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I've been a huge Maiden ever fan since I innocently asked my mum "who's that?" as Run to the Hills played on the radio. Props to her for knowing the answer! I play bass in a Maiden tribute band nowadays. It's such a pleasure to play my favourite songs in front of a crowd that sings along with us. Love it!

I played at Bloodstock yesterday with Black Atlas. It was amazing. The sound quality on stage, the professionalism of the techs and the appreciation of the crowd was all excellent. We played well and I’ve never had such a buzz after playing.

Not much of a shorty fan myself based on years of buying and selling a few models on a whim of finding the perfect one. I found for my size, they were just too short but also tonally they were pretty "muddy" for a clean and clear sound I hoped for. Mainly had 2X Gibson 2014 SG (120th Anniversary) chocolate brown and sunburst and numerous versions of the Fender Mustang bass each time they released one. Now I'm not saying they're bad by any means, they just weren't for me and I couldn't justify the price for basses I weren't happy with. This funky thing though, I got by accident. I was looking for UK made basses on Reverb, just out of curiosity of what we make over here and give a stab at something that wasn't Fender, Gibson and other mainstream names/shapes. Found a guy called J Douglas from Leeds who made his own instruments and after exchanging a few messages, I managed to purchase this to see how well he makes his basses and quite honestly, it's really not something I'd pick at first sight but after some play time, I fell in love and surprisingly, considering the neck pickup, isn't muddy sounding or lacking tone. It looks all sorts of wrong but it grows on you over time and sounds much better than it looks. It's a keeper for me, lives in my living room and picked up more than some basses I've spent far too much on 😂 John actually makes some awesome short scale basses though, from Rickenbacker and Gibson inspired, to his own creations. All handmade and shipped worldwide. I've actually got a full scale prototype and a custom made "studio" bass. Jay from #GuitarNerds podcast also did an episode namely around one of JD's basses. Check it out: Podcast Instagram YouTube

The resonance from the body is quite exceptional and the range of tones on offer is so wide that I think after years of trying and not settling on any one bass (effectively going backwards and forwards between other instruments and Fenders ) I have found a bass that seems like it can really do most things very well. The abalone inlays are also totally stunning. 😀

Got a GR AT212 slim a couple of weeks ago (part exchanged my Barefaced Supertwin). Played my first gig last night with it and I’ve got to say it performed amazingly with my Mesa D800. Really loud, really clear and amazing Bass response (I like my bass to be pretty bassy). I really liked my Supertwin, but I would say the GR is a better sounding cab, plus the size and weight savings are great. And recessed handles…… superb! Really glad I made the swap.

I'm a teacher of children aged 4-6, and in my part of the world we're in the depths of lockdown. The school asked me to make weekly cooking class videos for the kids - and I'm happy to do so, but I aways thought the remote lessons of other teachers were a little dry. So I started recording songs and inserting mini music videos into my cooking class. It's a mixture of originals and foodified-ska versions of pop songs. The school loves it and even offered me a pay rise. Plus I'm feeling more productive than ever! Anyway, I thought some of you might appreciate these. edit: gotta express my appreciation for logic drummer as well. It's the best. Cheers! Z

