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I decided to go with the 3 mm roundover.it looks a bit bigger than the pic from geddy lees book but im happy with it.this is my first attempt at building so theres plenty of mistakes but its getting there.

Had half an hour, so cleaned up the neck blank I made. Looking rather good. I do need to reduce thickness still, but the glue up is pretty much perfect in any case.

Actually, the bigger problem is the end users who think they understand what the data sheets mean without actually understanding the technical data behind the numbers and WHY they might be used in describing specific specs. When an experienced designer learns all of the ins and outs behind the performance of the module and what is actually happening between the lines, it becomes apparent that there are additional performance gains present to those who understand how to exploit them. As a specific example, when I was designing around an earlier IcePower module, we used to get "armchair techies" who would insist that the module wasn't capable of driving 4 ohms BTL and that it was was only capable of 250 watts into 4 ohms therefore we were not being truthful. In fact, the amp could easily deliver 900+ watts RMS into 4 ohms BTL, and that the 250 watt single ended specification didn't even apply. This was such a valuable off sheet applications (that required specialized cooling and over-modulation management) that we received a patent for the techniques that we employed. It's very similar to what's happened in the automotive industry over the years. Power output per cubic inch (or litre) of displacement has increased greatly through the introduction of fuel injection, variable valve timing, variable ignition timing, stoichiometric fuel management through combustion products feedback, advanced combustion chamber design, tighter tolerances, lighter reciprocating mass, etc. The same applies to many of the successful applications in all industries. The more you know, the easier it is to be successful and deliver successful, reliable products.

I've had a bit of a fiddle, and just to keep Douglas happy I've done a fuzz-wah bass disco punk song containing lots of deep and meaningless shouting...

I'll just leave this here.

Shoot me a PM with your address. I've a Thomann t-bone TWS in the drawer doing nothing. At the very least it'll give you a feel for giving wireless.

If you are set on a Kramer The Duke there are a few things to be aware of. 1. Make sure the one you buy is actually a Kramer. There's a visually very close copy in the Hondo Alien. However no every Hondo version has an aluminium neck and the hardware quality is very poor. The easiest way to see it's a proper Kramer is to check the neck plate where it will say so. Also the string retainer at the end of the neck only has a single bolt holding it in place on the Kramer and 2 on the Hondo. The Hondo also has a wooden fingerboard, while the Kramer has an ebonal one. Don't be conned by unscrupulous sellers. There were no exceptions, if it doesn't have all the Kramer features it isn't one. 2. Be aware that even the Kramer version is a bit of a bodge. Kramer made the bass headless by simply sawing the headstock off their standard aluminium neck. It has guitar type machine heads rather than bass ones and the string path between them and the bridge saddles is somewhat conveluted. Also the hardware used on the Kramer models, while being decent quality, varies from one example to the next. I'd make sure that you get one with the Schaller 3D bridge and Schaller machine heads. Because they are now old and no longer in production the prices are somewhat inflated over what would be expected of a bass of similar quality.

So you are left without part of a pa, or someone that comes in to replace that person has to buy that bit of the PA? I don't trust people in the group I am in to turn up with a strap for their guitar half the time, let alone part of the PA!

just can't beat posting up my favourite bass. I bought this in Denmark St in 1990, advertised as late 60s. £450. So I traded a Shure SM58 wireless and my Aria SBR-150 and fifty quid. The serial number suggests approx 1975 which until recently I acknowledged. Then, whilst on a forum (here or TB) there was a thread about the bridge being in the wrong place (approx 71-73 IIRC) and the screw on the G string being extra long to compensate. So I looked at the original bridge (now on a bitsa) and there it was, the long screw. Then I looked at the original pickup (that went open circuit many moons ago) and there was 73 on it. So I'm going with '73. It's light too Pots were changed before a recording session in the 90s, they weren't even soldered in properly. I've no idea if they were original anyway. Under the bridge is a little of the sunburst but this has been painted by hand I reckon, long long before I bought it. This, for me, is the finest sounding and playing P bass. Everyone who plays it says the same, what a great bass, even those that aren't keen on p basses. I had a '62 at the same time. I bought it about '89/'90. I sold it a few years later as the '73 was just hands down better.

