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Hi, I posted a thread several months ago asking for views of Shuker's bass/guitar building course. I've spend last week doing this and thought I should let you all know how it went. The short answer - it was great and I'd recommend it to anyone. I went in to this course with almost zero woodworking experience. I can build a flatpack or put up a shelf, but that's about it. I know my way around basic guitar maintenance – I can do a setup, electronics work or a swap out a bridge for example. But I had never used a bandsaw or router before! Jon Shuker is extremely knowledgeable and patient. Nothing seems to phase him – he’s a great teacher! He was assisted by Tim, who is also very good. They were both happy to help resolve any shoddy workmanship, ensuring you come away with a quality end result. It was a very busy week. Within minutes of arriving, we were selecting our body wood – alder or mahogany – swamp ash is impossible to get at the moment. By the end of the first day, I had something resembling a bass body. The next three days, the focus was mostly the neck – which really is a huge amount of work. Cutting the basic maple shape and rough fingerboard, routing a truss rod channel. Sawing the fret-slots was far less daunting than I thought it’d be, aided by a nice tool that ensures it’s done precisely. Adding dot inlays is quite a fun job – although one ended up marginally off-centre due to my inability to mark a centre point! It definitely felt rewarding to spend time sanding the fingerboard until it was shiny smooth – it seems a much better finish than any bass I’ve owned. Between neck jobs, we were sanding the body, which seemed to be the one job that was never finished! The final day was mostly fretwork, soldering and assembly – and was definitely the busiest day, we were finally done by about 6pm. It's worth noting that all the hardware is top quality - Seymour Duncan pickups, Gotoh bridge, Schaller tuners. Jon even ordered some straplocks for me, rather than have me get home and replace the normal ones. The only job we couldn't do was spraying - apparently he's not insured for it. Given the short time, the choices of finish are quite limited anyway - I just opted for clear lacquer as I quite liked the grain. This is the final result – I’ve very pleased!

Quick Tuesday update; Good things; Wired up my Bartolini quads to an Aguilar OBP3 without too much fuss, only took two attempts my understanding of wiring and preamps has improved ten fold however! Everything fits nicely in the cavity although I'd love to design it again and shift the batteries to their own cavity and have a little space for the OBP3 to sit, but everything works just like it should. Got the tuners on, they're USA hipshot ultralights and again they work just as they should and look really good. Strung the bass and had a quick noodle, strings feel brilliant, they're Newtone Customs and fit the bass perfectly. Bad things; Upon having said noodle the bridge has proven that it won't work as intended, I was able to fully intonate the strings, but, after 10 mins of playing, my G string was ringing an F# at the 24th fret, and while other strings managed to not pull the saddles away too much (C string was the champ here, only moved 6 cents sharp) the concept in general has failed and will ultimately be replaced, I have ordered some metal saddles with angled grub screws that bite in to the bridge sidewalls and these will work better, so a little redesign and remaking will be needed. The nut will need replacing as there is too much space underneath it when it has been adjusted to the right height, so that needs redoing I will just beef up the height to fit the slot better and reduce the need for too much adjustment. I seem to have put a few dents and light scratches in the finish already so another light round of finishing to do this weekend! I had to lop 15mm off the height of the pickup cover as it was too tall, now it sits way better and feels great under the fingers. Great things; No fret buzz when I had the action nice and low The flat fretboard is LOVELY to play The B string is very well defined 30" scale is so so comfortable So not much to do now until its there; Sort the bridge New Nut Re-apply some finish Knobs x 5! These will be a nice Ash / wenge / Ash laminate with wenge dot Setup Polish Make a video!

