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There is photographic evidence that the moon landings were faked:

Hi All – I wanted to share my first build with you fine folk! I’ve been doing a guitar building evening course for a couple of years now – a few hours a week hence the slow progress. I actually have another bass nearing completion, but this one is the output of an intensive week-long course I did last last summer (have spent my evening class time since finishing it). I could probably write a small and very boring book about my experience of the build process but instead I’ll just share the specs and my key lessons learned, in case of any use/interest to anyone thinking about getting in to luthiery. Specs: • Swamp ash body • Maple neck • Rosewood fretboard • Schaller hardware • Sims super quad pickup with passive electronics Top 3 learning points for a first build: Keep it simple. Sounds obvious but it’s easy to get excited and carried away with the design. I tried an original body shape and a wood veneer and pearloid logo on the headstock. They look pretty decent but they added a large chunk of time to the build. I made some mistakes with the veneer and just ended up staining it black anyway. Start with an existing template (e.g. J or P bass) and go from there. The main purpose of the first build will be learning all the basic woodworking techniques, so focus on that rather than funky design ideas. Try those once your confidence and experience increases a bit. Don’t blow your budget. It’s very easy to be tempted to buy a really nice looking piece of quilt maple for a top, or some high-end pickups. Materials and hardware aint cheap and before long it can get quite expensive. The first build isn’t going to be perfect so don’t go overboard with the extras. Save them for later - in hindsight I got overexcited with those Sims pickups and should have opted for something more cost-effective. Cheap and functional is what I’d recommend. A guy in my class made a P Bass the same time as me and fitted some Wilkinson pickups to it – they sounded great. Take your time. You’ll be really keen to get your first build finished and in your hands ASAP but it is a long and tricky process. My patience was tested quite a few times by the mistakes I made, and quite a few of them could have been avoided if I’d just done things a little slower and steadier. So don’t rush, the next build will go much quicker! There are quite a few things I’d change design-wise for another build (smaller, sharper body, wider headstock so there’s more distance between the strings at the tuners, cheaper pickups/hardware etc.), but nonetheless I’m quite pleased – the bass sounds decent and provides a good benchmark for the future. Hopefully there will be a few more before too long!

Following on from a different thread where the question was asked as to how a Bongo differs from a Stingray, I went down a pickup position rabbit hole for a number of popular basses. I've very roughly copied internet photos of various basses, some long scale, some short, some in between (Ric 4003) and sized them to be the same (or as close as I could get) between the bridge saddles and 12th fret. There were, for me at least, some surprises ('Ray, Ric, SB700 similarity for instance). I've not added lines as it would be messy, just use your eye, or a ruler for a slightly more exact comparison. This is not meant as a definitive guide as some saddle positions may have been 'wrong' and the cropping may be a tad sketchy, but I think it's there or thereabouts. Anyway, for your delectation...

Personally I can't see there's any need. If you do then where do you stop? Are short scales any more different and popular than say, five strings? If not then do we end up with separate four, five, six, eight and twelve string sections, short scale, long scale, medium scale, traditional style, modern style, active, passive, painted, natural wood, fancy 'coffee table' wood, blah blah blah? Where do you draw the line?

Last night was a 45 minute set supporting the Complete Madness tribute act at Melksham Assembly Hall. We did a blasting greatest-hits set (minus all our Madness songs, obvs) and though I say so myself we played an absolute blinder. Crowd loved it, we got loads of praise afterwards, we'd brought some t-shirts with us and sold the lot. We're getting a whole load of new followers on our Farcebook page this morning. Here's a couple of pics... god I'm really digging into that E..!

SO Many of you may have seen me bang on about the Sunn bass. However last night I rehearsed it, with the pictured setup. I can't tell you how absolutely fantastic this setup sounded last night. Volume, punch, clarity and the bass plays itself. The only upgrade on the bass was the @KiOgon loom. The rest was a few odd parts, a fret dress and a setup. The bass was £50, the loom was £34. The amp was £40 from the bay, admittedly tatty, it functions perfectly. The Zoom B1on was £20. Having previously had Overwater, Roscoe etc, through a Markbass or Ashdown rig many years ago, I know what's decent and what sucks. Honestly, for around £150, this setup plays and sounds awesome. Just saying..... it IS possible to rig up on a budget, it's not all about expensive gear. 🙂

Got to use this last night thanks to @warwickhunt. It's been a few years since I used to gig one regularly, and I've remembered how special these things are. The authority in the lows and detail in the mids and highs is absolutely beautiful.

