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I spent most of my working life in the broadcast industry, firstly in operations with the BBC and Thames Television, then in the administration of ITV before moving into the manufacturing industry where I was involved with system design, selling, project management, construction and testing of broadcast AV systems. These included outside broadcast units, studios and multi-VTR video editing systems. Our market area was Europe, Africa and the Middle East so I got to travel to a lot many interesting places as well as the USA and the factory in Japan. During the latter years I was Technical Manager for Exhibitions responsible for the technical design and installation of exhibition stands especially some huge ones at the annual broadcast show in Amsterdam. The largest of which was 1800 sq.metres on 3 levels, built in 11 days and taken apart in 2 days. Due to downsizing I was made redundant in 2003, just 3 years off my pension, and I vowed never to be employed by anyone else again so I did a bit of contract project management for a few years until a health issue forced me to cease. In 2001 I discovered Bassworld and one day in 2004 a member asked how to connect two pieces of kit together so I suggested he needed a particular cable. Where can I get one of those he asked so I said I'd make him one. A week later another member asked if he could have a similar cable but with the opposite sex of connector. It was at that moment that the penny dropped and the cable business was born. I never intended it to be more than a hobby in retirement and I have seen others come along and, with the help of the Internet, build up some very successful businesses. As of the end of this month I shall finally be fully retired although always happy to help another BC member.

Politics/morality I’m proud of where I come from but have to acknowledge that the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire borderlands have been diseased with right-wing white supremacy groups for years. About 5 years ago a cover band I was in was offered a slot at a pub beer festival. We said yes but then found out that the whole event was basically a promotion for the National Front. We unanimously decided to back out. We made some pathetic excuse about illness of a band member. Cowardly? Maybe, but these were seriously evil people. As a coda: a couple of years later I was queuing to get into Chester cathedral for my daughter's graduation ceremony. I glanced behind me and saw Nick Griffin, also in the queue. My 6 foot 5 son-in-law was with me and clocked him too. I had a few thoughts but decided not to spoil my daughter’s day.

Well this is the place to come if you want to feel inadequate. The only ace in my chequered employment history is steeplejack - and two other people already had that on page one! I have singularly failed to cope with the politics in every large organisation I've worked for. I've similarly failed to cope with the paperwork side of self employment. I have no job beyond the gigs I do and a couple of shifts a month as a roadie for a drummer who is registered blind. I have no retirement plan and failed to navigate the (deliberately I suspect) over complicated obstacle course at the job centre and after six weeks was refused benefits. I am extraordinarily fortunate to have the charity of family and friends otherwise I'd be on the streets. One day I hope to get a gig pays enough to be independent but physical and mental health issues dog my every step.

... he's still The King.

When I joined BC I was a 23 year old bass player for an alt-rock band signed to a small label with worldwide distribution. We were just about ready to record album number 2. Progress in writing and recording the album was very slow. So slow that I joked to the drummer that I could qualify as a lawyer in less time than it took us to finish the album. I am now a 33 year old solicitor.

Massive skills in abundance being revealed in this topic. If we all got together we could successfully run a small country 🙂 Well, we could until all the guitarists turned up 😮

No afraid it’s not, most of ours are up in Northumberland. Couple of pics, even made a few two storey ones!

I worked very hard to be able to afford a used Hyperbass. I was gutted! All it did was increase the amount of wrong notes I could play. Must have been something wrong with it.

There's a world of difference between running a gofundme to help with the costs of creating a piece of art which the funders then enjoy afterwards, and just asking for strangers to buy you a nice thing, because the nice thing you've already got isn't nice enough for you.

What an interesting thread I worked in the wholesale meat industry for many years (not a butcher, but I employed a few). BSE put paid to my business in 97 (well that and some bad management). I got to go to some interesting places...well one, Saudi Arabia. Then ended up working in the same industry for someone who I used to employ and that was ok (went to NZ a couple of times) and then working in printing and now building e-commerce websites. About to semi retire having sold my business to my studio manager. Ideally I'd like to work as a postman in the village I live so I'm waiting for an opening. Walk to work, plenty of exercise, home by 1.15, spot of lunch, play music all afternoon and work on stuff for my band, build the odd website every now and then, cook tea, watch Antiques Road Trip, early bed....bliss!

