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Mesa corner in the bass cave. Current bass rig till new Mesa TT800 arrives in June. Only at rehearsal until gigs start again.

Stolen bass... Today I was given some old gear from a coworker who sold his house and is abandoning his studio. Among it is a hand built precision from the Netherlands. I had never heard of the builder so I searched google and found the man's Facebook page. I noticed he had 2 mutual friends. Posted him photo's of the bass asking if it is from his hand and it was indeed. I had also posted 3 pics of it on FB, stating I was handed this bass and I did not know the brand. It did not take long for the rightful owner to recognize his custom made bass which had been stolen from his rehearsal room more then 25 years ago! He showed me pics to prove it, and some social media posts from 2017 of him searching for his lost treasure. Today, I found him his bass and soon as I noticed it is his, I rang him up and gave him my address. Tomorrow he will pick it up. That will be quite a moment for sure! Happy days.

@Daz39, ive got a few ideas brewing as i mentioned earlier in the thread, a lot of the material choices for this bass were made with the consideration of "if this experiment goes to s***, how much is this going to cost me?" and so most of the wood choices were relatively inexpensive... as such id love to have another stab using some more expensive wood options in the future, and ive got a few changes id make to the pickups and preamps next time round as well. @binky_bass, certainly not too prying, im happy to share if it helps others! The wood costs were broadly as follows: Body wood - Padauk - approx £22 Body veneer laminations + extra veneers for the neck: approx £80 (these are expensive partly because they are thick constructional veneers, and partly because they cost a lot to ship) neck laminations (veneers /oak boards / rosewood) - approx £50 Namibian rosewood block for the neck through - approx £45 other various veneers etc approx £30 macassar ebony fretboard - £40 inlays - approx £100 Flamed redwood top (imported from US, bit of a difficult one to quantify as it came with a couple others) - approx $80 for the top approx $70 for the shipping plus import tax... probably total about £100 for the rest of the parts: Bigsby b500 clone (a good one) - £35 brass parts for customisation - approx £10 Tune - o matic bridge - £21 TUSQ graphite blocks - £12 Sperzel locking machine heads - £91 assorted extra hardware (inserts, straplocks etc) - approx £30 for the electronics: 3D printed pickup covers + switches - £33 truss rod - £16 carbon fibre in the neck - £32 PCBs for pickups, bobbins, preamps - approx £50 spool of 41AWG wire - £26 electrical components (resistors, caps, pots, knobs etc) - approx £40 bits for power supply + custom cable - approx £30 there were many other assorted costs for sanpaper, fresh router bits+jigsaw blades etc, and stuff i already had like the finishing products which i can't total up here. (if id had a swear jar in the garage id be broke) so based on that math, total would be somewhere around £850-900 ish. which is frustratingly expensive really, ive built some nice basses before for less than half of that, but there just arent many cheaper ways to do some of the stuff on this one. as for time, thats a difficult one to say. i think with all of the reworks of various things id hazard a guess around 240 hours, but maybe more than that. hope that is helpful to anyone wondering like i was saying, id like to do the next one with some fancier woods/veneers... just seen this fretboard blank for sale... that sort of gets the cogs turning

I ordered one of those new Charvel PJ's last week and it arrived safely today. Upon opening it however, I was shocked to see that it was the metallic lime green version, not the blue one. The shop had clearly messed up. Well, when I say that, what I mean is I ordered the wrong one...

I just listened to an album by Frank Zappa and The Mothers. First time I've ever done so and do you know what? I don't know if I ever want to listen to anything other than Frank Zappa and The Mothers for the rest of time. Have you ever discovered the perfect band that had been right there, unsuspected, in front of you your entire life?

I fancied another Jazz bass, so headed over to Promenade Music today. I tried a number of basses in my price range, including a Marco N1 TFL, a Markbass MB JP Black Chrome and an Ex Demo, Fender American Pro Jazz. Each one of them shone, in it's own way but the bass that came home with me was a MIJ Fender Limited Traditional 61, Jazz Bass. Yes, it is a very conventional Jazz bass but when done well, that is a very good thing. I particularly liked the 4 knob (2 x dual concentric) controls, with a volume and tone for either pickup. The C profile neck is a pleasure to play and the vintage style pickups sound full and smooth, with a nice growl. The quality of build and finish are excellent and the overall, traditional feel, sound and aesthetic make this a great, passive bass.

