Leaderboard

Just bought a HDN210 to stack with my HDN410. I can hear things much better now. And it looks way cooler! The OCD got the better of me and I had to move the Bergantino logo and rotate 90 degrees 😆

As standard my instruments come with my "Aero" fret end treatment. Here you can see the difference between that and a more traditional fret end treatment. All instruments also come as standard with Luminlay side fret marker dots. In the other picture you can see early trials of photo-luminescent materials ranging from Luminlay rod, through to mixing photoluminescent powders into CA and Epoxy. When my old band The Nile Deltas opened on it's EP launch in 2018, we were waiting for the compare to finish his introductions and then all the stage lights were killed. EVERYONE on stage was caught out and the drummer started a 4 count. You could smell the adrenalin as the lights stayed off! I thought I was dead in the water too as my hands had been off my bass when the lights were killed. I looked down at where I thought my bass neck should be and there they were 10 beautiful blue sentinels! All I'm saying is that the drummer and I nailed the start! 😉

The finish prep has gone well. It's a bit like decorating where all the preparation takes for ever and then the final painting goes pretty quickly. Anyway, the first of the final finish coats is on. I'll do a couple more before I take a shot or two to show how it's starting to turn out. So maybe a couple of photos tomorrow but certainly by Sunday. For the finished finish look, I need to double check with @Jus Lukin to what he prefers (eg degree of satin or gloss) but, the way I go about it, these latter stages I'm doing at the moment are common to all of my natural wood finishes.

I have an old old ABM in the corner, and a shiney new ABM600 Evo IV, and the knob looks pretty similar to me.

https://guitar.com/news/billy-cardigan-my-daddy-has-100-pedals/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=billy-cardigan-my-daddy-has-100-pedals&amp

After many years of chasing, I've managed to buy a Fender Jazz Plus. It has been an itch I've wanted to scratch for 30 years. I love the concept - slightly downsized body, slim neck, Lace Sensors and a Kubicki 9v preamp from a time when Fender still tried new things. It's been a long, long time since I saw a black and maple one which hadn't been modded in some way so I felt now was the time. This one is a 93 from sunny Italy. Now, the waiting game while it tries to survive the courier lottery.

Following a nerve-wracking experience trying to keep an eye on an extremely-expensive-to-replace bass in a packed London venue on a multi-band night, I did two things; made sure my basses are fully insured (easier now I’m down to three) and also had myself a far, far cheaper ‘replica’ (it doesn’t actually sound that much like, but that’s another story) of my favourite bass made for those few gigs where I really would sweat, e.g. festivals where we have to stay over (remember them?). 99% of the time I’m happy to use any of my basses live though; that’s what I bought them for, although I’ll admit my absolute favourite stays home a bit more than the others.

