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I thought the whole point of brexit was to leave eurovision. The people voted leave. Out means out. It's the will of the people. No deal is better than a euro pop deal etc etc. Let's be honest, Britain could dig up Lennon and Harrison, bring them back to life and they could write the best ever Beatles song and Britain would still come last.

All the Moog iOS apps are free today in celebration of Bob Moog’s birthday. The Model D is a brilliant app recreation of the Minimoog. You can also pick up the usually pretty expensive Model 15 modular app. https://apps.apple.com/us/developer/moog-music-inc/id396776421

My Reverend Dub King. Sounds like it looks. A great deep tone for dubsters, acoustic or light rock! The previous owner put the pup covers on it.

personally I wouldn't bother going custom for something based on a classic "off-the-peg" design like a J-bass. There are already a multitude of manufactures all doing their own take on this instrument, so unless you have very precise and specialised needs, there really ought to be something already available that will be perfect for you. I'd suggest a trip to one of the big mainstream retailers to try every J-type bass in the store, followed by outings to both Bass Direct and The Gallery to do the same. If you really can't find a ready made bass that suits you, then at least you will have a much better idea of what you want from a custom instrument.

Hanging up to dry. I've now applied the sealer coats and the first white base coat.

'No Quarter' for me - favourite Zep tune by a country mile.

This is one of those ideal small jobs for 'in between the bigger stuff' jobs. Well, mainly I say 'mainly' because I ended up spending most of this morning getting the finish off the fretboard!! Yes, you live and learn! Most builders will tell you that stripping finish off a modern bass body can be a nightmare - but necks and fretboards are straightforward. That's because, on a body, many modern makers put a viciously hard undercoat under their poly finishes and you would go mad if you tried to sand it off. Generally industrial-grade heat guns are the only way! On the other hand, necks are always lightly finished and hand sanding is a breeze. And even more so for fretboards where generally they are not finished in the first place. Or so I thought before today... Because Yamaha clearly don't play to the same rules. This fretboard had the viciously hard undercoat - and you can't risk dig-ins and burns on a fretboard from the fairly brutal heatgun and decorators scraper approach, so it has to be basically sanded. One hour in: One and a half hours in, realised it was going to need some help with the help of a razor used like a scraper: Two hours in...there's some wood showing! (but only at the edges so far) : Two and three quarter hours later - we're down to wood : And a quick damp cloth check to make sure that there's no residual in there: So that's the easy bit done, then

Picked up this Thunder 1A a couple of months ago from @geoff90guitar . Could see it was fundamentally a solid instrument that just needed a bit of fettling. Had a neck shim in which wasn’t actually needed so that came out, & there was a stuck solid pick up screw that my local guitar shop (Kempsters) sorted for me. Other than that, just a load of elbow grease on all parts. It’s 39 years old with some just right minimal mojo - very pleased with the end result! 🙂

A , P bass with flats is heaven, I played one for years then switched to jazzes, but I like both, if you haven’t tried one @bubinga5, I’d recommend trying one with flats and one with rounds, they do sound different, you might not like either but it’s nice to try different basses 🙂

Is there such a thing as an obscure Led Zep track??

Nice, I had one from this era with the comp stripe. Lovely basses.

This Young Chap used to be on here occasionally

My first time looking through and listening to submissions. I'm impressed by what you guys get up to! I've dabbled with more traditional composition - nothing serious. I need to give some thought to having a go over the coming months.

Everything I love about them. Like an early Toyota Landcruiser. Does what it was built to do, no pretensions or BS and won’t let you down.

A lot of them are very small outfits and put most of their resources into making instruments. I think it’s worth a call before writing them off completely.

IMO DS were vilified in the 90s mainly because they were so huge (and to be fair, they got a little bloated). But really they were a hell of a band.

Yeah, we’d talked about darkening it, but it looks great as it is.

Mark Knophler did the soundtrack to "Princess Bride" One of my most favourite movies EVER and a beautiful soundtrack to boot.

Not a huge amount done today but I managed to get an hour and a bit in, trimmed the fret board down to profile and got the frets in, thinner fret profiles than usual to help with the spaces between frets on this 30" scale, no headaches should be able to get the other wing glued on soon!

😁 Just a little sideline of mine..... As I have all the equipment and the know-how, I help speaker builders out by custom winding hard-to-find inductors at very reasonable rates. It's not going to make me rich, but it's very satisfying.

I'd have to lose a few frets to make space and probably sell a kidney to fund the pickup bill!

I was listening to the album Showcase by Triston Palmer during the week, he’s known better for Joker Smoker, it’s from 1982, it’s worth a listen, there’s some really great Flabba Basslines on there that I’d forgotten about, here’s a few The album has 6 tracks with vocals and 6 without

I've been having a blast from the past and listening to some Scientist tonight.. Tracks like this were very influential to some of the post punk bands too, especially the likes of Killing Joke etc, so influences go round in all directions.. I believe this track has Ansell Collins on keyboards.

And here's Peter's Zoot Funkmeister 32" 4 string body now routed and ready for it's sealer coats before applying the final colour.

