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Today I took receipt of my first bass a Fender Vintera Mustang in sea foam green. Bought the bass from @Grantd who made the process super simple, really nice guy and went above and beyond to get the bass to me, so thank you, definitely buy with confidence. Really chuffed with this bass, should give me a solid platform to learn from and more importantly makes me smile.

Finally managed to make myself something! I wasn't sure whether to post this in build diarys or gear porn but I've plumped for here. Anyway, it's 32"scale which I'm finding really comfortable to play. Although with drop tuning things get a bit flabby so I'm going to try a thicker guage. I was also worried the LP style might suffer from neck dive but it's not an issue at all. It has a flamed Ash top and walnut neck and I'm very pleased with it.

Disaster Area

Creme Brulee

You're both right: 50% on the source 50% on the amp 50% on the speakers

For me, it has to be Threatin...

That description probably accounts for 75% of the basschat collective

People who don’t stop talking at gigs really annoy me.

Any fule kno that to reproduce the sound of a bass guitar correctly you need a 4x10 on top of a 1x15, preferably topped off with a tweeter box. Then you can lunge to your heart's content. While wearing a waistcoat.

Ok just back and thought I’d see how much fettling these would need before I can fit. Answer absolutely none. Nothing! They fit so snug in the guard and the pole pieces it’s ridiculous! I’m sure MM would be proud if they’d pulled it off! Absolutely over the moon @GisserD and much thanks for your help. I’ll tell the other dudes about it and I’m sure they’ll be ordering soon. This place man, it’s just amazing 👏👏 Couple of pics to show how neat they fit (obviously not set up yet!)

We had a chat...I didn't feel that he took on board what I had to say. His general attitude was "this is how I wrote the song and what the song requires" - I wasn't in agreement and didn't feel I was being listened to. Not a good sign. I've walked.

I was a big fan of the Jam back in the day and appreciated the kick and rhythmic foundation Bruce Foxton brought to the band. I've been building guitar partscasters - Tels and Strats - for a few years and this is my first bass and I wanted a black and maple precision. All pre-used parts this cost less than £500. 2018 Fender Player Precision neck, 2016 MIM Precision body, USA pickguard, ebonised tru-oiled rosewood thumb rest, Seymour Duncan SPB-1 pickup with CTS pots and Bare Knuckle .22uF paper in oil cap. Gotoh 201B-4 bridge. It's got plenty of thunk and clang on tap. The Rotosound Swing Bass set are in the post, but the D'Addarios on there currently sound very good. Looks great with my early nineties Rickenbacker 330 in Fireglo (final pic).

After deciding to plonk for an MTD last March (a hell of a waiting list) I finally recieved pictures of my custom build from Daniel over at MTD. The spec I have gone for is 534-24/19mm poplar body, myrtle burl top with blue burst finished. Maple or grade b birds eye fretboard Matching headstock, truss cover, slap ramp and knobs Here is a picture of it as it nears completion! Can't wait to get this over here. I will update when the finished article is ready.

It's roughly 80 mins a day, which isn't that much - I do an album each way on my commute, I also stick on albums in the background if I'm cooking dinner or similar. Just had a baby, so there's a lot of time sitting around feeding him at the moment when I can't get any other work done, so that's now prime listening time. I'm the same - I was basically raised on Dire Straits, The Eagles and very little else, then spent my teens listening to nothing but metal. I'm doing a blend of CDs and Spotify for precisely the reasons you mentioned. I wasn't going to make a list, but it might be good to make it public as a way of holding myself accountable and making sure I don't quit by March!

It's not about cars though. Whatever you think of Italian cars, the Italian PA speaker industry is world-leading. This isn't the first time that carbon fibre has been used for speaker cabinets, but the cost isn't usually worth it for most people. I can see some people going for it - cost being relative and all that. I certainly like the look of their heads.

Thank you. New Premium 1305 5 string. I'll have to find a pic of the SR30th anni

That's a fine result. Happy to have been of service!

Bass Soul Food might give you what you’re after. There’s varying opinion with them but you can nab one used pretty cheap and it does really need to be heard in a band mix as it could sound a bit middy and ugly on its own. That’s a fair point if I say so myself make sure and demo the pedal with your band. All too often folk on forums especially the TB crowd are buying and flipping gear within days having not tried them in context with their bands. Very important and not to be overlooked!