Thanks so much guys... please do not uncross those appendages haha the next step in the marquetry laminations is to add the namibian rosewood triangles i cut earlier to fill in the gaps. at this stage the pattern is 7 repetitions long, and much the same as the rope pieces these triangles are cut and sanded one at a time to ensure they fit as closely as possible. at this stage the edges dont have to be 100% perfect, as they will be planed flat and a veneer strip will run either side of the pattern, but the closer the better as it will require less faffing later on: ("T" stands for top, the number tells me which fits in which gap and the arrow tells me which edge should lie closest to flush) i found it easier to line them up this way, and although they arent perfect, once theyre cut flush it should all look pretty tidy: with one edge cut off you can see that for the most part the gaps aren't too bad. this piece is still pretty much bang on 50mm deep, so the plan is to cut it into 4 slices and lay them end to end, filling in the missing triangles as i go. colour wise im very happy, the contrast between the different woods is good, but its not over the top. all in this experiment is going pretty well! meanwhile in pickup land... the magnet of each bobbin is wrapped in masking tape, which is then sealed with another bead of liquid CA glue at the top and bottom. these are then ready for winding. my home-made winder has a maximum speed of 1000RPM, which on a normal pickup bobbin would probably be uncomfortably fast and produce a LOT of vibrations. with these individual bobbins though, it seems like 900ish RPM is just fine... if a little noisy. process wise it couldn't be simpler. tie the 42AWG copper wire 5 or so times round the eyelet marked "S" (for start), stick the bobbin to the winder with some double sided tape, check the winding direction (clockwise for north up, and counter-clockwise for south up) and let rip! 900RPM, with 10000 winds per coil... means about 11 minutes of winding per coil. then just cut the wire, tie it off at the eyelet marked "F" (for finish) and voila: one bobbin, nice and tidy! one down and 15 more to go... this should keep me busy for a couple of evenings. i used a soldering iron to melt off some of the insulation around the eyelets and tested the DC reesistance. one coil is pretty much 1.6k ohms. a little less than expected but that means a bit over 6k for each single coil mode. should be about right when matched up to the preamps, and give a nice natural sound. one thing a lot of multi coil pickup makers do (i am told) is use a heavier (41AWG) wire, which gives the pickups more upper mid-treble clarity (or so i am told), so that will definately be an experiment for MKII even more excitingly... check these out!! pickup covers! boy am i happy with these. they are printed out of a high strength nylon, which is then Vibro-Polished for a smooth finish. the website describes the freshly printed finish as similar to an extra strong mint, and the vibro polished finish as similar to a soft mint, and theyre about right. nice and smooth and a very consistent colour. and these things are hard as nails. the thin strips that divide the coils are 1mm thick, and they are noticeably stronger than injection moulded plastic. you can see in the picture on the left the switch tips in place. these lie flush eith the top of the pickup for a cleaner look (they wont actually be right up against the end of the slot like in these photos), and should allow the pickup modes to be switched easily whilst staying well out of the way. the plan is to colour in the little MH logo gold, and have gold mounting screws and 4 gold coil height screws in the middle as well, which i think will look great Also, the pots are now soldered onto the preamp: the Blue one is the frequency sweep, and the green one is the resonance. you can probably see the green one is actually a push-push clicky swtich as well, which will allow for a higher (16+DB) boost at the resnonant frequency when in 4th order mode. the reason for this is that the height of the resonant peak naturally changes when the preamp is switched from 2nd to 4th order mode, and this switch will allow the user to choose whether they should be even at the bottom of the resonant sweep, or at the top. not always totally useful, i know, but certainly useful in a prototype to work out the correct component values, and keep variables the same when testing for different sounds. This is the second one underway as well. i ran short on a couple of resistor values so had to buy some more, which were green (hence the different resistor colours), but still 1% metal foil. the one resistor between the two IC sockets is a bloody tight squeeze. just the box capacitors to go on, and then i can mount one in a pedal to test with a couple of different basses which i am really looking forward to!

P basses are great, I think I have 15 🤪 All the same but different. Love them all!

Absolutely. The Terrortones made enough money from PRS royalties (live and radio play) to pay for the bulk of our recording costs for 3 EPs and an album.

Maybe you should put another one under the strap, just in case. 🤣

I basically use three methods, depending on the part I want and the time I have to do it in. The easiest, and quickest, most of the time, is to play what I want on my electronic kit, directly into the DAW. One needs a MIDI-compatible kit for this, and to be able to drum. The second method, for the simpler stuff, is to use a keyboard (I have several, but for 'quick'n'dirty', a tiny M-Audio Keystation Mini32 does the job, on my lap. I tap out the pattern I want, in real time, and go back over it to add stuff I couldn't do, such as a hi-hat. The best way, in my opinion, is to use the piano roll, and 'draw' the patterns individually. Often enough, I'll do a 'real-time' keyboard base, for the bass drum and snare fundamentals, then go into the piano roll and add ghost notes, hi-hat lifts, whatever... The piano roll addresses all the kit, all at once, but the output can be spread out to many tracks, one for each element of the kit, if the Vst has a 'multi-track' option. I can use one MIDI chanel for all, or split into many MIDI channels if I wish I have several drum Vst's, and usually 'default' to Superior Drummer 3, but use this same technique for just about all of them. I'd make exception for M-Drummer, which has a different way of working at its core, whereby it'll compose darned good rhythms on its own, so I usually just let it rip (for jazzier-style stuff; it does that quickly and easily, with a result that pleases me...). For myself, I see no need to do anything of the sort in the drum Vst, as I'd have to learn so many different ways of composing and editing. Doing it all in the DAW gives me just one method to use, and Reaper has all the editing functions I need (cut/copy/paste, edit velocities, quantising or 'humanising' and more...). I also have the option, using the DAW, to have as many tracks, mixing as many kits or percussion elements as I wish, with individual control over the elements. Using 32-track output, for instance, I can add a slap-back delay to the snare alone, or a subtle phaser effect to the cymbals. I can add a track to have orchestral drums, for adding tympani, and ethnic drums for Japanese Taiko-style, or a Middle-Eastern Darbuka. I'm pretty much allergic to Djembes, however (I've attended too many festivals where they featured boisterously..!). If you've any better system, please share; I'm always willing to improve and learn stuff. Hope this helps.

