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After moving from precision’s to jazzes about 6 years ago, I went through many to find my ideal one that sounded and felt good, I sold a few I shouldn’t have done , but last week I bought another 2014 US one, and I would say it’s definitely well up there as my perfect jazz 🙂

Here you go, before and after shots showing the stock gloss b/w/b/plate, then the single ply matt black plate fresh from Chandler. This is how they should have been from the factory imho. Very pleased. 😉

the place to make recommendations for programmes on Sky Arts, preferable before they go out on Freeview, although not vital as they're usually repeated. King Rocker is repeated next Saturday at 1.45, Trailblazers:Pub Rock, next Thursday at 2.45

This morning I had a very narrow escape, and even though the tale does not paint me in the best light I feel it's my duty to share with my fellow bass brethren in the hope that others may learn from my ignorance. I had just changed the strings on my 1974 Jazz and was idly noodling and comparing it to my 1978 Jazz, which is to a casual observer identical in pretty much every respect. My wife, who rarely takes an interest in my basses, innocently asked: "If you could only keep one of your basses, which one woud it be?" I am ashamed to say, dear reader, that for whatever reason, (late night? Mind elsewhere?), I merely took this question at face value and failed to spot that it was OBVIOUSLY A TRAP!! Had I answered straight away then of course her immediate response would have been, "Then why the f**k don't you sell the others?", and rightly so. Fortunately, and this is really only down to my being blessed with a supernatural inability to decide (or is it? Not sure), I spent so long dithering over the answer and then changing it four times, that I somehow proved the point that perhaps I do need more than one bass (I probably don't) and earned a reprieve to noodle another day. With whichever bass takes my fancy. I hope that you may learn, from this cautionary tale, to always be on your guard. Even now, hours afterward, I get cold shivers just thinking how close I came to the edge of the mineshaft. I invite my fellow Chatters to offer suggestions as to the perfect (polite) response.

Finally, my whole BB family together. L-R: 235, 300, 1200S, 1200S, 400S, 735A. Terrible pic quality, lightning conditions far from ideal.

I've had various Musicman basses over the years and always liked them but never seemed to keep them for various reasons. The first was a very early USA S.U.B with the series wiring - absolutely loved the sound but sold it on here because i couldn't quite get on with the slab body. I foolishly thought that if i got a regular Stingray later then it would sound the same. I was wrong, it seems the series wiring was providing the sound that i loved and i didn't know at the time that a regular one was different. Fortunately i know who has it and i keep an eye out for it coming up for sale again - i'll be on it like a tramp on chips and get a forearm contour done on it :-) Next was a USA Sterling in honeyburst/maple. A lovely mint bass and sounded fab but i couldn't quite get on with the neck profile. I was sort of ok with the narrow nut width but the deeper C profile was an issue at long gigs as i found my hand cramping up a bit. Sounded great though, i like aggressive sounding basses and this was the mother of them. But it had to go as i wasn't gigging with it...... Someone on here was keen to swap a USA Stingray for my Sterling and i went down this route as he was just up the road. I ended up with a really nice black/rosewood 2 band late 90's USA Ray with the best neck i have ever played in my life. Really worn in and felt like an old pair of boots every time i picked it up. A good swap imho but i traded it a few years back to try a 5 string G+L partly because it didn't quite work in my band but also it was a really nice G+L. I still miss that neck though..... At the same time as the black Stingray swap a 3 band USA Stingray popped up in Germany in my wish list colour - Autumn Sunrise Sparkle/maple. Super rare and i was a bit flush at the time so i went for it. Spent more time gazing at it than playing it though as it was too nice to risk at some of the grotty dives we were gigging at and it didn't quite have the booty that my black 2 band had. I put a John East MMSR in it which helped but i also found that the lower fretboard edge felt too new and dug into my hand a bit. As it was maple i couldn't just get it rolled which would have sorted it i think. Consequently it didn't really get played so much and i buy basses to gig them not look at them - 'Sparkles' headed off to a really nice guy in Wales 😞 And so i've been MM'less for a few years now - i have/had some lovely basses in the meantime but more recently during lockdown boredom I've been thinking that i really miss that gritty edgy sound and i was sort of thinking about grabbing something if it popped up. And it has - i snagged a Sterling SB14 yesterday locally. Got it without a test drive obviously so i took a chance on it and having changed the strings and tweaked the neck a bit to my preference I'm really pleased with it. Time will tell if its a keeper - i need a gig to know that - but early signs are good. As far as i remember it sounds as good as my old USA Sterling but the neck is more to my liking, still quite narrow but a flatter profile. And due to the switching it can do series like my old S.U.B as well as classic Stingray, happy days :-) So now i have a nice gooey warm feeling about having a (sort of) Musicman back in the house...... Here's my old USA Sterling... And here's Sparkles complete with her John East MMSR preamp and a grubby fretboard:-)

