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Don't you think the £20 fee is reasonable if you think of how it supports the site too? I try to communicate that to members but it doesn't always make a difference.

'75, '72, 60th anniversary, Nate Mendel, '95, '05. I should stop now.

Nearly all of the back issues of Guitar Interactive Magazine are available for FREE to read covering over 300 HD Bass video reviews I have recorded. https://www.guitarinteractivemagazine.com/issues/

Just fitted a fretless Jazz neck to my Mexican P. Wish I’d tried fretless years ago. cant stop playing along to Graceland! Listening to that album inspired me to give it a go. hopefully I’ll get the hang of it enough to take it to band practice one day. I’ll spare them the the pain for now.

Thanks folks. My original thinking was that I wanted to have a community where everyone felt welcome, without a 'rank' structure like you find on Talkbass with tiered membership. The concept being that more members = a better marketplace, which is fee paying to use. The more members use the forum (for free) = bigger audience + more people paying to list. I say all this but in actual fact the whole model has been incredibly stable and fruitful since it began so I don't necessarily see any need to change things hugely, but always interested in opinions. I still feel, hand on heart, that the marketplace here has unique benefits worthy of a tightly knit community for a reasonable fee which increases the quality of listings and members posting to a degree making it 'safer' than other, free sites.

@ped, the ads really aren't a bother, if they help keep the site going then leave them in situ! Unless there's another reason for wanting to remove them.

OK the binding is on. I cut some veneer for a couple of accent lines for the front and back faces.... ...then used Rocklite ebano bindings with a 0.3mm white/black/white series of stripes which will be viewed from the side. I used super glue to glue the bindings in, doing all 3 layers at the same time, apart from the lower cutaway which is a bit more difficult so I glued the black and white veneers in first then the binding itself. I've pre-bent the last piece of binding here, just prior to gluing: The superglue worked ok, but has left a little bit of staining round the sides, even with a couple of layers of shellac before gluing. I think the problem was that the superglue I used was thin, but not water thin. I've ordered some super thin CA glue from BSI, so next time it will be perfect. Godammit..... Time for a mock up.... Annoying the Jess Loureiro pickup that I ordered well over a month ago (precision in Cabronita style case) has never arrived. No nothing. I've emailed and left voicemails and no acknoweldgement of any kind. Very annoying. I spoke to Matt from House of Tone pickups who suggested they could do a custom wind in a standard guitar humbucker size. Lead time is 5 weeks or so, so in the meantime I've ordered a cheap (ish) wide spaced guitar humbucker from Tonerider and I'll stick that in in the meantime to see how it sounds. Most of the internet commenterati say that using a guitar pickup in a bass is doomed to failure, but I have my doubts. If it sounds rubbish I'll get Matt to build me a proper one.....

As a big "mover", I've always found BassChat the place to buy, sell or trade. And even my niche instruments have always gone to another home very easily. So hats off @ped for this forum.

Not really, but each to their own!

Last week at rehearsal my doublebass fell over, a bit of a story as to how it fell but that's besides the point. It fell face down with the G string touching down first on the rounded edge of an old granite step making a mess of the string and putting about a inch long depression into the fingerboard, about the same depth as the string. It also knocked the bridge across about an inch an chipped the upper bout edge a little. The bridge is easily sorted and I'm not too worried about the chips, a touch of wax will sort them, but the big dent in the fingerboard right under the G string would certainly hamper playing, and we've got a wedding to play in two weeks, so I was a little anxious. I haven't got any pictures of the fingerboard but this is the string so you can imagine the damage to the fingerboard, it didn't scrape, just a direct impact. Anyway the point of this post is that I thought I'd try steaming it out, not knowing if it would work at all with such a sharp dent and it being in very hard ebony. I've never done it before but wetting the dent with warm water and then placing the edge of some wet folded kitchen towel on the dent and working a hot soldering iron slowly over it has worked wonders. It took about half an hour of repeatedly wetting, steaming and cooling but the dent has come out completely. A little rub afterwards with some 2000 grit paper wetted with lemon oil has made the repair completely invisible and to be perfectly honest I'm quite pleased with myself. If you've got any such dents in wood I'd thoroughly recommend giving it a go as it worked a lot better than I though it would and was very easy. 🙂

10 years of lurking around Basschat...happy decade anniversary to me.

