Leaderboard

So while I have a couple of days off work, I really wanted to take a couple of hours to scratch a P Bass itch I have, I don't know where it came from as I have NEVER liked the look or the thought of a P Bass, but I've been bitten recently and the itch is too much, so got to scratch it. I popped into Guitar Guitar in Newcastle and asked them to unfurl their in stock P Basses, line them up and let me try them all in a shootout fashion to see if any of them were a suitable ointment. With that said I was presented with lots of basses highlighting Fenders highly confusing catalogue of models, with a £5000 50's custom shop propping one end and a Squier Classic Vibe at the other, sandwiched in the middle were American Pro's, Vintera's, and Players series'. What a bloody hit and miss selection of basses they are, some were good, some were awful, combinations of good / bad strings, setups and neck feel, the £800 Vintera having a much better setup than the twice the price American Pro for instance... I can quickly talk about that £5k P bass here, and this is for people who have played it... that neck... WTF... it's a tree, U profile? sheesh!... ...So for an hour I went back and forward between 5 or 6 basses until I was playing just one and didn't want to put it down... that bass was... drum roll please... a... Squier FSR (Factory / Fender Special Run?) Late 50's Custom Vibe P Bass (awful mouthful) in a two tone sunburst (never liked this colour) with a anodised gold (never ever would have wanted this) pickguard... so it's a P Bass in a colour combination that I would never have looked twice at, it's got a maple fingerboard which I have forever told myself I don't like, and it's a squier... so why did I buy it? well put simply it's one of the best basses I have ever played, ever, I couldn't put it down, I went back to it after playing US Pros and Mex Vinteras and Players Series' and for me it was just better, the neck was better, the frets were better, the feel was better, it was just better so I left with it and then played it for 2.5 hours straight when I got it home, it's tremendous. £400, was the American Pro 4 times the bass? not a bloody chance. As for P Basses I thought they could only produce a stuffy wooly thumpy jumper sound, but it knocks most basses out the park for bark and bite, volume up, tone down and it just nails everything I want to play. I'm converted! It's a wonderful instrument, and I'm definitely coming round to the two tone sunburst and gold pickguard, it's classy in a "late 50's" kind of way 🤔.

Just added a matamp GT150 to my rig! Haven't valved it yet but will do later tonight. Switchable power on the back from 150w to 75w and custom face plate. Can't wait to get it cranked. As ever the guys at matamp have been ace. Top top people.

Not to be outdone by @spacecowboybelow, I also bought a bass at Newcastle Guitarguitar yesterday. A Balaguer 'select series' Goliath. And here she is: Double humbucker with pull pots for each pup's volume that turn the pups into single coil. So it can be a jazz, and also a HH. Practising today I really love the bridge pup soloed, it has a lovely bark to it. It's very light, not weighed but would estimate at 4kg or less, so I don't know why it's called 'Goliath'!. The neck is gorgeous, see the pic. It also feels fantastic. I can see no improvement on this with any American made Fender. Apparently the 'Select Series' are made in a factory in Korea with 7 luthiers, so not mass produced a la Cort in Indonesia. It was £899, with a deal so mid range, price wise but the quality is way above MIM Fender (of which I own two). I feel like I've got a top of the range bass for a steal.

And a bit more progress. This time it's all about getting ready for gluing the wings to the neck. The back will have maple binding. It's a lot easier to cut the slot for this before the sides are glued. I used the great Radius Dish UK's binding cutting jig - with an added high-tech mod (rubber band) of my own. Spent some time working out the neck and headstock angles and then cut the side profile on the band saw, including the curve at the back: Starting to look like a guitar:

We played at Billingham Forum Theatre last night - a full house, great crowd and no fuel problems getting there! Happy days.

I had a gig! Proper stage, PA, foldback, audience who could choose whether to listen or walk away, new songs to learn, and some great vocalists. This was my first time on a proper raised stage and it was was hard work, for sure. I struggled to hear the other musicians a little, and until yesterday I had no real concept of how long it would take to set up the kit - an 8 hour day for 90 minutes of playing. I have a new respect for people who play on stage, hats off to you all! It was fun. I want to do it again - but better!

