industrial dystopian zeitgeist of the Thatcher years while a former imperial power struggled to find its place and rebuild a fractured society... (continued p94 of the Grauniad). I thought Give 'em Enough Rope was a better Clash album, and there were others released in the late seventies that were far more memorable and captured the mood more accurately - Crossing the Red Sea, A Tonic for the Troops, Parallel Lines, Rattus Norvegicus, Out of the Blue, Damned Damned Damned, The Adventures of Hersham Boys and Never Mind The Bolloxx spring immediately to mind. But in spite of that, I did like the exhibition and I'm going to visit it again, as it's a nice trip down memory lane. It was nice seeing the singles on display and thinking 'yeah kids - I bought that for 50p from Boots when it first came out'.

It all depends upon your desk and how many auxes it has... but a set of ZS10s and a Behringer P2 is a brilliant entry (not entry performance) point for the money.

I don't know why there aren't more of them out there. I just bought a Euro 5LT. Its friggin awesome!

No Pics, no Bass, but these are from the Seller. Bass is on its Way to my Adress and should arrive until Wednesday. What you can find for 255 GBP + Shipping...🤗

I'm a Christian and have played about 500 services over the years on bass and drums. I have a lot to say but perhaps after your first service report back and I might be able to give you more tailored advice. Smile and enjoy. Peace Davo

Sound samples