Physical Graffiti is my favourite LZ album and one of my fave albums of all time, I don't think there's a duff track on it. Technically, a recording session compilation album (includes tracks from LZ4 & HotH) but none the worse for that. Recently, I've come to appreciate Houses... much more, so much quality on there, but much overlooked (maybe just by me) because of its placement between 4 & Graffiti. Too much focus on 4 has taken the shine off of it for me these days, but it was the album that finally got me into LZ after years of ignoring them (I was young and a Purple fan).

Presumably because the original builder didn't respond to emails??

Still got the Mikey Way sig, it’s still my main gigging bass in the Glamrock tribute act I play in. Punch well above their cost bracket. And yes I’d have another if they were reissued.

Only ever done it once, but it was exactly as I wanted it. IMO, you need to be 100% certain on your specification. Knowing what you like and what you don't like is a key factor in the decision making process. Pickups, electronics (passive or active), body shape, neck shape, colour, finish, types of timber used, etc. There is a lot to consider, and a lot to mull over before committing yourself, especially if you have ever bought something and if it's not quite right, you've sold it on. Is it worthwhile looking at a high spec instrument from one of the "boutique" makers? Also had a valve amp and some pedals built, but their specs were set, and it was just the cosmetics that were customised.

Timber on the neck looks good....

It’s a bit like asking what is the point of museums or art galleries? Historical significance, scarcity, value… the more well known and culturally significant the artist is / was the greater all of the above become. Why do people flock to look at the Mona Lisa and walk past many other equally well painted pictures? People with the cash to buy a guitar like Hendix’s don’t have a lack of funds.

Having been in a similar situation, I would echo most of the advice so far but also say that sometimes, the huge drop in value from new of a custom instrument has its own special kind of buyer’s remorse that I certainly didn’t feel ready for. Tastes change very quickly and if that coincides with you wanting (or more likely, needing) to sell it, it’s tough to take the fact that you’re likely to only recoup half of what you put in to it. It is an incredible experience though, especially (if like me, who was lucky enough to go to a few big brand factories with work and pick up multiple kinds of instruments every day) you’ve had plenty experience of tone wood choices and scale lengths, neck radius etc and can feel confident that what you pick will suit you. If not, I’d imagine it’s quite a nervy experience! Good luck and don’t forgot to enjoy the ride!

I guess under my understanding of new wave quite a few of the excellent bass players mentioned above would get pushed into punk or post-punk, perhaps leaving Colin Moulding, Graham Maby and Pete Thomas as new wave. And Foxton maybe. Slippery subject! How about Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes?

Nothing new, just a snap of the “big” and the nano board together.

I agree with the other replies in that going and playing some instruments will help identify what you want. The chances are you may even be able to find some secondhand examples of uk luthiers work at The Bass Gallery and Bass Direct like Status, Goodfellow and Sei. I have owned and played a lot of custom made/bespoke/hand crafted instruments from small luthiers and two of the best I have ever played for feel and quality were a GB Spitfire and a 5 string Rob Elrick Mark at Bass Direct put in my hands many years ago. I also played a Sei Jazz briefly and it was phenomenal as were my old Overwaters but they were pipped slightly by the Spitfire (some of that could have been the hypnotic Birdseye neck though 😄) You may be able to find a great bass from a small custom builder in stock somewhere so go have a few days out and play a lid of basses.

Again Mike, thank you for the updates. Looking great

And, in my view, Alan at ACG is pretty much at the top of the 'luthier's luthier' list...

Hah, just found this. It looks like Andy found his favorite tone!

1987: bought my first bass, an Antoria Jazz copy. It was secondhand and from the early 1970s. No idea of its worth now. 1993: bought (new) a rubbish fretless bass, I think it was an Encore? 2012: sold the Encore fretless 2017: bought a secondhand Jap Fender Jazz (the Antoria had developed a few issues and I fancied a change - I know, daft/outrageous reasons to go out and buy another bass) 2019: bought a secondhand Squier Jazz fretless - because the band I'm involved in - big band - could really benefit. It was that or an EUB

Stevie is the expert on crossovers but at the simplest level speakers are all different, none of them have completely flat responses and the mechanical and electrical characteristics of each speaker are different too. Adding a horn flare loads the speakers changing the load on the speaker and this changes thigs too. The horn will also have it's own frequency response. Even at the easiest level most horns are louder than bass units but never by the same amounts, so you have to sort that out too. I've used generic crossover designs and used simple design theory to calculate crossover component values. It works in that you split the signal between the drivers bass goes through the bass speaker and treble through the horn but it is only a starting point. the sound in the crossover region is rarely good. I then (theoretically anyway) do a lot of fiddling, unwinding coils or adding turns and messing with resistor and capacitor values with repeated listening tests to get it as clean as I can subjectively. Stevie does it by measurement and years of experience and his crossovers sound better than mine.

I'd just bring the usual setup, nothing fancy...

I just got this from Mark. Great service, fantastic price, amazing bass.

So several hundred pounds later More or less back where I started 😂🤦‍♂️

Fender Mustang Bass, crafted in Japan sometime between 1999 and 2002, sporting a Fiesta Red finish and an aftermarket brown tort pickguard.