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SWASHBUCKLING (SCROLL TO BOTTOM FOR ANOTHER TALE...) A seminal moment in my life loomed. We were booked to play support for Johhny Kidd and the Pirates at the Ritz. Johhny Kidd was one of the brightest stars in the rock'n'roll firmament. He was the only British singer who was the equal of his American counterparts. He was right up there with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent and Bo Diddley. More than that, he was a great songwriter. I'd have given my left bollock to have written 'Shakin' All Over'. His backing band, the Pirates, were quite simply the best band in the world. I'd seen them twice before; once at the Regal Cinema in Llanelly, supported by Vince Eager and Wee Willie Harris, and once again, about a year later, at the Ritz. But this was different. Until now I'd only been a member of the audience at a Pirates' gig, but this time I'd be sharing a stage with them. I'd get to meet them. I'd get to talk to them. I was ever-so-slightly straining at the leash. The big night rolled around, but we had to play the L-Club first. The moment the last chord died away we started packing the gear. We slung it in the van and raced over to the Ritz. The Pirates' gear was already set up. Like us, they were a three-piece. On a centre-stage rostrum was an industrial-size drum-kit and, on either side, matching cream Fender Showman Amps tipped back on their stands, aimed at the balcony. Just looking at the stage sent a shiver down my spine. I got the same feeling, years later, when I stood in front of the temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbal in Upper Egypt. We found them in the dressing room and, starry-eyed, shook hands with them. They were friendly but self-contained, keeping a humorous distance. Johnny wasn't wearing his eye-patch. The eye-patch was source of much controversy. The music press was agog with curiosity. Did he really have something wrong with his eye? Or was it just a sick gimmick? Johnny told reporters that he had been changing a string on his guitar just before going onstage and it had snapped and hit him in the eye. He'd borrowed an eye-patch - there's always someone around with a spare eye-patch, isn't there? - and because it went down well with the audience he'd continued to wear it. If it offended anybody, he said, he would stop wearing it, adding pricelessly that he'd probably have his leg off and wear a peg-leg instead. 'I only wear it when I want to be recognised.' he told me. 'When I take it off, nobody recognises me.' 'I would,' I said. We went on and played out of our skins. The highlight came when Johhny Kidd stood in the wings and watched us for a couple of numbers. Then it was their turn. As Micky Green, the Pirates' guitarist, walked past me on his way to the stage he held up his guitar for me to see. It was the most beautiful guitar I'd ever seen. It was beautiful, like a bulldog is beautiful. 'It's a Fender Telecaster,' he shouted over the back-stage noise. 'It's the same guitar that James Burton uses.' Earlier in the dressing room we had declared our mutual love of James Burton, Ricky Nelson's legendary guitar-player. It was no surprise to me that James Burton was one of his influences. You could hear it in his playing. Green was probably the most startlingly original guitar-player in the world, but in there somewhere you could hear James Burton. If you want to hear Green at his most sublime then listen to his solo, done in the style of Burton, on 'Ecstasy', itself a beautiful song. Burton must be turning in his grave. If he was dead. Which he isn't. I stood in the wings and listened to the best band in the world. The Telecaster was a revelation, sounding fat and percussive. Now, I'm quite prepared to admit that this may have had something to do with Green's monstrous talent, but even so there was no disguising the sound of the guitar. 'I'm gonna get one of those,' I said to him after the gig. The following day I dispatched Quasimodo to London to buy me one. I didn't know how much it would cost so I gave him £200. Three days later he came back with a Telecaster - £127, plus case. It was a sun-burst, Custom Telecaster. The only difference from a regular Telecaster was white piping around the bodywork which, to the uneducated eye, gave it the appearance of a semi-acoustic. I tried it out and it was magnificent. 'It was the only one in London,' said Quasimodo. 'I got it in Ivor Mairants' shop. They said they'd had it in the back of the shop for about two years and I was the first person to ever ask for one. At first they thought I was joking. They asked me what gear you used and I said an AC 30 amp. They asked me what echo-unit you used. I said you didn't use one. Just the AC 30. They didn't believe me. They said everybody uses an echo-chamber.' These were the days when ninety-nine per cent of guitarists were Hank B. Marvin clones. Marvin, the pedestrian lead-guitarist with Cliff Richard's backing band, the Shadows, played ghastly, wooden riffs, drenched in echo. It proved to be a seductive style because it required very little skill to execute, thereby putting it within the reach of the most average of guitar- players. Eventually it went the way of most fads, dying from lack of substance, and a thousand useless guitar-players hung up their guitars and became accountants - which is what they should have been in the first place. They were part of the past and I was part of the future. Who says London is ahead of the game? As chance would have it, we supported Johhny Kidd again at the Ritz a couple of months later. This time we booked another band in at the L-Club and got to the Ritz early. We set the