And even if they have decent FoH, the monitors are still usually garbage.

Despite owning an Ovation Custom Legend, I got one of these for my last birthday (becasue it was there). It is a Vintage Paul Brett Parlour Guitar that cost £99. It is a sweet little guitar and I enjoy playing it.

I have Lindy Fralins in one of my Jazz basses, which are pretty expensive, Wilkinsons in another, which are at the cheap end of the scale, and a Squier Jazz with the Seymour designed pickups. They all sound great. The DiMarzio DP123 Model J set I tried were good but a bit too dark sounding for me. The only pickups I didn't like, were some old fender MIM ones that I picked up for a tenner on Ebay. They were pretty dull and characterless. My point is, that you don't need to spend stupid money on pickups to get a good sound.

If the mood takes me I vigorously tap my foot. I actually did that once.

This is a good watch...

Anyone looking for a London luthier, I would always recommend Laurence Dixon. Sharing his crowdfunder: https://payitforward.london.gov.uk/help-the-bass-place-see-2021

In a world with Davie504 I think Scott Devine is quite palatable..

Time to fit the bridge in the new position dictated by the Yamaha neck. I wind out the G saddle to its max and then measure 34 inches to the nut from the saddle centreline. I mark the distance with a pencil line on the body. Then I centre the bridge using twine. I mark that off with pencil. Having centre punched the hole positions directly from the bridge, I drill out pilot holes. Mustn't forget the bridge needs an earth connection. Best done now. Again, using candle wax as a thread lubricant, I fit Posidrive screws and tighten the bridge down. I used four strings out of a crap set of five that came with my Pit Bull kit a couple of years ago. For a laugh, I've strung it BEAD. It has tuned up with zero setting up already. I'm well chuffed with the acoustic sound so far. There is tweakage to be done however and I shall work out where the new sweet spot for the P pickup is going to be another day.

This is true, there are good implementations of amplifiers using these parts and some that have suffered from the symptoms being described. Each designer is different, each has their own preferences, skill set and experience designing with these parts. My design experience with IcePower goes back almost 20 years, when I was also designing for the (touring) pro audio industry. When I started designing bass amps with these class D parts, I already had a 5 year advantage over just about every other designer so I wasn't affected by the learning curve nearly as much. Also, this was the same time that players began demanding smaller, lighter weight cabinets, so some of the differences can be attributed to a general migration of demand and change in tastes rather than just the amps themselves.

Yes i have used this one myself, i actually swapped out the 3 band preamp in a musicman stingray to one f these and much preferred it. It is just a copy of an original 2 band. So any pickups that would be recommended for a 2 band stingray would be fine. I would probably go for a Seymour Duncan SMB-4A which they say is voiced on the 70s musicman pickup with that preamp which would have been what the stingrays would have had back then.

Yes. I'm pretty fly for a white guy. 🕺

That is really kind. I have sent you a pm Jon

Was going to say Thomann do a variety of Tbones at different prices from £43 and there's a 3 year warranty too.

Is that the guy out of Biffy Clyro with a comic moustache and hat......

I don't think there is an answer or scenario that would appease all bass players. We all play various types of venues and different genre's as well as having our own preference of how much we want to hear ourselves. I know what I like and it works for me, but I am sure someone somewhere will have an opinion on it and that's cool. Anything like this i would say go out and find what best works for you, I like loud, I like power kicking me in the back. I would love to play a gig where the monitors we're perfect, or I'd be comfortable to get away with going straight into the desk, although it very rarely happens. Just work out what you need for your performance to work 🙂

I've sent them an email with all the relevant questions. Do all requests get fulfilled? How long is the wait... Etc.