I've created a YouTube channel with drums loops taken from songs. I upload original tempo and slower tempos also. New upload every day. Stay tuned!

And a further update - the good folks at Ashdown got back to me, Ant was sent to them on a Tuesday, back in the post by Friday and all is lovely and quiet with the fan. Quality unit, and quality service from Ashdown.

Oh great, another configurator, just what my life didn't need

Neck is starting to take the final curves. Also worked on the party trick 😎 White dots are not that visible on maple but it was easier to line them up with the dot center on the border of the two woods. But dots will be more pronounced with the finish.

Dust is settling from my show on Friday the 1st. First public performance in just under 2 years. It was wonderful to play again. Capacity crowd at Kings Place Hall 2. Superb venue! Dealing with the slight anticlimax now as my diary is still basically empty.

I've just been perusing a certain bass online, looking for decent images of the actual finish. Most online retailers have low quality generic pictures of the bass where, once zoomed, you just can't see any detail. Not Peach Guitars, oh no. Their photos are consistently the best available on line. I discovered this when looking at the Jack Casady basses, and I've just been trying to see what the colours of the Embassy look like. All pretty meh until you look on Peach Guitar's website, the green is lovely and the almond, oh my! Anyway, well done Peach Guitars for taking photos of the actual instruments rather than copy and pasting a poor, generic image. PMT photo Peach photo 🙂👍

I recently joined a Deep Purple Tribute, having never really paid them much attention in the past, I was pleasantly surprised by the bass playing. Not only that but it’s given me the opportunity to gig my Rics again.

Managed to find a decent desk on eBay and picked it up quite cheaply. Also started on the acoustic treatment today too. I still need to install the computer and hook it up to everything. I also ordered a 16 rack unit which turned up damaged (thanks UPS) so I have an abundance of rack gear waiting for a home. I also got one of them portable vocal booths and managed to get some Producer's Choice sound blankets to cover it. The results are quite good actually and as it can be taken down it also saves on space.

Great pictures. I like your dapper style too. No tw@tty hat. 👍

The Classic Precision look. Great story re selection too, just goes to show that the hands really do trump the eyes (if common sense is applied of course) in choosing an instrument.

This is a Status Energy, Hyperactive pickups and active preamp with blend, volume and active tone. Woven graphite neck and wood body. Not the must sought after model at all...

Not a gig last night, but the last rehearsal (of two) for Red Sky, the originals band we brought back from the dead for a 30th anniversary gig in 2019 - we're playing the McVention in Glasgow on Friday night. It's a Quo convention, we're the only non-Quo band on, our singer/guitarist and drummer play in State Of Quo, and they're doing the Saturday night, but the organisers are fans of Red Sky, and asked us to play on the Friday. The keyboard player and I will roadie for State of Quo on the Satdy night. Looking forward to a weekend in Glasgow immensely... 😃

It was the 'Spoons first post-lockdown gig last night. It was a mate's wedding - no pressure then! It was unusual circumstances all round - we are an originals band (although we do know some covers that we like to do for fun) and we've never played a wedding before! Thankfully, the drummer and I are also in a covers band so we're happy to set up PA etc. and used to doing it on a regular basis. We went to the venue the day before to set things up so as to minimise the disruption on the day (the whole shebang being in the one big room) and were a bit worried about how echo-y and boomy the room was (albeit when empty). When we got down to playing all together and with bodies in the room it turned out fine. We really weren't sure how we'd go down - sure, the bride and groom like us (that's why they asked us to play) but people who go to weddings generally expect a covers band. Thankfully we had a very generous, open-minded audience who didn't only dance to the covers but stayed on the floor for most of our songs too. The second set went great - after the post buffet mini coma had passed (around half way through) we played "Hard to Handle" and they stayed up for the rest of the set, bless 'em. Got two "one more choon"s, and we dared them to dance to "White Room" - challenge was accepted and they gave it a right good go - some quality robot moves during the 5/4 bolero bits We had a fabulous night - no major fluffs, the bride and groom were very happy (main objective, tick) and we're off and running again. I don't think we'll make a habit of playing weddings - it was a very select circumstance where we knew the bride and groom and I don't think it would have worked at any other wedding. Also, one of the guests was a fellow bass player so I got to talk shop for a bit in the break so that was cool. Next gig - this Saturday with the covers band, Dec 11th for the 'Spoons.

