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I'm so glad the scientific situation has changed so substantially from a couple of months ago. They sorted the vaccine quick, didn't they? Oh, wait...

I remember leaving a band over musical differences. I was musical, they were different. I remember playing a gig in a prison on 11/9/2001 (an easy date to remember). The singer, a serving prisoner, asked to room for a minutes silence for the World Trade Centre victims. Nobody asked him to do it. It was his idea. And he sang like Marvin Gaye.

I was 17 and studying for my A levels, when my mate and singer in my school band, Pete Bond, called me from Charing Cross Road. It was a Wednesday, he'd bought the early issue of Melody Maker and was phoning about an advert. "Bass player wanted for professional Chicago blues band". I called and was given an address and time to be in East Putney the next day. I turned up with my trusty Framus Star bass, to be met by Peter Green. He was forming a band and needed to find a bass player as John McVie wouldn't join. I spent a stunned half an hour sitting on his mum's sofa trying to play bass. I was hopelessly out of my depth but he was very nice and gave me time. Sadly I didn't unfreeze until about 4 hours later.

Lets hope it's noone you care about eh?

Instead of a simple drum screen we'll need full band-screens! Or maybe now's the time to do a Spinal Tap tribute?

I've been on the look out for a used VS4 in almost this exact spec for almost 2 years. This one came up for sale last week, the stars aligned (I sold my Fender P quick sharp) and she arrived today...

Some new Sandberg VM4 love. NBD is always a great day. Wasn't really sure 100% about the burst, but it's doing it for me.

I have actually finished this now. It was stringless for a while as I was undecided on what I wanted on there, and what will fit the stupid guitar tuners. My strings of choice are D'addario half rounds so after some checking on where the windings end, the outer winding needs to go past the nut but finish fairly quickly as it won't go through the tuner and you can't have to many winds on the tuner post as they are so small, I found they'd fit so ordered a set. Now on they feel and sound great, good tension for a short scale. I like a thumbrest and the pickups weren't doing it for me so I toyed with getting a chrome one to match the hardware but wasn't sure. The black one I had didn't look good and then I thought, why not just paint it the same green, so I did. Then I couldn't find a suitable place as the design of theses basses means the strings are very close to the body so the standard plastic thumbrests actually sit higher than the strings, and to get enough clearance to play properly you need the thumbrest to far away from the strings to be comfy, well for me anyway. So I sanded the thumbrest down on an angle to lower the height in total and to get the string side lower still. Plenty of string clearance and comfy to play, perfect. In fact the strings and thumbrest, coupled with the slim neck and featherweight body make this a super comfortable bass to play. Finished pictures. The vacuum cleaner drive belt hanging system (pat pending). Ooh sparkles 😁 I've plugged and drilled the holes for the old strap pins as they were just taper fit and prone to coming loose, fitted a similar style but they are held on with screws like normal strap pins so are secure. The following two photos are in normal light so better represent the true colour, it's hard to capture it properly. The picture with the flowers reflected in the scratchplate is the best likeness of the colour. I've painted the bottom part of the control knobs black and have decided to leave the top yellowed plastic as the match the tuners. The only thing left to do is wire in a pickup series switch, but that's nothing exciting to look at. So there you go, my minty Longhorn. 🙂

I remember attending a Jazz Summer School in Pontypridd in the mid 90s. There was a woman there who was a professional actor who wanted to have a go at Jazz. We rehearsed a tune with her for four hours, A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square, and we really arranged it. We performed the tune in the evening's open mic session in front of all of the students and tutors on the course. You could have heard a pin drop. The singer's first ever time singing Jazz in front of a room full of Jazz musicians and she got a standing ovation. Made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.

Most memorable moment on stage was probably last October, on stage with the Grateful Dudes, when we played Ripple as an encore and tribute to Robert Hunter, who wrote the song and had recently died. The entire audience joined in and everywhere we looked people had tears running down their cheeks. It was hard to get through the song without choking up. Definitely memorable.

Moollon P classic in Root Beer Sparkle. P classic with J neck, gorgeous player! I love the colour, although I haven't yet compared it with actual root beer as the Co-op only had Dr Pepper: Really pleased with it, very high quality craftsmanship throughout. Looking forward to stringing it with incoming La Bellas as I'm on a lockdown Jamerson journey! Will record some tones when I get the chance.

