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No real reason to post other than I'm very excited about this opportunity. I joined a band just before Christmas who have a linkup with a bar in Amsterdam that they e played in before. They couldn't do it through covid but now we are booked in for a monster four hour set on Fri 20th May. We are well rehearsed, well prepared and ready to go! Really looking forward to it. Have never been to the Netherlands at all so to go there for a gig is a bit surreal.

Ordered Wednesday, turned up earlier today. I love jazz basses and I also love G&L's saddle-lock bridges and their pickups, so when I saw this reduced by £70 I pulled the trigger... Good things: The colour - listed as Lake Placid Blue, this is more like an Ice Blue, and it's metallic, and looks the nuts. Much nicer than Fender's LPB. The back of the neck and headstock is also finished with a nice vintage amber tint. The sound - sounds like a jazz bass should. Rear pup has The Honk, blended with the front pup it rounds out beautifully for a really versatile tone. The bridge - these things are G&L's secret weapon. There is a protrusion under the bridge (downtown) which sits in the wood, sending lovely jazz vibrations through the body. Sustain and clarity for days, and also no dead spots around the 7th fret on any of the strings, maybe due in part to the headstock shape... Set up: Really, really good, straight out of the box. The action is just how I like it, had to tweak the tuning slightly, and the E string seems a little duller than the others, but very impressed with that side of things. The not so good things: A very small dent in the finish near the control panel. Nothing serious, I'll get over it. The binding - not real binding, but painted, and painted quite badly near the dusty end. Now I didn't know that quite a lot of manufacturers paint faux binding instead of installing the real thing, and that's OK I suppose (Its seems to be an aesthetic thing more than anything else) but really, whoever did this particular job needs to try again. Just not good enough, even for a far eastern instrument. Anyway, here are some pics.

"If you know, you know." This manages to be meaningless, elitist and patronising in one enormous slam dunk of stupidity.

As someone with dairy intolerance, “plays like butter” isn’t a selling point.

What's the best feeling in the world? Playing great gear, in a great band, with great players to a great audience. Oh, and getting paid for having so much fun.

The intonation on my fretless is fully adjustable, but for some reason it always sounds out of tune unless I’m playing an open string.

most acoustic guitars manage without intonation adjustment, IMO it's overrated as a problem on basses, generally we don't play chords with loads of overdrive, unlike guitar players, so unless you've got perfect pitch (disclosure time, I've got the opposite, whatever that is) you or anybody else aren't going to notice, who does on fretless basses for instance? I once asked a double bass player about how accurate his playing was, intonation wise, his reply was "As long as you're somewhere near nobody is going to notice"

Get a load of this wonderful bit of work... Even more amazing - @Andyjr1515 did it without ever seeing the bass. Just going on my own hamfisted measurements. It's a beautifully prepared bit of ebony, with cut outs for the pickup lugs and the scratchplate. It's held on with some double sided tape. I've always liked ramps, but they are more important now after suffering from a Mallet finger for a year. The ramp really helps when the finger won't properly obey my commands. And yes - I really do have the action that low / pickups that high. It's even lower when a string is fretted at the 22nd fret! Thanks again to Andy for an amazing job.

Or on ebay there's the ones who list the things it isn't so it comes up in searches for other stuff For example "Cheap donkey Amazon 3 string bass Not Fender Sandberg Fodera Gibson Dingwall"

💋

Finally finished, Mark is due to collect next Friday. And before you ask, yes it does sound like a "Wal" and then some.

So I’ve been on a bit of a quest, and last week yielded these two fine basses from my fave 2013-16 range of Fender US Standards, a 2013 from our very own @vincbtand a 2014 from the ‘bay. Match very nicely with my fave 2015. All that was needed was A-String Retainers and Hipshot Drop-D Extenders. The 13 gets the gigging band, the 14 gets the classic rock band.

I used to try so hard NOT to sing “I am afraid of God, I am afraid of God, I am afraid of God, He calls me ‘Fred’!”

“When it’s gone, it’s gone” Well that’s obvious… ”rare” when it’s blatantly not…

Here we go peeps, all put back together. Pleased with the results and the bass plays nicely.

One more update before its done. One of the pickups was slightly damaged in transit to Alan so another will be arriving next tuesday.

"Salvation Belongs To Our God" often became "Alsatians Belong..." at our church

For those preferring a DIY solution, I've found that the threaded washer that tightens down on the wheel rim of a bicycle tyre valve is a great starting point for a "thick" washer. Normal old fashioned tyre valves are the ones I mean. Inner diameter is such that it slips over the truss rod threads and the knuled outer surface can be easily filed down to exactly match the outer diameter of the truss rod. I've used this approach successfully on a MIJ Fender bass.

This is the oldest one I could find of my first band Panda Eyes back in April 2010...

