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well, the Day has come! at 3:30 this afternoon I met up with Andy in a services and took possession of the bass. It's stunning, the balance is perfect and the neck is absolutely spot on. It's getting a first run out tomorrow morning at church, I'll report back but so far I'm over the moon! Matt

Insulation all done. Vapur barrier is next.

Its a non-issue, nobody's going to go to a pop-up alcohol free bar.

Messing around on a very grey and wet morning in the North. Recording and deciding what works best on what tracks. The shorty with humbuckers is good all round. The PJ Shorty a bit more pokey and the Wilcock just lovely for vintage rock. Thought it was about time I posted. Piaying short-scale almost exclusively now

Yesterday I finally got my 2021 limited edition😊 now the UV70 has a new friend

If you're not being paid, then its busking. And should be OK with the organisers to have collection buckets for the band.

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.

Loving my v2 Sire five string as much as I do, there was only one thing I disliked, the original plastic control knobs. I did try sourcing alternatives a while ago but I wasn’t happy with what I was able to source and then last week I bit the bullet and ordered what I needed from John East. Just installed them and I think they look rather spiffing even if I say so myself.

Think I saved this from a previous post a while ago.

OK, so here's my three s-s gig basses (R-L): Andyjr 'Swift' custom-build - simply the best bass I've ever played regardless of price and first choice for gigs; another Swift custom-build as backup to the first; Sandberg Cali IV "don't call me" Lionel Not your typical line-up, I'm sure you'll agree. For those who are interested, didn't see the build diaries, and can stay awake, here's the story. I've always had a preference for s-s basses. This goes way back to my early playing days, when many of my favourite players such as McCartney, Wyman, Chas Chandler, Andy Fraser and Jack Bruce were NOT playing 34 "-scale Fender basses. I loved the look and sound of the Gibson EB/SG and so that's what I played in various guises, the last one being a lovely black 2011 SG re-issue. Then two things happened. First, I started to get fed up with the neck-dive and relatively restricted tonal palette. Second, I suddenly became aware of the growing range of s-s alternatives offering better-than-Gibson quality and performance (not difficult!) at affordable prices. It's been a long journey since then and I've owned a shed-load of stuff from Spector, Hofner, Maruszczyk/Mensinger, ACG, Ibanez and Fender - none of which completely did it for me. The best was a MIM Fender Rascal. I loved everything about it except the quirky body shape that put my right hand over the bridge and made the lower frets too much of a reach. After some thought, I decided to have a chat with our Andy Rogers. Like many on this forum, I'd been deeply impressed with Andy's build diaries and asked him if he could use a nice piece of walnut I already had to re-body the Rascal a-la Fender P Lyte that I remembered from the late 80s/early '90s. This he was happy to do and I was so chuffed with the result that I then got him to build a (functional if not visual) clone based on a suitable re-shape of the original Rascal body. Both these basses give me the exact spec I wanted but could not buy off the shelf. The features are: 30" scale with fast neck around 40mm wide at the nut; pups and electronics that produce the 'tone in my head'; 7-position switch that selects any permutation of the 3 pups. I've had these basses a few years now and I have no wish to gig anything else. However, GAS being what it is (!?), I'm still chopping and changing my third 'backup for the backup' bass. Currently, it's the Sandy pictured below, which narrowly displaced the s-s SBMM Ray I had before. Happy days!

More accurately, the market comprises many elements, including "musicians accepting unpaid gigs". Nobody has a God-given right to paid gigs, still less a God-given right to complain about musicians who play simply because they enjoy it.

Side dots done too! Same process, aluminium tube inset with white MOP this time. Shame the bit wandered on the 12th fret (good job it's only for me!)

Yeah!

Just received this yesterday, courtesy of @bigthumb with a lot of help from Mark Newman. Absolutely fantastic amp, bags of power, great tones, how people can say that these amps are sterile is beyond me. Not as heavy as i feared either, it's no lightweight certainly but manageable.

Finally moving out of here: Into here: Total chaos 😁

I think it's too easy to see this pay/no pay situation as a binary, black -v- white thing. In my experience, it's anything but. Right now I'm involved with four bands. 1. Junkyard Dogs - a fully commercial pubrock band, playing together for many years. Under normal circumstances we would not accept no-pay gigs. During Covid we volunteered to play two freebies to help certain venues stay in business. Immediately post-Covid we volunteered to play one more freeby simply because we were so rusty after eight months that we'd have been embarrassed to ask for money. Apart from that, all the gigs in our 2021 diary are paid, and more-or-less properly. 2. Damo & The Dynamites - a fully commercial rock'n'roll band, playing together for three years. Under normal circumstances we would not accept no-pay gigs. During Covid we volunteered to play two freebies to help certain venues stay in business. Immediately post-Covid we volunteered to play one more freeby to help a venue with no music budget (yet) but where we expect to get many further paid gigs. Apart from that, all the gigs in our 2021 diary are paid, and more-or-less properly. 3. Soul Seniors - a Lockdown project which has more-or-less survived, but we're a long way from being tight and I'm the only member with any recent gig experience. We've played no gigs at all yet, and we'd jump at the chance of playing a few freebies. Don't much care why they're not paying or what excuse they're giving ... we need some low-stress no-pressure gigs to gel properly, and we'd be playing for nowt because that happens to suit us just now. 4. Fat Walters Band - a band that died a few years ago but suddenly revived last month. The format of the band has changed radically, again I'm the only member with recent gig experience, the repertoire is about 50% different from before, and the choice of material is - frankly - not commercial. Very few venues would be prepared to pay us, and we're far more likely to be offered mid-week gigs for beer money. If the mini-fest in the OP were reachable from here, I'd have no problem in offering the latter two bands. Stealing bread from the mouths of starving musicians? Bollocks. If the organisers have no budget for music and have come right out and said so, then what's the issue? No band is getting paid, and the mini-fest will have to put up with whatever music is available free. In my case, that would be my two weaker bands, neither of whom are actually good enough (right now) to charge a fee anyway. 😂

