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Chaps to add clarity - this isn't replacing the current standard ABM 600 EVO IV. This is replacing the rack ABM 600-RC that we stopped making a year or two back. Since then we have been constantly asked to reintroduce a rackable ABM head, mainly by artists but plenty of weekend warriors have asked too. So this is for those guys and girls where size is less of a concern and the focus is tone, power and reliability...

From years of battling with trying to get Stratocaster pickguards to fit, I now know that step one is to take and impression of the carved chambers! : Then you can mark up the pickguard where the wires have to run: Note the dogs b******s CTS push pull Hmmm....more about that shortly Oh... and note the super detailed genuine Fender wiring diagram Hmmm...more about that later... Here's the finished wire-job: Well...before assembling it, finding out the error in the Fender wiring diagram and the fact that the top quality CTS pot is, in fact, duff. The pushpull works a treat, but the pot itself is shot! On full, crackle, off kind of shot. No matter - it will be a 1/2hr job to swop round when I get the replacement. But - aside from having to swop the pot out, here we have it: Like all my stuff...not perfect. But certainly pretty And the pickup combinations? Bridge Bridge+middle Middle Neck+middle Neck Neck+bridge Neck+middle+bridge That should distract @scrumpymike enough while the rest of his band is trying to get through their repertoire

Maybe compression is like a mullet - business like at the front end to provide a party at the back - and it looks and sounds good, but not everyone can carry it off

I now have a third Epiphone Thunderbird Vintage Pro - this was a bit of a bargain when I first noticed it before xmas on the Cash Converters website at just £299 with the matching hardcase included. I managed to stop myself from buying it then and expected someone else to snap it up, but when they knocked off another £50 I really couldn't resist.

In 25yrs of gigging I don't think I've ever used the mute on an amp. Isn't that what tuning pedals are for?

Thanks to this thread... ...I now have pictures of my bass being built, at least I think all these are my Harlot? I’m sure @skelf will put me right if they aren’t!

Glorious, that is all, I've always felt that P/Js lack a little something, P/Ps are clearly where it's at. And wow, Fender Custom Shop build quality in every respect.

Thought this may be of interest to those who are fans of Chris's tone...

Here's my s-s ACG Border Reiver: http://

That's it discussion over 🤪

You will find that 1 and 2 are effectively boiled down to, do our vocalists deliver, and, can we mix our live sound effectively. If you can't then number 3 is highly unlikely too IME. And being able to properly use eq (parametric and graphic as appropriate), compression, reverb/delay are absolutely vital to achieving that as a bare minimum. So whilst I said compression was a small part of mixing as a whole, it's a vital part. If you ask me to rank the tools required to mix in order of importance (both to understand and to getting a great mix), for me it goes like this for live:- 1/ graphic eq - to ring out monitors and FOH 2/ Parametric eq - to remove ugly timbres, subtractive eq is far more effective than additive eq whilst sounding more natural with tighter q 3/ Gain, Faders and Groups and Monitor sends to achieve an easy to control consistent mix for everyone - yep eq is more important than faders to really grasp imo. Shocking I know. 4/ Compression/ducking - to be able to balance levels across time and get a better mix with more being audible without resorting to more volume and heavier eq to do it. Note not really for levelling at all then! 5/ Delay - because great delays can provide the sense of space of a reverb without the clutter 6/ Reverb - sometimes only a reverb will do, but what type and with what settings?

Everybody would...

A bit off topic, but an ex-guitarist of mine (I won't call him a friend...because I can't stand him) would take a set of screwdrivers and hex keys with him whenever he went to buy a guitar, so that he could dismantle it and make sure that it was as described. He once left the salesman in a vintage guitar shop in Denmark Street with a '70's Strat in several pieces when he removed the neck to check that it was as "all original" as claimed and could see that it had been refinished and the date on the neck didn't match with the date on the body. Told me that he'd normally politely point it out, reassemble the guitar and decide whether to ask for a discount, but on this occasion he'd had half an hour of being told that it was definitely all original, they knew what they were talking about because they were the experts, so he just gave him a look of disgusted contempt and walked out.

I think we concluded that trades unfortunately were out a week or so back. Can't have one rule for Walshy and one for the rest (or can we? 😂) So it's nice been knowing ya @ead, thanks for stopping by, mate.

This video compares the 42* series to the 43* series, at leat tone wise. I'm sure this must have been posted last year, but if not.... https://youtu.be/KPiAOdGQeeY EDIT: Although i think he has the listing for the first bass wrong, as its not a 435

So that’s why I didn’t get one, that or it sunk the titanic on its way to me

It's the pickups on this version that do it for me. '60's sounding, Martin Turner tone on a budget , if your a Wishbone Ash fan. ( Which I am).