Based on decades of buying gear, I’m not one to skimp on it, as it always ends up being a false economy. I’d rather buy a good one now and get to know how to use it properly. The Cali76 seems to be getting a few notable mentions, so maybe that’s what I’ll get. I am playing a vintage ‘73 Precision through a Mark Bass rig, so I need to do them justice. Thanks for all the input so far, it’s really useful. Rob

We've been reduilding our website and whie trawling back through old photos I found this from 2014 or 15. Jack Scrumpy is no longer with us, but it's still a decent promo poster

1964 Sunburst

I've booked out the Speakeasy bar in The Voodoo Rooms for our first Edinburgh gig. This show has been a labour of love and I'm lucky to work with such skilled musicians. Tickets available via the link below. 15 quid + booking fee. It might seem expensive, but this has been a very costly project to get up and running! https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Edinburgh/The-Voodoo-Rooms/Mr-Pink-Level-42-Tribute-/36084358/?fbclid=IwAR3pVGQD2cudOUTwMYBB3pSZ4WVRf4oPnFXqgMJIHCAkK4nYBgrq75_Yl34

They seem to have recovered OK, thankfully. I used my IEMs during rehearsal last night too, commandeering the PA monitor feed, and it really cut down the studio noise. I think they'll be a permanent fixture from now on.

Quick update. I've put the gear together - tonight was the first chance I've had to spend any time on it - and guess what? It works! IT BLOODY WORKS! Granted, I had to pull my practice rig apart to get the right cables and drape the living room in a spider's web of electric string to test everything, so it looked a bit messy, but I can mix the levels in my IEMs independently of whatever's going to the main desk. I still have to test a few more things, and do the rounds of the local music shops to get some cables of the right length but I'll post some pics and a diagram of the signal path tomorrow, as @MacDaddyrequested. Whoop whoop!

I tink it's about time this thread was introduced to the phrase "found this in my uncle's loft, don't know anything about basses but I think it's a Fender".

Mule variations. Tom Waits have I made an donkey of myself here?🤣🤣

DonQui xoté ～ Nik Kershaw

Sparks.

Locomotive Breath - Jethro Tull

Nah, play it right handed , upside down, and strings back to front. Easy peasy

Fretboard blank is now radiused. It gets 90% there using the G&W router jig (this is after I'd hoovered up the sahara's worth of dust ) : Then some sanding with a standard radius block to remove the router lines: Note the all important collection of sanding dust! This is going to make a nice fretboard:

The HU - This Is Mongol

Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo - South Park cast

Old Pervert ～ The Soft Boys Nothing personal EZ 😉. Probably... 🤔

I play bass in an 80s electronic covers band and I have a couple of synths I use with them. One is a Waldorf Streichfett for string synth sounds but my main one is a Novation Xio49 virtual analogue 4 octave synth with 200 presets and on board FX to cover everything else (mainly bass) I had two but let one go which I now regret and I’m keeping my eyes out for another) I really like the sounds from the Xio. Sounds way better than anything else I’ve come across for anything near to the price (I picked up both my Xio49 synths for under £100)

Well, I would buy a new cooker but no one wants my Helix Cookers have a flame top, right ? Anyway, you're only winning cos you're an Aberdonian

.....and their tours "World Tour".... despite not leaving North America....

As it happens I've just ordered one. Should arrive next week. It's going to get installed into a cheap shorty with a KiOgon loom.

Honestly, as an owner of a GR AT410+ I have not had any concerns about fragility. I've had mine for 8-9 months give or take, and as I've said before I use it once or twice a week where it gets loaded in and out of a car, through the narrow corridors of the practice rooms, it has bits and pieces sitting on top of it all the time, it goes up and down stairs etc. I have had zero problems with it and more so I've never thought to myself 'I need to walk on eggshells with the cab' Sure it will withstand less hammer blows that a 13-ply birch Mesa Powerhouse cab, but at the end of the day every other bit of gear we use (pedals, basses, amps etc) are definitely more fragile than these cabs so it's all a moot point! These don't crumble when you look at them, they are perfectly serviceable and as strong as any reasonable person needs them to be.

I've been reading both the Hate Gigging thread and this one, and not been sure where to post! I've now decided to post here. I would hate to gig in a band, because I really don't like performing in public and would never have fun while doing that. I really don't do being the centre of attention, even in those cases where the entire pub is ignoring the band - it's still too anxiety-inducing for my taste. However, I do love gigging in front of the stage, not on it, as the sound engineer and camera operator. I enjoy our days spent assembling new rigs to suit each place we take our bands to, setting up the instruments and the 'scenes' on the mixing desk, testing the lot in the studio, and even setting up and breaking down at the gig (with some exceptions). I also like gig-getting and doing the social media and marketing. As many have said, the real point of the exercise is to allow punters (or club members) to dance and have fun for a few hours. In those places where that doesn't happen, it's really not worth the effort, but you need to try them at least once to identify them, and cross them off your list!

Pfft. Pathetic excuse.

Excellent rehearsal last night. We're the headline act on jubilee weekend, and I can't chuffing wait. We've a smaller gig next week to feed the addiction.

Yeah - but they really suit Garage music 😃