Leaderboard

Left it over night. It has stuck really.nicely. pleased for a first attempt. Rounded over the edges, carved the belly and arm contours. Routed the pups, cavity and neck pocket. Waiting for a j bass pick up to arrive to rout a j into it.

How about this little beauty I’ve just finished renovating. It’s an 85 USA P re-finished in Olympic white and finished off with an anodised pickguard.

This Hagstrom has always been a bit heavy

Well, three out one in. That's acceptable, right? I was down to two P Basses (one with rounds and one with flats) and was on the lookout for a Stingray. I found this one on Guitar Guitar's website advertised as used. Further investigation revealed that it still had the plastic on the pickguard and the stickers on the back of the body, so if it was used, it wasn't used much. After lots of research about these new Specials (18v electrics, roasted maple neck, very lightweight) I decided to take the plunge and am glad I did. It's a beauty and the Burnt Apple finish is amazing. The electrics to me, sound a lot warmer than previous Rays and with the treble rolled pretty much all the way down, no boost in the mids and bass pretty-much all the way up, it sounds like a modern P bass. It's effortless to play too.

I managed to make a video today, complete with a few mistakes. The Real Me 2.mp4

For £900 you could buy a nice cricket bat and a nice bass or you could buy this and have neither....

Here’s the two basses mocked up.

Got myself an Elf. The lockdown has been an illuminating experience for me. I live in one room. I share with three dogs and a ludicrous amount of big old bass gear. Until I found myself in here day in day out I hadn't accepted the obvious truth. I am crazy to keep it all out of sentiment. So I'm downsizing. Basses will come and basses will go but amps and cabs seem to stick around. Way too long. So out with the Ampeg and Ashdowns, time for Trace Elliotts to find new homes. Younger bassists deserve to experience these classic rigs. I have a plan, and the Elf is a part of it. You probably know all about them, they've been widely discussed here and elsewhere. My impressions? Even though I have seen pictures and videos I was still taken aback by the tiny size. Its quite unreal. It's silent. I didn't know the thing was even on. The tone isn't TE but it's meaty. Oh and when you crank the gain it breaks up, and not in a bad way. Not gigged it (obviously) but I can tell its going to be louder than I was expecting. The 1 x 10 I put it through can handle a reasonable amount of heft, oomph, and wallop, but this had it struggling. It's definitely not a toy, not some novelty, I will be using it. It's green and says Trace Elliott on it!

Jiant leap forward this weekend with the bringing together of all the different aspects of the project. The code is now working to save and recall presets on 3 different channels. The brain assy is working exactly as it should and I currently have it hooked up to my strymon deco controlling the saturation and volume. Its a fully working proof of concept. And to say I'm chuffed to bits would be a massive understatement.

We all know Trace watts are louder 😉

Changed the pickguard on mine...

For this headed 27" scale bass I have used strings made by Newtone strings who recommended a heavier core (nice strings by the way). The bass is tuned to standard tuning and the tension seems absolutely fine to me. I'm really enjoying playing it, it's a very comfortable size. I'll bring it along to the next bass bash for anyone to try, whenever that is. The two 23" scale basses are also tuned to standard tuning. One has the bottom 4 strings from a 5 string set and the other just normal 4 strings. Again tension seems fine - strange that both sets of strings feel fine to play - I still haven't got my head round this yet!! I'm in the process of making a 27" scale neck to try on one of the headless basses (along with trying a different string clamp) just to see how that feels. Again, I'll take that to the next bash as well. I've also got the other headed neck at 25.5" scale I started making for this project and another set of Newtone strings designed for that scale. I'm also looking at a 27" 5 string as well. oh, And I've got a roughed out headed 34" scale bass with a Moses graphite neck knocking around as well!! Too many projects......

The first coat of Ronseal is on: With the way I do varnishing, it's sort of done when it's done. Might be next coat, might take 5 or 6!

He’s not been well as I understand it, so he’s behind with his correspondence. 😁 Our post times vary here anyway, so it’s not been any different. Lady Ez had a text from Parcelforce stating a specific delivery time the other day, but I wasn’t surprised when it was a fair bit later (I’ve had these texts only to have the item delivered much earlier). My thanks and admiration goes out to all posties, bin men, etc for maintaining some sort of normality and doing their jobs whilst I sit around and surf all day. 🙏👏👏👏