gear up in the darkened hall and ran through a few numbers, among them 'My Babe', a Pirates tour-de-force. Halfway through the song the swing doors at the back of the hall burst open and a bass-drum case slid across the polished dance floor, followed by a guitar-case. Then Johnny Kidd and the Pirates walked in. They stood at the back of the hall and listened to us. At first we felt a bit sheepish but then we saw the smiles on their faces so we turned it on. Suddenly Johnny Kidd, dressed in a black, thigh-length, leather coat, ran towards us. He leapt onto the stage, grabbed the nearest microphone and began to sing. The beauty of rock'n'roll dreams is that, occasionally, they come true. We kept 'My Babe' going for far longer than necessary. When it was time for my solo Johhny Kidd pointed at my Telecaster and grinned. When we finally finished, the rest of the Pirates jumped up onto the stage and clustered around my Telecaster. I handed it to Micky Green. He looked it over, then played a few searing, chopping licks. 'It's great,' he said. 'It's a Custom. I've never seen one before.' Then Johhny Kidd had a go. He liked it too. Then Johhny Spencer, the bass-player, had a go. Even Frank Farley, the drummer, played a chord or two. We talked guitars for a while and then they began to wander off. As Johhny Kidd left, he took me by the arm. 'If you're ever looking for a singer,' he said, 'give me a call. Who knows? - the Pirates might sack me one day.' 'The job's yours,' I said. As if I wasn't happy enough Micky Green stood in the wings and watched our whole set. Occasionally we caught each others' eye and exchanged knowing smiles. My life has been downhill ever since. Of course he could have been bored; I know how tedious all that hanging about can be, killing time until the show starts. But he could have gone for a drink in the bar, couldn't he? And he didn't, did he? Then Johnny Kidd and the Pirates went on. I stood in the wings and for the last time watched the best band in the world. Occasionally I caught Micky Green's eye and we exchanged knowing smiles. At the end of the night we said goodbye, wished them luck, and waved them off. We never played together again because two years later, in October '66, Johhny Kidd was killed in a car crash. Why do they always take the good ones? Why didn't they take Hank B-bloody Marvin instead? The Telecaster, being such a rarity, proved to be a major fascination for visiting star bands. Whoever we supported at the Ritz would first enquire what it was, then ask if they could try it. The Hollies came to town and after the sound-check Allan Clarke, their singer, took one look at it and commandeered it. He sat on the drum rostrum and started to play. I waited politely, hoping he'd get fed up, but he didn't. 'Can I have my guitar back?' I said finally. 'I've got to shoot off,' 'Oh, hang on a minute,' he said, playing an A chord and letting it ring. 'This is great.' I couldn't get it off him. Just then Graham Nash wandered across the stage, obviously bored. 'It's an Esquire, isn't it?' he said, after a cursory glance at the guitar. 'They're a bit limited.' 'It's not an Esquire,' I said frostily, 'it's a Telecaster.'. 'It's great,' said Clarke. I had to go over to the L-Club so I told him to leave it in the dressing room when he was finished. And off I went. When I came back, about an hour later, he was still sitting on the drum rostrum playing the Tele. We had to go on so I wrenched it off him. 'I'm going to get one of those,' he said. I have to say that the Hollies were a bit sharp. They didn't seem to count numbers in. They just started together. I tried to spot somebody counting-in on the sly but I couldn't see anything. 'Just One Look' and they were off. But I did notice that Graham Nash, who played a black, acoustic guitar, was plugged in but not switched on. Now what do you make of that? One Saturday night after the gig in the L-Club we rushed across town to close the show at the Ritz. There was a band already playing when we arrived but we didn't pay much attention to them as we slung our gear into the backstage area. But then we stopped to listen. They were a bit good. They were a band from Merthyr called the Bystanders. They had quite a reputation and Dave Scott had been trying to book them for some time. They were playing the Shirelles' song, 'Baby, It's You'. From behind the curtain they appeared to have about twenty-five singers; four-part harmonies soared into the ether and someone out there had a majestic falsetto voice. We walked around to the wings to see what they looked like. There were five of them and, inexplicably, they were all wearing fancy dress. The falsetto voice came from the lead guitarist, a diminutive figure enveloped in a huge Bud Flanagan fur-coat. We met during the changeover. While he took his amp down I set mine up. 'How's it going, buttie?' he said, offering his hand. 'My name's Micky Jones.' I could have turned and walked away. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. But I didn't. I took his hand and shook it. 'Deke Leonard,' I said, not realising that when the history of the world is finally written this meeting would take its place in the pantheon of memorable encounters alongside Livingstone and Stanley; or Doberman and Pinscher; or Robinson and Caruso. I later discovered that the Bystanders liked dressing up. I'd see them many times in the years to come and they'd usually wear snazzy, blue suits with collar and tie but, suddenly and for no apparent reason, they would adopt fancy dress. I assumed they were filling some gaping chasm in their collective psyches but I didn't dare delve too deeply. Some things are best left locked up...