He's been found posting in another group called Rockers Reunited looking for bands to rip off and the admin has contacted me (after seeing my post in the Tribute Club about him) to say he's been removed from it. Glad to see the word is spreading about this low life's misdemeanours.

Looks good with the pickguard removed

There's a particularly sneaky variation on this where letters from different alphabets that look similar are substituted. Take a look at the following links (but don't click on them!). https://www.basschat.co.uk https://www.bаsschat.co.uk They look the same, right? But the a's in the second one are not the Latin letter a, but the Cyrillic letter а. In many fonts they look very very similar, if not identical. If you're not using a touchscreen, moving your mouse over the second link might show you the Latin-ised URL where you'd actually end up if you clicked on it - some browsers are helpful like that, but not all. Again, please don't click on that second link! I don't know what's at the other end 😅 If an email tries to get you to urgently follow a link, don't - type in the URL yourself. (This is called an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack, if you're feeling geeky 🤓 )

Check out 200 motels, you might change your mind ! !

Had a look at the warp in the top and now understand exactly what it is and where it is - and I can put it to one side for sorting later as it may sort itself. End on - it's like this...and I'd be proud if I'd done it on purpose - it's basically the shape that @TheGreek asked me to do on his Psilos bass : This is an end-on shot looking from the tailstock towards the nut and it is the purpleheart that's doing it. It was glued under clamping, but the moisture from the glue clearly has expanded the pupleheart, the top has glued and is held by the less porous walnut, the bottom has then dried and shrunk and pulled it into a bow. The same sort of thing can happen when you are gluing veneer, but that doesn't have the strength to bend the underlying wood. Now, if I was skilled enough, I would carve the mating surface of the oak to be the same shape, because my cunning plan on reducing weight is to add a touch of this at the back - not as extreme as this (which is @Len_derby 's lightweight Swift) but more like the curve above : "And if I was skilled enough, I would carve the mating surface of the oak to be the same shape..." But I'm not Under clamping, it will flatten - but it is a huge force that I wouldn't want to be sitting in the middle of a bass over the next 20 years or so. But I will, any event, be routing out much of the purpleheart out and that will help. If it doesn't fully sort it, I can cut some stress relief slots along the length of the internal face of purpleheart that will sort is and still be fully invisible. But all of that can wait because it's onto finalising the back weight relief, control chamber, etc, etc, etc

A pleasant surprise today in that Jon sent some more photos from Shuker HQ....

I discovered FZ around 1969, and yes, that was pretty much my reaction. My entire life was a fairly low bar at that time though, I was 16 years old! At some point you might want to check out his son Dweezil's band Zappa Plays Zappa too; it features both some of Frank's longtime band members and some amazing younger players. I'd rate it as the best cover band I've ever heard live, probably. The show I saw had Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozzio, and Steve Vai onboard. Here's a cut from the Portland show I attended:

It just looks tacky.

The good news is that the mating surface of through-neck and wings are pleasingly flat And to the internal features and chambers - but to do that, I need to know, broadly at least, the external carve. And the carve to me is also an iterative process. The mathematicians amongst you will shake their heads disapprovingly and mutter, "Iterations on top of iterations...it's going to turn out like a camel..." Anyway, camel or thoroughbred, it's the only way I can work. So time to take some of the bulk away that I know needs to go before I can see what might make it look nice too... For roughing out, I ought to buy myself a proper carver's chisel, but this is what I'm starting with - including my trusty Veritas Pullshave...the one example (or maybe the ONLY example) of an impulse buy being exactly what I needed as well as what I wanted All plays havoc with the arthritis, but half an hour later: And another half-hour, a decent start-off point: Bear in mind that this body is still oversize, but just having this done helps me think where to take the back carve next. I would hate to do it CNC...there is no way I could envisage it all first!!

gig battle-scars, adds to the mojo 😎 But to be REALLY cool you need bullet holes. Drag optional...