As has already been mentioned, the TC Electronic Spectracomp is ostensibly as simple as they come. And it's a fraction of the cost of the ones you've listed in your original post too! But it's not a one trick pony either, if you use the free TC Tone Print app, you have access to a load of different compression types so you can reconfigure the pedal in quite literally a couple of seconds. There's also the option of some PC editing to craft your own compression tone print but with some 50 or so parameters to configure it can be a bit daunting! I was so impressed with the Spectracomp that I ended up getting the Hyper Gravity which is essentially the same pedal but with 4 control knobs instead of 1. You can assign any parameter (or up to 3 at once) to a control knob so that the pedal works exactly how you want it to. For example I've set mine up to work as a 3 band combined compressor and EQ with what's effectively an adjustable high pass filter. But you don't have to do anything like that, the tone prints give you more than enough choice. From the ones you mentioned, the Cali is great, do believe the hype on that one. Personally I found the Aguilar TLC utterly insipid, one to avoid if you're looking for any sort of tonal enhancement. Another simple but excellent compressor pedal is the Boss bass limiter, which is a compressor and limiter in one. The cork sniffers might not approve as it's a Boss but they're simple to use and sound great. Just keep the Enhance dial very low or even off! If you're considering just a boost pedal, you can't go wrong with the TC Electronic Spark Booster, either the small one, another small pedal with a single control knob that gives a transparent boost. There's also the bigger one with has a 2 band EQ plus some low gain drive if you want it.

I'm a postie and I have never been busier. However deliveries to my house are more infrequent. I think some delivery offices are prioritising certain items - maybe due to staff shortages - and others, like mine, are going full on hammer and tongues. I advise to send items tracked at the moment if possible. The parcels I am delivering each day are around the same, if not more than Christmas. It is also Ramadan, so charity letters and parcels in some areas are through the roof. Apologies if the service is not up to usual for you all.

By some weird coincidence I seem to have a thing for short scales at the moment and this is the latest addition to the fun little family, an Ibanez Talman in, what I think is rather fetching Ivory. Bought from PMT online for the meagre sum of £151 delivered to my door. I fancied trying a piccolo bass and have always quite liked the look of these. I looked at a couple of reviews and my mind was made up. Now I could've just put some piccolo strings on one of my existing short scales but where's the fun in that. Anyway it turned up yesterday evening and I've only just been able to properly play it, and it's fantastic. Really well built and the hardware seems just as good as any bass in the sub £500 range. Paint is good, the pickups sound great, controls are responsive. It's a PJ and when pickups are solo'd it sounds like a P should and the J has that nasal quality but sounds good, both on full the volume drops slightly but back of the J to about 75% and the tone on about 50% and it sounds great. The neck is satin and lovely and smooth with some quite nice grain but very light in colour and the fretboard is quite light as well due to being something that's not rosewood, I don't know what, but I real life looks better than I'd thought it was going be, quite a depth to the colours in the wood. Frets are all nicely finished and it plays great straight out of the box, a couple of tiny tweeks would improve it but that's a personal thing and it'll be getting a set of piccolo strings, which have just dropped through the door for £6 from Amazon, so it will need tweeking again anyway. The only bit that's not great is a dull patch on the front of the upper horn that needs polishing. It's looks like it has been flatted slightly and not polished up properly, or some of the polystyrene packing may have been rubbing on it in transit. Either way it'll polish up no problem and I'm overly fussy with paint anyway so some might not have ever noticed it. For the money I'm not going to complain. What you can get for so little money these days is amazing. Enough rambling, I know you all just want pictures. 😉 This the paint patch in the light making it look worse than it actually is, then some pics with reflections on the paint so you can see the finish. I'm not sure I like the control knobs, but again for the money I can't grumble. Finally the strings that just arrived. I've got some work to do but will be fitting them later. So there you go. I can thoroughly recommend one of theses if you fancy a classic looking short scale. 🙂

