Leaderboard

I have finished (90 minutes) and have discovered something really interesting using the above isolated bass tracks. I found that about 98%of the tune was easy enough to write out but there are a few fills I couldn't hear, even slowed down by 75%. Revisiting the transcription with the isolated bass tracks reveals that the bits I couldn't hear are actually fluffed. I can't hear them because they aren't played. They are approximations, near misses, nearly but not quite fills. They are unplayable by most of us because they are were unplayed by Mr Murray (who I also rate very highly). I will post the transcription tomorrow on my website and post a link here.

I've just had this assembled and setup this afternoon. In the words of Tony the Tiger, It's Grrrrrreat!!!

Headstock plate ready to glue and fretboard glued: And does it still line up? Phew! The headstock plate will be glued on tomorrow - this is how the veneers worked out: All being well, I should be able to start the neck carve in the next couple of days

Thanks to this thread, I’ve spent all day listening to Whitesnake

Sooooo.... I felt very pleased with myself when I fretted the neck : Then I remembered that it's far easier if you do the dot markers first. oops. Never mind, it will just be harder work. I think the fretboard is walnut. Then I did some routing: Shaped body with neck: I may or may not do some contouring on the body , I'll see how it feels later before deciding. Then I took it apart and covered it in oil:

Fancied a change away from the normal run o the mill and received this yesterday. First dabble with a Sandberg & very impressed 🙂...

I have been on the lookout for a backup five for my acg for a while. Finally pulled the trigger and picked up a b stock sire v7 five in burgundy. Amazing amount of bass for the money. What a sound. ..here’s a quick photo more to follow later

Okay, so I didn't expect to find one of these so soon but thanks to @gareth it's New Vintage Squier Bullet Bass Day! I used to have a USA Fender Bullet Bass Deluxe which, although a bit niche, was a great bass to play and was on some great records. When I had to sell it I was gutted, but on this forum I managed to score a MIJ Squier Bullet Bass. Which is even more niche, but I'm into the niche gear. So this little oddball beauty arrived this afternoon. I tore into the package and unwrapped it, and... it's blowing me away! I'm fully aware that most folks wouldn't have these on their radar because why would they? Who's gonna get excited by the combination of a cut-down Precision body with Mustang pickups and a fat AF Tele bass neck? Well, me. Yeah, I'm that weirdo First impressions: much lighter than my old USA Bullet bass but still feels super solid. The neck is a dead ringer for the USA Bullet neck and feels the same as my old one. Win! 👍 The tug bar is on the wrong side of the strings for me 'cause I pluck with the side of my thumb, but that's an easy move. Overall, I'm getting a great vibe off this already. Straight away I had to take off the roundwound strings and get some flats on there. Thought I'd experiment with a set of Fender 45-100 flats, they only cost me £14 so why not? Seemingly within a few minutes the stiffer string tension and higher action that I'm used to was there. Plugged it into the only amp I have (1970s Fender Vibro Champ) and started playing some Afrobeat and dub basslines. Lost a couple of hours, easy. Bonded with it instantly. Properly enjoyed meself. I'm looking forward to recording with it and eventually gigging it. Absolutely chuffed with it. So, big thanks to Gareth for hooking me up with this one, I flipping love it. Great bass + nice price + pro packaging + hassle free delivery = happy Meterman. Cheers Gareth 🙏

Donate to a local school/ young band/ budding bass player? Or buy a corsa and stick it in the boot and buy a baseball cap to wear backwards.

Or to quote Steve Lukather, "there are fetuses that can play Eruption these days"

Kids are playing Donna Lee when they are 5 now so chops mean nothing. It is the ideas that matter.

Well, Oxford PMT came up trumps and had the amp ready for me today, so I drove over with my Super Compact and Jazz Bass to give it a whirl. Sounded great, a lot of amp in a ridiculously small package. The my guitarist friend showed up with the battery inverter and we tried it with that as the power source. The result was…. quite surprisingly…. it sounded just as good using that power source as it did when powered off the mains. Obviously, I paid up and brought it home. I have a feeling that either my Ashdown ABM 600 or more likely the Rootmaster 800 will make their way onto the for sale lists before too long. Saturday will be the real test - playing through the Elf & SC at an outdoor gig, with no mains power. And the amp really does fit in my pocket! One less lump to schlepp across fields to these fly-gigging adventures (kind of like fly-tipping but considerably less harmful to the environment).

Well - it's done...for now. Dead chuffed! The pickup is surprisingly meaty, lacking a bit of definition on the lower end but not bad for £8. Setup is a bit ropey - the nut is giving me issues at the 1st-5th frets on E and A so will sort that. Intonation is ok, with only two points to intonate it is never going to be perfect. The finish is pretty fragile, but happy for it to get chips etc since it's red underneath it will look decent. Things left to do: Get a tort pickguard. Route and wire the humbucker but this can come at some point in the future. New bridge. For less than £100 all in (so far) it's ace fun.