Here's a result - just had a letter come with the post from someone I've never met but who lives about 8 miles away on a road with a similar name to ours and at the same street number as we do - and they have my FedEx package! Spoke to them on the phone and I'll pop over and collect it on Monday. Trying to reach Kenny's to let them know it's safe, but no answer there today.

Looks like there's a trend for minimal DI ( + maybe comp ) + tuner boards. Here's mine, the Strobostomp is a bit OTT but I like to do my own setups and all my basses have a low B as well. I also noticed that the EBS Microbass III has comp and tuner, but I really like those two DG pedals, the Vintage Ultra with the cab sim has huge range of tones and the Hyper Luminal is the only compressor I've really got to grips with and liked after trying a fair few. Board is a Pedaltrain Nano and it's powered by a Palmer Batpack 8000 which is velcroed underneath, you can see the on/off switch and charge indicator between the two DG pedals - so no mains required, and with a board that small my guess is it will last a full day. It can be used while charging as well. I made the patch cables to fit from some Fender ones I had to keep things nice and neat.

Well it's not a build, refinish or anything exciting like that but I thought I'd do a little thread as it'll shame me into actually finishing stuff off. I've got a P bass, Hofner Club and a Danelectro Longhorn that all need scratchplates making for them. The P is a Hohner Arbor series fretless which I've just refinished in vintage white and want a mint plate for, it has an odd shaped plate so I can't just buy a replacement. The Longhorn has also just been refinished and needs either a clear plate or a mirrored one, so I'll make both and see. The Club bass is an Ignition model and comes with a very cheap looking white pearl scratchplate and control plate. I've made new plates for it out of cream acrylic sheet as I've never been a fan of pearloid and it matches the binding. This is the original white pearl. I've slightly exaggerated the curves of the scratchplate and slightly rounded the ends and corners of the control plate as I think it suits the shape of the bass better, still iconic Hofner but a bit of personal taste as well. Also added a little Hofner decal and a pair of old knobs I had in my spare bits box. I cut these out with a coping saw and finished with sandpaper and files, then polished. The three slots in the control panel were drilled in each corner and the filed out. You don't need any fancy tools, just a bit of patience. Danelectro coming tomorrow. 🙂

Yesterday was a bit of a lazy day so I got cracking again today. First job was to glue on the headstock plate: That meant that I could confirm the final positioning of the neck and therefore also the pickup chambers. Those who have watched my build threads know that I hate routers. I will use them, but only where they are pretty much the only thing for the job. In terms of pickup chambers, that in my book is one small job. For what it's worth, this is how I do them. Having worked out exactly where they are going to be, I draw out the chamber outlines. Then I drill the 8 corners: Then, I hog out to the edges with a large forstner bit and use a chisel to take me up to the pencil line to a depth of around 10mm: And then, and only then, I use a bearing trimmer bit in the router to tidy up the sides and get it to final depth: You can just see in the above shot that I have successfully intersected the cable run channel that I cut before gluing the top - phew! And then repeated the whole thing for the neck chamber: Still no trussrod. May need to order another one from a different supplier...

Long time voter, first time entrant... I guess lockdown does have it's advantages. Based on the pic provided I've gone for a theme of rediscovering the beauty of the world in a post lockdown, clean air utopia. I'm only used to cobbling demos together for the band, so its been a voyage of discovery... turns out I know sod all about mixing, recording vocals (or singing for that matter), and a whole host of other things... still, I guess now is a good time to start learning!

...unless Che Guevara was in The Doors and nobody told me. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-Acoustic-Bass-GUITAR-STRAP-People-Are-Strange-The-Doors-lyrics/201005804161?hash=item2ecce12a81:g:G9cAAMXQlgtSsIWr

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Next small task was to paint the control cavity with conductive paint. I'll paint the cavity but use foil on the back of the cover as that is nice and flat. I'm using an EMG MMTW pickup for this that has a push pull pot to split the pickup from MM to J. I've not use one of these before but I'm giving it try as it should give a reasonable range of tones. I'm also going to combine this with an EMG BTC preamp for treble and bass control on a stacked pot. This is how the components will fit in the cavity - should be nice and tidy when done. I chose the MMTW after I'd joined the two halves of the body so the holes that were drilled for pickup wires will be too small to get the EMG connectors through. There's plenty of room to run the cables but just not the connector. I'll make up new cables and crimp the connectors once in place.