I reckon you'll hear a bigger difference in sound by waiting for the new strings lose a bit of that brand new zing than you will by changing the electronics. Might be worth trying put a few different brands and types of strings as well. Just putting flatwounds on instead of rounds will make a big difference to your basic tone. I went on a bit of string journey a few years ago where I was trying a different brand every couple of months, I was quite surprised at how much difference there is in sound, feel and response between the various different makes.

Well...I wish I could say these bothe belonged to me...to one without chrome cover belongs to @sshorepunk but it’s lovely.

Bits of kit that are plenty big enough to contain a proper transformer with an IEC socket, but instead come with a flimsy plastic power supply with the thinnest cable possible, that is guaranteed to last at least a whole 10 minutes on a stage 20 different power supplies, each with different voltage, AC/DC, polarity, so that none are interchangeable - but all with the exactly the same style of connector

I started with classical piano in 1961, studying under the soloist for the St. Louis Philharmonic. After learning some clarinet, I switched to bass guitar in 1967. My first rig was a used '63 Fender Jazz and a used '64 Fender Bassman Blonde Brownface amp (both given away by my mother (for free!) when I was in the Army). Then came a working career that left me no time for hobbies. I've recently gotten back into making music. Happy to have found you. Here's a meme I created to show where I'm at.

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My goal was a super-portable rig that would last a long time at small gigs. It's not rock/metal, so huge volume was not a priority. The likes of Epifani, Bergantino, Vanderkley etc were outside my budget, but I still wanted the grooves to be what they deserve to be. I ended up with a Barefaced One10 and a Taurus Qube 300, all of which fits into a cajon bag along with all the cables I need. I am very, very happy with it. I can use public transport to get to gigs, and have a few beers after. (It's zero tolerance for alcohol in the Highway Code where I live.) I have considered many alternatives, my budget ever-expanding. There's a list of rejects at the bottom of this writeup for those as anal as myself. I have properly trialled the GK MB200 and Warwick LWA 500 heads with the One10 cab, neither of which did it for me. I'm writing this up because I feel Taurus needs your attention. Taurus needs your attention. For context: my only bass is a Yamaha BB passive P/J with Thomastik jazz flats on, and I like the Sly Stone to Me'shell Ndegeocello kinda approach to sound. Middle of the road, no fancy sheet, but it should sound like an old tree with gnarly roots. Be the meat in the mix rather than "cut through the mix", y'know. So, to the point: Yamaha BB passive P/J + ... 1) GK MB200 I so, sooo wanted to like it. Great size, ridiculously light, QUIET, fair price, beautiful build, headphone socket, the knobs and switches are sexual... but I couldn't get a natural tone out of it. During my research, I kept hearing about The GK Sound. For others like me who didn't know what that meant: the bass in Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name is that. It's iconic; you hear it once, then you die knowing that tone well. But, at least with my bass, my fingers, my cab, and my sets of headphones, that's it. No matter how I EQd the living soul out of that thing, it felt like it didn't want to amplify MY bass, but to enforce that one tone. I don't get it; it has 2-band mids, and a contour toggle. The math doesn't add up on paper, but in practice I didn't want any of those tones with me on stage. Bottom line: try before you buy. If your bass tone is less scooped than my P/J, you might be lucky, and have this wonderful amp do what you wanna hear. 2) Warwick LWA 500 This is the opposite of the GK. It doesn't want to interfere with your tone, so much so that the EQ targets frequencies which are mostly outside your bass' notes. I think it was designed for active basses, where you shape your tone on the built-in preamp. The LWA is equipped to EQ the room characteristics out of your stage sound; that is, extreme highs, and boomyness. And there's the built-in (optional) compressor, which indeed messes a bit with the volume, but not to an annoying extent. It's good enough if you like compressors. Overall the amp is like a "final touch" for your active bass on stage. My impression of the overall design was not so good. The knobs are small and difficult to read, compared to the GK. The feet are small and hard plastic, very slippery. I took it apart and I was not impressed by the airflow design. It did sound exactly like my bass at the jack though. But I want my amp EQ to have more shaping options in the bass' tonal range. 3) Taurus Qube 300 (winner) There's no headphone output, it's heavier and pricier than the MB200 or the LWA 500, and there's a noisy fan cooling it (not noticeable while playing). It's all because this was built for the stage, to amplify what you already have going, with a leeetle added salt, pepper and thick. The EQ options are very well designed. You've got toggles for quick fixes, and pots for setting up the basics during soundcheck. It can shape your core tone, but not by killing your bass' character. All the EQ combinations are usable sounds, because they are all the tones of your bass, shaped for different rooms and/or co-musicians. I've heard people compare Taurus to Ampeg as a "rock" brand. Don't get sidetracked by the genrealogy. It's a thick sound, it's what I expect from a small bass amp. On stage I vary styles by moving along the strings and/or pickups, not by tweaking my amp. I got compliments on the tone from all sorts, including an old Epifani/Warwick dealer. My bass is a stock BB414 with good strings (and minimal DIY saddle dressing). Go figure. If you have a passive bass, give a Taurus a go. Their combos are also killer, if a tad bright for my taste. The deserved praises of the One10 cab have been sung by others, I won't repeat them here. It's all true. (If I had cash to spare, I'd buy another one and use it as a coffee table until I need to run a loud gig with my own rig.) APPENDIX - Rejected alternatives Combos: Fender Rumble series (silver cloth grille): * 100: magically amazing value, super lightweight, great sound, but not loud enough for even small outdoor gigs. * 200: 15 inch speaker doesn't work well at low volumes (with everyone else in the band going acoustic). * 500: bulkier than what I wanted, why lug around two drivers and a big box when one good speaker should suffice. GK MB combos (110, 112): see below for GK sound. Eden ECs: * EC10: good sound, but heavy for the volume it can do. Fender Rumble 100 is better for the price. * EC15: heavy! Ibanez Promethean: didn't get a chance to try one out, but low-cost Ibanez electronics never impressed me, so I was OK with missing out. TC Electronic: pricey for the (to my ears) a bit sterile sound. YMMV. The rest were either heavy or very meh (Peavey, Ashdown, Ampeg). Blackstars came out later. Traynors were impossible to get where I live. Heads: Trace Elliot ELF: I don't trust anything that heats up so much. Eich/Puma, I couldn't get my hands on, and too pricey to buy without trying. Most others were too heavy or expensive. I hope this is of use to someone! Daniel PS: I do have sound recordings, but I have overdone it and my playing is bottom shelf shite, so I'll never get around to sharing it.

