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Well what I've done is this: I've set in a piece of ebony into the top under the tuners to act as a visual balance. I've been looking at this propped up in the evenings the past week thinking, 'there's something missing and I'm not sure what'. Now I've done it, I know that is, indeed, what was missing: Fingers crossed that @Jus Lukin likes it too! And so, the plan for today and tomorrow is to get this to finishing stage. Tasks: - Putting in the luminlay side dots - Starting the neck carve - cutting the control chamber hatch - sanding all of the glue blobs, router burns and general lumps and bumps away ready for the first finish coats

Here's what olympic white looks like after 58 years of wear and tear 😎

Thank you all for the information, love reading through informative stuff like this! Its a good Point regarding whether the truss rod is needed andy, but the plan is to use 10mm square carbon fibre rods with an 8mm hole down the centre, which by my calculation should be stiffer than a normal hardwood neck, but not completely immobile. this way i can add some releif with the truss rod if needed, and if the neck isn't stiff enough i can add additional carbon down the centre hole (either an 8mm carbon tube or 8mm carbon round rod): with that said Hellzero, lets talk pickups. this is a reeeeally big experiemnt, but the plan is to build 2 multi coil pickups (8 individual coils, in two rows of four), with anico 5 magnets and 10,000 rounds of 42AWG wire per coil. the overall idea is to build pickups with the clarity of multi coils, but with a wide range of adjustment built in, both in terms of coil configuration (similar to Sims super quads) and adjustable coil height per string. let me explain The first part of this is the bobbins for the pickups: The bobbin itself will be made from a single 19mm x5mm alnico 5 rod magnet, with 2 fibreglass pieces making up the top and bottom (part 1 in the picture above). these are going to be 1mm fibreglass pcb with two eyelets to soldre that start and finish of the coil to. these will be wired in pairs next to eachother: and will then be attached to one another vertically using the bobbin mount (another 1mm thick fibreglass piece) with a 3.5mm hole in its centre. this hole is to accomodate a screw and a spring will be mounted under each bobbin mount, that will allow for each string pair to have their height individually adjusted, in much the same way you could with steel polepieces and a ceramic or neodymium magnet. this is probably just me over-engineering things but alnico magnets have always sounded more natural to my ear. this whole assembly of 4 pairs mounted together and wired together in series-pairs will then be mounted to a PCB baseplate, and a 3d printed pickup cover: the 4 holes on the top are where the screws that will adjust the height of the bobbin mounts will be (these will be standard m3 hex bolts), and they will screw into brass standoffs mounted to the pcb baseplate. you might also notice that these are quite wide, and that there are 4 holes on the left hand side, and a slot on the right hand side. This is to accomodate the switching mechanism for the coils. The Sims way requires an additional hole to be drilled in the bass for the 4Pdt switch that selects the coil configuration, and the pikcup mode is displayed via a 3 colour LED on the front of the pickup. my way is somewhat different. there will be a slide switch mounted into the pickup itself to change the configuration, and a small display on the upper edge of the pickup (somewhat similar to gibson's pickup ring tuner for guitars). there will be a single box LED in each of the 4 square holes, which will correspond to a letter cut in the upper edge of the pickup this allows me to: >have no extra hole for a toggle switch >have 4 different coil configurations instead of just 3 >have the configuration displayed with an illuminated letter instead of just a colour: This is what theupper edge of the pickup will look like (the red areas or the recesses for the screws) the modes are (left to right): 1) P pickup (pair 1 and pair 4) 2) Reverse P pickup (pair 2 and pair 3) 3) J pickup (pair 1 and pair 2) 4) Humbucker (all 4 pairs) Pairs 1 and 3 will be North up and Clockwise wound, and pairs 2 and 4 will be south up and counter clockwise wound, meaning that all 4 configurations will be hum cancelling Ive got my PCB's off with the manufacturer, and the pickup cover is off with the 3d printers: and ive got some more pieces for my nutty experiment cut up: Can you tell what it is yet?