Day 22 - Sussudio

When you record into a modern DAW using a USB interface, the DAW will automatically compensate for the latency as reported by the USB driver. Audacity may not do this, and it certainly won't compensate for any latency introduced before the signal even gets to the recording interface. I've encountered a situation where the USB driver was reporting the latency incorrectly, so I had to set the delay compensation manually in the DAW. You can measure it by setting up a project with a single track with a bit of audio in it, ideally with a bit of silence before it starts, then connect the audio out to the recording in (in OP's case this would be the wireless transmitter) and record the first track looped back into a second track. The second track will be the same as the first, but delayed. Zoom right in to the wave form and measure the delay using the selection tool; and that's how much you need to compensate any recorded tracks by. This only really works if the latency being introduced is constant, which it pretty much is if you are using an ASIO driver. If you are not using ASIO, but the Windows MME audio stack, the latency can drift up and down depending on what else your PC happens to be up to at the time - which is less than ideal, to put it mildly. Audacity don't distribute a version with ASIO support for licensing reasons, so the best you can do on Windows is make sure you are using WASAPI or DirectSound. Of course, the best thing would be to not use Audacity for recording, but nobody who uses Audacity for recording seems to want to hear that.

£5 - Black Encore body inc pup, white guard, harness, hardware from Daventry tip. Couple of scratches, polished out £20 - Vester Jazz-type RW neck inc string retainer from BC-er Mr Foxen £10 - set of Chinese machine heads £4 - set of 'closing out sale' discount Hartke strings £0 - assembly and set-up by me I make that £39.00. Played fine, looked OK. Traded to an amp tech as part-payment for a service. Sadly no pix but I've got to call him sometime, maybe then.

I got an old multigym from a friend a while back for my son but he didn't use it so I converted parts of it into a handy stand for drying guitar bodies or necks once a finish was applied. The body has now had a sealing coat and a couple of coats of satin lacquer applied by rattle cans. The finish has turned out quite nicely - helps when the weather is dry and warm.

Every time I read the title my mind says: Absolutely nothing. Say it again UH! for some reason.

I’m just going to leave these here... Ignore my foot.

NSFW

Would these be any good?

Nice Bassline @pigface , and what a great story ,similarly, my neighbor knocked on my door a while ago and I thought it was to complain about the bass, but she said, can you tell me what song that is that you are playing only I really like that 😄, it was this tune 🙂

In 1983 I was a student living in a commune with 4 other students. We were in the habit of listening to loud reggae (Black Uhuru, Jimmy Cliff, Scientist, Third World, Gregory Isaacs and many more) amid clouds of ganja smoke. One day, our neighbour approached us. He was a youngish chap with a wife and young kids, and of conservative demeanour. We were expecting a complaint about the loud music, but instead he accepted a hit or two and produced a cassette tape which included, among other things, this:

Woody - that's literally a sick joke! Next thing we'll be hearing - this has been taken up by Fox News! 😁

Well done sir, welcome aboard!

Seconded, sorry to hear you've been in the wars @Happy Jack. I hope you're well on the mend and that @Silvia Bluejay is OK.

I'm mid range bistro. The sort of thing that anyone with practice and a little training can do, but far better than Joe Public does. My cooking on the other hand is much more accomplished.

Saw him play at a gig here in Kings Lynn last year with Kimberley Rew ( Katrina and the Waves) lovely chap to talk to. The free bonus was a certain Thomas Dolby was there too doing a couple of tunes solo as the warmup act!

Left to right, I’d say. The item above the books is to display my Basschat lockdown GAS credentials.

Thread resurrection: Shame on you lot telling the OP to just 'buy another string' ! This is my kind of thing; inventive, creative, ecologically aware, and above all cheap. Oh and it saved me yesterday. Set of second hand strings, one already cut too short. Guy I bought them from too tiresome to talk to so I needed a cunning solution and here it is. Thank you @tommorichards (if you still exist)

I have pretty much got the first two pages (out of 4 1/2) of Joy Joy down now. I can play all the bits up to speed but working on fluencey and getting transitions between the sections better. Amazed how much faster I can play now than a week ago!