I too have been on this quest for a while and have owned/used a few Fuzzes in my synth search. 3 leaf Doom- I loved this one! But found it works better with an octave/filter combo. Not so much on its own, It does sound good with the gain low anf a bit of clean blend. The tone control acts like a synth cut off and is fairly dynamic/touch sensitive, very Moog like as it was designed to do. Crowther Prunes and Custard- A very very dynamic and touch sensive pedal,and really synthy. Needs to be set at a sweet spot per instrument but sounds really harmonically rich. It can get quite aggressive when set high and difficult to control,but its a beautifully synthy sound, I felt I could use this without a filter as it has its own "Squelchy" fuzz tone. Tech 21 Red Ripper- Great versatile and synthy tone,it has loads of control and with a bit of patient tweaking, you can cop the sounds of a prunes and custard (only milder) or a smooth big muff, or even the octave up tones from a brassmaster. It has a nice dynamic feel and touch sensitivity and works well with octave/filter. At certain settings it does sound more like a distortion than fuzz, but some people like that. It also has a 3 band EQ and LPF. A great choice for a "one fuzz does all" Zvex Mastatron- Not as dynamic as the others mentioned here,but a classic synthy fuzz that excels at octave/filter combo tones. It has a Gate which turns it into a Velcro like ripping tone,which simulates a keyboard being pressed/released. It also has 3 levels of bass and provides a lot of bottom end. It is based on the popular "wooly mammoth" which is a classic synth fuzz, but the Mastatron has an input impedance control, so it will work brilliantly with active basses or in loops, unlike it's furry cousin. Iron Ether Oxide- This is one crazy industrial sounding pedal and at its core it is two classic synthy fuzz pedals, The Wooly Mammoth and the Brassmaster. Has a clean blend and loads of control, and the main feature is the "Morph" control which gradually blends between the two sounds, and has interesting tones on its travel. I found the morph went away from the Mammoth/Gated tone, a little bit too early so you can't get the really spitty tone the Mammoths famous for. It also doesn't behave with active basses and gets difficult to control (but not impossible) I loved the Brassmaster side with the octave up craziness. Mooer Fog- Small wooly mammoth Clone, tone as above, but doesn't like active basses or buffers. Emma Okto Nojs- I've just got this and the Nojs side off the pedal is a synth fuzz in two parts. In the main it's a dynamic/touch sensitive octave up style fuzz,quite reminiscent of some settings of the Red Ripper and has a treble tone control similar to the Doom. It also has a synthy Square wave tone an Octave down,with a filter to make this tone smooth or edgy! It's a fantastic addition which is almost like having an Octave (but not as subby) This pedal also has a fantastic octave pedal as well so very much a synth machine on its own. I have had other Fuzzes like the Bass Big muff and the Cog Grand Tarkin, and while they can be used for synth I've found they have a smoother tone and not quite "Synthy" Other Synth fuzzes I've not tried that I know off, but have already been mentioned above. Malleko Diabolik- brassmaster variant but dynamic too I believe. Brassmaster- fuzz with a strong Octave up sound Zvex Wooly Mammoth- a titan amongst synth enthusiasts. It is Gated but the Gate isn't as strong as the Mastatron and it doest like active basses/buffers Darkglass Duality- never tried this, but I believe this is similar to the Oxide in that two distinct voices can be blended to taste. Team Awesome Fuzz Machine Is a very full featured fuzz with a Gate. I've not tried one,but I did come across a great synthy demo on you tube using this fuzz. Sounds as awesone as it's name. Subdecay flying Tomato- admittedly I don't know much about this,buy I've heard it's synthy but also more guitar oriented. One was for sale recently by the wonderful GisserD. I'm sure there a load more in the fuzz world,but I find a lot are muff/mammoth variants. Also to mention the Source Audio Ultrawave! Not long out and very expensive, but has access to lots of programmable synthy fuzz sound. Also don't discount the Source Audio C4 which has some great synth fuzzes and octaves/filters/,synths. And also the mighty Panda Future Impact All this entirely my opinion/experience if course 😁

Just finished putting this together using a warmoth body and neck. Warmoth Alder body with 60's pickup spacing Warmoth maple neck with ebony fretboard Vintage Gotoh reverse tuners Tonerider pickups Nitrocellulose lacquer finish in surf green with a light tint top coat to simulate ageing. Light relic with plenty of good old lacquer checking. I'm waiting for the neck pickup cover to arrive but both covers will be fitted, at least temporarily, once I have them. It sounds fantastic but weighs a fair bit due to the steel rods in the neck and the vintage tuners. It's manageable though.

After careful consideration, Ronnie James Dio counsels caution when considering purchasing this particular instrument.

The reverse p/j is exactly the sound in my head… it’s a bit of everything. This is the fretted neck @Andyjr1515 did for me - wonderful. On the body of the drunken eBay fretless purchase. Alas, it’s non permanent as the fretless body and neck are to be reunited shortly when I drop it to @lee650 (I did tell him I’d be doing this…)

Photoshop.