I've been on a rampage over the last couple of weeks to get my set up well refined and nail down to pedals that really gel with the overall sound of the new project I'm working on. I've pretty much auditioned three pedals for every space on the board and made more signal chain tweaks than I can count. Finally, I'm happy with the set up. So much so that I have pledged to myself that I won't buy another pedal for at least 6 months... I'm going to work this set up hard! For those of you interested in such things, here is the signal chain being used (note, this is for some ambient, synth textures)... Input -> Boss OC-5 Octave -> Dr. Scientist Frazz Dazzler -> Darkglass Alpha Omicron -> Red Panda Bitmap 2 -> Bananana Matryoshka -> Wampler Terraform -> Iron Ether Xerograph Deluxe (+ Moog EP-3 Expression Pedal) -> Digitech Whammy Ricochet -> Source Audio Nemesis Delay -> Source Audio Collider Delay + Reverb -> TC Electronics Polytune 2 Mini -> Output Everything is powered by a Cioks DC7 (which hasn't even hit the 40% load light yet - what a power supply!) and cabled with EBS gold flat patch cables. The Bananana Matryoshka was originally on the chopping block, but I had space for a mini pedal without ruining the ergonomics of things. Originally, this was being used exclusively as a bit crusher (before the Bitmap 2 came along), but it's worth keeping here for the Arp and LFO settings, which allow for layering some nice textures and soundscapes. I have a pile of pedals to move on now to recoup some costs! I'm super happy with this set up. Endless creative options and everything plays really well with each other.

A bit of an odd story, but after 20 years of marriage and a son my wife and I split in 1996( yeah, we're old) but she had always supported my musical things and came to some gigs, in fact we met at a gig I was playing. Around 2008 we met a few times for coffee and she helped me through the disastrous relationship I was in and we have become good fiends and partners of a sort. She lives 80km from me but spends a few days here every week or two, we travel together and just came home from a weekend visit to our son and his wife. In the last few years she has come to many gigs and always helps with the gear and gives advice re sound and set up and is a huge support for me. After years of guitar and EB playing I saw an ad in 2015 for an EUB some 300km away and she literally said "get into the car and go buy it" and I picked her up, made the trip and bought my first EUB which started me down the slippery slope. When I saw a better EUB a year or two later she said the same thing and I made and even longer trip to get that. By 2018 we had travelled to England twice and I had been a BC member for three years and I saw a double bass bash scheduled for 2018. Of course she said I should go and we made another trip to England. The organizers couldn't decide on a date for the bash and finally asked me when I was going to be in England and set a date based on that, I was thrilled. Then I was picked up by a BC member and had a wonderful day playing and talking about double basses and EUBs and meeting BC members. Two months after we got back to Canada I saw an ad for a DB and once again it was "get into the car and get it, NOW" and after a 13 hour round trip I came home with my beautiful blonde DB "Marilyn". She loves it and has made a bib for it and encourages me and supports me all the way and even likes listening to me practice, at least for a while. I joined BC after I got the first EUB so she is/was behind all my adventures in upright bass and loves BC almost as much as I do. I don't know where our relationship will go but it's been great for almost 15 years and I would not be where I am in terms of basses and bass playing without her and BC, I am very lucky.

Haven't had much time, been too busy thinking about punching you in the face 😉

None of my wives or long term partners has been that excited by my chosen lifestyle. I don't blame them at all. One came to gigs in order to prevent me murdering the singer en route to the venue. So in a very real way she kept that band alive. But I have led a self centred life, selfish in my indulgence, myopic to the needs of others. Which is why I will, deservedly, die penniless and alone. I am a feckin awesome bass player though.

I think somebody wants me to but it definitely isn't me ... 😆

Done!