I thought I'd share my experience taking an Ibanez ATK810E and heavily modifying it. My wife nearly divorced me over it (or at least made me move into the shed) so thought I'd share it with some people who might appreciate my efforts! I refinished it with a hand applied/hand rubbed Cyanoacrylate finishing glue and replaced all of the electrics. Why? Because the ATK800 series is a combo of great build quality, lovely wood, perfect pickup combo and neck, but suffering from a finish too easily damaged which is a little too "flat"/matte for my taste and average electrics that didn't fully realise the potential of the wood. Also I'm a glutton for punishment/Like a challenge/subconsciously enjoy p*ssing my wife off. Having tried TruOil (lovely finish and great to work with, but not tough enough) wipe on Poly (too soft, drying time too long) Polyurethane glue (surprisingly nice to work with, nice finish, not quite tough enough) on previous attempts, I settled on superglue (CA) having seen people do it on YouTube successfully. It provides a very quick to apply very hard and very easily polished finish. After trying a bunch of CA brands, I found Starbond Semi-flexible Thin Adhesive SBEM0250 to be the best. It was hand applied using kitchen roll applying in straight lines with the grain, using accelerator. I then used 600 grit wet and dry on rough/uneven spots with a polishing block on flat areas, then 1200 grit wet/dry followed by 4000 grade Micromesh for final finish. The finish is effectively a thin top coat on the existing poly, as I found stripping off the existing thin poly coat on the ATK800 to be unnecessary work having also tried that previously. On other thicker coats, that will likely be a different story. The finish isn't full on mirror gloss (I didn't want that) has a very slight organic grained texture to it and retains the open non-filled grain of the previous finish, which to me is perfect compromise and I now have a finish I can relatively easily repair. In the pics you can see the difference in the finish, from matt to gloss. For the electrics I removed the entire wiring loom and electrics and replaced everything. I replaced the pickups with a Nordstrand MM4.4 and Nordstrand NJ4SV for completely hum free operation in all coil combos. It's a traditional vol-vol arrangement on the passive side with a *bridge coil*-*both in parallel*-*neck coil* switch setup for the humbucker (the same switching as the original bar the treble filter on the neck coil of the bucker). The switch is a Dimarzio EP1111. The pots are CTS; 500k for the big buck and 250k for the Jazz, wired in parallel. This is all screwed into a lovely John East SPM-02 preamp. John is an absolute gent providing outstanding very personal customer service (dunno how he does it..) Selectable frequency points on the pre mean I can get then exactly right for the pickups and bass. I also added extra shielding, including by running a copper foil covered drinking straw run through the routing for the neck pickup wiring into the control cavity. The bass had been well gigged and the poly on the fretboard noticeably a little worn, so I stripped it (Stanley blades, nail files and wire wool) and refinished it in buffed TruOil. The scratchplate is custom made by Jacks Instrument Services. Lots of trial and error on previous basses, stress, arguments, late nights in the shed and learning from forums and YouTube but I'm proud of this and it sounds absolutely fantastic. Real powerful organic rich bass tone with excellent impressions of Stingray, active Jazz and some unique tones all of its own.

A lot of you know I enjoy a bass or two, and if I can have one without breaking the bank so much the better. Well I've surpassed myself. I have just had a foray into the bargain basement of the bargain basement. I've already bored you with how nice I think my Harley Benton collection is, but even I hadn't particularly high expectations of this one. The 'Progressive' series doesn't really catch the eye on Thomann's Pornhub. The shape appears a bit blobby and nondescript. The fretboard is neither light nor dark,the finish unremarkable. And it is cheap. Cheaper than an effects pedal. Cheaper than a replacement neck. But looking at it, so to speak, in the flesh and above all playing it, is a different ball game. I may have been dismissive about the aesthetics but this thing is all about the playing, not the looks. I use a little bass run to test a new bass. The opening run up of the solo in Sir Duke, to be precise. If I'm contorting my wrist to reach the top few notes then the bass needs to be sexier than Felicity Kendall playing Twister with Kate Humble, or I don't keep it. I flew up and down the neck on this one with laughable ease. It really is a joy to play. The back of said neck does not look pretty. I can see where different pieces of timber have been joined and there's a couple of unsightly dark blemishes in the wood. But it isn't a 1k bass it isn't a 500 quid bass, heck it's not even a 150 quid bass. And the neck is smooth. And it's straight. And the low action and perfect intonation tell their own story. And my hands glide over it like greased WD40 in a vacuum. The bass has a pre-amp. Another reason to pass in my book. Never got on with active basses. But it switches off and the passive tone is great. And actually, so is the active tone. And the two (again unattractive) humbuckers blend really sweetly. The pots have that tactile centre point and I would describe them as subtle but effective. No huge sweeping tonal variation but enough for me. The balance is excellent sat or standing, the weight is negligible. Not worth checking on the scales, you just smile when you pick it up. It isn't polystyrene light like some basses, you don't want to pass it round the band to see the look on people's faces but you barely know it's there when playing. Oh and as for the uninspiring finish. That solid black actually has a subtle purple tiger stripe quilty thing going on. I know many reviews will say, great for the price, be useful to give to a student and so forth. But I am gigging with this and recording with it. No question. Totally blown away. Decent pictures and sound clips will follow.