Spalted alder top, self build 🙂

Whereabouts are you @Mickyk? I’d be happy to take a look at at it (foc).

We only played two songs this week but, I chose them and I sang them 😁. The songs were for Communion so I went for `O Come To The Altar' Elevation Worship and `No Longer Slaves', for this one I went for the Zach Williams, Live from Harding Prison version as I love that. My first full outing as lead vocalist and guitarist went down very well and I really enjoyed it, one of our singers has recently stood down so I'm looking forward to fully leading sung worship in the near future. I'm on the bass for the next two weeks so I'm looking forward to that too, life is good and God is great 🙏

I belive it makes a very Hardy fretboard.

Oh oh! Too dangerous 😬

Perhaps a bit of Wayne Krantz ?

I agree, it's not a good thing

Utterly bonkers Spanish beating-up of Walk On The Wild Side. Some gorgeous bass on this.

The only P Bass I ever got was the Classic Vibe 70s P bass, it just outshone everything in the store in some way that mattered to me (not that the store had much in). Played it for ages but it eventually got sidelined as I can't really gig a 4 string.

Redskins were really good, I saw them at The Brixton Ace, supporting The Dead Kennedys, superb gig, this gig in fact...

First weekend of Tulley’s Shocktoberfest done - Friday and night and Saturday night. Great vibe and fantastic costumes from the actors around the park. 2 nights down, 22 to go!

While Roger Sadowsky is a well-respected luthier, he does have a vested interest in "bigging-up" the contribution of the woods used in solid electric instruments to defining the sounds of those instruments. He is after all a maker of instruments that are essentially Fender copies (admittedly very nice Fender copies - I've played several in his workshop in NYC - but still essentially Fender copies) and therefore to downplay the contribution of the wood to the sound of the instrument would be to instantly remove half the USP of a Sadowsky bass. The problem I have with "tone woods" for solid electric instruments is that they are given as absolutes (which the article very much re-enforces) instead of what I think as VERY rough guides. I've played instruments that contradict probably all of these presumed absolutes. Perhaps if you are Roger Sadowsky and you get all your wood from exactly the same source (and here I don't mean the same wood merchant but from trees grown in the same small geographical location for any given species) then maybe we can put some weight behind those generalisations, but no-one can tell me that wood from an ash tree grown in the US is going to produce the same tone as wood from an ash tree grown in Europe (not withstanding the fact that "ash" covers 40+ different species of trees). Even Mr Sadowsky himself says: "When I coach people on buying an instrument at a music store, I tell them to try to listen to several of the same model, made with the same woods..." If wood of a certain species was a absolute there would be no reason for this statement. The when you consider that most small scale luthiers are at the mercy of whatever their usual wood supplier can get in stock, and the large scale manufactures will on the whole buy with best value for money in mind, it is impossible to make anything other than most sweeping generalisations about tone when it come to choice of woods for an instrument. My position on tone wood is similar to that of Carl Thompson who said that the choice of woods used will have a impact on the sound of a solid electric instrument, but you can't tell what it will be until the instrument is finished. The problem with all these so-called tone wood comparison tests is that none of them are valid from a scientific PoV because of both flawed methodology and sample sizes being far too small to give any meaningful results. I've stopped worrying about the woods used for my solid electric instruments and concentrate instead on how each individual instrument looks feels and sounds when it is complete. It is only sane thing thing to do.