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I haven't had even half the amount of basses as some of the people here -- yeah, you guys know who you are! -- but it's still taken me 3 days to cobble together a list! Hard to believe this lot spans a little over 50 years of playing music. (Thanks, Dad, for getting me started! xx). BASSES (Currently owned) [from left to right in the above photo] Westone Thunder II fretless (1981) - Purchased in 1986. Private sale, I drove to Norwich to get this one. Westone Thunder II (1982) - Purchased in 1985, sold in 1997, re-purchased c.2000 Tune SWV4-BB - got this one in 2016 from @juliusmonk (aka 'Hot Slappin' bass - Korean name). Tune TWB-6 (1991) - High end original Japanese Tune 6-string, purchased in 1997 from The Bass Centre, Wapping. Music Man Stingray 5 (1989) - "Still the one!" Bought privately in 1998 and has seen much action! Music Man Stingray fretless (2001) - It's a 'Ray, it's fretless, 'nuff said! Fender Jazz USA Std. (1998) - I've almost sold this a couple of times but keep changing my mind! I do like it so guess I'll keep it after all. Unless I change my mind! Tokai Jazz Sound fretless (c.1981-2?) - this was originally fretted and I had it converted to fretless. Sadly, there's a fault with the truss rod but it still plays well. Strung with extra light Elites (30-90). Also had slightly wonky E and A tuners so finally replaced all four in 2011 with another set of Tokai tuners bought from @Fitzy73. Not in the above photo: Dean Pace EUB - had this on long-term loan from me good mate @mangotango -- finally decided to go ahead and buy it (I'll pay you the balance soon, Steve. Honest, guv!). And don't get me started on the guitars...! BASSES (Previously owned) (in roughly chronological order) Top Twenty bass (1967/68?) - This was the first bass I ever played, loaned to me in 1969 (I was 15) to see if I wanted to change from guitar to bass as the band I was in comprised of three guitarists and a drummer and someone needed to swap. I've never looked back! (But I've never stopped playing guitar either). Hayman 4040 bass (1972) - my first decent bass bought from Music City, London W1. Rickenbacker 4001s (1973) - The one I'd dearly love to have back again. Bought new in 1974 from Music City, London. Sold in 1981. Doh! Gibson EB-2 (year unknown, purchased 1973) - Originally a classic tobacco burst, in 1974 I took it to ROKA's after they moved from Denmark St into the new Fender Soundhouse, London (Tot. Ct. Rd). The bass needed a re-fret but while it was there I got them to completely refinish it in natural blonde with black binding. Ned Callan Cody fretless bass - Year unknown (early 70's), purchased 1974 from Rose-Morris, London, later had it converted to fretless and also had a DiMarzio DMZ-1 pup added. Eko BA4 fretless acoustic bass guitar - purchased in 1978 from Paul Beucher music shop in Paris (so that I could go busking in the Metro). Kramer 450B (c.1980) - bought this in the early 80's, had it for a year or so but found it lacked 'balls' so moved it on. Chandler custom PJ bass (1980s) - PJ hybrid purchased 1984 from the Chandler shop in west London. P/X'ed in 1985 (Monkey Business, Romford) for the Westone Thunder II. Westone Thunder Jet (mid-80s) - owned for about 5 minutes before taking it back to the shop to exchange for the 1A. Westone Thunder 1A fretless (mid-80s) Yamaha RBX200F fretless (mid-80s) - Bought this in 1990 from East London Group Gear, London E12. 'David Kelly' Fender Jazz fretless copy (Jaco tribute) (2004-5?) - UK-built copy, nice instrument though pups could have done with upgrading. 'David Kelly' Fender Jazz copy (2004-5?) - Shoreline Gold finish, maple neck Aria AMB-50B (4-string acoustic bass guitar) - bought this fretted bass a few years ago (2010?) but eventually sold it to go for a fretless acoustic at some point. (left to right: 1972 with Hayman 4040; 1974 with Rick 4001; 1978 with Eko BA4 busking in Paris).