Hi my name is Dave, i was originally a guitarist with a rock band well 2nd guitar to be precise haven't played since the 80s we used to support headliners played pubs a few theatres and even toned it down for the club circuit. recently met up with my old band members and we decided to start practicing again the bass player didn't rejoin so that left the lead guitarist drummer and me, so i volunteered to play bass after all it couldn't be so hard? huh little did i know guitars i own bass wise? Squier / fender vintage modified jazz Squier/fender classic vibe p bass Epiphone IV Thunderbird (that's giving me grief at the moment) and a 2005 american red and white Fender stratocaster also a member of talk bass but american times are crazy they are in bed when i'm about and vice versa so i look forward to talking bass, learning tricks, and improving myself as a bass player! regards to all

Thanks to @AndyTravis, who saw one on ebay and was kind enough to message and let me know, I've now got a Bronco bridge on the way which should fix the string alignment without having to bodge the threaded saddle bridge. Cheers Andy. 👍

So I finally pulled my finger out with this. I initially thought that I could get away without filling the hole where the vibrato formally sat by using a big enough bridge, however the bridge had two screws on the side which was fine but the remaining three screws had nowhere to go. So, I had to fill it. I cut some wood and glued it in and tried to fill the gaps with a mix of wood glue and sawdust, it was not a success. In future I'll actually use wood grain filler. I refinished it body in vintage white over the white primer. All in all, I did the job poorly but its a working bass and at a quick glance I think it looks pretty cool. I had no other plans for the parts and now I have a long scale bass which I'm tuning to BEAD to play/record with my baritone guitars.

You need go no further than the Revelation. £199 new, better made than a Squier and awesome sound. Unlined of course. Buy from the Bass Gallery in London.

This. No-one listens to music now. No-one likes rock or jazz. No-one acknowledges bass. No-one plays fretless. I'd imagine the last time fretless bass featured in the Top-20 was '80s or possibly 90's. Total fretless market in the UK right now is probably single digit including you.

Plus One! Fantastic for sight-reading!

Funny that, how this whole situation appears to have drastically affected everything apart from GAS!

I have had a quick blast through a Barefaced Compact. 8ohms, so a little bit more heft to be had if a second cab is added. Holy moly. This thing is loud. Trace Watts translate into micro amps very nicely. That cool 'edge of breakup distortion' as the gain begins to clip is really good (to my ears) at volume. Think a low gain distortion pedal rather than a valve overdrive. Compresses the sound slightly and roughens the edges. How can those old TE Watts possibly exist in such a modern amp? I think I can explain. Despite having 'facts' on their side the pointy heads and boffins still get their baggy Y fronts in such a twist when the rest of us talk about Trace Elliot Watts. Obviously they are juicier than common or garden watts. Everyone knows that. All the chalk board stuff and logarithms and whatnot 'proving' that all watts are equal misses the point. The phenomenon owes its existence to a magical property of green on black when arranged in the form of an ancient rune. When applied to the outer surface of any amplifier it instantly doubles the juices in each watt, while leaving everything else appearing to be unaltered. QED. It so happens that this mystic rune appeared, from some angles, to spell the words Trace Elliott, and that is how the company got its name. The rune was discovered by a apprentice cleaner in UU when dusting the appendices of the Octavo. But he didn't know what it meant. Later he came to Fred Friedlein in a lucid dream (this was widely thought to have been an accident as he had actually intended to visit Zarniwoop on his legendary office bound intergalactic cruise to ask why everyone kept telling him to turn down these days ) and so the magic passed into our reality. It's a huge relief to finally end one of Basschat's longest running arguments.

...And other people like to use amp and cabs sims. Looks like everyone is happy!

But bass amps and cabs are just devices with a pre-set EQ curve (based on the design) and some adjustment of this at the amp. In an ideal world all an amp and speaker set up would do would be to take the input signal and make it louder without changing it in any other way. Amps and cabs only have "a sound" because originally it was close to impossible to build a system that provided the required volume levels without additional colouration of the sound. We've only become used to these sounds and seek them out after the fact. Using a just good EQ module on my Helix I can get a far better and more versatile sound (to my ears) than any amp and speaker modules can achieve.

I got this 30" earlier this year. Only did 2 gigs with it before gigs disappeared plus a little home recording.

I already posted this in the lefty section but it has a place here too..

Pointless twiddly nonsense

+1 for any fea comps. But admittedly maybe alot of knobs for a beginner

My Euro 5 LX in action

Don't use it in broad daylight shirtless... 🤣

Ron Thal has been a step further with his Swiss Cheese official model...

Owned many over the years , now just have these three.

Good man! It's one of the reassuring things to see our postie still doing the rounds.

Just remember that when you come to sell it, it will be in the eBay Weird & Wonderful section with the usual suspects pointing and laughing...

they showed a lot of people, me included, you didn't have to be a great musician to write songs and be in a band, a breath of fresh air after the prog rock years, nobody stripped Rock and Roll back to it's basics like they did

Nick Campbell does quite a lot of YT stuff with Scary Pockets and Pomplamouse: