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Hi!

My best purchase: I finally managed to get my hands on a Steve Harris blue sparkly sig bass after about a year of GAS. Many thanks to the people on basschat that helped me get there! 💙

I thought I’d revisit this topic as it seemed apt. Some of you will know already, but last Tuesday I had a heart attack. I’m on the mend now, and during conversations with the doc he suggested I needed to exercise my right hand to stop stiffness after the angioplasty and the cardio catheter. Apparently my session was a bit more brutal than usual. I asked him if playing bass would suffice, and after a bit more chat he thought it would be ideal. Anyway, got home from hospital yesterday, and decided I might as well have a go. They give you lots of stern warnings about depression and suggest that doing stuff not too strenuous is a good idea. Picked up the Shuker and realised it’s a bit like me. Has had an incident involving major surgery but is actually the better for it afterwards. Yep, I’m pretty much stuck with it now given that link.. so I had an enjoyable hour getting back to it and despite a bit of wrist discomfort it actually wasn’t so bad at all. Nice to be home, in more ways than one.

Well, it's starting to look like a guitar at last. I finished off the binding with some maple and ebony offcut. Bent on the side-bending iron and then using the iron-on veneer method as with a number of my previous builds: And then onto the pickup chambers. As many of you know, I hate routers, but for this job they are jolly useful. Nevertheless, I minimise the amount done with the router and only use it when it is fully captive. The wide range Mojo pickups have narrow fixing tabs and so may well be solid fixed. There may be a covering ring of thin ebony, or maybe not...whatever Jack prefers. Again, I've gone over my slightly unconventional method before but, in brief: I mark out the external lines and drill the corner radii: I hog out with a Forstner: This next bit is where I drift away from the conventional - the use of routing templates...but I hate routing templates even more than the pesky router itself. So I chisel up to the external line down to around 5mm from the top: And now, with the top-bearing router bit totally captive, use that to tidy the sides up to the chiselled line and rout down to the final depth: And, with just a bit of chisel tidying to do, we have a couple of chambers: Next job is fretboard taper, fretting and binding

I guess it kinda has to be my G&L CLF L-1000. The Epiphone Embassy is nice, but the G&L is very nice. Honourable mention for the TC Electronic MojoMojo overdrive pedal I bought to replace my Electro Harmonix Bass Soul Food after it went on the blink. I was very sceptical that an overdrive pedal intended for guitar could work as well for bass but I saw enough people online singing its praises and I'm amazed. It's a dark, thick overdrive and I think it sounds great - gives a meaty boost which can be really felt and heard, especially in a trio when the guitar needs a helping hand in a chorus or something.

Currently we are struggling with a massive global shortage of shipping capacity. Every day it confirms more and more our decision to move the production here to our own country. On that front - SWB samples already being made in the UK. Will put photos up on our facebook page. If there is interest I can post them here too. We're introducing a new bass to the SWB line. The SWB Deluxe. CHB-1 / 2 samples will be coming pretty soon too. Although not fixed or sure yet. Prices look something like the follow : Looking at the costs SWB-1 will go from £530 to £660 . SWB Pro will go from £850 to £895 SWB Deluxe be approximately £1195 New CHB costs coming soon.