My Walls have cavities too. sorry couldn't resist. i'll get my jacket on way out Dave

So...Marcus Miller basses...Larry Carlton guitars?!

BC is a fantastic place to buy gear, it can be a slightly less than fantastic place to sell it at times, but for me the opportunity to trade gear among trusted forum members is a unique feature and in my experience often leaves both parties to the good compared to eBay etc. I don't think people use the feedback forum enough here - that is you occasionally pick up news about a deal gone bad but nothing in the respective seller's feedback thread suggests this - and I find feedback here so unreliable - i.e., a complete positive bias - that if I'm thinking of buying from someone and if I don't already know their rep I generally check out what type of person they are from their posts. If they haven't posted much, I've learned to stay clear, as the one down side here is that if there is a wombler - unlike eBay - there's nothing direct you can do about it (and in this context, don't be fooled into the idea that PayPal always support the buyer, they don't, especially if the seller is an out and out liar and practiced at ripping people off). Having said this, one of the most positive experiences I've ever had buying and selling was when I was screwed by a guy in BC who sold me an amp that had clearly previously caught fire, and more than one member PM'd me suggesting that if I was left out of pocket they'd gladly chip in to help me out. You don't get that on eBay.

£20 for a year is quite fair. At the rate eBay/PayPal charge you only need to sell one thing on Basschat for £143 or above and you're better off! Assuming you don't wait for the £1 eBay fees. Also, selling bits and pieces where you ask £50 or less is free, great for the little bits!

I'm happy with the £20. Its worth it for me cause i'm on the site every day and i get a lot of enjoyment from it..........most of the time Dave

I thought I would just respond a little to this since I started this. I was just randomly listening to YouTube when that video came up on my feed. I thought it looked interesting mainly because I saw Tom Morello was in the title and Vai actually as well. Then Nuno started to play the bass and I thought someone else might find it interesting and posted here with, in hindsight, not the best title. This got me thinking about my influences and what inspires me. I have been listening and playing music since I was a kid. I realised I was mostly interested in the bass because I seemed to like to listen to John Deacon and John Taylor when I was a kid. I got my first bass at 16 or so and since I had no one to show me anything I just played along to records and Love by The Cult was the first record so we could say that Jamie Stewart was my first bass influence as a player. I then studied bass and jazz for few years and then you realise you are actually studying music and not bass. It just happens to be the instrument you are using to be involved. I had sax and piano players as teachers for improvisation so the influences have been varied. I had to play also a lot of classical music. The point is influences can come from any period and any type of music. I still get excited listening to new music of any genre, it does not matter if it is a virtuoso on any given instrument or just kids starting out. I can learn something new from most people even just how they approach their instrument and their view on music. I guess the point is you can get inspired by anyone or anything as long as you dont approach music (this applies to anything in life really) with preconceived ideas with what can or should be done. Open mind gives us innovation.