Having a moment. I sit and think what 20 years means. Means a lot, cannot believe how much has changed.

Here's my Olympic White Jazz - Looks that colour in most lights so I'd say it's cream. @lou24d53 I've just changed my pickguard from black to tort and I'd say it's an improvement.

The base of this is really very simple and always has been. This is a respiratory virus basically spread by breathing in viral particles that someone else has breathed out. It isn't safe to breathe in the air someone else has already shared. Of course washing hands and surfaces makes sense but you can't 'clean' the air. The public have been misled by politicians spreading the concept of Covid secure areas. Going into an enclosed space with an infected person is how we spread the disease however otherwise clean the area is. You can't have a pissing area in the corner of a swimming pool or a smoking corner of a crowded pub without sharing something unpleasant. Outdoors the air dilutes smells and viruses fairly quickly and the evidence is that there is little transmission. It has never been Covid safe to be indoors with other people and the more people and the smaller the space the more dangerous it is. The most dangerous thing is to be with young people who are more likely to be asymptomatically infectious. Your risk of spreading the disease increases logarythmically with the number of contacts you have. Schools, hospitality/mass indoor entertainment, shopping, public transport and indoor work are the biggest spreaders and you can't make them totally safe. The other myth is that disease is mainly spread at home, you can only spread disease at home if someone takes it home, these things aren't independent events. Our government policy of trying to keep the economy going by managing an 'acceptable' death rate has failed as it always would have and has merely prolonged the emergency and led to an increased death rate. to be fair most of the 'Western' countries have followed the same policies with similar results. Eastern and Australasian countries have made different decisions with better outcomes. It finally seems that with hospitals on their knees and death rates soaring that governments in Europe including our own are starting to 'get' it. Our media, democracy and our personal levels of education have let us down and collectively we have failed to show the political will to deal with this. All we can do now is to keep restrictions in place and monitor the infection rates as we gradually relax them. If we keep the infection rate below one then the disease will have a halving time, the better we behave and the tighter the restrictions the sooner we will be free of this thing. The economy and any mental health issues aren't helped by prolonging this or increasing the death toll.

Our drummer renamed my Olympic White Precisions as Cheesecake White.

My "other" band Hurtsfall have a new single out, available to stream and download from all the usual places plus Bandcamp and an animated video to go with it: In true post-punk style, the instrumental solo is provided by a Burns Barracuda Bass VI.

In further news, the grub screw was actually stuck on the magnetic tip of the screwdriver. There is a reason I usually ask other people to do this stuff for me.

Yeah but with rosewood door frames and a tort carpet it would've looked epic. 😄

Call yourself a bassist?? 30 years in you should have owned at least a million basses, 15 cats, had your own bee hive and taken a bus to Belgium to meet @Hellzero

I’ve been playing for just under 30 years, and have had less than 10 basses. I still have 3 of them!

I think part of it, and I do partly subscribe to this thinking although I play all of mine, is that some of these old guitars look really good cool just hanging on the wall. People will happily pay good money for a painting to hang on the wall because they like it so why should a guitar be any different? Some of those Soviet guitars are very cool and I love the look of an aged white Jedson Tele. As a usable instrument they might be rubbish but as a cool object they're worth money. Old broken farm machinery or cast iron mangles, sewing machine tables etc as functioning items are totally worthless but as interior/exterior design objects have a good value. In general, folks from the era of these guitars have disposible income and if it makes them happy then why not? If they're buying them at inflated prices to play then that's a different story though.

If only we were an island.

And it worked pretty well, but only because they also had a test and trace that was run by people who were qualified to do it, rather than someones hunting buddy Without getting into your WHO sycophants conspiracy theory, by the time people suggested stopping flights from China, the virus was already everywhere.