Nothing wrong with you or WinISD. This was Stevie's design, I designed the basic 30l box for a 12" project and built the box untuned for Stevie to develop. Once the design was finalised it came back to me and i rebuilt it to the original design and added an extra brace. Before I did I ran it through WinISD and got the same result you did. First I know Stevie checks the tuning after building the cab. In practice the computer models only get you so close. Some of the data we get from manufacturers is only approximate, is hard to measure completely accurately and subject to manufacturing spread. There are also other factors like leakage in the cab and around the speaker that change the tuning (there's something called Ql that allows for that) but not mentioned in some of the simpler explanations. I don't know what Stevie's target tuning was but I do know he would have measured it after building the cab and tweaking the port to suit. It's all in his diary somewhere. Xmax is measured differently by manufacturers (not necessarily a fiddle) It's meant to tell you when the coil moves out of the magnetic field which extends beyond the magnet itself. Some use a distortion measurement to give Xmax as the sound measurably distorts when the coil moves too far. Others use a mathematical formula to calculate the size of the magnetic field but Celestion use the old fashioned worst case calculation of half the difference between the coil length and the magnet gap depth. They pretty much all say how they calculate Xmax so it's not a problem for us. The point is that the coil doesn't suddenly move out of the magnetic field and xmax tries to identify when it first starts to leave the magnets control. Eminence for example would say this speaker has an Xmax of around 5.5mm so we aren't too worried. The curve you have is the same shape for all speakers in a ported cab and pretty much none of them can handle the full thermally rated power without exceeding Xmax. That's right, none of them including all those expensive boutique wonders. So why won't this speaker blow and why aren't there thousands of broken bass speakers? The answer is that there isn't much fundamental coming out of the bass pickups, most of the energy is in the second harmonic and upwards, the pickups are well away from the centre of the strings where the fundamental is loudest. The bass is effectively rolled off by the positioning of the pickups and the position of the plucking hand. We are all familiar with the bridge pups having less bass than the neck pups. So build with confidence

Used this baby at rehearsal last night & every member of the band commented on how good it sounded,I had to agree. It is a massive improvement over the Dingwall ABZ I traded for it sound wise. The Dingwall was beautifully made & played really nicely but I just couldn't get a sound out of it I liked,just never gelled.

I'm gigging on bass with Musical Youth at Camp Bestival this year 30th July 2021 Not a bad start to gigging post lockdown. https://www.campbestival.net/line-up/live-acts/musical-youth

This was in my Youtube suggested videos the other day, from the image on the link it looked awful..... I really had no comprehension how hilariously bad it was , apparently it is the ex drummer of Five finger death punch who left to start this band😂 Psychosexual - Let the sin begin [Youtube}

Neck construction (5 piece nato/maple on 424 vs 1 piece maple on 414) Dual action truss Rod on 424’s single on 414 - no idea why on a modern ish bass… Through body stringing on 424’s and only top load on 414. that’s about it…

Still no idea on the true specs of these. I've asked laney via facebook the following: 1. Is the 500 head a class a/b or class d head? (saying solid state doesnt help). 2. Is there a valve in the pre? Everything points to no, then reviews say there is. 3. Is the 4x10 really 32kg?

update from Peavey on the other site

Love the tiny norse helmet!😂

I'll add some totally unqualified pub-talk here. Don't base any design decisions on this! My limited experience with cab building leads me to suspect that a cab of this size, with this driver and port will struggle with 200w, in the modelling realm. You'll go over the red Xmax line and the port velocity will be higher than you'd want it to be. That's the bad news, in my unqualified opinion. Two thoughts about why you don't need to worry about it too much though: 1) In real life 200w is more than you'd be likely to feed a small cab (not saying you won't have a 200w+ amp, but it won't be playing 200w constantly) and the good design and components used here mean that it will sound loud and very good none the less, as a compact cab. If you really want a bigger sound there are loads of bigger and two-cab options there, but I'm sure this will be a great design for its intended purpose. 2) Secondly, the modelling realm is not the real world, so although the excursion crosses the red line in the software in the 75hz ish zone, in real life once it does so the relationship between power-in and excursion changes so that it sort of self-limits excursion for several reasons. This means you don't have to worry about it as much as that graph suggests. Also, although you are beyond xmax, you are probably no where near Xlim (the limit) so there isn't much to trouble you there. The extreme excursion you see down at about 30hz is subsonic, and if it were me I'd use a thumpinator or some kind of HPF / EQ to cut that crud out of the signal. Anyway - I'm sure someone will be along shortly to give you a proper answer, these are just based on my own experience and 'learning' from lockdown builds.

I put new flats on all my basses, I think it was 1981😁

What's this "changing strings" of which you speak? I've never heard such nonsense!