I know this looks like just a picture with a whole load of clamps - but there's quite a lot going on underneath it all: On the left hand side is the headstock plate on top of two sheets of ebony veneer sandwiching a sheet of maple veneer, clamped down on a glass plate. This will mean that the demarcation line between the headstock plate and the headstock will match that of the fretboard to neck On the right hand side we have the fretboard being glued to the neck, which means the truss rod is fitted and the fretboard end has been shaped. Other than that, it's just a picture of a whole load of clamps

Squier tele.... got it earlier this year and paid a little extra to get the colour I liked.

This is all sounding a bit "Jimmy Page was 25 when he wrote Stairway, but I could play it when I was 17" about it.

Not always true, there is a hard physical limit of what you can do. I have no problem with Fool for your loving, don't find it that hard, but some of the faster lines, my fingers will physically not move fast enough with all the will in the world and all the practice. Running a 4 minute mile is just a question of running an 8 minute mile faster, doesn't mean everyones bodies can actually do it, even if they know how to put their feet in the right place!

Well I kinda did make that mistake when I was young but it's a long story and it doesn't go well. The foolhardiness of youth! 😁

My current rehearsal room rig. 2 Acoustic 370 amps and 2 408 (4x15) cabs.

STRING WARS coming to a THEATRE near YOU! My new series! I'm going to compare all the bass strings I'll get! Please let me know who won! STAY TUNED!

62,63,64

That neck looks fab without front dots.

I remember this track when it was in the charts and vividly recollect being mightily impressed by the bass playing. Neil Murray is a superb player( stating the obvious, I know) with great taste in how he uses his ability. It's wrong, however, to focus on how difficult this bass line is to learn and then play ( and for most ordinary folks, it is pretty difficult) . Its' real achievement is in how difficult it was to conceive of, that is the germane point. Anyone can play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but it took Mozart to invent it. Even though Mozart didn't actually write Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but you know what I mean.

And that's just about the size of it. You can get a staggering range of totally useable, musical tones from a Wal. I sold my first Wal when I realised that I spent all my time making it sound like a Precision ...

Stefan has sent some other pics for me , before he posts it . He's putting them up on his main FB page , but wanted me to see them first - he's a real gent .

Here's my three electrics. A Gretsch Electromatic given to me by a very very good friend of mine for my 50th birthday. My first electric guitar - an E-series '80s Squire Tele and a '96-'97 Fender Jaguar (Charvel acoustic not included in shot)

Never mix them on the same axle

I used to have 'Jeff Berlin' chops (I could play at that speed but, if I am honest, never had the ideas to back to up) but have not worked on my chops for decades. I have been transcribing a lot of Jeff Berlin recently and it has shown how much I have 'slowed down' over the years (not because I can't but because I don't). Someone one said that he had never met a musician who didn't have more chops that he knew how to use and that was definitely me. The problem with having a lot of chops, especially if you live out in the sticks, is that there is no-one else to work with. Jeff Berlin with no Bruford, no Allan Holdsworth, no etc etc. So, unless you can find an outlet for those chops, you lose them. There is also the issue of whether the gigs you do are improvisation based or arrangement based - chops for written parts is different to chops for blowing (which is often why classical players are better technicians than improvisers but can't play without the dots). Nothing in this tune that is that chopsy.

"Rogue Probe" by all I nil, a work in progress progressive psychedelic stoner rock solo project of mine, which primary instrumentation is going to be bass, drums and vocals.. This particular track is sort of a demo for that project though, and genre wise it would be more like psychedelic industrial doom/stoner rock. And the lyrics are: Rogue Probe Nothing to hide, nothing to see we're going under reached the surface to breath like the tip of the iceberg there's more underneath battleships, aliens, deep blue and freezing out of mind, out of sight, out to hunt out of season U-boat out of torpedoes and reason the aliens strike back come in peace out of treason Mars Attack! Computer-animated nightmare Turn up the feedback only if you dare seal up the crack pipe Artwork is by me as well, by the way. Now also up on Badncamp for free download and listening: https://all-i-nil.bandcamp.com/ Here's a bit more information about this track and the project:

Hi dave, I bought a used set on here and they are definitely brighter than my labella flats, I can imagine a new set would be even brighter, I would say they have more mids than zing, if that makes sense 🙂

My main bass has top loading lightweight monorail bridges. With TI flatwounds and a medium string height so that there is zero buzz it will sustain longer than I ever need it to. I have it for a nice clean sound and it sounds great with just passive DI and nothing else, no compression, and the notes just sing out. Mind you, it does have an ebony fingerboard, which I believe makes a big difference To quote the mighty Tap:

Fast lines are just slow lines speeded up. If you can do the slow licks, there is no reason why you can't do the fast ones.