Btw I did another demo of this last weekend. Sounds pretty good to me, save the crap playing!

So... my build has suffered from the lockdowns - home schooling quite rightly taking precedence over bass making. Not a problem for me, I'm far from impatient. I gave Stu at Impure Guitars full discretion once we'd agreed on a shape and a thematic idea. I don't believe in commissioning an artist and then telling him how to paint (as it were), so I've left him to get on with it. My only stipulation was he had to be happy with the result. The finish was applied but it just didn't float his boat like he'd hoped it might. So he stripped it and started again, going this time for a nitro seafoam green, and it's perfect 👌. In the interim he stripped some bakelite from an old radio and polished it up for the pickguard. The pics are a bit shaky but give a pretty good idea of where we're heading. Waiting on the dual concentric pot and a whatever else has to happen paint wise, then it all comes together.

It's just another stealth tax by the couriers. You've paid for the international delivery already... To be honest, the whole courier game needs a shake up. I mean, having to take out extra insurance at your expense to safeguard your goods whilst in their care is just a nonsense. For instance, you wouldn't take your car to a mechanics and get a price for an oil change, and a price for an oil change and insurance incase they accidentally take out your windscreen. It's absolutely bonkers.

I heard they had to change the name when it first came out, but I don't remember its previous name. This review by Merton is gold. I love mine (I sold the Tone Hammer and I kept this). The EQ is really powerful. If the Valve Drive could be more subtle it would be awesome. I think it's too aggressive and you have to play with the input and get used to it. But IMO, it's one of the best preamp pedals out there. And at that price...

Just need someone else to offer a different tone to the endless Darkglass players now..... lol! Those pedals, imho, are the reason so many prog/tech metal bassist have the same tone... no matter what bass they play!

You're No Good - Linda Rondstadt

I think we'll be lucky to see any meaningful gigs before May next year, let alone this year. I can't see how this year is going to be anything other than another write off. By the time enough people have been vaccinated to make any difference, (if even enough people take up the vaccine to begin with) it's going to be towards the end of the year. Then I can see a slow and tentative rollout early into next year. With a couple of false starts as figures peak a couple of times as things initially start to open up again. I hate to be a naysayer, but I honestly don't see any outcome other than this. I guess time will tell.

Although not particularly easy, I find playing along with this whole album (either bass or guitar) akin to a full on workout. It will first and foremost teach you the importance of rhythm and discipline to funk. It will also tighten your timing and feel unbelievably, as well as giving you the strength of a gorilla in both left and right hands and arms - a must for keeping that focus on the 1 for prolonged periods 🔥🔥

The Time Is Right For Love from the 1978 album Trouble. Don't think I can play that fast these days! (150 bpm). The Time Is Right For love.pdf

Duke tour was last time i saw Genesis. Saw them in Edinburgh then Glasgow where i met Phil Collins who bought our lunch. Happy days. He was such a nice guy and very down to earth. I have a huge respect for him. Dave

I’ve just shown this to my dad. He thought I was being funny this morning, when I told him he couldn’t go with my brother in his car to collect a prescription. My dad had his first vaccination a fortnight ago, we have to keep reminding him that nothing has really changed.

Any of these: 12AX7 - gain of 100 12AT7 - gain of 60 12AU7 - gain of 20 because they’re preamp valves they don’t need biasing, and can literally be unplugged from their socket and replaced; they only fit in one way, so knock yourself out!