Anyone digging Vulfpeck should give Mr. Wong's solo material a listen. This is incredibly funky in an early-Prince kind of way. Petar Janjic and Kevin MacIntire are one hell of a rhythm section and Cory's a very funny fella as well as nailing that fourth-position funk guitar. He's touring in a few weeks and I have nabbed a ticket for the Cork show. Expectations are high after seeing this.

After completing my Jazz inspired Jazz 5, I have just picked up another build. Similar spec, except Cottonwood Burl over Alder, Lollar pickups and possibly passive. Gold Hipshot hardware, headphone amp, rosewood or wenge fingerboard. I'm looking forward to seeing the top with a hint of green stain. The top has been glues to the alder, body shaped, and jazz pickup cavities routed. I just filled all the small voids with tinted resin.

I had to take my mum to casualty (she’s ok, needed a couple of stitches) they had it on in the waiting room. if I was at home I could have turned over. possibly the worst thing I have ever in my life been made to watch. Worse than Barney the dinosaur, and he is used to torture prisoners by the CIA. the only saving grace was that had I chosen to gouge out my own eyes at least I was already in hospital.

For some skype might be great. We all learn differently. I have learned a lot from YouTube bass guitar tutorials and some folks find no value in YouTube's offerings. Blue

I’m out...knew it...

Nice one 🙂 I've scavenged all the black keys off a piano. Cut in half and bevelled/polished on the cut end that's, err... lots of posh 'tug bars'.

Well, this build has slowed to a crawl because I decided to make custom pickup covers. It seemed a shame to use cheap black plastic in the middle of all the lovely wood. One down... ...and now I have to do the whole process all over again. I really should have made them at the same time, but I wasn't entirely convinced it would come together!

This gets arsey after about a minute:

The Neural guitar plugs in are fantastic. The bass ones are equally good, but so far they have concentrated so much on the metal players that if the new unit is for guitar and bass I hope it's a bit more versatile. The DG bass distortion sound is in danger of becoming as ubiquitous as the boosted Dual Rectifier was in the late 90s when it was very difficult to tell what band it was anymore.

Mic, instrument and line level are really operational ranges to consider when interfacing with different gear. None of these levels are constant like a voltage measurement. It helps to understand all the devices you are using to get the optimum signal to noise ratio and levels. If the person at the mixer doesn't know how to adjust for varying levels, that's a problem. You basically want enough gain to match levels with the other inputs and enough headroom so there won't be any channel overload on the peaks. We measured the output level of one of our passive bass guitars. Playing lightly the signal level was around -12dbB which is instrument level. Playing an eighth note pattern a bit harder the level was around -8dB. Slapping aggressively on the low E the level peaked at around 0dB which is considered consumer line level. This is why the channel strip has to be gain staged properly. Most modern mixers can accommodate a wide range of signal levels from microphone to instrument level. My inexpensive Soundcraft mixer that I use for small gigs has a -15dB pad and 60dB of preamp gain. It easily works with anything I plug into it.

Either that or it’s in one location and they all move to it as it’s cheaper and more transportable to move people and a camera crew

I've been reading Wishnevsky's book "How the Hippies Ruin't Hillbilly Music: A Historical Memoir 1960-2000". Going by the band names it was a crazy scene. Mind you with the heady mixture of dope,LSD and shine I doubt it could have been anything but crazy 😊 Interesting thing is the near complete lack of big brand name instruments. 300 pages in and so far only Gibson,1 mention (described as fosters poor ) 😂 Folks mostly played hand built items bought at the festivals or kits bought from Sears. Personally I think it's great that Steve has kept to the tradition he learned from Uncle Dave Sturgill over 50 years back.

Or the volume knob on your bass

A shop in Lahti, Finland did just that for me when the Jazz bass I was interested in had a rather high action. They sorted it while my wife and I had lunch nearby, when we returned the bass was perfect, so I bought it.

Aesthetics aside, I'd love to have a go on a Wish Bass.

I've bought two new basses recently. A Sire arrived from Thomann with the most perfect setup, no complaints at all, ready to play out of the box. I bought my MM Stingray in Wunjo's, it was nicely set up in the shop, so no complaints. They did me a full set up for free and I get that for life from them if I can haul my bass back and forth to London! However if the action was ridiculous or intonation off I wouldn't gave hesitated to ask them have a look because it was a serious investment and I want to properly test drive it. If I were just tinkering with no intent to buy I wouldn't bother but if you're serious about buying an instrument I expect the shop to help and the customer to be able to wait a short while.

It does! Me too!