I have a feeling that Mrs 1515 has kind of given up and is just resigned to sawdust everywhere.

It looks like you've transferred the bow to the dining table. Mrs 1515 will be displeased.

OK - so far so good. I took off the clamps and the bow has reduced considerably: This is around 1mm at the centre - yesterday it was over 5mm. I'm going to leave it 24 hours at room temperature and then check it again to see if there is a tendency for it to bow more. If so, then I think it will need a couple of carbon rods either side of the rod. But if it holds this set, then I think that is something that the new rod alone would be able to manage - it takes no effort to close the above gap to flat. In the meantime, I will order the replacement truss rod. The 6mm wide slot would suit a modern two-way rod just fine - although the bottom of the slot, curved to use with a single action rod, will need to be packed to give it a reasonably even depth. That said, because they work in a different way, I think a modern rod would put less stress on the neck (and the rod).

TBH £200 does seem a bit steep, but I suppose it reflects the number of people who would like to join, but in reality have very little prospect of generating enough performance royalties to make the administration of their membership cost effective. I was lucky enough to join some 40 years ago when it there was no joining fee, but you had to show that you had performance royalty generating works to register. My band had just had two tracks released on a compilation EP and had picked up airplay on Radio 1 so we qualified. Also back then in order to be able to register your works the main musical themes and lyrics had to be scored out on official PRS manuscript sheets. Not an easy task when your knowledge of written music was sketchy at best. IIRC it took me 2-3 days of work to score the important musical parts for each of the songs I wanted to register.

I just plug my tv into my hi fi. I also bought a bluetooth sound converter, for not much money, which also allows me to send the signal from my laptop, or phone, to my hi fi too. I feel the average hi fi is cheaper and more versatile than your average tv sound box.

A locking mechanism that prevents volume being increased above sound check values on instrument, amplifier and pedals. Fitted to guitarist and operated by bass player.

To get the fretboard off, I am going to use four things: a travel iron; a single-edged razor blade; a very thin steel sheet; a LOT of patience! It can take approaching a couple of hours because, in order to avoid damaging the fretboard or neck jointing surfaces, you have to get the glue REALLY hot so it properly melts - and some glues melt more easily than others. So the iron is on hot and took around 20 minutes just sitting on this area... : ...until I could get a razor cleanly between the two parts: This first stage takes the longest. I need to ensure that the blade will go in through the whole area before I can then insert my steel sheet and move the iron on a few inches. I use the steel sheet to stop the still soft glue from simply regluing behind me as I move slowly along: Then it really is just a case of inching everything a few mm at a time along. Rushing can easily end in tears But eventually, here it is. Fretboard off and both faces and all four edges undamaged: Next is removal of the packing strip to be able to remove the truss rod: The neck is most definitely bowed - around 5mm at the centre - and the trick of just bending it back is probably just not going to be sufficient. I'm thinking maybe a couple of carbon rods either side of the replacement truss rod, but we'll see. However, the less our solution is fighting against the wood the better. So I cleaned the glue off the top face of the neck and thoroughly soaked this side: This is make this face expand and therefore temporarily start straightening the neck. But I need to make that a more permanent effect. So, with either end packed a couple of mm to add a teeny amount of back bow, it is now clamped firmly to the bench and will stay there at least overnight until it is dry. Then it will be at least flat enough to assess whether it needs more than just a replacement trussrod...

INCOMING! #stoked #madeinusa

Back off dude I falsified mine first 😀

Receive today and fitted to EHB1506MS. Definitely an improvement in look and feel.

I'll Nick @TheGreeks line... ....you are a tease 🤭

The underlying problem is that the amount of confusion, ambiguity and doubt makes a transatlantic purchase too annoying to complete, for me at least. Too many things in flux, too much scope for nasty surprises for reasons beyond one's control. Life's too short. A lot of this will probably settle down, but in the meantime it does discourage international custom. I have suspended all purchases from the UK for the time being. I'm buying German and Italian instead. I feel sorry for British businesses trying to deal with all this, and for anyone trying to execute ostensibly straightforward transactions. I would buy British, but I'm neither a charity nor a masochist.