Milli 2 da Vanilli

They actually don't - this forum prohibits the advertising and sale of all Rickenbackers, real or fake. Discussion is absolutely fine.

You have a signal chain, from your fingers to the cone. Every bit counts towards the final sound. And then you have the audience and the room. All your gear should be good, but the cabs do the heavy lifting and they should be the best you can afford. The rule of thumb in the old hi-fi days was to spend 50% of your budget on the speakers. That's how important cabs are to your final sound. Cabs are still important if you are DIing, then its the PA cabs and your monitors that are critical.

Don't worry It's just my silly sense of humour..... John Hall, CEO of Rickenbacker Guitars is a notorious litigator and sues anyone or anything that relates to the "Fakers" This very forum has been threatened by his highly paid lawyers in the past .. I was merely combining the the possibility of you being an undercover agent with a threat from my alter ego..Dr Ray Mondeaux.

Whilst it makes a great difference to us bassists it probably makes little or no difference to the audience. At a bass bash we did a cab test and although there were slight differences with the sound, every single one of us would have been happy to own/gig any of the cabs tested. And they ranged from super cheap to super expensive.

I did exactly this the week before last. Met up with three other randoms with a view to jamming together. As it transpired, the jam revealed that they were looking to go down an originals route rather than covers as I was. However, it was worthwhile not least because I got out and played stuff I wouldn’t normally have done (though the 10 minute jam on blues in C wasn’t my highlight of the evening!) but also it helped me focus on what I did want to be playing. I politely messaged them afterwards to explain and we all parted amicably. I was introduced to some music I’d never heard before, got to play with new people and (largely) had fun. What’s not to like?

Me neither. I find the thread Mr Raymondo's referencing both baffling and terrifying in equal measure...

No reason not to post it here @MB1. He's not trying to sell it. Hi @RichardD22 - that's a common, very good quality mid-70s Japanese-made 4001 copy. These were sold under various brands, and badged as Shaftesbury are the most common through-neck Rick copy in the UK. They also appear here badged as CMI, Cimar and JHS. It's not 100% clear who made them but generally it's thought to be Chushin Gakki, one of the biggest Japanese manufacturers of the 70s & 80s. Shame about the mods, but it would be pretty straightforward to return it to standard with replacement scratchplate & pickups. Recommend you join the Rickenfakers FB group for info, unbiased chat & contacts. Interesting that it looks like the original bridge pickup's been moved to the neck position - there might be a code stamped underneath which can tell you its date of manufacture, and therefore an accurate age for the bass. Apropos of nothing - the replacement bridge pickup looks like an early 70s Maxon bass humbucker. Cool old unit probably taken from an MIJ EB-0 or EB-3 copy.