Rob Allen Mouse.

Someone told him he had to study the bass...

I think it depends on the location... I noticed different values of this rather unknown model of the BB range in the UK and Europe.Japan even more. In Europe (esp Germany for what I can speak in this issue) a very good price would be 300-350 Euros. 400,- -450 Euros would be the usual price without case. Im not interested in cases ('cause over the years...) but very often sellers sell with a case to rise the price a few bucks. Espacially this models are usually not owned by pros or real band players as the instruments often come in a mint condition. I wonder why ... I am playing the 1000ma since it came out and it stood the test of time. It overlived even two 3000ma's because in the end the bolt on neck sounds better to my ears. I highly recommend this model. On the other hand...now that I found a good lacquer guy....don't buy them! I'll take them all! 🙂 (sorry for my English if it sounds weird, I am not a native speaker) Edit: Concerning the pickups... for me it was perfect from the start and now I can't switch back to normal! I had beautiful other BB's but the normal pickup configuration did not sound right for me every time I played them... I just love the neck pickup not to be as boomy as the regular ones. In my eyes (or ears) this is kind of an advantage in the studio or live even more. And concerning studio work... I truely can tell that no other bass has ever gotten the job when the BB1000ma was in the collection of possible basses to record with. Something to rely on ! Maybe it is not a real alrounder. Of course you can play anything you want on it but I think, it's a perfect rock bass. I guess it was planed as a rocker for a bass player of a band like Van Halen 🙂 All the follow up's of Michael Anthony are "the same bass" from a different brand.

I’m very fortunate to have maintained a reasonably robust gigging schedule during the year of the virus. I live in a part of the US that has remained more open than many other places. ive managed over 100 gigs over the past year, even with two months completely locked down. they were not high profile. Touring is still pretty much shut down, but I managed to take many small nightclub and restaurant gigs which kept a roof over my head.

I missed out on one on ebay by a few quid years ago and never saw another. I can't justify the cost of the real thing direct from Status sadly, but this popped up on Facebook marketplace yesterday, good comms with the seller, and today she's mine. Need to work through til 5 now though so can't really get hands on with it, but I'm chuffed so far!

Matt and I are discussing offline the control chamber stuff and then I'll start routing some of the lightening chambers and I have some ideas what I want to do at the back. But that purpleheart is bugging me. It will be easier if I take it off and start with some new. To remove it, I did the same as if taking off a fretboard - a hot iron and lots of patience! The patches are oil coming out of it. Stinks too. Weird when the wood to work on always seems dry as a bone. Anyway, it's off...and the walnut is pretty flat again. Just got to get some more purpleheart - I'm going to try somewhere else than DD's with their leadtimes being so long at the moment...

I like the 760FX Deep Talkin' flats on my P - they are the lightest gauge

I finished my fretless Walnut/Babinga, stereo, heavy contours build. 9.8 lbs Yes, the A string is off in the pic...fixed.

Virtually finished now just the soldering, string up, headstock logo and a set up to do...... 👍🏻

i don't like the way that neck has snapped...

I'm with them through the MU. I've used them once, when I was shunted from behind. There was no damage but their advice was useful in reporting the incident without making a claim. Can't see a catch myself, it's free and the MU would not recommend them if they were not legit.

Fuh real dude. Man, I have not listened to Burning Spear in a long time....time to hit up some youtube I would also dig some remakes. Like this one. Personally, I really like the original song even without the reggae vibes. But this reggae version just always had me wanting to dance with my lady...just puts me in a place (sorry if this was also dropped in this thread, no way I can go through the entire thread for now to see what was posted)...play this on a long drive to the beach, or at volume on a beautiful chilled Sunday morning....yesss....

Do you have a better suggestion for how we should use Tim?

Mini board for my Pbass. Engineer’s Thumb comp > OC10 > Ginger preamp > Peterson

Hello everyone my name is Gunther! I am 25 years old I am a naturalist photographer, I love to watch birds.I hope to find friends here.