My latest acquisition; a Fender Japan PB70. I've had this for about 3 weeks now, bought from @lapolpora from the Marketplace. The colour caused much discussion in the sale thread, and I can confirm that it looks absolutely nothing like the pictures below 😄 It's probably Sonic Blue but does look Daphne Blue at times. I stuck on a set of Gotoh lollipop tuners I had spare and some Dunlop flats and it plays and sounds fantastic. I really need to get the Patio Magic out. span widgetspan widget

The biggest lesson I've learnt from gigging. . . is that it's the biggest turn on, greatest fun, most satisfying thing that I've ever done. Selecting your gear, practising the songs, loading the car, driving around the M25 at 20mph, putting up with drunk punters, the drive home, all worth it for a good gig.

Just got this Trace Elliot Series 6 GP12 and 1220 Cab yesterday! Sounds amazing! Condition like it has just come out of a time capsule! Very very happy bass player😃👍😃👍

He's great! Also check out Profesor Dave Explains, he holds no punches. In my day to day work I have to engage with any number of "alternate" theorists and it really is quite extraordinary the things they believe. History can't be trusted, no dinosaurs, Trump is great, New World Order, one world bank, lizards, global paedo rings, Q Anon, NASA is evil, Bill Gates is evil, and of course the Flatulents as I call the flat earthers. It gets rather tiring after a while.

It's an easy trap to fall into. The wife of a friend of my missus spent a fair bit of time devolving into a conspiracy theory believer after she spent more and more time on the internet while on maternity leave. She has recently started spouting the official Russian line on Ukraine which, while that isn't good, at least indicates where much of the misinformation originates which she is snared in. How you pull someone back from the state they've been manipulated into, I don't know, however. Some people just get caught up in these things unwittingly. It's easy to laugh at them, but much of this stuff is a state-sponsored attack on our societies via social media which has been going on for quite some time. It's dangerous and intentionally so.

I turned 21 in 2005. I had a mortgage, was living with the mother of my first child… when I turned 21, my mum and dad - who I’ve battled with, but have been incredibly supportive of my musical endeavours asked me what I wanted. ”Musicman Bongo” And they gave me £800. So I put the rest to it and I got one of the early bongos. They didn’t come with a case originally. i took a case…but was later informed it was a £120 optional extra 😕 Returned it. Anyhow, 4 years later - my partner wrote her car off and quit her job on the same day when we had a brand new baby…so a massive bass sale began. @LukeFRCand @Etienne got some basses… the Bongo went, at a huge loss… they weren’t popular at all at the time. now I’m 37, the “brand new baby” is a 13 year old bass playing emo. Its time found the same age, spec, colour… It’s in Northern Ireland. i debate a flight. And then I remember my good mate @briansbrewis in Derry. and here’s where a person shows their worth. A message last night to Bri. “Yeah it’s near me, I know him - let me work on it” and nothing…for a bit. this afternoon “I’ve gone out for a drive…here it is…got £150 knocked off and I’ll get it ready to ship…” it’s in his lounge. He’s bought the bloody bass! What an absolute hero - Bri is no middleman…he is the man. I never in a million years expected him to do this - I thought he was going to talk the guy into shipping the bass (listing was collection only) I cannot express my thanks enough (I’ve paid him back - financially at least.) A depressing thing is that I don’t have any pictures of me with my original bongo. Anyhow - Publicly, thank you Brian.

This took a little longer than I anticipated! I thought i'd record a few sound examples for those pondering between the two... not trying to match them, but finding settings at low, medium and high gain that appealed to me on each. I've also put in examples of the 2 cab sims and the straight DI with the pedal bypassed. I've really enjoyed playing with these, and I do feel they give me something that other amp sims/preamps haven't in the past. Going in I expected to like the Super Vintage more, as I am SVT biased (and I'd say that my Super Bassman is more SVTish than anything vintage fender). This initially was the case as it felt very familiar, but as I spent more time with them I really fell in love with the Black Panel. It has so much character and some wonderful settings that I really loved playing with. However, I would say that 1. The cab sim with the pedal bypassed is pretty much unusable for me (but pretty accurate to a 2x15 there really!), whereas the 810 sim in the SV is a useable sound. 2. All my favourite sounds required quite dramatically different settings. If one of them was really appropriate for particular gig it'd be great, but the SV has alot on tap with very small changes. So with that, I took the SV out on a gig on Friday, to a local venue with an in house engineer. SV and IEMs in the gigbag, that's it! Engineer is used to me bringing my pedalboard with Noble DI and big Cali76 so I was interested in his opinion. The SV was really fun in the IEMs, but my previous cab sim experience led me to worry that the tone might be too rounded to really work in the PA. The reports however were good! I didn't even really miss my Cali76, as there is an element of amp-like compression. Later in the gig i upped the drive a little and pulled back the master to compensate. Again great fun and positive feedback. It's certainly different from my usual setup, but i can't see owning this little Ampeg in a box as being anything but another great tool in the armoury. Whether it goes on my board or not I'm not sure yet, it may be that it's more useful as a standalone unit. Happy to answer any questions, and I hope you find the examples above useful!