This has been a nice Friday afternoon distraction when I should have been working! My list is rather modest, but here it is (green still own, red no longer own): Aslin Dane Jazz Bass - my first bass, bloody heavy solid ash body, though it was crap when I was young, set it up earlier this year and it's not bad at all, but Jazz basses aren't my thing Epiphone EB3 - Played my first gig with this in a pub in Stroud when I was 15/16, got told I played Walk on the Wild side like the guy heard it live. Silly and neck heavy Hohner Arbor P Bass - I wanted a P style bass and this came up on eBay as a birth year bass, currently set up in drop C. Apparently P basses aren't my thing either... Fender Mustang 1976 - I bought this in terrible condition off eBay for about £500. It had a horrible black finish over the original sunburst and I refinished it in rattlecan nitro and racing stripes. My first actual bass love. Toured Japan and the UK with it and recently had it refretted. Never going anywhere! Squier Jaguar SS - Bought as a backup to the Mustang and I made a new pickguard to fit a mustang pickup in. Went on tour too, but not used. Currently storing for any children if my wife and I are lucky enough to have any Sterling by Music Man Ray 5 - Bought this to join a hip hop band, it was really solid, but I moved it on after the latest acquisition Homemade 5 string - Still a work in progress and a labour of love. Never seems to be enough time to finish it! Only started it in 2012... Dingwall Combustion 5 - Love this thing. It was an enagement present from my wife. Sounds huge! Perhaps given my track record with making basses, I also shouldn't have a neck and body blank in the loft waiting to be made into something! 🤣

Unless it was an Ibanez guitar with a Gibson style 'open book' headstock then it's not a lawsuit guitar, and there was never a lawsuit anyway as it was settled out of court. Everything else is marketing hype.

My first bass was a short scale Jedson tele stye thing that I paid about £40 for in 1984. If I could have bought any other bass, I would have, but it was all that was available in my remote corner of Ireland. It was bad- so bad that when I eventually replaced it with a Marlin Swidewinder, it was a significant improvement. Those Jedson basses regularly go for £300 plus on ebay and gawd knows how much more on Reverb. Utterly bonkers. You could spend a third of that on a new Harley Benton and get a bass that was three times better.

The IoM is a special case. they shut the borders very early on, you can't go to the island unless you are a resident, and even then you have to quarantine, and if you don't it's not a £200 fine, you go to jail. A mate of mine lives over there and until recently they've had very few restrictions since the first UK lockdown - he's been gigging all year, pubs are open, etc. Then the kids came home from Uni for Christmas and they've been on lockdown since then because covid came back, but it should be lifted in the next couple of weeks, and is being relaxed a little from this weekend. They recognised that the tourism industry would be decimated by closing the borders, but they have a low tax rate and a maximum amount of tax that anybody has to pay because they simply don't need more money to run the island! So they have been able to be very generous in supporting businesses that have been affected, which will have given the TT organisers confidence that they can afford to make a longer term decision because the financial impact is much more limited than for festival organisers on the mainland

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This!

It’s fascinating isn’t it? 15 years ago I’d pay £500 for a precision and break it down for parts. Never had a decent one of that vintage.

Wow - those James Brown tracks - just spent a happy couple of hours playing along to a pile of old stuff I haven't blown the dust off for a good while. P-Belly Evans is right - a great bass workout, and enormous fun to play. And apparently any key you like, as long as it's D Not quite sure I feel like a Sex Machine yet, but there's still time...........

I think I'm going to sit on the idea for a week or so, and if it still feels like a good idea then I'll go ahead and order something. At the moment I'm havering between the Ignition Club, which I'd order from somewhere in the UK, or the Ignition Violin Cavern model, which Thomann have at a very good price even after VAT/fees. I have a slight preference for the Club body shape, but listening to people play them on YouTube, it seems like the Cavern pickup spacing might have some more useful sounds with that middle pickup, and it looks like a good location for a thumb rest too.

Originally (erm...) it was called the Origin, but that was a bit too close for comfort with another brand, so they added the "al" on the end. Not sure if PMT have just given it a weird name, as far as I'm aware it's the just OriginAL valve pre-DI still.

I have lots of faith in UPS and Parcelforce - I know that others don't...

If he doesn't, then pop a B string on it and I'll take it off you. Swap for two packs of jaffa cakes?

Another overdrive with a transformator (test setup):

The body is all glued up and ready to trim rout the bottom using the top as the template....... 👍🏻