Well both myself and the bass are still in one piece so we'll call it a victory, take that ya stinkin' router! 😁 Painted with conductive carbon stuff. This is kind of how it'll look, albeit everything is flipped over. Odd angles will obviously be sorted when it's fitted up properly. I'm going to stick with black for the scratchplate I think. I've toyed with a very dark brown tort or black pearl, I found one that was very dark, not the bluey grey, but after looking at pictures of other white basses the black just looks best. When these first came out I saw a demo of the white 2024X and fell in love, so it has to stay black I think.

It needs a few photos, but essentially: - the top wing nut is the string clamping nut - the hole in the inner cylinder is where the string will go eventually - turning the knob at the bottom anticlockwise raises that inner cylinder plus wing nut out of the tuner, until the string hole appears (around 10mm) - the string is threaded through the hole in the inner cylinder, pulled tight and firmly clamped by the wing nut - turning the knob at the bottom clockwise pulls the cylinder back into the tuner body, taking both sides of the string with it. In doing so, the pitch of the string rises. - you can see in the photo of the strung up headstock that the inner cylinders with the wing nuts are at different heights. This is because the different strings require different degrees of tension to get them to pitch with, in this case, the top E pulled the furthest down They are remarkably easy to string up and extremely precise in their tuning. Real 'blue-sky thinking'

6 on! Now we let it dry for a few days, then put it together.

Little Roy’s covers of nirvana are legendary

Further update: Last night was its gig debut and it sounded great. The band love it. However, I didn't go anywhere near the bridge pickup all night and can't imagine that I'd ever need it for this sort of music... so now I'm thinking, fill the bridge hole and change the neck pup out for a split P a la Mark Hoppus... and maybe even a mudbucker right up by the neck for those fat reggae tones?

I'm a Cubase user and also have Ableton - both free versions that came bundled with hardware. Personally I think Cubase is more intuitive if you are recording live instruments and Ableton is better if you are doing EDM. The elephant in the room is cost and update capability. If and when I change I'm likely to give Reaper a try because it probably does everything Cubase does at a fraction of the cost (or on a free trial to make sure it suits me) and doesn't require latest spec PCs. It would be madness not to try that route first, unless you are buying hardware and get something for free.

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/orange-crush-50-glenn-hughes

This is a bit of a revelation for me having never owned a P Bass before. Right away ive noticed that this bass makes me play very differently. I don't know what it is about a P Bass but the feel/neck and the tone makes me slow my playing down. Im quite amazed that you can buy a bass of this quality for this much money. It seriously is a very well put together instrument. Ive been playing it all afternoon and im at a loss to find anything bad about it.

I used to own an old one with the textured sides and without a status LED. I have no idea what happened to it (or my original coloursound fuzz). I now have on my board a mooer bass sweeper which makes all the sounds I remember from my bass balls but with more variation possible without opening it up.

Do we have a new 'Sex On Fire'? I hope not, I haven't finished hating the old one yet.

Since slow isn't always meant as a compliment, I like to think of the P-bass making me play with greater poise

Love a bit of Clinton , one of his recent ones from Baco, he’s also a great bass player

It seems to me that nestling between rosewood and off-white is the only place tort looks really good

This looks so great.... and I'm enjoying imagining how it will sound.... and it's just dawned on me how jealous I am.... and how this mod needs to be on a 424X dammit

There goes my chance of picking it up for a pittance

It is sublime.

4 4x10s. 2 of each colour, arranged like a Battenburg... 🤣

The Switchcraft jack sockets have gained their reputation for the grade and consistency of the spring steel they use. I have replaced a lot of standard jack sockets on my own instruments and other peoples in the last 10 years...but to my recollection, I have never had to replace a Switchcraft one. The barrel sockets are another matter...even the Switchcraft barrel sockets fail eventually. I don't have many pro players I do work for, so it's not a statistically sound example, but all of the ones I do often ask for stereo sockets to be fitted as @Hellzero mentions above. Whereas on cheapo jack sockets it is usually the spring of the hot contact that looses its flex and cause the failures, the other weak spot on a mono jack is the ground contact. On a mono, this is wholly reliant on the barrel keeping contact with the jack stem. Using a stereo jack, the earth is connected to a proper spring contact. They are also noticeably harder to pull out with the old 'standing on the cable' trick. So I think this is the principle that the Pure Tone's have adapted and added to. It would be interesting to know the spring-steel grade they use - if it's good, then it is probably a decent belt and braces for high usage players. That said I would probably personally stick with stereo Switchcrafts for that category, simply because they are a known and proven quantity.