Dummy build coming together 👍

What a Waist ～ Ian D & The Bs

I recommend checking out scimandan on YouTube. His whole thing is about pseudoscience and science based conspiracies. His Flat Earth Friday videos are always good for a laugh. The Netflix film Behind the Curve is also worth a watch, a group of flat earthers blow a load of money on experiments to prove the earth is flat and you can probably guess what happens.

Our Wanted section is just extraordinary. This is the second time I have posted an unusual request* and had someone come straight back with just the thing which they weren't even advertising. Jolly good, well done. * BF Two10 4ohm cab, Ibanez Portamento 5 string.

All see is a picture of Cher stood next to a mirror.

Couldn't resist a quick mockup. Please note, pickup cover, knob and bridge positions are approximate at best! To be added to this will be black binding on the neck, and black block inlays.

Just snagged an excellent condition 1993 vintage no fan AH250SMX. Replaced the original insanely microphonic TE branded ECC83 with a new JJ and all is working perfectly.

Acquired this from my friend who was selling it in favour of the big version. I’ve not long got into compressors after 30+ years of managing perfectly well without, but I’m doing more theatre-type gigs with IEMs etc and there was room for improvement in my sound. I was quite daunted to be honest by all the parameters you can alter, and hated the idea of being mister “all the gear - no idea” However I’ve quickly realised that a) the parameters are all useful things to tweak to really refine how your compression is working for you, and b) it sounds absolutely stellar live. A proper pedal I can just leave on the entire time now. The acid test for me has been the last song of our set where I go all 80s slap bass and chorus pedal, which prior to the Cali76 tended to vary between horribly piercing thru IEMs or just completely neutered by my attempts to rein it it a bit. But the last two gigs this weekend the sound has been sparkling, punchy and bright, but tamed and controlled and just frankly excellent sounding. It’s not cheap but it’s added a whole extra dimension to my onstage sound. Love it.

A strange one. A group wanted us to play in suits. After the very quiet set of jazz standards they wanted to talk and eat by themselves. After long time together, they decided they want to sing and dance. Yes, we were slightly whizzed off but could push ourselves to a good drive - and everybody was happy. There haven't been too many gigs around, so everything is fine at this point. They seemed to need time together after all this quarantine thing, and being afraid of the disease. They nearly shouted the songs they knew.

Nice one @AndyTravis

New strings arrive tomorrow @horrorshowbassso will give a more in depth response than my previous message 😉

... and any animals being transported (horses, dogs, cuttlefish etc...).

The Bongo is a fair bit richer in the mids than the Stingray. It's still got something of that characteristic Music Man scoop in the tone, but it's far less pronounced than the classic Stingray sound that is so familiar. I really can't say enough good things about these basses, and the sound is the best thing about them. Effortlessly powerful and modern in a good way is how I would sum it up.

Given four string short scales are obviously the best, there should be a 'basses for sale' section and another for 'anything other than four string short scales'. What would be handy is being able to sort sales by location. I like to know what's available within a car ride of home.

It certainly shows that our desires for 'expensive equipment' are at times irrational and ego based. Much in the same way you can buy a £500 car and likely fulfil all your travelling needs, many of us use expensive equipment as a status symbol (even if to ourselves) that shows success or professionalism.