Just buy a decent professional instrument and forget about it. Its about the music, not the gear.

I suppose if you know absolutely nothing about loudspeaker design it's impressive. I would have found it so, fifty years ago. But not forty years ago, let alone today.

It's something of an adventure for us, too, John. When you start a project like this, you can never be 100% sure it will work out. Selecting and modelling components based on spec sheets is one thing, but it can prove trickier in practice. For example, sometimes the technical info supplied by the manufacturers is somewhat optimistic - or plain wrong. I recently received a high-end driver from a prestige manufacturer that had a 6dB half-octave dip in the frequency response that wasn't shown in the datasheet. My experience with Celestion has been that their spec sheets and info are accurate. But we'll see. Another unknown is matching compression drivers and horns. Some combinations simply don't work well together - sometimes even components from the same manufacturer. I chose the driver/horn combination based primarily on cost/value for money- so fingers crossed that it works out. The crossover is probably the biggest unknown. Some driver combinations can be made to work together with very simple crossover circuits, while others need more complex crossovers. As I'm aiming for a very simple crossover here, there's no room for extensive driver tailoring - so we need to start with drivers that are well behaved, which I hope these ones are. However, all will be revealed in due course.

I was the same. I had 14 basses and I dropped one off for some work and found that I was down to 13 basses, and I thought 'I'm not going to let this happen again'.

I just got this Ibanez EHB1005MS in Black. That’s one hell of a great bass. Probably one or the best I’ve ever played and I played some stupid expensive stuff. I really enjoy the feel of Neck, the light weight and the amazing Sound. The multi scale is great. It’s effortless and it just makes sense once you played one. One of my of the best B strings I’ve played.

Come On (live version) from Live In The Heart Of The City. I freely admit that some of the playing is not perfect on the recording - perhaps the notation tidies it up a little, though I've tried to be accurate! Come On live.pdf

It looks big, I'll grant that. This is the kind of Frankenstein's Monster abomination that can only come out of a marketing department with no input whatsoever from an engineer. That was a common enough scenario in the 60s and 70s, but there's no excuse for it today.

....or at least that's what Keith looks like he's been doing recently.😆

Come on Bill, it looks great! Might sound rubbish, need three of you to get it on to the stage, and give the sound man no end of nightmares, but it looks great

I came to a very similar conclusion. My bass was always sent to PA from a DI and then the engineer always tweaked my bass for the room and overall mix. It rarely sounded anything like ‘my tone’ it just did it’s job. As a result I got rid of my Aguilar rig as it was just a fancy monitor in the end and to be honest in the mix of the other stage noise and the venue we were in, it sounded no better than any other amp I have used. I might as well have been using a cheap secondhand Ashdown (not knocking Ashdown, just stating they can be picked up very cheap for what they are). The same went for basses, no one cared what my bass sounded like, as long as I played my parts in time and in tune, no one gave a monkeys whether it was a 2 grand overwater or. £250 Squier and I gigged both. Actually I got more comments about the Squier! The grand conclusion for me was that as long as the neck felt comfortable and it was reliable and made at thuddy bass sound, I’m good to go.

You all missed your chance, she's realised her mistake, it's now £1,200.00

I think he and Tom Jones are working on something together:

Sweet Talker from Live In The Heart Of The City (1980). Sweet Talker.pdf

FI chosen as best weird/other pedal of the last 20 years by the guy from Alexander pedals in this video. (Nice to see one of my factory patches getting some love in the demo too.)

Forget the concept of "The One"! Stop being so picky and focus on being a better player. I'm not saying we shouldn't buy better basses, but obsessing over a mythical creature is a waste of energy. As per the Marcus Miller post, love the "one" you're with.