We never had any James Last records at home when I was a kid. I managed to remedy this deprived childhood by buying several James Last records once I left home. There's some cracking tunes if you look beyond the useless covers of the Seekers or Cliff Richard or Jim Reeves etc. "Voodoo Party" is great. Well, I say great. It's great if you like the idea of James Last covering Sly & The Family Stone and Marvin Gaye and Santana etc... The other LP that Lastheads go nuts over is "Well Kept Secret". It's the one where he roped in a load of LA session folks like Jim Gordon, Tom Scott, Max Bennett, Ernie Watts, Larry Carlton etc... But the absolute best is James Last doing Hawkwind: I'll leave it there, otherwise I'll be uploading his disco bangers or the live stuff with Benny Bendorf on bass. Please don't ban me yet, I can change, it's only a phase, etc...

A couple for me: Playing main support to Midge Ure at a festival some years back was an experience Headlining a festival in front of 6000+ people was fun Recording at Sony's Whitfeild Street Studio was a scary experience especially as the Spice Girls had recorded there the week earlier Best of all was playing to 200 or so Downs and profoundly disabled kids at the Rocking Roadmender club night, the sheer joy on the faces of the Downs kids was absolutely priceless and is what making music and entertaining should be about!

The last 45 minutes of Freebird?

Good morning all..... I just thought I’d conclude the ‘72 P’s journey to the French Alps. In the end, Stephane put the money directly into my bank account. I packaged the bass in a bicycle box, which took some packaging but I’ve now lost that old King size quilt that was in the loft. I had to organise the pickup time with UPS. They arrived. The bass left and it’s now with Stephane and he is chuffed to bits. Happy days.

And the purfling is in: Bit of domestic duty stuff to do today, but later on should be able to get the swift inlay done and then the sound hole can be cut out using the same Dremel radius tool from the same centre holes to get nice concentric curves. Also today, I'll be ordering the woods for the bracing, kerfed strip (don't worry @Si600 - I'll explain ) and so on.

Lots and lots but 9yrs ago today I played a show in Swindon and in the crowd was a lady who is now my wife. That's gotta stand out!

I assume many people on here do. For me personally, this is often about certain chord changes I not only dreamt up there and then but even got out of my fingers - something I knew I couldn't do but then did inexplicably. There were other moments too that take too many words, but the most stellar moment was the day I played a Bach piece on the pipe organ, and exactly that day I played better, deeper and with more musical expression than I've done before or after. It became very hard to even finish the piece, and I was exhausted. That was not the moment. The moment was: unbeknownst to me, a young soprano had entered, and rather than making herself known she'd waited and listened before approaching me. When the piece was done, she came up and said: - "You know, I've always hated the pipe organ, but you just explained it to me."

Here's a little idea I knocked up last night. Guitar and the germ for the Wurly part from my good friend @GisserD

Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny. Many a guitar hero fails to do it justice.

I played a charity gig at the Shepard's Bush Empire in the Late 90's I got the shivers at the soundcheck as Bowie played there the week before. After the set, I was in the dressing room and our promoter came in and said" I would like you meet my mate, he thinks You're a solid player." I was gobsmacked that his mate was Martin Turner from Wishbone Ash. We had a couple of beers together and he complemented me on be a tight player. Martin is one of my biggest influences having played in a Wishbone tribute band in the '70s.

I've had them mounted on walls and some kept in cases but I can't claim to have managed a pic of them all... certainly not at once. I know at least 10 of them are still owned by Basschatters. Some of those I presently owned are here but I moved house just after this pic and I've not had the opportunity to get hangers back on the walls.

He didn't own it, but I met Sting and had him sign (and play) my custom Larkin Reacter fretless a few years ago. Turns out he has a 6-string Larkin from roughly the same year!

James Last and Bert Kampfert were regularly played in the home of my youth. I didn’t mind it, but I preferred the Ted Heath Orchestra, The Peddlars and absolutely adored Tom Jones Live at Cesar’s Palace (with Big Jim Sullivan on guitar).

Has to be this for me. It is quite simply........ outrageously brilliant and utterly hilarious at the same time Got to number 1 in America as well.

There's going to be a second wave no matter what, and a third and a fourth until something like 60% of the country has had the virus, then herd immunity kicks in. Right now about 5% have had it, so there are a lot of "spikes" to come, unless it mutates into a common flu virus. Right now I just think, let's get it over and done with. Some people will die, most won't and the survivors can get back to living. If the current situation carries on, and the country tries live on credit for much longer, our kids and grandchildren will be paying for this into the next century.

When all this first started, I was pleased at the money I was saving by drinking at home instead of going to the pub, but in the last few weeks, I've been saving even more by not drinking at home either. I intend to try and maintain that when the pubs open again.

Gees.... well, looks like social distancing is over then. I can kind of get how they can manage the restaurant side, as the culture is to sit down, but pubs? I'll be giving it at least a month to let everyone bump into each other, grab each other, fight each other and generally give any virus to each other, before I even think of going back.