I guess I'll have to thank Dave for starting this thread. Felt like a smuck, as I'm clinically depressed and on benefits after a stroke and a burn-out. This after a long life where I've been really all over the place: Many different jobs, ranging from being a nightwatch at a brewery and at a boarding school all the way to being a police senior officer advising our PM and other ministers, being a classical musician and music college teacher, an IT teacher and having several different functions in child protection services before starting a sea kayaking firm catering for both firms and end users. The kayaking firm was my last project before everything went to smithereens roughly six years ago. In some of these jobs, I had too much power for one fallible human. In others, the demands on my knowledge and insights were tremendous, as people's lives depended on them. As I said, I felt like a smuck before the thread, but now realise I've just been omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, and hence my next project probably will be to create a new universe or two. I think... 😁

I can't agree mate. There's more homeless people on the streets than ever. There's people using food banks. There's people fleeing war torn parts of the world who've lost everything. You're a grown adult who's taken up a hobby. You have, presumably, a perfectly functional bass guitar already. You're asking total strangers to put their hand in their pockets so you can replace the perfectly adequate equipment you already have to carry out your hobby with an incredibly pricey luxury item that most people who actually play the bass as their profession and their living couldn't even justify owning. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous. You want nice, non-essential, luxury items, do what the rest of us do and work for it and earn it. I work in live music, and there's still times when I've sold instruments that I was actually going out and earning money playing to fill gaps in my cash flow. I've never put up a gofundme and asked people to chip in to replace the instruments, or to help pay the bills I was selling them for. I just dealt with it, because it's just "stuff", and when I can afford to I might treat myself to a nice bass/guitar one day. You're not (as far as I can see from what you've said) dependant on it for an income. Nobody is saying you shouldn't play bass, or enjoy playing bass, or aspire to own beautifully crafted instruments. Do those things, by all means. Just don't ask people to part with their hard-earned to fund your hobbies and interests. If you really think that's sensible behaviour you need to go give your head a wobble.

I used to work in medical research. I worked in the UK and the Netherlands on lung cancer treatments and semi synthetic antibiotics. Specifically I used to help bioengineer novel proteins. Then took a missive career change and am now workIng with kids with a wide range of disabilities and still do a bit of lab work whilst planning and overseeing trips to various places around the world for a wide range of special needs kids. In addition I help run music groups and clubs for the same group of kids. It’s a nice mix as I still have the science side but also other things to keep my mind busy.

The Stash Stainless Bass :

You can simulate yacht ownership by standing under a cold shower with your clothes on, ripping up £50 notes. 👍

I think the OP has pretty much got the benefit of the BC hive mind. Perhaps we should leave him to his stratagems and catch up further down the road.

Ready to go on-stage Fri night. That's me at the back.

I deal with this as I am the only one in the band that's retired. However I'm not financially independent and I depend on gig money to supplement my tiny pension. I'm lucky that our band is run by our band leader and her husband. They're young smart, and aggressive and can usually smell trouble before it happens. Blue

While I still make monumental c**k ups every now and again, there is no doubt that the exposure to perfection from other builders round here is making me a touch more accurate at times. To get a cable channel from the jack socket, I have to get a hole to the bottom of the rear pickup chamber from the edge, intersecting the jack socket cutout. Basically along this line: With a standard length brad-point drill, where it was easier to ensure I was going at the correct angle in all planes, I first drilled from the edge to the jack chamber. It's a 6mm drill so a standard neck dot will fill the hole at the edge : Then got the big b*****d out and went the distance. It came out at the right place and height! And I'm not sure I could do that again if I tried!

Keep the existing rig and get a lightweight folding hand cart?

I haven’t really had a career, certainly not in the sense that it’s been planned anyway. I left school in ‘76 and spent too long prevaricating to get Into Uni and I’ve been doing “fill in” jobs ever since. One day I might actually get an application in on time and go do a course. In the meantime, I’ve delivered washing machines and televisions, been a shop manager for currys and then Rumbelows (remember them), joined their training department as a trainer, swapped to the IT department as a trainee programmer, left and went to Comet (remember them?), then joined a series of IT software firms ending up as CTO for one of the Fujitsu divisions which we carved out as an independent. Once that was sold, I was a director for the firm that bought us for a bit before going into semi-retirement and becoming a store assistant at Aldi for a year or two. I then got offered a contract job at RBS doing some mainframe architecture stuff before I ended up as head of real-time payments architecture at the company that runs the BACS, LINK and Faster Payments Systems (relax, I never worked on any of the UK systems 😁. Well, just the one but it was cheques so it doesn’t count). Then the company got bought, I got bored with the commute and I retired. And now I spend my days volunteering with Young Enterprise and tormenting Young @Teebs on here. Which is a nasty job but someone has to do it..... (The @Teebs thing, obvs. Young Enterprise is good fun)

Surely if you're a manager, it's more like...