I own two Dingwall Super Ps with Maple necks and one Dingwall Super P with an all wenge neck/board - in all honesty I’d advise not to think about any arguable differences in tone and instead concentrate on the look & feel of the wenge as the primary factors. Wenge feels lovely in the hand, with a more “natural” feel due to having a coarser, more open grain than maple. Basically, while maple necks feel totally smooth, wenge has a much more apparent grain to the touch, which is nice. If you were to string all of my Super Ps with the same strings, then blindfold me and have someone play them each one by one, I’m certain I would fail to correctly guess which was which.

Nice heavy piece of fret wire has now arrived to make the zero fret. Will hopefully be able to get on with some more of the neck this weekend (well, it's not like I'm going anywhere....). I also need to go back to the other body and necks that I started earlier on in this build and decide what to do with them!

It was good to see a doc going back to the fifties/sixties, including a bit of Trad, which kicked it all off. A lot of the young pundits of today think Pop started in the eighties.

Indeed, and why would anyone make a music programme aimed at people who didn't go to Hampton Grammar School!

Is that an access ladder at the top? For when you need to tune it up?

This.... Below is an example of set up. Although he is using Studio One, it applies to any DAW using Asio.

Yes, but when you have just one brace connect the middle of two opposing panels their stiffness becomes the same as if you'd doubled their thickness. With more braces one can make a cab out of 12mm that's stiffer than one made of even 24mm plywood that's not braced.

By the decree of the wife, this one wins. @Bassassin, PM me your address good sir, and I shall send you something awful for your troubles! You like 'alive' things right...? (Disclaimer, item will not be alive)

Hi and here is my cab. Thank you very much for the advices. The events aren’t made for the moment (because of the covid, my 80 mm cylindar saw is in my other house). Some informations : Okoumé plywood 15 mm, bracket and bracing 20x20mm. The driver is a Beyma SM212. external dimensions : H430xW500xD360 internal dimensions: H400xW470xD300 The amp head is TC electronics BH250. I will try tomorrow morning the sealed version. Thanks to all of you guys ! Vinceom

I still haven't got mine, but the people at Kenny's have been doing a great job of trying to track it down for me, and and even better job of keeping me informed about their progress. All this for a ten quid sale - they've certainly impressed me, very good people there.

I always seem to get the beans stuck in the toaster

Order has been restored - an oc-2 has returned to its hallowed place. Selling it is on my top 10 list of life mistakes. Overall, not just pedal related. I love the whammy but octave down sounds are not it's forte. Annotations for the DIY Frankensteins in signal order, they're basically all clones though many with heavy tweaks - 1 - DOD 250 dual channel clone with diode options - basically an Earthquaker Grey Channel with an extra switch to stack channel 1 into channel 2 2 - BJFE Blueberry Clone - I'm a late convert admittedly, but a simple tweak to the tonestack makes it super useful for me 3 - Tweaked IC Big Muff - altered tone stack - very much a one sound box, but that sound is just pure bone-crushing doom. 4 - EQD Data Corrupter Clone - couple of mods on the sides for extra woo-woo craziness. 5 - Ulti-Muff - Regular (non-IC) big muff with every mod I've ever found useful, mids, pre-boost, diode choices etc. 6 - Ridiculous Noise Box - started as a 4ms Noise Swash but It's become something else. Goes between splatty velcro fuzz and self-oscillating lunacy 7 - Phase inverter - All the drive pedals are in the ls-2 loop for clean blend and depending on what combos are on there can be phase issues. 8 - Auto-Wah - Honestly couldn't tell you which one as I built it so long ago. Maybe a modded FX-25B? 9 - Pumpernckel Compressor - Schalltechnik Kit - does everything I've ever wanted a compressor to do 10 - Boss Slow Gear - mod added for release time 11 - Chorus - EQD Sea Machine Clone 12 - Mid-Fi Pitch Pirate, mods added for internal delay and CV input 13 - CV Output Sequencer - Puts out a controllable sequenced voltage for the LFO based effects - I've got 4 but the Phaser and tremolo are currently out on loan. 14 - Death By Audio Echo Dream - Heavily modified to make it actually work properly. 15 - Mid-Fi Clari-Not - modded to put the fuzz on a switch for a cleaner version, also modde for CV input. 16 - Death By Audio Reverberation Machine - again heavily modded to actually work - second gain control to make it cleaner and feedback control to extend the decay (and self-oscillate if you're into that sort of thing). Not pictured are the Preamp and cab-sim that live on the desk. Quality of decoration is a big indicator of when they were built. The drive section changes fairly regulary - there's another 10 or so in the pedal box.

White one?? do you mean the pink flea?