As someone who works for PRS and has worked on live music teams I can tell you that we easily spot stuff like this and put it to one side unpaid until further information is received. Anyway, I can't imagine why you would want to rip off your fellow musicians/songwriters..... and I'm sure you'd appreciate it if someone played one of your songs somewhere and told us about it so you could receive your money....

@TrevorR I've got to sit in on a couple of rehearsals and be adult baptised before I can play so it'll be a little while yet. I'm new to the church and obviously they want to see that I'm committed before they let me loose on the likes of `My Lighthouse', `Anchor' and `Raise A Hallelujah' . In the past I've always played in rock and metal bands so I wanted to do my homework and get some pointers before I start. Thanks again for the links.

I play with my fingers in the gaps, not on the frets, no-one has told me to play otherwise, maybe I'm doing it wrong? I didn't think it was arsey 😉

This is true, but if you buy something big end efficient that won't be an issue, you won't want an extra 4x10 and almost certainly not a second 2x12. It probably won't be a problem It's a lot harder to get the sound you like than match impedances though which is why I'd always say find something you like the sound of first. Only then worry about the impedance.

...which is what you posted, Rushbo. I truly am useless at this. I’m the kind of person who licks the iron to see if it’s hot enough. Thanks for your help, guys.

Honestly stop worrying about impedance and speaker sizes, probably to least important things to worry about. Find a speaker you like the sound of first. Sound comes first second and third. If is isn't loud enough then buy a second identical speaker to get more of what you like. If you play small and medium sized venues then you only need to be as loud as the drummer and the PA will do the heavy lifting if you play bigger venues on occasions. Size isn't important If you are starting from scratch then a 2x10 or a 1x15 will be loud enough for most gigs but a good, high efficiency 12 will just about get there too. Anything bigger (4x10, 2x12) will be well capable but you don't want capable you want a good sound that suits your playing, and only you can judge that. So have some fun and start trying stuff, you wouldn't buy a car without a test drive.

Yeah Al you've got the wrong end of the stick a bit. I don't think I quite got across my point. It's like this, punters are used to significantly better produced music than they were even 15 years ago. They expect that level of sophistication in order to consider a band really good. They couldn't really tell you this on the whole, I'm not suggesting they are all secretly qualified to critique a live mix on a technical level. But it comes down to getting the emotional connection between you as a performer and your audience. Big tours have unbelievable mix capabilities live now. Small gigs down the pub actually do too. If you can break out of the "I am bassist, simple pawn in game of life" mentality, and embrace an attitude that includes, "We can, for reasonable outlay of money and some fairly significant outlay in time and learning get within a hair's breadth of that quality of output". Then for a frankly tiny outlay compared to 20 years ago you can transform you bands mixes live, and reach more punters. A tiny part of which is learning how to use compression in s live mix properly...

Our version of Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd is based closely on Brother Strut’s excellent cover. Simple to play but a fun heavy groove in the choruses. No bass visible in the video and it sounds like a synth but Paul Turner (Jamiroquai) was involved around this time, I believe.

Replace the $ sign with a £ for UK pricing then...

This is wrong. The performance royalties from being played on even local radio are quite substantial. My one quarter split of a song played on BBC Radio Nottingham was a couple of pounds for each play. On 6 Music it was considerably more. Also don't forget if your band is regularly playing live you can get performance royalties from this too. Last time I looked the PRS pubs and clubs rate was £6.00 split between all the songs performed live at a gig. That might not sound like much, but bear in mind that most small bands don't bother to report live performances, so there is a good chance that that whole £6 will go to the songwriters in your band each time you play. Also for bigger gigs and festivals the rate is higher. If you are out gigging regularly it soon adds up. My last band funded all our studio time (3 EPs and a full-length album - approximately 15 days in total) from our PRS royalties, that's roughly one gig a week over 5 years, plus radio play. From 40 years of recording and releasing independent music I now earn a couple of hundred pounds a year from the PRS. It may only be a few pence here and there for each song, but I'm still getting royalties from recordings made and released in the 80s and 90s as well as those I'm making with my current band.

Join the PRS. You'll also be able to collect performance royalties on your songs when you play them live as well as when they get played on the radio or television. A lot of the copyright information supplied by Bandcamp and other on-line music services such as aggregators is aimed at musicians and bands in the US where the mechanism for collecting performance royalties is somewhat different to that in the UK and Europe. Don't sign up for any service on-line that purports to collect your performance royalties for you. If you are a PRS member you won't need it. In the UK you don't need a publisher. All performance royalties go to yourself (and you co-writers) unless you have specifically assigned a proportion to a publisher. In the US it is somewhat different as a lot of collection agencies will assume that you have a publisher and hold back the publisher's share. You can get around this by setting up your own publishing company and assigning them a proportion of the performance royalties. However it is only cost effective if one of your songs is picked up to be used on a US film or TV show.