Bought a Yamaha BB735A from Musik Produktiv in April this year. Price on website is the price I paid and included all duty and delivery by UPS. Bass arrived in brand new condition and well packaged - quite well set up with only minor adjustment required e,g, tuning up strings - not true of all Yamaha dealers. Their price was about £100 less than well known UK dealers who did not have the black version (BB735a TMBL) in stock anyway. Paperwork confirmed all import duties had been paid. UPS driver is the same one as delivered a couple of Ashdown cabs I ordered from them last year before Brexit - the same cabs are still available and are 30% cheaper than last summer. Delivery was less than a week from ordering. What's not to like? Just pressed the button the RM800 EVO2 myself - about half UK dealer price all inclusive.

All I can add, other than a bit of compression, would be to make sure your unused strings are well muted. Also try playing in a plucking hand position/ favouring a pickup (as above) that gives more fundamental and less harmonic content- right up by the neck, for example.

Worked on several of their early videos and met him before that at the Blitz, and agree, very pleasant guy.......... as were the rest of the band

Ableton is by far the best I think used it for years after protools just became an expensive pain in the derrière.

Return to same biker club that we played a few weeks ago but this time they only had 1 band on each night over the weekend rally so we played inside rather than outdoors. Not quite as many people as the previous rally but a decent crowd. We took our own mixer and I took my own monitor so we had more control over the sound and it was much better than last time, I even put my backline through FOH as its a very long narrow room and the low freqs get lost quite quickly when there's people dancing at the front. We overran both sets so rather than the agreed 2 x 45 it was more like 2 x 60 and it didn't go unnoticed as we ended up with an extra 20% on top of the agreed fee at the end of the night which was a nice gesture. Due to non overlapping holidays in the band we've had to turn down a couple of gigs so next is a pub gig next month less than a week after I get back from a 2 week break so that could prove interesting if I've forgotten some of the fine detail!

Designacable and lynx custom are my go to when I can’t be bothered to make my own.

Excellent festival this weekend. I’ve been taking a bit of a break from playing to work on my video stuff and been shooting stuff for my friends Britpop tribute. Anyway - Turns out this other random guy had missed live music and all the festivals that he couldn’t go to. So what did he do? Get a full blown stage built over his lake and hired a pro crew from Sheffield Area and held his own on his front lawn and booked all his favourite bands - Deacon Blue (the guys fave band) closed. They’re pretty epic. (ps pic from soundcheck before the audience arrived…!)

I'm surprised people from the "the audience won't notice, I really doesn't matter" camp even frequent a bass forum. What are we supposed to discuss here, playing more-or-less correct notes more-or-less in tune? Literally everything else is a nuance falling into that category, and I thought we liked to talk about it. I also disagree with the "when in the mix..." thing. The mix can magnify the difference. Two basses, or two fuzzes, or two chorus pedals, that sound very similar solo, can behave very differently in a mix, as in one can stand out and the other disappear.

On some forums, there are those stating that the Pure Tone, are better built and will last longer than the Switchcraft. Now considering that there's plenty of kit out there with their original working Switchcraft jack's from the 1950's, that's a pretty brave if not ridiculous position to take. If I make it to 120+, the longevity of a jack socket will be the last thing on my mind. In the meantime, I'll live with stuff that's been tried and tested for longer than I've been alive.

Reaper, I think it is the most intuitive of the DAW's out there, there are online tutorials for just anything you could wish for, their updates always seem stable and it is a fraction of the price of other DAW's

the pickup covers arrived, so one more shot for completeness:

Oh my, how nice is this intro to one of my favourite Basslines