Happy New Bass Day to me! OK, technically it was last week, but I'm pretty time poor at the moment. I am extremely lucky to have received my very own ACG Uber Finn 5 string. Specs as follows: Body Wood: Mahogany Top Wood: Katalox Veneer: Maple Neck Wood: 5 piece Flame Red Oak/Wenge Finger Board: 2 Tone Pau Ferro Scale: 31.5″ Finish: Satin Lacquer Pickups: ACG MC5 Hardware: ACG/Hipshot Bridge, Gotoh GB350 Resolite Tuners and Dunlop Straplocks Pre-amp: ACG DFM 5K/AP The bass is absolutely exquisite, perfectly balanced, not too heavy, not too light. The playability and sound, as with all ACGs are both incredible, but this one takes it up a notch with the MC Series pickups. These pickups are incredible, so articulate and precise, they really capture every nuance of your playing. Coupled with the DFM 5k, you have everything you need to sculpt your tone. I tend to run the neck pickup quite thick and bassy, and the bridge pickup a little more grindy/gnarly, which gives you a huge aggressive tone, which can easily be tamed by dialling back the passive tone control. There's a world of possibilities though. As with my other basses, it's a 31.5" scale, which is a scale length that kind of found me but feels so absolutely perfect. Special note for the TGI Gigbag that the bass shipped in, very simple, but well made and effective, I'm going to pickup a few more to replace some of my less padded bags. All in, I'm a very very lucky lad! Cheers, Eude

I had a week off last week and treated myself to a me day with an afternoon visit to a guitar shop to try out a bass I was curious about. It was a Cort A4 Ultra with the new Fishman pickups. I wasn't over impressed with the pickups personally as they seemed to compress the sound particularly on the E string. Probably good for modern slappy stuff but not to my taste and it's one of their top end basses at c£1100. And I was only looking anyway. The next model down is the A4 Plus which is effectively the same bass but with Bartolini licensed pickups and a maple/mahogany body instead of an ash/mahogany one. The guy in the shop suggested trying it to really show the difference in the pickups. I spent 20 mins having a noodle and came away thinking I much preferred the cheaper version as it had a bit more character and booty about the sound. It has the same Hipshot hardware, neck through design and the neck profile is lovely. I'm struggling lately with jazz style necks and even though this is still quite narrow at the nut it has a flat fingerboard radius and a slightly deeper profile with a flattened feel to the back of the neck which I think can get along with better. It seems to be the flatter board that works for me and the fretwork and edges are sublime. The bass itself feels fabulous - the open pore finish and generally curviness of the body feels great and it seems pretty light as well. I was only having a sniff around anyway... That evening I was idly pooching about online having a think about the bass and I tripped over someone selling a used version of the one I liked. Looked pretty good in the advert and after 20 minutes of messaging we struck a deal. It wasn't local so I was on the train the next day heading north to check it out. Turned out it was only a few weeks old and still had the tags on it and a decent gig bag too so I grabbed it. Haven't gigged it yet so it's been a week of home use and I can never tell if something is going to work for me until i've done a few gigs with it but it seems pretty good so far....time will tell

I am! I can multitask! Like watching tv, listening to music AND reading a book!

Undoubtedly my best recent purchases is the new Ampeg V-4B and a Big Baby ll , massive clean deep lows and that valve sound, just what I was looking for 🙂

Happy to get the ball rolling... My best purchase, for yet another year running, is a bass. A lovely Yamaha BB2005 which I was able to buy off a fellow BC'er a few months back. It almost instantly won me over as an incredibly good bass and a lovely "budget" replacement for my BB NE2 which I had moved on as it wasn't getting much use. I posted a fairly detailed review of it on the Yamaha thread if you want to delve further. In truth, my choice was a complete toss up between the BB 2005 and a fantastic Elrick Evo 5 which I was fortunate to be able to buy off @Sibob in the summer. But given how much less the BB 2005 was in price terms, that edged for me - it's always a treat when a relatively modestly priced piece of kit holds its own with gear costing several times more.

The two best purchases of 2021: The Status necked fretless: So easy to play and sounds great. and the recently purchased Nux MLD pre+DI: For just over £100 it's a fantastic bit of kit. I mainly bought it so I could tame the mids of my Aria SB B&G (the EQ on the CTM-300 is rather limited), hence the mid cut in the image. But also great to plug an iPod into, switch the IR in, and noodle along to stuff via headphones. Whilst the drive is very basic and a little heavy handed, blended out a bit it's quite useable.

