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Friday night my blues rock trio played at a lovely little music pub in the middle of Ipswich called The Shamrock. Parking can be a problem but after load in I got lucky and found a legal, free spot a few yards down the road. One of the few places where they don't expect bands to play Sex On Fire. We played for two and a half hours to a small but very enthusiastic crowd, many of whom had seen us before and came especially. Our guitarist really gets off when the audience is behind him and his soloing becomes inspired. I've played in theatres, I've played to some big crowds but on Friday playing this tiny pub in Ipswich to maybe 25 people was one of those special gigs. I smiled all the way home.

Awesome gig last night. 8:45 about 4 people in. But they came,and it was loopy. Loads of improv and I even played a few solos! Pure fun from start to finish for us and the audience. That's what it's all about. 😎

Great gig last night, for a somewhat unexpected reason. We supported another all originals band at a local guesthouse. An extremely low key affair just for the fun of it. As anyone in an originals band knows, it's pretty difficult to get people to really listen to what you have to say. I've always been of the opinion that making people dance is easy, making people cry is another matter entirely, and means they're truly listening. Last night we had our first crier and it made my night. I should probably add, it was at the appropriate time after an extremely emotive song, and not just coz we were cr@p. 😂

Hi guys, Will from Bassbros here. The site went live late last night (while I was on a gig). There’s a few things that still need to be added/changed. So please bear with us while this is sorted. There’s no marketing ploy or any other negative connotation I can assure you before the speculation goes any further! There are just some functions that will be re-added in the coming weeks as the structure of the site itself has changed a lot. Thanks Will

Played a small gig yesterday evening. One set only, but that's about all I could manage; had an inner ear infection earlier in the week and I'm still not feeling great. All went well, though. There's no power at this venue and we were on battery amplification only so I tried out a Roland bass cube, which did the trick nicely with a preamp for the upright. A brief clip here if anyone's interested.

Had a nice visit from @Bunion today and somehow I ended up with this trifecta of basses. Not gonna lie, they’re pretty killer 😍 Never had a Wal before but I guess everyone’s fave with be the Modulus 🤟

Yay for cafe church

My 80s Alternative / goth duo played on Friday, just locally on the road I grew up on. Last time we were acoustic so we decided to bring the full band with our electric set, drum machine and sequenced keys. We walked in and some of the locals starting saying "Here come the professionals!" Assuming they weren't comparing us to Bodie and Doyle, it was a great welcome. We did a really solid set and returned later on with mandolin / mandocellos to back the country guy. A great night.

Quick 10 min Sunday Job... Odd sharp fret end and hard edge on the bitsa necks... For some reason i came across theses 4 Way (Sand,Smooth,Buff,Polish) Fret Dressing Sponges in Superdrug... A bargain at £1.99 or 2 for £3... https://www.superdrug.com/Make-Up/Nails/Manicure-%26-Pedicure-Tools/Nail-Files-and-Buffers/Superdrug-4-way-Nail-Buffer/p/785413 Did a Luverly job... spongy so you can crease for better shapeing, smoothed the fret ends and light-rolled the fretboard edge.

A rare (these days) gig for me: an afternoon set with the old lineup (now sadly mostly defunct, given the singist/geetarist is off solo raking in the cash, and the drummer's been on tour with Heather Small, playing the likes of the Palladium and the Bridgewater Hall, plus he's got the Albert Hall, an album to do in Abbey Road, and a round of the festivals upcoming, too) for a previously-committed charity festival...nice to play with them again, a fun 45, and no heavy lifting...back for tea... Now back to the setting up of a new band...

Fourth gig for the new band last night at The Victoria Inn, Four Lanes, near Camborne. With football on the TV we expected that the pub would be empty but it picked up quiet quickly. Considering we don't play your standard pub covers the punters managed to dance their way through most of our two sets. Sadly there were a few mistakes but we put that down to the fact that we don't gig enough so we've got to get things right for the Lostwithiel Gin Festival next month. At the end of it we had a very happy Landlord and a return booking. This was the first time I've ever played a whole gig on a fretless. It worked out really well and the rest of the band loved the tone. Thank you Frank for introducing me to the Rob Allen Mouse.

Is one of those to throw to the adoring fans? S'manth x

A Wiltshire wedding in a beautiful setting. Lovely people, full dance floor all night, paid and home before one. Result.

For weddings gigs, which are very well paid and in general you’re the only band I think it’s better to have the gear to hand and never need it than the other way and potentially ruin someone’s big day. As well as for the playing ability they’re paying for professionalism. I’ve only ever needed a backup once in 40 years gigging. Quite typically I didn’t have one with me, but it was a multi band bill where we mostly all knew each other so things went ok.

So a recent NBD occurred, I was in the market for P bass, when a fellow in these very pages was selling a Tobacco burst BB1024. As I used to have a 1025,I know how good these are, at getting that P tone, so got some old Tomastiks put on. I've made a couple of cosmetic mods, in that I've had a lovely Tortoise Pickguard made, and added some Art Deco esq knobs. It has a similar vibe to the newer BB models only with IMO a more elegant Guard and body shape. Just waiting on some pickguard adhesive tape,as I don't have a drill,I can then fit it properly.