The trick with click tracks and any other automated tempo setting method is to make it work for you, not to allow it to be a rigid master. The days to the standard un-varying 1/4 note "cowbell" click with an accent on the one are long gone and anyone still using it should only be doing so because out of all the options available today they have found that this is the one that works best for them. 1. Whoever is using the "click track" to set the tempo for the rest of the band should have something they feel comfortable with. It may be the standard 1/4 note cowbell click or it could be an actual rhythm pattern complete with swing, groove and other micro timings already built in to it, or anything in between. What works for one drummer will not necessarily work for another. Give them what allows them play best. 2. Even given a traditional rigid click a good drummer can still play against it to proved the correct "groove" for the rest of the band to play to. 3. It is now possible to stick a lot of extra information into the click track to provide cues that only those using it can hear. One of the band I currently play with has some songs with different bar lengths in amongst all the standard 4/4. On these the click is programmed to allow the drummer to hear where these are. 4. You don't always need a click. With The Terrortones we never used a click live, but on each occasion before we went into the studio we would spend several rehearsals working on the songs we were going to record trying each with clicks at various tempos around what we thought was correct and then without. Those songs that benefited from using a click in terms of feel were recorded with one, and those that required a bit more push and pull in tempo between the various sections were done without. 5. If you find that the click appears to be holding band back on some songs in terms of tempo, either your tempo is wrong or the songs are in the wrong order in the set. In this respect using a click can be a real advantage when it comes to selecting the best song order for pacing a set. 6. These days tempo changes within a song are no problem either. My other band recently parted company with our drummer, and it was decided not replace him and use a drum machine instead. When I was doing the drum programming it became obvious quite quickly that some of the songs now benefitted from a set constant tempo, whilst others required me to match the tempo changes of our drummer to maintain the correct feel. We've spent a fair amount of time working on this in rehearsal so that all the band members were happy with how the tempo changes worked. Some required a straight tempo change from one bar to the next, whist others needed to build up (or down) over a bar or two. The end result is that now all the tempo changes happen in a predictable;e manner and are the same ver time we play the songs which results in them being much tighter and sounding better for it.

I have one down my way who is a 5G/Surveillance looper. He's convinced the Government is using 5G for mind control and attaches notices to this effect on nearby lampposts. He's also convinced the new(ish) LED street lighting is killing us, and thinks the photovoltaic cell under some of these lights are actually spy cameras.

Keep leads tidy. Coil them properly, velcro-tie them. If you use wall warts or similar PSUs, don't wrap the leads round the body of the wall-wart. Wrap them round your hand and use velcro ties on them. And if you use more than one wall-wart, put some coloured heat-shrink on the plug so you know which is which without having to go back to the wall-wart itself. Periodically go through the leads bag and weed out anything you don't need. You will need: 1) all the leads to connect your gear up (you're probably doing the PA too, so those leads too) 2) spare leads for all of 1) 3) spare lead(s) for the guitarist(s) (which should be bright yellow) Besides the set list being in big enough letters, make sure it's in black ink and that you've made any necessary additional notes (like which key it's in or which note to start on or if it's one of these modern tunings like drop-D) Make sure that at least one person other than the singer reads the setlist and tells the singer if he/she has suddenly skipped two songs (adult supervision). Please feel free to have a 20-page discussion if you are a singer who is offended by this. Have a checklist for car loading and make sure that everything is in Make sure there's enough extension leads Colour coding leads can be handy if you're doing the PA If you're running a pedalboard with separate PSU, get a DC extension lead the same length as the jack-jack lead from the pedalboard to the amp, cable-tie the two together, and keep the pedalboard PSU by your amp

I like the way the fretless P has partial lines on the edge of the board. Best of both worlds?

You are definitely "running away with it", and are actually coming across as quite unkind to someone you clearly don't know. Give it a rest.

There's a great YT video about a guy who buys secondhand records. George Benson contacted him and basically said 'I have too many albums and I want rid, would you like to buy them? This guy rang up GB, got invited up to the house and was treated with great courtesy and GB went throught his collection with loads of anecdotes saying which of the records he wanted to keep and which he would sell. The record shop guy got 2 or 3 videos out of it with GB's permission, they even went to a bar together. Seems he's a really nice guy.

My little pedal board. Work in progress.

My theory is that Elvis died having it off with a groupie, and Priscilla was so angry she propped his corpse on the lavvy to forever humiliate him.

We've done some gigs in Scotland this week. First one at the wonderful Caird Hall in Dundee (pics 1&2), a favourite of mine. Great crowd and a good sounding room. Gig made even better by some of the best pizza we've had at the wonderful Mozza restaurant near the theatre. Second one was at The Edinburgh Playhouse (pic 3). It's massive, seats something like 3060 people, unfortunately not when we were there though. One of the biggest seated theatres in Europe apparently. Gig slightly marred by a group of pis*sed people near the front kicking off through the first set, but the excellent security staff had them sorted for the 2nd. I love Edinburgh, and had time pre gig to walk around this wonderful city.

First one in 2 years last night - a support slot with some friends of ours. Excellent night and great to be back. Freezing my t!ts off to start with, but by the end of our set I wish I hadn't worn the hoodie as I was sweating like a glass-blower's bumbum...

From my neck of the woods… Half Man Half Biscuit. Dread Zeppelin. I saw Albertos y Lost Trios Paranoias once… but they didn’t go down well.