Best, JMJ Mustang. Not perfect, but it’s rekindled my joy of playing and particularly playing fretted. I did some comparison recording yesterday and it’s fantastic in a mix with little or no EQ required. As for the scale, colour me converted. Honourable mention for the Beat Buddy. Worst, a set of nylon wrapped, LaBellas. The ones on my Rob Allen sound great, but they don’t work as well as cobalt flatwounds on my other fretless. Not the product’s fault, just a mismatch.

I bought one of these from eBay - as a basic DI box and a bit of a preamp it's amazing!! And only £40!! I'm not big on effects but for a basic preamp, got to be a bargain. I put together a 9v battery box as well to run it from batteries.... shame it can't run from batteries internally... Still... a great buy for me!

Sorry, my bad.

Got it as a B-stock bargain from Thomann. Love it.........!

22 shows in 30 days - final 2 shows this coming Friday and Saturday. 3x 45 minute sets each night = just under 50 hours on stage in total so far. It’s been an absolute blast and I’ve shed 7 pounds in weight to boot. We have 4 nights off this week. I’ve forgotten what a quiet evening in feels like!

And finished. A service and Some lovely aluminium welding by a local metals company hides my ‘not perfect’ mitres. im very pleased with it.

I am sure anything could be argued, but i wouldn't understand anyone thinking it was civilised. I guess it comes down to whether you would be happy if you had a problem, you told it to your band mates and they all said it wasn't a problem, don't worry, and then some mate contacts you and says "Oh I saw your band gigging, so you left then?". Personally I would think they were a bunch of organs that can't be mentioned on basschat. I would be sympathetic but if the agreement was we would continue without him, I would like to think I would have the globes to tell him to his face. You are right, life is too short, but you can choose to try and make it as good as it can be for people

got to be my 2008 Fender jazz, my absolute pride and joy

Best: Worst:

Tapewound strings (D'Addario Nylon XL) have been great - exactly the sort of sound and feel I've been after. They've probably changed my playing style more than any Bass or effect pedal has.

OK, I've popped a bass line on an old band track.. I had the master without bass and it lets me pop bass on easily so I thought I'd do that for context. The original track was a P bass. This is recorded in Logic, with the bass L/R coming from a Helix with a MESA amp/speaker model but nothing else. It's pumped right up in the mix so you can hear what's going on, so far too high, no compression, no fiddling or nothing, pretty much the original track with the raw bass tracks on it.

I love Planet Rock. My neighbours love it too as every time when I am gardening or doing stuff in the garden I take may radio out and it's always quiet around. I think they're listening to it too.

Now that I've got used to having the Squier P + Di Marzio Model P I bought this year, I would be very miffed to lose them .... but had I not bought them I would have been content with just the BB I already had. The Hotone Ampero, though, instantly transformed everything, and if anything happened to it, I would be replacing it immediately. Mostly useful for the amp / cab / mic sims, but glad to have compressors and a tuner too. PS forgot to say: it's the quality of the user interface that makes it so good. I'm sure plenty of similar boxes can produce exactly the same sounds, but this is such a breeze to program

Which is why it's important that everyone knows the score. She can then make up her own mind whether to hang around waiting for the drummer and risk you guys having moved on, or find another project. Ultimately, are you actually considering going back or not? If you're not, then don't mess people around. They'll have long memories and people talk.

Have you tried ditching him at a truck stop? It worked for Hawkwind and worked out best for everyone in the end.

Pfff tough question. I've bought some seriously cool stuff this year, if I may say so. This was the luckiest catch: a 1976 Bassman 100, retolexed in red. Haven't used it yet but it will come. I put it in my head that I wanted a double bass so I bought this amazingly beautiful Dutch built 3/4 bass from 1992. Don't play it often, but when I do...lovely. But I think my favorite purchase of the year are these two boys: I got the five string in for a review in De Bassist and liked it so much I wanted to keep it, but actually wanted a four string so I bought that as well😁 Also bought some nice pedals this year (Cali76, Trickfish Minnow) but the basses are more...my thing. I like pedals, I love basses.