Coincidentally, a music producer on tv just referred producer, songwriter and singer Espen Lind's comment about pop music: "Good pop music is like a sausage: it tastes lovely, but you prefer not knowing what's inside..." 😄

Seem to be getting some traction. I will see if it might work for the Earl Haig. Otherwise I have a venue in Penarth that would be willing, we could use their big upstairs room on a day when there's a really good band downstairs.

Well it turns out that, "Aren't you supposed to be getting ready?", can't be heard over the noise of a compressor! 😂 I got the Shell Pink on yesterday before we went to the wedding. The rear of the bass will (hopefully) be a similar colour to the wood of the deckchair, with a slight burst to hide the edges. Part of the reason for the delay was that I was experimenting a bit. Traditionally, in the hotrod/custom world, metalflake is applied over a black basecoat. Even what looks like a full flake job is usually about 95% coverage so the black base makes the flake 'pop' as the 'mericans like to say. Or you use a very similar coloured metallic base and dust a coat of flake on top to get that medium sparkle look. There's no rules but sometimes things just don't look right. Shell Pink isn't metallic and the rose gold flake I'm using doesn't match, why make life easy. 😁 I wanted a pink base to soften the look but wasn't sure if it would look like right, but I'm happy (ish) that it'll work.

Played a gig at my old local from the 80's. Girdwoods in Wishaw. I used to frequent 7 days a week back in them far away days. Punk band tonight and it went down a storm. Lots of great feedback and great to see some old faces from my younger days. Even got complimented on choice of songs. Few punk fans had never heard any other bands playing a lot of our set list live and a few Ramones songs they'd never even heard The Ramones play live. Everyone was bouncing away and clapping and singing along. Just a great night. Using my Sandberg MarloweDK again and it just works so well in the Punk band. Dave

A somerset birthday party in a beautiful setting (next to a wedding venue). Lovely people, full dance floor all night, paid well and home before one. I see a pattern!

Ah. Don't know those and will check them out. Thanks for mentioning them. I do appreciate some of Vivaldi's music, mind, like some of those string concertos for everything between violins, lutes, celli and mandolins, and my use of the word "hack" was not entirely scientific. That broad brush was about Vivaldi's tendency to set up a structure with some depth where, as soon as he got in trouble he'd run back to the main key at ticket-inducing illegal speed. In basically identical circumstances, Bach would come up with his trademark physics-defying magic, never hurrying back to safe ground. Not entirely unrelated, I'm reminded of an earlier thread on BC where people said things along the lines of "Derek Bailey can't play and just plays random emperor's-new-clothes notes". I'm sure you defended him, as did I. The point is: Derek Bailey could play everything, and he mastered every style of jazz. He just didn't play that on record or during gigs, coz that was not Derek Bailey music. Like Bach was on another level than Vivaldi was, Bailey was on another level than most others are. BTW, ClassicFM, as mentioned by @zbd1960 to me is evidence for the notion that my stating Bach was one of the greatest composers still is an unpopular opinion - though of course not unpopular amongst classical musicians, who are in a minority. ClassicFM never plays Bach's more demanding pieces, and never plays complete works. One could well joke a little and say that ClassicFM is classical music for people who hate classical music. 😃 Another unpopular opinion, I gather. 😃

thinking of sacking our piano player and getting this in, his timing is better anyway :-0

Don't buy on the basis of our (or anyone's) opinions. Try one.

That looks alright

Very disappointed that none of the grumpy pedants of BassChat have grasped the opportunity to point out that standard long scale is 34 inches not 34 feet.

Which Itu commented on so he knew it had happened too 😄

Hi there, We are in Leamington Spa, please contact us to book an appointment. We operate by appointment only. The address info is another thing that will be added to the site with a map,etc. The Hangers Harbury Lane Leamington Spa CV33 9SA I hope this helps Thanks Will

They're intended for running direct into a recording interface or a desk, as part of a DI setup, which is why many of them integrate an XLR output for DI. They're also becoming very popular for home practice, there's a lot of models now with integrated headphone amps and outputs. It's amazing how many people don't really understand what a necessity they are, especially if you're using pedals. Pedals are, by and large, designed and tested with an amp and cab setup. Cabs have a huge impact on the the sound in terms of what frequencies are present and how they respond, so if you just plug a distortion pedal directly into an interface, you're not hearing it as it was designed to be heard, and in all likelihood it will sound absolutely terrible. Even if you're running a preamp or a DI box, cab simulation is a crucial stage of the process to get to how it was designed to be heard. Many modern cab sims will also include power amp simulation, so along with a preamp pedal you can have a complete setup. Many of the early pedal ones were just very specific EQs that did a passable job, but the modern approach is something called Impulse Response loading (IR) - the physics is kind of complicated but basically they can digitally "sample" the way real cabs, mics and power amps affect the sound going through them, as an impulse response file. These are then loaded into software in the pedals (or a plug-in) and applied digitally to your signal, emulating the way it would respond. Most major cab and amp manufacturers now sell IR files for their cabs, that are compatible with basically any IR pedal. It's only in the last 6 or 7 years that the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology required to do this has become affordable and mass market enough to enable this - the Mooer radar costs about £100 and does a good job with limited features (no DI out).