So, a quick update. We have confirmed gigs on 15th Aug - Outdoor Festival Godstonebury 16th August - Beer Garden Festival Newcastle 18th August - Drive in Gig Newark. Typical 3 gigs in 4 days but I am not complaining. Lets see how they go and fingers crossed this is the start of better things for us

I don't think it's that at all. In a lot of threads the bass player also runs the PA, sets it all up, books all the gigs, drives the singers mother to bingo... I, and I think most of us, get it. Like most of us on BC you're dead keen to get things going. However others in your group aren't pitching in for whatever reason. It's trying to find what that reason is, doesn't like the way it's being done, insecure, can't be bothered... That's the tricky bit.

here I am reducing the wood depth with a Forstner bit. The body is too thick for my dad's bandsaw, and it doesn't have the best blade, so I have to help it a bit Then I flattened both sides and got to the desired depth. Body shape sorted with template. Half done here.

Here are a few of mine 62 Casino, 65 Strat, 66 Tele. Quite happy with current setup.

There most certainly is a difference. D is the key our singer can sing in.

Have you tried half rounds P belly, I’ve got them on one jazz, the ones I’ve got are a bit brighter than my flats but smooth 🙂

Had to show off my new handy work to people who get it (the wife was pretty underwhelmed/didn't have a clue what I was talking about) Backstory: wanted a flat case style pedalboard, didn't want pay £££s for it. So I bought an old synthesiser case from Gumtree for 20 quid and relined it with mounting fabric. Then Covid hit😷, so I thought I'd do some tinkering..... So I've built in some features (cue a lot of cussing at the soldering iron😖). I've add a bank to the side with jack in and out with a true bypass to skip the entire pedal chain, power input and switch and a di (stole the innards of a Behringer 400p passive di box). Cost me total of about 50 quid *smugface*😁 The chain is Input (with bypass)>Boss limiter>polytune 3 mini>Ehx Tri parallel>output The 3 mix loops are subject to change as I've just stuck then all on into the order they fit with the patches I have currently. Loop 1: Boss bass chorus>Boss odb3 overdrive>boss ls2(as a bypass for the 105q tone suck)>Dunlop 105q Loop 2: Mxr blowtorch>agent 00 clone(custom built by BCs very own paul_5)>bass big muff Loop 3: Ehx soul pog(pog 1st)>Donner EQ seeker(effing great eq pedal for £40 if you can find one!)>earthquake dispatch master>dpfx echidna overdrive>boss syb5 synth Whaddaya think?!? I'm pretty chuffed with how it turned out. Any advice on chain or good custom length patch kits very much needed....

Just for reference, I have no idea who Jeff Berlin is, but I assume he is someone who can play quite fast!

I might actually go down that route myself. I like the fact the flats i have on my Sandberg VM4 last for ages but sometimes i would like a bit of zing on the top end. The Cobalt flats also sound interesting. Dave

lol. cheers guys, great sounding Basses these new Ultra's. Fender have upped their game with these I think, fit and Finnish is just about flawless, set up was easiest I have had with any Fender and the range of tones on one bass is fantastic. best part is those necks just sublime to play on. silky smooth at the rear and just fantastic feel on the front too, just feels great, Glad I forked out for this one !! cheers. Geo

Basically, yes. P and I are still pulling together the spec and I am still clambering up the learning curve using every crampon, piton and googlon at my disposal. So - as @BigRedX says, basically a guitar body with a bouzouki neck and bridge. The body size we are going for will be the OM/Concert - 15" across the lower bout and around 110mm deep at the tail (you can see I spent my formative years in transition between SI and Imperial!). The main difference to the body is that it joins the neck at the 16th fret, as opposed to the 14th fret of a standard steel string acoustic. However, the bridge position, bracing and sound hole broadly remain in standard position, and so the upper bout shortens by around 30mm. This is the shape we are toying with. You can see in light relief the outline of a standard OM acoustic: The sound hole will be wider than the norm and may well be shaped. It will have a standard-style guitar bridge with a compensated saddle. The construction and internal bracing design will be very much based on my own OM build: The top timber, some lovely AAA spruce from David Dyke is already here. The back and sides is on its way from Schroter in Germany and is Red Gum Satin Walnut. I've ordered two sets - P will decide which one he wants when I am able to see them in the flesh and made sure they are both OK to use: To say that I'm quite excited by this project is a bit of an understatement!