Leaderboard

A friend of mine came to me at the beginning of the year with an idea for a new "Soul" themed show/band. 17pc band including 4 vocalists, 4 horns, and 3 strings, as well as 2 keys, bass, drums, guitar and percussion, and some dancers in addition to that - Basically a full on production! All the classics from Stevie Wonder, Chic, Marvin Gaye, Earth Wind and Fire, etc. I got in touch with some of the most talented musicians that I know, and everyone I contacted was up for it. Happy days! We had Kev, our resident Welsh Wizard (and coincidentally, our guitarist) arrange a medley, and then we got together and filmed it at the end of May. The audio was all recorded live on the day (no miming here!) and subsequently mixed by Kev, and we had a 2 man crew in to film us, and then I edited the video. The first time that we all played together as a band was the day the Promo was recorded, as it was super hard to arrange any rehearsals due to Covid. Considering this, I'm super chuffed with how it came out. The idea of the show is that it is a complete entertainment experience. A host, 3 course meal, DJ after the show etc. "A Night To Remember!" as our tagline says. We're playing on NYE at Porchester Hall in London. We will also be available for corporate events and functions. You can find out all the details about the show and members of the band, as well as book tickets (if you feel so inclined) on our website. Sorry for the self promotion, just wanted to share something that I'm really proud of. It was a really valuable learning experience putting something like this together, having always just been the bass player in the past. Also my new NYC Sadowsky P Bass sounds lovely, so I wanted to share it with you lovely lot! Haha! Any and all feedback and questions gladly received, I would love to hear your thoughts on the video, website, and the brand overall, as a product.

I've spent the last 3-4 months during COVID lockdowns being involved with a couple of new bands, a covers band and their originals side project. We've only been able to actually rehearse together for the last month due to COVID. and tonight is our first gig. I'm nervous but also crazy excited because I haven't played a live gig in about 10 years (the joys of raising children!). It's only a small venue, but considering the last 18 months I'll just be grateful to be out playing and out of the house lol! Feels nice to be going through my old pre-gig routines Wish me luck. 209366896_1127243734352282_7063458346893440239_n.mp4

Here is my fully non original non Fender non 60's non Jazz Bass non Flea non Custom Shop, but real Bitsa, the only real Fender part being the strings retainer ! Long story short : I bought a "Flea kit" from Chris aka @Beedster, except the fake Fender decals, strings, pickups, pots, knobs, capacitor, stereo output jack (for secure grounding), pickguard screws, tuners screws, serialised neck plate (and screws). I decided to go for an all maple neck (Chris was selling the "Flea kit" with a maple Squier rosewood fingerboard neck) that I bought brand new. The body was already reliced in this Shell Pink as you can see it, but had absolutely no holes drilled, so had never been used. I did all the work, including the full copper shielding and decided to go for a copper to the bridge grounding like the original Jazz Basses. The neck is really very very tightly fitted in its pocket and doesn't move at all. I sharpied the neck and neck pocket with the imaginary serial number and my initial to avoid any fakery (who knows). The decals are not period correct at all and as fake as can be (thick home printed by an eBay guy in the U.K.). I eventually opted for ToneRider pickups which, to me, are as good as any boutique ones. I put a TAD Mustard 22 nF PIO capacitor and used cloth wire, with fully copper shielding. The knobs are Sadowsky-like from Sivcak. The strings are the Ernie Ball Super Slinky 45~105 and are a real good match. The action is a bit lower than my usual 1.5 to 2 mm at the 12th fret. The neck is dead straight with no default. I only had to put a bone nut as the original plasticised cardboard one was real dire. Add the massive Schaller bridge to the equation and you get a longer sustain than the usual all maple neck Jazz Bass. The Sadowsky knobs add the final touch to this really good sounding and resonant Jazz Bass (the light alder body is also part of the sound here). I put a brand new set of Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky Bass (45 - 65 -85 -105) that really serves this Bitsa. I then fully set it up professionally (used to be my job in the past century). As I said to a friend of mine, it's 4.080 kilos of amazing sounding bass. And before anyone asks, the decals are just there for the fun as they are absolutely fake and it's more than obvious !!! Here are the specifications : Body : 3 pieces light alder Neck : bolt-on maple Fingerboard : maple Frets : 21 small (with fretboard extension) Headstock : 4 in-line Pickups : 2 x ToneRider Jazz Bass in 60's position Controls : volume, volume, tone (TAD Mustard PIO) Tuners : Schaller BMF Bridge : Schaller 3D-4 Strings spacing at bridge : 21 mm Nut : real bone Strings spacing at nut : 9 mm Knobs : Sadowsky-like Scale : 34 inches Hardware colour : chrome Truss rod : one double action Finish : shell pink reliced satin finish on the body and high gloss vintage on the neck Land of craftsmanship : worldwide Serial number : 62188 Year : assembled in May 2021 Weight : 4.080 kilos Action : a bit under 1.5 mm under the G string to a bit under 2 mm under the E string at 12th position (can go way lower, but is perfect for me) Now, here is some work in progress and my usual photos on the more than 400 years old oak floor.