I still haven't felt the need to pick up any bass except my SB-2 since I got it, just under 3 months ago. I'm still amazed by it.

As far as string tension goes: the heavier the gauge the greater the tension in the string; likewise, the longer the scale of the bass the greater the tension will be (strings will feel tighter on a 35" scale than a 34" scale) and; hex core strings feel tighter than round core strings! This was a public service announcement...

Cheers Tony it wasn't an easy decision. Hoping that being in 2 bands again might recoup some of the cost 😀 Dave

Tips: - Apostrophe/Overnight sensation - Sheik Yerbouti - Zoot Allures - Them or Us - Man from Utopia - Broadway the Hardway - Roxy and elsewhere - Tinseltown Rebellion - zappa in New York - Lumpy Gravy To name just a few....

If they have a Facebook & Twitter page post those comments, maybe harm will come their way after all.

Thanks bud. He's playing a couple of venues local to me, I'm thinking of phoning them to forewarn them. The venue owners won't want that sort of publicity for their venues. After the stress and anxiety he's caused for us, it's about time he had a dose of his own medicine. A theatre company called "Reveal Media Productions Ltd" has just announced they're working with Mick's band so I've emailed them directly with details. I got given a phone number to contact them on so I just phoned them. The lady who I spoke to said "we are aware of the situation with Mick but as no harm will come to us, we are happy to carry on working with him" then hung up the phone on me. Wow.

Went to see him in the early '80s at the Odeon Birmingham with Horace Panter (yes, that Horace Panter) and a mutual friend. He had a very youthful Steve Vai in tow. One of the best gigs I ever saw. I still have several of his albums on vinyl (including the aforementioned Zoot Allures, and Sheik Yerbouti). As I've said in another thread, I have no truck with 'Best-in-the-world...' lists. That said, I've always found it curious that Zappa so rarely appears on them. Technically as good as pretty much anyone around at the time and creatively brilliant to boot; what's not to like?

Brace yourself. It's a long and sometimes bumpy ride... You'll hear some amazing bass players on your travels, tho'. My favourite Zappa stuff is from the mid seventies to the early eighties, but there's stuff to enjoy in every era of his work. Good luck!

My current setup.

I have started on a full-size layout for this build. As per my plan, the Ceriatone Aunt Peg uses just one preamp channel but provides the choice between cathode biasing (models up to 1964) and grid biasing (1968 models onwards). I have blown up the board layout to match the 70mm width of the phenolic board. To fit both cathode bias and grid bias components I would need to split the board into two sections. The PT I have ordered doesn't have a dedicated grid bias tap, but I could use the bias supply circuit from one of the later models that runs off the full HT. Alternatively I may just stick with cathode bias - this would be the more 'vintage' option, I don't need 5 extra watts at home, there would be less to get wrong, and I could easily fit everything on a single board. I would have a few components spare but there will always be another build! I am also tweaking the circuit in other ways, for example I will have just one input socket with a 33k grid stopper and 1M grid leak resistor, and I will be using a multiple star ground scheme as advocated by Merlin Blencowe. I have the dimensions for the transformers but I don't yet know where the leads will exit, so I won't go too far with the layout until I am sure of this.

Let’s see some old banged up basses, let’s say nothing after 1990 and nothing which has been faked, just old basses which have had a hard, honest and well gigged life, and are now being loved in their old age. No closet classics for this thread! I will start with my 72 Jazz bass, she’s certainly had a hard life but she’s now getting the love she deserves now she’s nearly 50. Looks like she’s had the bridge ashtray on for most of her life as the original Olympic white is still actually quite “white” under there as it is under the pickguard, also some lovely wear on the maple fretboard. someone in her long life obviously thought that wearing a rather large and meaty belt buckle was the fashion of the time! She still plays lovely though and is fortunate to have survived to nearly 50 with no mods or alteration. Still have the original ashtrays but I don’t dress her up in her Sunday best very often! She was also lucky enough to come to me with her original case, also quite battered but still serviceable.

So they look like red silks to me?!