As someone who plays Bass VIs exclusively in one of my bands (I own a Burns Barracuda and a Squier Bass VI) here's my take: The 30" scale models with 3 pickups tuned E-E (an octave below standard guitar tuning) are most definitely basses, but with an extended upper range. The voicing of the 3 pickups allows bass as well as guitar type sounds. Don't expect to be able to play full chords in the first (or second) position on one of these though, it's just an undefined bassy mess. However two or three note chords in the upper register can work well, if you pick your notes and pickup voicings and arrange the song for it. Bar chords are unplayable unless you a have a vice-like grip on your fretting hand. In my band I alternate between bass parts and mid-range melody lines, but we don't have a guitarist and live, the synth player takes over with a bass sound when I'm playing melodies on the Bass VI. As I said it's all about the arrangement. The Squier Bass VI can be a good starting point, but there are a number of things you need to take into consideration first. 1. The neck is very narrow even by guitar standards. Of all the Bass VIs currently available the Squier has by far the narrowest neck. Think 70s Fender Stratocaster width, which with the much thicker strings you need very Bass VI tuning doesn't make the string spacing low down on the neck very comfortable. If you are used to very narrow guitar necks then you might be OK. I play guitar as well but all my guitars have wider necks so I find the Squier a bit of a struggle hence it's been relegated to being my spare Bass VI for live work only. On the other hand the bridge spacing is much better (wider) than a lot of the competition. IMO you have to try them all, but you may well find like me that it is a compromise between narrow string spacing at the nut or narrow string spacing at the bridge. This is a function of many of the instruments using standard guitar parts when they should IMO really be using specialised ones to account for the thicker strings. 2. The supplied stings are too light for decent bass playing - especially low E and A. This problem affects all the Bass VIs I have tried. What you change them for will depend on the sound(s) you are after. 60s style bass VI and you'll probably want LaBella Bass VI Flats. If your inspiration is more late 70s post-punk (Cure, New Order) you'll want either LaBella Bass VI Rounds or Newtone Axion Bass VI strings. I like the Newtones - the lower strings are the same gauge and feel as standard short-scale bass round wounds but the G, B and high E are lighter for a more guitar-like feel. 3. On the Squier you will also need to shim the neck to get a better string break angle over the bridge. You might also want to change the bridge for a StayTrem model that doesn't rock back and forth on the posts. This is fine if you are playing MBV guitar parts, but doesn't really add anything to a Bass VI except more opportunities to go out of tune. You will also find once you have changed the strings that the vibrato mechanism now barely works with the increased tension of the heavier strings. Again this a compromise. You can have a working vibrato but only if your bass lines can cope with the sloppy sound of of the lighter gauge strings. 4. You'll need to think about your amplification if you want both bass and guitar-like sounds from one. I run mine into a Line 6 Helix multi-effects and then direct into the PA with an RCF745 FRFR powered speaker for on-stgae monitoring. Otherwise I'd need separate bass and guitar rigs to get the appropriate sound for the different parts. Again experimentation is the key to find what works best for you. Occasionally at multi-band gigs I've forced into using the bass rig for on-stage monitoring. In these cases I always find that the higher parts end up sounding like bad jazz guitar. I know it's going to sound fine FoH so I don't worry about it too much, however if you are a player who needs to be hearing the right sounds on stage to be able to get the best out of your playing, that is something to consider. Hope all of that helps.

No doubt I'm last to the party but these do look VERY interesting imo. https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2020/01/25/gr-bass-unveils-the-aerotech-featherweight-bass-cabinet-series/?utm_source=dailynews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=headline&fbclid=IwAR1TbfVDcwdcHWqE2OY2fVx8NdsDb5M9rkGI8UdL1IELw1AWJLGBOyRK3DE https://www.grbass.com/aerotech/

I think it's quite unfair, the way you're all jumping to conclusions like this. Just because there was a single matte-black 4003s5 for sale in the UK for less than £2k before someone pointed it out to me, and now it's gone, there's no reason, absolutely no reason at all, to assume blithely that I bought it. No reason. Ahem. No reason at all.

That was a struggle! If you hadn't specifically told me that it was there, I'd never have found it. Whoever designed that website should be strung up by the microchips. The shape of the pickups has nothing to do with the old shark-tooth inlays, apparently. It's to do with improving the response on the lower strings, or so I was told when I asked them about it. Thanks for the heads-up, Woody. I may now need to have a chat with young Silvie ...

Essex Harlots! Met up with @Frank Blank today to buy a Godin and he brought along my old harlot single cut to say hello to her sister. Not often you have two of these next to each other 😎