“Not that f&cking chord, the other one!!” - Father Ted Crilly.

Quick fretboard update - wasn't happy with the colour contrast between fretboard/neck/body, so experimented with some spirit stain. Also inlaid the front dots, black mother of pearl to match the 12th fret inlay with some aluminium tubing around them. Happy with the results!

Rotosound, as a company, support the Guitarwrist fundraising enterprise. Ian Rendall (the founder) receives donations of used strings and, with the help of other jewellery makers, turns the strings into items of (you guessed it) jewellery. It is not just Rotosound strings that are used and any profits are distributed to the charity of the donor's choosing. I am attaching a link so you can see what they do and the results. There are some very imaginative uses of the strings and they make some exceedingly nice pieces with stuff you'd usually bin. Follow the link, if you feel you want to support this excellent initiative yourselves, send Ian your old strings and help fund charities at a time when they really need the help. He accepts any make of strings, Rotosound are mentioned because they endorse the enterprise and mentioned it when sending my latest batch. I am hoping the mods are ok with this? Other than being a Rotosound artist, I have no connection with Ian or Guitarwrist. https://theguitarwrist.co.uk/#whatwedo

Making Music magazine! I loved that back in 86/87, endlessly rereading my pile of back issues. Ridiculously readable for a free magazine 😚

Not strictly a quote from a musician, nor particularly inspirational: Hi, we live on Dorset Avenue (2 streets away), and if this noise continues, we're going to call Environmental Health. We just thought we'd mention it as a courtesy. One of my first band rehearsals at the singer's parent's house, rural Manchester circa 1997. Everyone's an effing critic.

I'd been following the thread on the PMT sale and had almost pulled the trigger on the Ashdown 300W valve head. Ive been gassing for an all valve giggable head for a while. I play in a Classic Rock band touring medium sized venues and had been using either a Trace 300W head or my Bugera Veyron 1001T - both of which have served me well, but neither of which thoroughly scratched that itch. I'd been put off using an all valve amp due to weight and cost. Well weight isn't too much of an issue as we have roadies, and when I saw a Peavey VB-2 in the sale - B-Stock - for £389, the cost argument went out of the window also. So I pulled the trigger last Thursday but didn't honestly expect to get the amp given the amount of people who'd posted about not having their order fulfilled. I phoned up on Friday and they confirmed that the order was indeed mine and that it'd arrive on Monday. To my surprise, I got a message from DPD yesterday saying it would arrive in the afternoon. It arrived safe n sound in a Yamaha box with no instructions but well wrapped. No tinkling thank goodness and absolutely immaculate - not a mark on it. I immediately set it up on top of a Big Baby 2 and started to have a play. My first mistake was to plug into the low gain input. Underwhelmed by the volume I realised I need to put it into the high input and all was good. Ive had a further play today and so far so good. It's incredibly versatile but takes a while to get to terms with the EQ. It's got low, mid and high controls with a four way selectable mid set at 2, 4, 6,and 800Hz. However what isn't in the manual is that altering the mid frequency also alters the frequencies the low and high controls work at. The EQ on this reminds me of the EQ on the Hartke LH500 where if you turn all the controls to zero the volume pretty much disappears. There's also a bright switch along with Presence and Resonance controls. According to the manual, these act like high and low controls on the power amp side. Talking of the power amp, this utilises a 12AT7 driver tube/phase splitter, 6 JJ EL34's and an oversized power supply pushing out 225W. It's certainly not short of volume. i've no doubt this will provide enough volume for any of the gigs I'll do. Usefully it will also drive cabs down to 2 ohms using the three way resistance sector. Pre amp is served by two 12AX7 tubes. It's a two channel amp with an overdrive channel that has it's own gain control. This is switchable from the front panel or a (not supplied) footswitch. I didn't spend too much time on this. I wasn't too impressed - sounded a bit fizzy to my ears and not overly versatile without it's own master control and eq. Plugging my Precision in and the gain set to full on the clean channel, I could get that lovely, just slightly breaking up tone. Less so with my Ric, which isn't as hot as my Precision, but I've no doubt that once I've got my pedals in front of it I could dial in drive to taste. I had a play with the all the settings and tried the suggested settings in the manual. I t didn't take long to find the tone I was after, which for me centred around boosting the mids on the 200Hz setting. I think the thing with this amp is to not be afraid of using extreme settings on the tone controls - they work well giving a wide range of tones. On the back there's two speaker outs on jacks, an XLR Di with pre and post switch and level, sockets for a footswitch and tuner out and a selector for 2, 4 or 8 ohms along with a power input and mains switch. While I had it set up, I thought I'd see how it compared with a real old school valve amp and my Bugera Veyron BV1001T. I have an old Laney Supergroup 100 from the late 60's in the arsenal. It sounds lovely but I've always struggled to get volume out of it without it breaking up at gigs. Having had a play with it today I've realised that using the bass input rather than the treble input, gives me less top end but lets me get it louder before breaking up. It's obviously nowhere near as versatile as the Peavey, but the tone is to die for - really mellow and rich, very hard to describe though. As for the Bugera - this is pretty versatile too. Again not as versatile as the Peavey, particularly in terms of mids and tops, but the tone is definitely nice and valvey. What it lacks though is the dynamic range of either of the valve amps. Even with the compression off, it kind of sounds dynamically smooth - and not really in a good way (in comparison) whereas both the valve amps - hard to describe - you can kind of feel the notes coming and going . . . . dare I say . . . . .exhibiting heft! It has to be said that all this waffle has been done on the basis of playing this stuff in my spare room at relatively low volume levels. Nonetheless, i think it's fair to say I'm pretty happy with my purchase and can't wait for all this covid malarkey to be over so I can get this bad boy out into the environment it was built for!