Although I've been playing in church over recent weeks the congregation has not been allowed to sing. I have missed the singing so much. Today was the first time congregations could sing again and the attached video is of Keswick Convention this morning. Keswick is only 45 minutes drive from my home and I love attending the convention but for various family reasons I am watching it on line. When they started singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" I joined in but after the first line, I completely choked up and cried. It's so good to be able to praise out loud again.

Been cleaning her up, took the saddles off and low and behold, string anchor becomes more apparent… body before…. body and hardware nearly done…

Yes. 100%. She’s always supported me in personal and musical matters. has booked rehearsal rooms and arranged bands around me. unbelievable lady.

I don't care what Maiden haters say, I've been a Maiden fan since The Number of the Beast album release. I like DiAnno and Dickinson era. Bailey also fits well. After No prayer for Dying , it took longer for some of the albums to get used to, but even Virtual XI has some great work there. I always prefer listening to the 80s Maiden and occasionally dip in post 90s Maiden material but one thing is for sure, I won't change with fashion. First gig was SSOTSS, latest was Book of Soul where I met Dennis Stratton outside 02 going to the gig. I managed to get Nicko's drum stick during a gig and hopefully one day it'll be Steve wrist band. Up the Irons!

This arrived a couple of days ago direct from Modern Vintage (Rob Elrick & John Files), but I wanted the La Bella Black Nylons on and the bass setup before I posted it. So far I love it, fantastically built bass, sounds great and a neck finish, feel and shape to die for! Loving the finish too, really nice vintage Shell Pink colour with matching headstock! Si

Your mates bass was most likely a US EBMM Sterling. Smaller body than the Ray; the single H is equipped with ceramic pup rather than alnico and can be switched single, parallel or series. The neck is jazz width and the headstock is shorter than a Ray. I still have mine after my recent culling and prefer them to Rays - love the neck and aggressive tone in series. Sterling by Musicman are non US produced Ray clones, good quality, think MIM Fender or better. Sterling SUB are lower ended Far East produced Ray clones.

I`m pretty sure it`s a B neck. Whatever size it is, it suits me and has stayed with me since 2014 which is a miracle. My NM is quite light and is fitted with Thomastik flats and is currently painted (not perfectly) white.

Thats a tune that your mate would keep playing and drive you mad with it

I was wrong - I only have brown but a choice of three

It is reassuring to discover that I am not the only person in the world to cordially dislike the song 'Dignity'. And I'll sail her up the west coast Through villages and towns I'll flip the dinghy over And then I'll f___ing drown

And didn’t turn around, I assume?😈

Haha - see how we go, will be a few weeks. Gotoh bridge on way like the white has

Buy Apple stock early 80's. Don't sell the Wal, or the JD or the Warwick... Practice more.

I be more curious if they did a 5 string version.

There’s some big reggae names on that label, including Don Carlos, like this one, which is one of my favourites, but for some reason the vinyl label has been changed

How about this band , and, no I haven’t got the album 😁

Fender Japan everytime.

@Silvia Bluejay isn't just supportive, she's an active and essential member of the team. I quite literally couldn't do what I do without her ...

Just to follow up @Steve Browning's point. I work in the tech sector and many equipment manufacturers have crazy lead times at the moment. I'm not sure if this is just Brexit and border changes, or raw materials sourcing issues too. I also know that we as a company are struggling to deal with the wave of spending that is starting back up because we had to lay so many staff off during the covid period due to there being no work. Customers who hibernated and weren't buying or paying during the pandemic are now expecting the same instant high level of service but we have hardly any backroom resources left to deal with quoting, purchasing, service, invoicing etc. We are doing our best to rebuild, but I'm sure the powers way above my head are nervous to splurge on recruitment in case this is just another short spike of business. All the time this is going on, those of us that are left are working flat out trying to save the face of the company but are undoubtedly letting customers down here and there. As I said, we are not the music shop industry, but thought it might be worth considering as reasons as to why they are so bad at the moment.