Corporate sales manager for a large financial institution/Empire. I can convey this better with a picture....

So you are @Skinnyman’s fluffer as well

Architectural Technologist: Commercial / Transport sector - specialist in products, materials, construction techniques, legislation & compliance etc... Main areas of interest are designing facilities (Changing Places etc.) for the less physically able. And Health & Safety. Previously industrial rope access (IRATA) & difficult access technician (confined spaces, Classified Worker Nuclear, Enhanced DV) at nuclear, rail, MoD, telecoms etc. Main current role - full-time annoying @Skinnyman on Basschat!

I'm a teaching assistant at an autism resource base within a mainstream primary school. The money is crap but I do actually enjoy going to work in the morning. It's the first job I've ever had where I don't have to pretend to be a something or other, I just show up as me and it's valid.

try and avoid GAS at all times it will eat you up far better to spend the money on lessons and be a better player on a shoddy old bass than a poor one on a boutique bass. I am you 30 years on, lots of nice basses but still average on all of them. The only + to you not listening to me is that new gear does get you practicing again 😀

CHALLENGE!!! Let's see what utter ridiculum exists out there! Post a picture of the most ridiculous bass you can find! It can be 1 string, 50 string, anything that loosely classes as a bass is fine! If the mods are ok with it, my intention is to let this run for a month or so then run a poll, winner gets some kind of terrible prize! (It won't be worth much!) 😂 All just for funzies of course! May I start with this utterly insane creation... (I will not be eligible for the terrible prize!)

Totally not fair to start a competition you've already won!🤣 Saw this today, completely ridiculous, but I'd play it... I bet Dusty Hill would too!

That's what I do when my hooker doesn't turn up. 😡

Another quite unusual and differing career path @BassTractor. Sorry about the stroke and burn-out but i could see why in certain jobs the stress can be over-whelming. If creating a 2nd Universe please let me know as i reckon i could jump on board. I have the Hitch Hikers Guide which will help us along the way. At the end of the day we all have BC to fall back on for some support and a blether or even a basschat. Always around for anyone that needs a wee chat. Dave

The Rebel Bass

You won. </THREAD>

If I get a bass and discover it contains ethically and sustainably sourced timber, I go out and kick a badger to level things up.

Well worth the watch.

This has been an interesting and enlightening saga and I do hope big al works out. However, if someone told me what instrument I could or couldn't play i'd be out the door in a flash.

Got asked to play a gig for the Countryside Alliance once. It was on a ship which they were planning to sail up the River Thames. We all quite liked foxes, so we turned it down.

Been a joiner since leaving school, 36 year back.

That's not a bass, it's a harp!

Forgot to mention - I do sort of have a job. I flogged my narrow boat when I retired and moved and soon hooked up as volunteer crew with the chesterfield canal trust's trip boats. I'm now a qualified skipper with the inland waterways association. 13 hour days sometimes and the pay can be as much as two cherry bakewells per day ! I even played Santa Claus on a dozen kids trips last Xmas. We do lots of charters so if any one fancies a floating birthday party , let me know.

Yes he is. Those two are more fluffy than a thousand new born kittens.

To compensate for their very very tiny willies.

I settled on trying 25.5" and 27". I'm also going to make these necks with a scarf joint as I think that would look pretty decent and I've only tried that once before! I'm also thinking of making a 27" neck for one of the headless basses with a different string clamp. This is a mock up of a 27" headless and a 29" headed bass.

Choice of strings, pickups and the "player" has the biggest influence on sound. I wouldn't worry too much about sound, I've seen guitars and basses made from drift wood, so guess that says something. If you're looking at being mass market then sustainability should be considered. If you're doing bespoke builds then it'll depend on the client, and sustainability really won't be an issue as you're demand will be so low it'll be inconsequential.

Short scale Series 2 from 1982.