Correct, in my experience. With my overdrive settings it does indeed sound fizzy via DI and likewise through the cab with HF driver fully engaged. I therefore use mine with it up set to around 25% ; it's a good blend of cab voicing with just enough high-end definition.

These things shouldn't be taken too seriously, but they are really interesting. The shoot outs we've been doing at the SW Bass Bash have only really conclusively proved a few things The source sound is really important, different basses and different players suit different speakers. Room Acoustics are really important, even moving the mic a few feet might change your preference of speaker and what works in one room doesn't guarantee it working as well in another room. No two bassists ever agree on what is a 'good sound' FWIW I preferred the SC to the BB2 but only marginally The sound of the BB2 was particularly impressive on the lower notes but less so on the dusty part of the neck. The SC din't sound so full on the bottom notes but was IMO rather sweeter in the midrange and was more even across the fretboard. One of the things we noted at last years bass bash is that most bassists prefer more bass in shootouts however accurately it is reproduced. Bassists like bass, who'd have thought it?

The title has a typo. It was meant to be " You can only keep 11", but the OP caught the shift key. Nonetheless, 11 represents an unacceptable degree of down-sizing.

First time we played to a full Marquee Club was pretty good... But in terms of "Kwality", my old improvisational jazz band once decided to do a live thing on the roof of the studio the guitarist lived in in Shoreditch. While we didn't have any songs and everything was improvised we had the (possible!) advantage that the drummer and I had played probably 300+ gigs together with our other band, and he was proper funky. So we started playing - simple funky groove, occasionally slapped and occasionally Bootsy-wah-bass, with African percussion, Marc Ribot-a-like guitar and horn players who also played with Lol Coxhill (i.e. crazy every note possible). And before the Police turned up 4 hours later to stop us there were a hundred or so people dancing in front of the pub below (Bricklayer's Arms), windows opposite were lined with people hitting congas, tambourines and nobody threw anything at us!

A bit of an unfair comment - you can disagree with me all you like - all the green name means is I was daft enough to volunteer 😄

While Victor Wooten is one of my absolute favorite bass players, but while I am not into a lot of his music, but still really dig his bass playing on that music, this particular piece is just beautifully amazing on every possible level:

Toblerone... nice... Like the neck on an old Fender!

I've spent most of my bass playing 'career' playing in covers bands of all descriptions. Occasionally, very occasionally, it all comes together. You're in the right band playing the right venue with the right set list - and the whole band and the whole venue is buzzing. It all lifts off onto another level. And, of course, you have the best bass sound ever. And it's only a fleeting moment, and then it's all gone. And then you have to wait three years and a hundred gigs for another of these magical moments to happen again. But it's absolutely worth the wait 😊

Just checked and my standard Shubb is just about good up to the 12th fret on a Strat (nearest to hand). The problem is fretboard radius - at 7.5 inches the strings 'splay' as the capo clamps onto the board and you have to jimmy them around by hand to get them straight again. A flatter board would be less of a problem. Then there's the issue of 12th fret intonation which necessitates re-tuning. So it can be done but it's a bugger. If one wants to play that high, buy a mandolin.

I bought a 3/4 Valencia guitar a while back, just to dabble with on the sofa, and I’ve found myself playing basslines on the acoustic and chords on the bass, I need to sort things out 😄

I got myself a Hakko 888D a couple of years ago and, and at the same time I also brushed up a bit on proper technique as it was a long time since I'd learnt. I'm happy enough now to rewire basses and make my own leads and some of that is down to the Hakko. I pretty much know what temps I need for soldering different things and for desoldering. I think the big thing with temperature controlled is that it will try and maintain the iron at a temp, so if you're doing a pot and it soaks up a little bit of heat, the station will get it back up to temp. I've noticed that I can solder earths to pots as easily as anything else now and it used to be a proper pain in the proverbial with an iron.

Yeah, let's steer this back to the OP (and I acknowledge my part in the derailment).

Here's the gig I was at that we filmed. Huge sports hall built as part of the reunification of Germany. Middle of nowhere in the former East Germany.

Internet trickery, deceptive camera angles and the like! It's a regular size Toblerone, and a mini bass! 😝

I can pick out the SC even in a blind test. Every time. With someone else stop starting the video at different places. It sounds like it's going through a preamp while the others are not

Maple Road Blues Band kicks off our first outdoor concert June 25 at 7 pm! $5 admission to limit capacity to 250 people. What you need to know here: https://www.thelmaarts.org/press/thelma-sadoff-center-for-the-arts-announces-restructure-of-11-thursdays-of-summer-concert-series/ Friday Night June 26th we have a private Corporate Event. Busy week for Maple Road Blue