I would love to gig in venues where PA's and proper facilities were laid on, but I usually play in pubs, clubs and functions where little is provided by the organisers. Many times no lighting or even a stage. The stage area is my "office" and "organisers" can be very flaky, so I aim to make the stage sound the same on every gig without having to rely on anyone else. I am also prepared to provide the room with bass. That's why my rig is a modular system that can go very loud. I have used D class amps for the last 10 years and the generalization in the thread title and the prejudice in many posts is plainly not true. In my experience and in the experiences of many others, D class amps do the job as successfully as any other type of bass amp. If that wasn't true, D class wouldn't have outsold every other type of amp, on a world wide basis, for many years. In my experience the good players do not "buy with their eyes".

The gigs don't even have to be that big. Here in Nottingham if you play at The Bodega - I couldn't find a capacity number, but given that the considerably larger Rescue Rooms is 450, I'd be amazed if it is any more than 150 - the only people hearing your amp will be you (if you are stood directly in front of it) and a few people at the front of the audience directly in the "firing line" of the cabs. Everyone else will hear you via the PA whose feed for the bass guitar, at best, will be taken DI output of your amp. IME playing originals only the very smallest of gigs - venues well under 100 capacity - are vocals only in the PA, so for 99% of the gigs I play my bass rig was essentially a personal monitor, and often I was being asked to turn down so much, so as not to affect the FoH sound, that I could hear more bass guitar from the guitarist's wedge on the other side of the stage then I could from my own cabs directly behind me. IMO it has got to the point now where the traditional bass rig is just for pub covers bands where the PA is primarily for vocals and as stage dressing for bands whose whose image demands it.

Yes, I can and do dance while playing. In my punk/new-wave covers band I move and dance a lot. The other guys are rooted to the spot - they are happy to let me get on with it. For me one of the advantages of using an amp sim pedal instaed of an amp is more room to dance. Dancing not up to stanard of Bruno Mars band though! Story? Nearest I've got is: a couple of people from work came to a gig ..... one of them said that my stage performance reminded her of when her son fogets to take his hyperactivity medicine!

So, did he ever come up with any rock / metal content in the academy? The other reason Scott's lessons do nothing for me is because it all seems to be built around jazz noodling. Great if that's what floats your boat, but to me it's about as musically inspiring as listening to roadworks.

My mate's got the HB fretless jazz. Build quality is great, fingerboard is much smoother than my 86 fretless Peavey Foundation. Reasonably heavy at about 12lb. To put in context ,most of my basses are around 12lb . 50something me still thinks it a reasonable weight. Instead of ordering a batch of 200 and those taking up valuable warehouse space, Thomann take requests then place the order when the figures are worthwhile.

He is working that seam and working it well. I wish him nothing but the best. There are many worse things out there.

FWIW, several years ago I built a rack mounted Class D amp as a DIY project and took it down to the local ace repair shop to try out an EUB they had for sale. The owner was quite convinced it was a tube amp, which I found hilarious -- it surely must have been down to the visual cues. I'd put money on the tube one I'm doing right now being able to pass for a modern solid state build in an unsighted test right now too, although I'm probably going to take it in a more traditional direction since that was my raison d'etre for doing this build in the first place. But as I've said many times, play feel is quite another thing and I always looked at that as a very important aspect of my tech work when I was still doing that for my livelihood. Arguing with people about what they feel seems like a real fool's errand to me. 😎

B&O sold out their share in ICEPower in 2016, FWIW. Beyond that, popcorn. The market has voted and most people apparently actually prefer the new direction, for sound quality as well as convenience. Plenty of old gear around for those who prefer that play feel, and that gear is getting cheaper all the time IME.

Whenever this topic comes up, I read it with interest but in a detached sort of way. I invariably find myself thinking, "These guys must play some bloody LOUD gigs". I appreciate that there's much more to gig-life than the pubs and social clubs that I play, but I'm also aware that at the really big gigs all that backline is essentially there for personal monitoring ... the real action is the great stacks of Powersoft S/S amps driving the house PA. I continue to struggle (and I don't doubt that it's a failure of imagination on my part) to understand how any modern Class D head can't deliver what's needed. I have an utterly beautiful Matamp valve amp in perfect working order sitting on a shelving unit in my studio. It's been sitting there for several years because I can't bring myself to sell it, and I keep telling myself that one day I'll find a gig that will really benefit from me carrying an enormous and heavy lump of amplifier rather than a 4lb Class D head. I'll be sure to tell you all if it ever happens.