Yes - and what could possibly go wrong there! But yes, I'm inclined to agree.

Puff the Magic Dragon - Peter, Paul & Mary

Superb work, look forward to hearing this beauty 👌🏼👍🏼

We still use the standard set by Henry VII on our side of the pond, whilst you've adopted that Napoleonic piffle. Makes one wonder who actually won at Waterloo. 🙄

I’ve been using EZDrummer since it came out and last month looked at updating my plugin to EZDrummer 2. I downloaded the demo and had a quick play, but it just didn’t seem like there was much to gain, apart from access to newer libraries, f anything, it slowed me down as it had loads of new features that I’ll probably never use!

Brilliant pics and how to - as usual 😉 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👍🏼

I only used EZ Drummer briefly but from what I remember of the tutorials they were really pushing using the VST interface, I seem to remember a slogan claiming that "you'll never need to use the piano roll again", which for me is not a selling point. I eventually settled on Superior Drummer 2 (also toontrack) which is exclusively focussed on the sounds. Like Douglas, I program parts in manually (keyboard/mouse) directly into the piano roll. This is just the most intuitive for me and lets me program very complex parts that I'd have no chance playing in on the midi controller. Like Douglas, I try to do eveything at DAW level and am very skeptical of VSTs that try to shackle you into them for basic functionallity. I'm not sure what you looked at before settling on EZDrummer but Addictive might be worth a look - it doesn't have the flexibility or sound library of Superior Drummer but it has loads of very useable presets that make it very easy to get going.

1977 when the BB range launched. They had a direct copy of a P bass called a PB400 in previous years...

Yeah, by somebody else's hands too 😁

No I used to do that when the washers came from beer bottle tops but using ring pulls, you end up with a picture like @marleaux62 😎

it's arrived!!!

You're fine. its pixelation from a low resolution picture. you just need a better camera. 📸

Adamantium. But only if you play a cover of Prince Charming.

Speaker size alone doesn't indicate what a cab is capable of. GR Aero doesn't publish the technical data which does tell one what any cab is capable of, so the only way to know for sure how these cabs compare is to take the time to try them, side by side. That said, all else being equal a 1x12 will usually outperform a 2x8. The problem is that all else is never equal.

IIRC Many of the smaller radio stations are sampled on a periodic basis (one day a week or a month) rather than every single song that they play. Wanting the codes embedded is more for their convenience so they don't have to manually log the songs.

Still just cheap shots that would not have made a thread if it featured a worse band with no women displayed like that. Some people here are showing their true character and it's pretty disappointing.

I always leave feedback, and apart from a few, feedback has always been left for me, I think it’s an important part of the basschat marketplace, if I’m going to spend a lot of money on something it’s nice to see other people’s experiences , and you can deal with confidence 🙂

The reason Mark mentioned I had a smile on my face whilst testing his bass, was this: I also have one of Darren Snow's original Aria SB-1000 in the workshop at the moment so I was able to compare the two side by side. In Mark's case I have moved the pickup to a slightly different position than the original Aria. The main reason for this is due to the 32" scale length on Marks Zoot ZB-1000. I always work out the pup position from a quick bit of maths and where the closest anti-node would be to the position I'm looking at. If anyone has been to my workshop they would have noticed a one string bass I made myself with a sliding top nut to help work out precise positions of pickups given any scale length, so with a little bit of maths and a one string bass and you can pretty much nail the perfect pup positions for any scale length. Anyway, back to the smiles, If you consider that Veijo Rautia wired the pickup for me to have four core wires, I was able to add a 3 way mini toggle switch that give the pickup series/split coil/parallel Thus, if you think about it you end up with 18 basic tones when using this 3 way pickup switch with the 6 way "varitone", way more than the original Aria bass. Basically with the Veijo Rautia pickup and the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp plus the 3 way pickup switch, this bass is a killer in the tone department. (who needs two pickups?) In all honesty there were some sounds in this bass that truly astonished me considering it's simplicity, and yes, it knocked the original out of the park (no disrespects to the original, because in it's day it was a champion of basses and still is really). Gear used for testing: Little Mark 250 head set dead flat, Purple-chili 1 X12" non tweeter cab, Marks Zoot ZB-1000 and Darren's original Aria SB-1000. Regards, Mike.