I’ve bought my third Westone Thunder in less than a year. This time a Thunder 3 fretless. Bloomin’ lovely it is too & matches my fretted Thunder 3 nicely. Well pleased.

-

Come to think of it, if the wood was "solid", I doubt warping wouldn't be an issue - that's to say it's a certainty!!

If you're thinking of a scratchplate, I'd suggest a veneer on a thin sheet would be the way to go. You could use MDF, ply or even a normal scratchplate, but if it we "solid" wood it wouldn't be solid for long before it splits and needs replacing. To answer your original question, of you have a sheet of wood and you want it made thin in this way I'd find someone with a thicknesser machine that will do the whole width all in one go. Doing it with a hand plane would almost certainly end badly.

I used to work in Corporate event production, so have had to deal with loads of artists/bands where we have had to slot them into a larger production (e.g. after conference party). Adding a separate technical info page would be very useful. This should have as a minimum a stage plan/layout (dimensioned), desk channel plan, a realistic technical rider and contact email/phone for the main sound engineer or production manager (whoever is the key technical person). This needs to be up to date (and dated/versioned - chasing out of date and incorrect riders was a constant problem). We would always finalise a spec based on personal conversations/emails and get the artist team to sign off on it, but clients always want to know what a rider will cost before booking an artist and that is always very urgent. We quite often were chasing tour managers for info and they just weren't interested in replying quickly since they were doing other shows and/or were out of the country completely. Having the latest info on a website is a huge time saver.

Definitely. The neck is much more critical to the playability of the instrument. I've bought quite a few cheap far eastern necks for practicing fretwork and none of them were as good as a bottom of the range Squier. Physically and finish-wise they were fine, but they all had uneven fretwork. Some had lifted fret ends, some had unseated frets with gaps between fret and board, some had fret slots not cut deep enough or cleaned out properly, most had badly trimmed fret ends with burrs (some of which couldn't be filed as it would have left the fret too short). Realistically all the necks needed re-fretting to make them play properly and then there is still no guarantee of stability in the wood. I have started to think that all the low-cost far east necks are QC fails that weren't good enough to be built into budget instruments, but could still be sold to the unsuspecting, especially if the distance/cost made them hard to return. I think if I were building an instrument to play for real I'd buy a Fender/Warmoth/Allparts neck, or something from a luthier where the QC is good.

I put the Sonar 3 MS/E. It should have fitted with no problems. However, I was sent the one with the bass and treble stacked pot and I couldn't return it. Besides, the preamp came with a push/pull pot for active/passive. Since I am no electronics expert (I can do very simple things) I thought about making the bass active/passive and, since now I had 4 pots instead of 5, I thought about adding a passive tone knob. So I took it to a luthier to do the job. If I didn't have the stacked bass/treble, I could have switched the preamp myself. But it's a much better bass now.