My most used pieces of gear that I bought this year are a Schroeder 1210r cab, and a Warm Audio active DI. The Schroeder sounds great and is a great one cab solution for most gigs. The DI box just makes the bass sound right through front of house, and is far nicer sounding than most boxes that are supplied at most gigs. Special mention has to go to my Moog Subsequent 25, which is just awesome.

At the risk of seemingly repeating last year's answer, it's this. Not the bass but, rather, the Sadowsky onboard preamp I installed. After a little bit of woodwork, it's never fun putting new holes into old basses, it has turned a great playing instrument with quirky and complicated electronics into an absolute savage which plays and sounds as good as anything I've ever had. Rather than have a small hole or non-functioning switch, I set the switch up to run the pickups as serial/parallel which has added another nice option to a great, great bass. After Before

I was recently contacted by Action Fraud to confirm whether I was repaid or not. (I was) they gave no details as to what is going on, but they must be still working on it to some extent.

That’s committed, a tort forearm.

Grabbed it !! ashdown (2)

So pretend to be sympathetic and supportive of the drummer to his face and then form another band behind his back. I believe it is quite common. Not something I would do.

Also, there seems to be a limited edition 60s Classic Vibe in Sonic Blue with matching headstock. Now that's also nice.

There's one of them trying to get me to join his band. He's seriously full on anti vax and thinks just about everything is a conspiracy. I told him I've just started a job at Astrazenica so don't have time for a band with all the illuminati meetings after work. He didn't reply to that message, I'm not sure if he realised I'm taking the fosters.

Definitely post photos here, a good number of folks on BC do not use FB and I’m certainly trying to wean myself off of it.

Steven Wilson plays some PT songs in his solo set, and Beggsy nails Colin's lines. He's a very different onstage presence though. He's also adapted some of the bass parts for Stick, and throws in a lot of good backing vocals.

Ah glasshoppa, a very interesting topic. First if your dots are not precisely on the note life will be much harder unnecessarily. It may be worth paying a good luthier to check and if necessary move the dots. Bass Gallery in London did this for me for a not unreasonable sum. Second you talk of the visuals, but what you're working with is sound. Playing unlined forces you to think of the sound you're making, so learn to orient yourself with your ears, less with the eyes. This doesn't mean sitting in a dark room. Try to visualise 'virtual' lines from the side dots and in the spaces between. Work with these and slowly you'll find the muscle memory does set in and you'll look less and less at your fingerboard. Sometimes you'll be out, but more and more often you'll be in. And remember if your rhythm is spot on, being slightly out of tune occasionally may well not be obvious. For me the massive virtue of unlined and a minimum of markers is that you're encouraged to create sound. I mean like really create it, whether its a subtle slide or a bog standard root A or C. Frets were only introduced by Leo Fender to make it possible for any muppet to pick up his bass and play - frets and even lined fretless are the sound equivalent of paint by numbers. IMHO of course - but I am right 🤠. [Sits back and waits for yet another firestorm of rage].

But, I'm always looking. I could have bought a couple of amps and half a dozen basses in the last 2 years, but my "Must be better than what I already have" rule has kicked in and stopped me.

old smoothie, mint. Mint!

Boo!

You have to contact EBS. My newest clone: IVP

I do not understand why any one gets upset when we want to change anything on our Fenders. Saying that we feel Leo got it wrong by doing our changes is Nuts. Leo Fender was a Genius! No doubt at all. He is also the one who changed his Guitars the most from his original designs with both Musicman and G&L. His autobiography tells us he worked on improving his instruments right to the day before he went to be with the Lord. The thing that stands out for me is Mr Fender wanted us to make his guitars are own in both form and function. I don’t know why people on T.B get their knickers in a knot about this either.

Nice one from the cool ruler