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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.

Just an idea I had... I'm currently building my fourth bass. It's generally going very well given the short time I've been doing it and I'm sure if I continue to hone my craft and amass better equipment I'll one day produce something someone might like to buy. In the meantime, though, I'm just making them for myself, which is all well and good, but surely the real challenge is making something to fulfil someone else's needs. As a consumer, I'm very forgiving of my own shortcomings! So I was just wondering - if there's anyone else out there at a similar stage, i.e. able to handbuild a serviceable bass but not feeling ready (or perhaps even willing) to go into business with it. If so, perhaps we could come up with an arrangement where we build an instrument for each other? In theory it wouldn't be limited to two people - an even number could pair off and an odd number could just go round in a circle. Obviously there would need to be further discussion to hammer out all the details, expectations, etc, but I just wanted to put it out there and see what people think. It may well have been done before on here - I wasn't sure how to word a search for something similar! I know there are more dedicate builder's forums out there, and I might try there in due course, but I've found the community here very encouraging and it's as good a place as any to start.

KILL HIM. IMMEDIATELY.

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

Bad News? Weren't they the Spinal-tappy band from The Comic Strip Presents? With Rick Mayall etc... Yes they was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_News_(band)

The Banana Splits.

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.

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... )

A band with like (just) 5 basses would blow minds at an open mic. Sounds brilliant!

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.

Yes, but you don't have to is the quick answer. On the other hand... What you get with a 13th chord is a whole host of chord tones. Have a look at C13. From root upwards in thirds that's C, E, G, Bb, D, F, A (root, 3rd, 5th, b7th, 9th, 11th, 13th respectively). Yes you can play all the notes of a mixolydian mode over that, but that's not helping much in terms of outlining the harmony as the song plays along, and that's a big part of our job as bass player right? Check out some of the triads you've got in that selection of notes. As well as C major, and C7, which will help you out big time, you've also got for example Bbmaj7 (Bb, D, F, A), Dm (D, F, A), Gm (G, Bb, D) and probably loads more. Chuck in a few of these triads instead of something based on C and you might start hearing some jazz. Or, alternate a couple of triad pairs (Am and Dm for example) and see what happens. To maybe even elicit an approving nod/raised eyebrow from your keyboard player, lets pretend you've got a #11 in there instead of a 11. Then you get to switch between triad pairs C7 and D7 for example or even you've got Bb-D-F#, the triad based on the third mode of the melodic minor scale, which opens doors to all kinds of excitement. (Bilbo will be along any moment to correct me on this paragraph) Remember there are no bad notes, just bad resolutions.

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