And yet he always remembers there’s porn... 😂🤣 at least he has his priorities and is sticking to them 👍🏻

once again I missed this, but it's repeated next Saturday at 1.45. Maybe we need a Sky Arts thread, where people can make recommendations before they come on edit, I think I'll do that

Is this the updated Harry Potter origin story?

Nope, all women only like shoes, handbags and children and all men are terrible pigs that think all womens only like shoes, handbags and children. True fact. 👍

While I agree with you, my wife and I do fall into that cliché of me liking basses and her liking shoes. Once when yet another pair of shoes arrived I commented in jest, "How many pairs of shoes can you possibly wear with one pair of feet?" To which she replied, "How many basses can you possibly play with one pair of hands?" I don't question the shoes anymore. 😉 In reality we share the bills and buy what we want with the surplus. We trust each other to not buy something stupid and jeopardise our finances so it's all good.

Tbh I think ‘The One’ happens over time and naturally despite what you think it will be based on specs and price. The One is the bass you know inside out, have used live and in the studio, you’ve learned it so well that you can hear it in your head and know how it’ll sound every time.

In the middle of last year I made a decision to choose one of my basses to keep in my music room the the rest I sold or put into storage. This meant I spent all my time playing rather than deciding what bass to play. It did wonders for my mental health as I wasn't using my mental bandwidth for anything other than playing. I didn't feel anxious about having money tied up in expensive instruments, and I got to know my main bass intimately. My touch and dynamics improved massively. Just an idea.

Which of course is ‘I’m not sure, do you have a favourite pair of shoes or a favourite handbag?’.

I offered my genuine 1963 sqwier affinity jizz as a straight trade fingers crossed

That's a quality BB collection you have put together!

Where in Canada? If you are a hop skip from Chicago then Chicago Music Exchange used to stock them. Build quality - never doubt it - phenomenal as is the care they give to customers

My advice if you really, REALLY want do understand compression: find someone who is well-equipped with high quality compressors who can help you adjust a variety of comps tweaked to your style of playing. The best comps (regardless of price) are the ones where you have to work hard to make them sound bad. Unfortunately, it's far easier to make most garden variety compressors sound either bad or ineffective. Thus, find out from someone who digs compression exactly what the fuss is all about. Learn. Then decide if you even need it, and how much you're willing to spend on the comp that gets you what you like. Personally, my view of compression changed completely after doing some studio work, which prompted me to purchase an Emperical Labs EL8 Distressor (rackmount). Pricey, yes....but holy crap, it's a slap in the face lesson as to why "good compression" is worthy of the love affair some bassists attach to it...and I'm one. That said, I'd rather have no compression than compression that doesn't meet my personal minimum threshold of tone/dynamics enhancement. Perhaps surprisingly (or not), this can even be found in a relatively inexpensive multi-fx pedal, though dialing it in to my liking is no trivial task. On the other hand, I owned a Fractal Audio AxeFxII for many years and had the darnedest time trying to dial that thing in. Go figure. Honestly, Any bassist who concludes they don't need compression can be considered fortunate. Good Luck!

... and I've one like it waiting for me over there in Blighty..!

This is not THE video I was referring to but in it he is playing a black 1024... Still searching for THE vid.. (go to 3:08 min) Edit: Well actually it already has he reversed pickups! So it is the 1024 !!

Have you considered a future in pron?

I dont use the Autorouter function. I draw the traces „by hand „

I listen mainly to music which isn't made by session musicians, so not in a good position to suggest any. But I guess the big session musicians most of us know tend to get recognised (outside of the industry) retrospectively - after they have amassed a body of work to get recognised for.

Quick note to remind you gentlemen that shoes, handbags and, yes, children, are not the only interests women have. And we're not stupid. Just sayin'. 😉

Latest & last lol version .... all battery powered at the moment but looking for a decent psu

Yes and yes! It is in A1 condition, including OHSC with key and tools. Guy in the USA bought it originally, just home use, kept in in his loft and sold it to a dealer a couple of months ago. Been looking for nearly a year I reckon and was fortunate to find this. First beg session on it this afternoon but with just ten minutes use it has some great tone and depth low end. More later....................

The basses that I built in the past three years