Look this seller up on ebay, I've had umpteen guards made including several one - off's. Shed load cheaper than WD & excellent workmanship. He's based in Glasgow

I was told by a mate (a jazz double bassist) that if you don't know the number you never hit the same note twice in a row. Hit a different note every time and you'll either be on the right note, a harmony or a passing note. I tried it and it works.

as long as the womble is willing, I'm all for it.

I have now fitted both transformers and made the connections for the mains and HT. The OT primaries are above the chassis at present as they will pass through at a different point.

Just been through the Thomann checkout with one of these... https://m.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_hbo_850_bass_natural.htm?o=2&search=1625244643 Wish me luck! Gonna be after advice from anyone as to how to remove those leaf / laurels without doing to much damage!

Hi all, I’m Andy and I’m pleased to be part of the bass chat family thanks for letting me join

I really like the white Tributes with the matching headstocks and the Trans orange ones with the maple fretboards. TheJapanese ones, are even nicer. First G&L I ever played was a L2000 Tribute. Liked it so much I found a new one for the ridiculous price of $500. Played it for three or four months before finding a nice USA-made one and never even noticed the neck was slightly wider.

I've just switched from Ableton Live Lit 10 to Reaper after reading through this thread. The difference is huge. My PC is running so much faster with it, it's nicer to use and just better.

Deacon Blue - Raintown and When The World Knows Your Name Brilliant songwriting and fantastic performances from all involved. While I'm disappointed I didn't wake up to them sooner, there is a particular joy in finding a new back catalogue to explore. I recently got deep into Talking Heads too, for the first time, while reading Chris Frantz's book. Great fun was had.

Wow, just wow. This is one looker, and that it also delivers tones makes it something else. Floored....great work @Cosmicrain! I have to mention that Veijo concocted a 5-string version of the MB-1E solely for my experimental 34" 5-string SB-1000/R150. Solid meaty tone to kick your doors in before you even pair it with the preamp! Veijo is also making MB-J repros, which would be a really cool idea to combine with the BB preamp, especially since that never existed in the original Aria Pro II lineup. I'd imagine that some work changing values in the filter would be a rabbithole and a half given the palette a Jazz type bass begins with.... The bottom line is, I copied. Mike made it his own and then some.

We used to rehearse in my spare room. We rehearsed pretty loudly. Almost at the volume that we would be playing on stage without the PA. I would sing at my normal volume but my mate, the guitarist, wouldn't practise his backing vocals, or if he did it was in a stupid voice to try and get a laugh out of the rest of the band. It used to drive me up the wall as he wasn't practised for the gig and some of the live backing vocals were rotten. I blew up at him one night and everyone thought I was being the knob, but I think all instruments including vocals should be rehearsed properly.

....and SOLD OUT! The Granite Stone version anyway - and yes, I managed to resist! Unbelievable I know 😀

I give a few to a model maker mate of mine. He uses them for pilot's oxygen hoses amongst other things...

Nordstrand - Acinonyx I quite like the body but not the headstock design.

Sweet bassline

That’s great Steve, thanks for posting this, I’ll certainly make use of it (at the rate I buy new basses probably weekly 😂)

Yes, indeed. I suppose the difference is that if it is just a bow, along the grain, then the multiple fixing screws will generally cope with holding it flat. But a 'wibbly-wobbly-warp' would look wibbly-wobbly however many screws were trying to hold it down

Tuner ... tuner ... where's my damn tuner ...

That's the thing with genres, they're fine for organising the stock of music shops (look them up, kids) but generally not applicable in the real world when it comes to art. Bands tend to get labelled as something and struggle to shake off the label even when they're not playing whatever it is they're labelled as. We had this discussion recently with "thrash" which went from being used to describe a very specific style of music to the lazy bundling together of the output of a large and varied collection of bands, most of whom were not actually playing thrash. Genres belong in the bin with Peter Criss' cat makeup.

Jazz double bass player (forgotten his name) when asked what scale he used replied "I just play the root note first then any old bollocks after that"

Worst: Cornershop before they got famous. Best? Very, very tough question, but Hawkwind playing Chronicles of the Black Sword at Hammersmith Odeon (the gig that was released as Live Chronicles). Huw Lloyd Langton's performance of Moonglum is as much part of Hawkwind lore and legend as Space Ritual.

I found this - is this a bit better?

Columbus made absolute planks - They might be 35 years old now and have a whiff of vintage, but they are dreadful instruments- brings back terrible memories of 2" high action on banana necks, nasty paint jobs and, as owen says, plywood.