After many years of experimentation, my conclusion is that, if you want a non-fizzy overdrive sound, there's one factor that's super-important; much more so than any specific type of pedal or amp, and it's this: *** At some stage later in the chain than where the overdrive is generated, you MUST get rid of pretty much all the frequencies above about 5KHz, as this is where the horrible insectoid fizz comes from. *** This is often touched on in such discussions, but I don't think is emphasised nearly enough. Also, it's not sufficient to try to do this with any normal treble/tone controls on an amplifier or pedal , because they just don't have a steep enough cutoff of the upper frequencies. So, there are various ways of achieving the necessary steep HF rolloff: 1) Old school approach: Use a cab without a tweeter (since most bass cab woofers have a frequency response that drops like a stone above ~5KHz) [ But note: if you're also sending a DI signal to a PA system, you're still left the with the problem of removing the unwanted fizzy frequencies from that signal too! ] 2) Use an overdrive pedal with a built-in speaker simulator or low-pass filter @ ~5K This would include pedals such as the Tech 21 Sansamps, VT Bass etc, amongst others. ( Bargain hint: the Joyo American Sound pedal is a clone of the Tech21 Blonde, is cheap as chips, and works great for bass despite being intended for guitar...) 3) Use a separate speaker simulator or low-pass filter after your overdrive pedal(s) There are lots of these available these days, some of which allow you to load your own Impulse Response files to get the exact frequency response you want. I've found the Mooer Radar to be a great little pedal to play with for this kind of purpose. As long as you get this vital HF rolloff sorted via some method or other, there's a very wide range of pedals that will do the kind of job you're talking about. The other thing that seems to be very helpful for overdriven sounds is a (relatively gentle) bass roll-off BEFORE the overdrive generation, compensated for by some bass boost AFTER the overdrive (or perhaps mixing in some non-overdriven signal, as lots of pedals allow you to do these days). Good luck on the never-ending quest for the perfect bass overdrive sound! 😋 (PS: the Boss ODB3 may be the worst-sounding overdrive pedal I've ever tried!) (PPS I have a Danelectro Transparent Overdrive V1 which is a clone of the Paul Cochrane Timmy, and is fantastic, but is no longer available. The Caline Pure Sky is another super-cheap Timmy clone and may therefore also be great, but I haven't actually tried one... )

Always a good idea. One reason i tend to buy on line a lot of the time.

I ought one of these on here and it does this very thing nicely. Seems very 'organic' and responsive to how much attack you play with.

I've bashed through some of the songs this aft and I'm pleased that most are in my vocal range and I can play a passable bassline to most while singing. I'm feeling a bit more positive about Thursday now, these songs are not difficult for a guitarist at all and he has gigging band experience so at least he should be good. I've never heard the keys player on the ivories but have heard his vocals. Let's just say I expect to be doing all the vocals.

Make the song yours and put your personality in the lines? How about a spot of slap? Or a nice buzzsaw heavy metal bass sound, played with a pick? Should sound great on Riders on the Storm... Roger Ruskin Spear used to hold up a notice that said "Wow. I'm really expressing myself" whilst playing a dodgy sax solo in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band. Says it all, really.

That's always been my intention. I always thought that there was not enough interesting source material for developing readers so decided to post stuff I had already done. Now I am transcribing specifically to post as a means of encouraging people to learn to read.

It's a bass line. . . . . . you're a bass player. . . . . . . so you play it.

go with an open mind - you have nothing to lose except a few hours of your life What I would suggest is to be very honest (in a polite way) about things when you are there. In particular, if they are all a bit rusty, see how well they can improve If you are concerned about the musical direction, perhaps also do a bit of band leadership - take the lead in suggesting what other songs could be covered. That might then flush out the other personalities. And sack the keyboard player. Your previous experiences are not unusual

Nice! Great guitarist and drummer too. Just goes to show what you can do with a 3 piece when everyone is of such a high standard.

You'd expect it to be that good really. The RCF has a better compression driver on the horn, go through to Blue Aran who stock both Eminence and RCF drivers and there are a lot of high end drivers which match or out spec the Eminence ones and are cheaper over here. The crossover is active rather than passive and the amps DSP managed. the only thing that the bb2 is likely to score over the RCF is in the cabinetry. Since both are voiced to be neutral you'd expect the RCF to be better/as good. The One-10 of course is voiced to be played with bass so if anything you might well prefer that sound, but that would be a matter of how you see your bass amp/personal choice. We use K12's as PA, there are no problems putting bass through them. I sometimes use RCF ART310's at rehearsal for bass, one of these is enough, just about. I'd be confident the 732 would do the job

Just remember not all P basses sound the same anyway, its a case of use your ears to see if you like it. A change of string can make much more difference than having a second pup on the bass and not using it.

She’s great! Funky and can sing at the same time! Whut?!

Show him a melody to play. Then if he responds say “oh I thought we were writing each other’s parts “

Nonsense, they're on the fiddle as well