I agree with @yorks5stringer about musicians being undervalued on events like this. Good chance the bar staff and security are being paid so why expect the "entertainment" to work for nothing? Frustrating as we like to perform but show your appreciation by not insulting us.

Give her a chance.. It's only mid day, she'll still be crashed out if it was a good one..

Some musicians just like playing to a public, and don't consider it to be a job; they probably like the change from whatever work they do during the week to pay the bills. It's certainly the case for our band; we've never charged for what we play, and do it because we want to. We play rarely (I'm now retired...), and all our gear was bought just for ourselves, whether we play out or not. Not all musicians are professional, and many give a high level of performance. If asked to play for nothing, it's simple enough to just decline or accept, isn't it..?

The switches are for the bridge pickup exclusively; series/parallel and 2x coil on/off. In series it is fatter, darker and louder. In parallel nice and middy. Either coil single turns it into a regular seventies or sixties jazz bass tone (with more bark, lacquered bubinga fretboard baby!).

Anyone else use this combination? I took my trusty Trace to a rehearsal today, sat it on top of a Compact / Midget combination and put a Sandberg jazz into it. It made me question all the other amps I claim to love. Theres really nothing like it. Heft, clank, thump and snarl. Every member of the band complimented me on the sound of the bass, but I know what they really liked.

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

The strings are la bella 760fs-B-S, .045, .065, .085, .105, .128T Matt

Today I made more connections from the transformers to the panel-mounted hardware, added the remaining resistors to the valve sockets, and installed the eyelet board. I ran a copper bus through all the speaker ground connections to make it harder for them to work loose. I have to remember to run another cable from this to the main ground bus, otherwise there will be no ground reference for the NFB circuit. My box of bits is now looking somewhat empty - valves, knobs, feet, fuses, pilot bulb, and a few screws.

Deffo this. The freebies we played were targeted at pubs that had given us gigs in the past, and that are (or have been) a pillar of the local music scene. We didn't offer them to just anybody!

The big muff has got pineapple on it; you either love the tone stack, or hate it!

I had that recently, the guitarist wanted to do a free gig to get people back to gigging at a place that is good to gig. I said I was happy to help one of the landlords who had been good to us, but not them, as they never were, so no way.

I know plenty of musicians/bands that would gladly go and play the opening of a cupboard door for nothing just as long as it was a gig, they got out for the night and had a laugh with their band mates. Whilst people are happy to do this then why wouldn’t a venue/festival/pop up bar put the feelers out for free bands. I am the grumpy bugger who won’t leave the house for at least petrol money, food and drink thrown in, because whilst I enjoy playing, gigs are hard work, especially if there’s a big PA to set up and strip down, and I actually like being at home with my wife and kids, so I want to be compensated for not being there. I can’t be annoyed by people who gig for nothing, it’s a hobby for the vast majority and you don’t get paid for playing football or golf at the weekend as far as I know.

In which case the Pigtronix Octava is a mini-Pizza with added chilli.

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side". Hunter S. Thompson, US author and journalist.

Top-notch quality, very smooth neck, great tone...the Turbo Switch is a nice feature, too.

Sounds like a right laugh doesn't it?

Been listening to a load of Colin Hay from Men at work since the first lockdown and over the last few weeks he has been posting MAW`s catalogue that he recorded with his newer version of the band. Some really good stuff and they are a great band.

Don't know if it's of interest to anyone else, but I found this a very good read, Jon King retrospectively runs through, track by track, the process behind the recording of the album Entertainment by Gang of Four... https://www.clashmusic.com/features/gang-of-four-track-by-track

I've often fancied getting one of those melodica things myself, must have a squint on ebay !

I think The Cure’s first couple of albums were recorded with a pickup from a Top Twenty guitar. The record company apparently refused to let him use the guitar so he bought a Fender and swapped the pickups out.

You had never heard the AC/DC version? What age are you?......... 12? 😂

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.

After four pages it's about time for Birkenhead's finest, Half Man Half Biscuit. Too many greats to choose from but let's kick things off with

Hi everyone, A couple more transcriptions before I head off to sea on a cruise ship gig. Over My Shoulder - Mike & The Mechanics - https://05ee92f2-68dc-4cc0-94b6-973...d/238d8f_479cfbf8063d4b83b3ee633eab7cad2c.pdf Steady Rollin' Man - Eric Clapton - https://05ee92f2-68dc-4cc0-94b6-973...d/238d8f_4339c9f4c5ad46af969fc419ffd950db.pdf I have installed the Musescore software on a tablet, so should still be able to create bass transcriptions while I'm away.