Ah, but there are several aspects in this. I do like that they exist and that they provide a service to people like me mom who has it on the whole day. However, I can't listen to it myself. Also, the elitist vs populist thing is another aspect altogether again, and sadly often has a lot to do with how people wish to place themselves in their social circles and what they want to communicate about it to others. From a personal perspective, I've loved electronic classical music and the like since I was a kid, and have been met with distrust and accusations for six decades because of it: I can't possibly love that noise, so I must have ulterior motives. Right. That's six decades of time and money spent at lying. I'm almost impressed with myself for having the stamina! 😄

Any polls regarding musicians, singers, bands as being the greatest of all time or even their generation, genre…. Etc, are a complete waste of time and have no merit. There, i said it now where’s my coat.

The LED wiring seems sound (No circuit shorts or breaks) tho I won't really know until I've hooked it all up. Foot-switches mounted. The pins soldered on the switches are to allow me to use solderless connections (A bit like EMG do) to interconnect everything. As this is the first prototype build it gives me more flexibility to modify the circuit; this will be very handy when I come to the modification for the multiple OLED displays. I've only installed one OLED at present as the current software does not support more; I will either need to modify it (It is open source) or more likely write my own to replace it. A rewrite is a bigger job but I have dreams of a sound chain management eco-system (You can tell I was once an IT Consultant!) that incorporates midi control (wired and BLE), a synth/looper box (Occasionally some backing drums would add to our songs and I really fancy trying to get a midi signal out of my axe to drive a synth) and a HX Edit type editor. All talking to each other and to my Stomp. All available to view and configure from a web based interface (Tablet mounted on my mic/music stand) 🤔 but just for now ... With all the switches in, trampa has a lovely heft to it. Next will be final wiring, testing, flashing the firmware, testing, initial configuration, testing and then trying it for real (Well, with my gear in the living room) ... I am determined that I'll have it operational before band practice on Wednesday S'manth x By the way, the squares on the green cutting board are 10mm x 10mm.

I bought a brand new Precision for less than £100, fitted a set of Fender flats and was delighted with the deep vintage sound. It had an excellent set up on delivery and the fret work was spot on with no sharp ends. The only thing I didn’t really like was the headstock shape.....needed a ‘tele’ style makeover! I would happily buy another HB based on this experience.

I think the Earl Haig club would be a fantastic choice. Nothing to do with me being ten minutes walk away, of course…

For me I have a spare bass on standby usually. Sometimes I like to use a different bass for a second set, sometimes it's cased up and in the boot of the car. If I don't have a spare bass I definitely have spare strings. If my amp goes down I can DI off my pedalboard. If my wireless goes down I have a spare cable on stage with me. If my pedal board goes down I just won't use effects. I've never had a spare amp because I don't want to pay out for something I hope to never use. I carry a bag of leads, speaker cables and so on to bigger gigs. The thing I find most useful is a £15 battery tester off Amazon. I've had a Stingray battery go weird on me and I have spent tons making sure I have new batteries for gigs.... Well, gigs don't tend to drain batteries much. Since buying the tester it's probably paid for itself in stopping me buying new batteries. Now I'm on a wireless and I have an active bass a quick check with this before going out... It's not priceless but it saves me about a tenner per gig.

Your only option is probably to replace with the same cheap bridge for a direct replacement. That's not necessarily as bad as it sounds, the old bridge will supply parts for several repairs if needed .... I'd guess that a lot of issues may be screwed items being made of cottage cheese. These will be metric threads so replacement with say stainless steel parts will go a long way in the reliabilty stakes. Here's an overhaul video off Youtube, I've only done a quick drag and drop through it, but it doesn't appear to be difficult to take apart. Good luck!

Says it all. Sometimes the smaller gigs are just way better. I love when that happens. Dave

Don’t worry - you don’t have to resign, not now I just changed the rules … 😅

Reported for hate speech

Happened to me once. First note of the first set (soundcheck was fine) with a new set of strings and the E snapped at the ball end. 20 seconds later I'm back in the song with my spare bass. Never happened before or since so must have been a QC issue. And earlier this year I had my first ever amp failure - my Handbox went pop halfway into the 1st set. A spare little Quilter BB800 always sits on top and is plugged in to the mains so it's just a speakon change and I'm good again. That one took about 30 seconds to get back in the game. My thoughts are that if you are getting paid you need some sort of backup option for all your kit - basses, amps, leads whatever. I always use 2 cabs just in case one dies. And if its a wedding you absolutely have to have plan B - as above, it's just a gig for us but it's someone elses biggest day of their life and I wouldn't want to stuff that up for them....