STRAP PIN RELOCATION, thought I'd share (also valid for other semi-hollows/hollows). Even tho' this bass is balanced enough (slightly neck divey, stays horizontal) the neck side pin location (at the joint) plus the arched back make it flip it forward (pickups face down). It takes my left (fretting) hand to exert a twisting force, plus my right forearm to push harder on the binding to keep the bass aligned to a comfortable playing position. This is how it cames stock... Every single StarBass user complains about this. I know people "solve" this by using a stance with the bass on your right side and fretting hand in front, alla' Jack Cassady... I'm not into that as my constant stance, so after some thinking I decided to relocate the pin to the upper horn. Now that's a hollow horn, laminate being no thicker than 6mm, and there's nothing behind. There's no access to the interior anywhere near the horn, not even the neck pickup, as the solid center block of the body encloses the pickups. So the only access point is the f-hole. After much thinking about blocks of wood to fill the tip of the horn (mostly beyond my skills) it occurred to me that it could be filled with epoxy. First I was thinking a syringe and some tubing thru' the f-hole. Ended up doing it all thru' the pin hole. First I drilled a small hole (1.5mm bit) in the spot I wanted the pin, then "threaded" it with the pin screw and took it off... After that I masked the zone with paper tape (just in case of any accidental drip) and turned the bass around, horns pointing down . Then mixed some 2 part epoxy glue, sucked 5ml into a syringe (no needle), injected it thru' the screw hole, then screwed the pin in tightly. I let it rest upside down for half an hour (according to instructions it cures in 5-10min). I took all the masking tape off, cleaned and voilá... This is the best shot I could take of the interior (using my mobile and a tiny mirror, all thru' the upper f-hole)... The clear area in the center is the little "pool" of epoxy that formed inside the tip of the upper horn. You can also see the tip of the screw coming out a couple mm. I just did a very light test (it's cured, but reaches maximum strength past 24 hours) and "prima facie" it both solves the flipping forward issue and also helps balance, doesn't go horizontal now, tends to stay where you put it. I'll tell for sure once I get to rock it at couple hour rehearsals/gigs. I think this is the easiest, cleanest solution and probably one of the strongest. Apparently many people do this to their Epiphone Jack Cassadys, Gibson 335s and the sort.

This calls to mind one of the more disappointing gigs I saw a couple (few?) years back in one of the smaller hip venues in London. Vintage Trouble. I really enjoyed what I had seen and heard of them on YouTube and the like and was very much looking forward to seeing them live. The singer moved around a lot in the vids I had seen and it seemed I was due to watch a high octane kind of performance. What I saw was a guy who clearly thought he had been handed the baton by James Brown but without the timing or charisma. It was an out of time display of second rate gymnastics at the expense of a vocal performance where doing a hand stand (or something equally physically demanding) completely out of sync with the music seemed more important than having enough breath to actually sing. I left early.

Good Lord, really? My first decent covers band, the lead guitarist made exactly that suggestion before our first gig. We were a 5-piece, and four of us owned some or all of a PA system. I vetoed the idea flat. The very idea of relying on three other people to bring vital components and all associated leads etc., plus the grim reality of someone having to take responsibility for plugging everything together into a functional system, was more than I could accept. As a direct result, I (and for the last seven years @Silvia Bluejay and I) have brought the entire PA to every gig. We own every single piece, we know exactly how everything works, and NOBODY touches the PA at a gig except the two of us. Not everyone's idea of having a good time, but it works for us. And as a beautiful side-effect, Silvie is now a very competent sound engineer ...

Exactly! I have to admit I at the time was not a fan. But the fact he made a video to explain why/how especially for us and the way he conducted himself made me change my mind. You do not become that successful online without playing the online marketing game I now understand and Scott showed himself to be a true gent. He has my blessing (not that he needs it).

We have a Smooth Hound wireless system, which works well. UK-made, can be ordered direct for £150... Smooth Hound Innovations ...