That has to be the least inspiring video I have ever seen of a bass, everything from the back office setting through the poor sound quality and technique through to his apparent disinterest, all make for nothing more than a strong reinforcement of what a lot of bassists think of Rics, and frankly what a lot of guitarists think of bassists :)

Just came across this from an old auction. It was new to me so thought i would post the link. Thought it was quite interesting. Imagine what the actual one would fetch! https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/216/lot/89733

@paul_c2 without meaning to be rude, is it you doing something that is causing these blowouts?? Or possibly a common theme like using the same plug socket that's dodgy? I've had more amps than I can count from the cheap and old to the new and expensive and I've never had any of them blow up! Seems like the amount you've had go bang on you might suggest a common theme!

D’addario tapes for me too ,nice warm sound, no zing here 🙂

Tapewounds are the way to go. Just saying...

Minor annoyances with gear? The cnuts attached to them usually.

The reason that mixing driver sizes without a crossover is inadvisable is because of comb filtering and dispersion. What this means is that the sound will change depending on where you are standing. If the bass goes through the PA then it won't really matter since what the audience hears comes 99% from the PA, although if your rig is the only source of on-stage bass guitar, bear in mind that what your band-mates hear won't necessarily be the same as what you are hearing. If your rig also has to provide your audience with the sound of the bass guitar, then you could have more problems. Just because it sounds great from a few feet away on stage, doesn't mean it's going to sound great everywhere in the venue. In some places it could be a horrible boomy mess and in others thin and weedy. You may have to compromise your on-stage sound in order to get a decent bass sound for the majority of your audience.

Blimey, just use the tone knob. That's what it's there for. 😉

IMO if something doesn't sound bad, it must be sounding OK. There have been a lot of threads on the pros and cons of mixing cabs and the bottom line in all those discussions is, if it sounds good then it is good. I'd gig this combination until you can make a decision one way or the other.

You're judging them totally out of context. Cream and the Jeff Beck Group started Rock. Hey, no surprise it didn't sound like Rock when they did it, but Deep Purple and Led Zepplin stood on their shoulders as have all subsequent generations. No Jeff Beck, no shredding. You don't have to like what has gone before but you should understand where the pieces drop into place.

A channel to connect the two pickup cavities - made with drill and chisel because I couldn't be bothered to get the router out, but it'll be hidden under the top and serves its purpose just fine. And the top (or back, I haven't decided yet) joint drying - more soon...

Is it good for metal?

Thanks! It really is special in the flesh, very tactile. Funnily enough, when it arrived and I removed it from the packaging my confused wife stated, "It's bent!! Send it back" lol🤣

Actually they do just that, in the fretboard options - it's called "SH" (short headstock).

I must admit putting on the tolex was the part I was dreading, I have never done it before and, with good reason, I wasn't relishing the challenge of getting a reasonable result. I once tiled a kitchen floor with those brick sized tiles and although I had marked out datum lines, they didn.t quite lie parallel with the kitchen units, and your eye was drawn to it, to the point where I had to take them up and start again..(we're all a bit OCD aren't we?...……..please agree!!!!) Anyway, the checkered pattern on this tolex was a nightmare to get in line with the edges of the cab, and the problem is, you can't lie it down and then slide it about till it looks right, once the surfaces have glue on them the bloody stuff sticks like stinky poo to a carpet! I used a couple of strips of masking tape to make the lines more visible and with a LOT of trial and error got it looking square all round. I started at the top and worked around to the bottom, so that the joint would be at the bottom, out of sight. Once I got started it all went better than I was expecting and I actually enjoyed doing it. I should think doing a cab with ordinary grained tolex would be a bit easier, as you wouldn't be concerned about keeping the squares in line. I used a heat gun to soften it up around the recessed plug socket and then loosely screwed it into place to hold it down Got to clean the excess glue up a bit and then fit the corner pieces and a couple of nice leather handles on the top. Today I will try to get the back panel done, it's just a flat square panel, and then stick on the spongey sealing strip.

FX pedals with LEDs so bright that you can't see what each knob is set at

Young man, you're too burley whirly.

Sanded down the resin. Ready for some colour

Don't get me wrong, I love The Who, but I'm pretty sure that the Foo Fighters alone out sell them these days. As ever though I could be wrong...