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I've always had a soft spot for 3 pickup basses, despite my oft-stated loathing of bridge pickups. I just think they look so damn cool. This is my third (how appropriate) - previously had a Gibson G-3 and a Danelectro Hodad. I don't count the two Gibson Grabber 3 70s Tributes I briefly owned as they were both defective and were returned. It's my thread, so I make up the rules! I was in Glasgow last week and as a poor deprived Aberdeen boy I could not be in Glasgow and not visit the guitar shops. First off, pleased to report that Guitar Guitar has reinstated their "bassment" and basses are now back downstairs and they have a lot more stock out on display. However, I also went into Merchant City Music and saw this: Oh dear, that's bloody nice, I thought to myself. So I had a try of it and I think I may have found a bridge pickup I actually like the sound of. Long story short, thanks to a very lovely, generous wife I now own this bass. So far only played it through headphones/Yamaha Sessioncake but it sounds good to me. The differences between the switch positions are subtle but noticeable. Will take it to a band rehearsal next week for a proper blast (where the pickup selections may have more effect). Digging the Reverend style - the modern retroness of it all. Plus I'm a sucker for block inlays. Everything is well put together - hardware is excellent (chunky bridge with choice of stringing through body or top load, Hipshot tuners), neck is good with no sharp fret ends - it feels like I got a lot of bass for the money.

FAKE NEWS!!!!

Update - spent a bit of time setting the bass up to factory specs, it came with a silly low action and a lot of backbow but is now playing properly. With the cavity cover on it's basically a fully functional ex-demo bass and PMT offered a further 5% discount making it around £730 which I think is an excellent price so will be keeping hold of it. Got to have a full rehearsal with it last night through the provided cabs in the picture, sounds great and is very ergonomic to use. The Nordstrands in this bass are excellent, also fits nicely in the Gator Pro Go Deluxe guitar gigbag even with the bottom padding still in place.

Luxury! Of course, we had it tough.. .. All 300 of us lived inside a melted microchip, on the middle of a broken Class D circuit board, had to get up 24 semi-tones before we went to bed, push valve heft down a 500 mile motorway whilst being forced fed Tony Blackburn records through acid-coated IEMs...

They’ll be performing such hits as: C'est une fille cosmique; Trop jeune pour mourir; Folie virtuelle. Featuring Nicolas Turzender on la guitare basse.

I use a brace of old TE combos to tether my airship.

Getting there...

In the sense that 'That's Life', yes, I am. I didn't plan to get a urinary infection, but here it is, harsh reality. I'd be a disaster, this week, on any stage, with any repertoire. I've no gig, as it happens, this week-end, but if I had one, I'd have to desist. 'Stuff' happens; deal with it. If that's 'unreliable', then I plead guilty. Good luck with your projects.

Pah, that's nothing! I lived in an Ampeg 8 x 10 cab for two years before I could afford an 18" bass bin.

Cuh... last show of the tour. If he had a gig the following night, I might have been impressed. Lightweight.

Agreed. I've used the WB at ridiculously loud gigs and it barely broke a sweat 🙂

@Supernaut I started this thread to discuss something that I'd observed over the years that may have impacted other people too. Everyone's input is valid, obviously & I'm very open minded & I know that there are always multiple perspectives on every topic & mine isn't always best/right. With that said, I think that your "my band, my rules" philosophy could possibly put you in a position that limits your possibilities & takes away opportunities for creativity that could be amazing. I have worked various shift systems for thirty years, & I have never, never, never ever cancelled a gig for any reason let alone day job commitments. If I can't make it I know in advance & I won't commit to anything knowing that there's even the slightest chance of letting anyone down. What I have absolutely experienced is many opportunities is to get together with other musicians, both in long term & short term projects & create music & entertain people. & Isn't that why we do this? Sure, some bands are more serious than others & what people want from bands differs, but, one constant remains in all situations & that is this. We are musicians, we create music, we bounce off eachother harmonically & create sounds that make us & other people feel good. I haven't spent more years than I care to count honing my skills to limit my opportunities. I will play with anyone, from the seasoned vets to the kids just starting out because I learn from them all. Sure, constant BS & let downs is frustrating to everyone but give people the chance to let you down man. You never know, the best player you've ever played with, the one that really brings your sh*t alive might just be around the corner, & they might just be a shift worker. Don't limit your possibilities because we all have to put food on the table, & that doesn't make us less loving of our craft or by any way automatically unreliable!

The sticker was made in the USA.

So, they'll be even worse then, Chris! 😂

Don't know what you lot are moaning about 😀

And once the pullshave work is done, it's down to the humble gooseneck scraper: And then the sander, just to sand down to the bottom level of any tearouts, etc, so that I know where I'm starting from with the final carve. After that initial sanding it's looking like this: The heel chamber is still at least an inch too long - that extra length has given me a decent area to use when securing with bench dogs and clamps for those initial carving steps. Soon that will be cut to length but, first, a quick check to see if everything is still in the right place: Next steps are to decide on the rounding of the sides and whether I can do something clever with the control chamber. Body above is 2lbs 11oz...and still dropping

Not quite the same, but they could be family , similar 'socks' too She's my girlfriend's cat, but since we moved together she prefers to come to me for playtime. When we first met, the cat wanted nothing to do with me. She peed in my shoe once during the first month. After that I'd call her "little rusty bullethole" with a very smiley face everytime I saw her... she started to react to that name happily, expecting to play. In her defence, it appears that they had a plumber in that day and he closed the bathroom door where her litter tray is (which was normally kept open when not in use) so I guess she was looking for an alternative and chose "the foreign object"

But we both like Magma, and appropriately-placed a'postrophes! But back to la Mitchell; I'm sure she wouldn't care what I thought (nor should she!), but it's not just her I don't like... It's acoustic guitars with a singer attached (not the guitar so much - love a bit of Eduardo Niebla - it's the dinkydinky strumming). Many years ago I went camping with some folks, some of whom I didn't know very well - turns out it was with good reason! We built a campfire, I broke out the Bruichladdich ready to have a nice and increasingly drunken chat looking into the flames and listening to the sounds of the night. But at least 5 of these evil gits had other ideas. They produced acoustic guitars - not lovely little flamenco ones but those big, overly-loud folk ones - and proceeded to strum their way through "I'm leaving (on a jet plane)" and various other songs, including the one about the yellow taxi and various other of those nadirs of music also known as 60s and 70s Americana. Perhaps if there'd been less of that sense of enforced jollity, or perhaps even the tiniest iota of actual musical skill rather than just every note and beat with exactly the same intonation, with no hint of even the slightest syncopation I'd feel differently about that sort of hippydippy strumfest. As it is I still wake up screaming with the words "Kum bye R" (wtf?) bouncing around in me heid. And to those who feel personally affronted by my hatred of Joni (and Janis, and Neil Young, and Boob Dylan), don't be! I can't understand why someone can't feel the majesty of Ornette Coleman, but also realise that it's Different Strokes For Different Folks...

The youth of today, they don't know how easy they have it with their iem, foh, rcd's, transport, new strings, gig bags, lightweight gear, PA's, stages, lighting, miked up drums, doormen, cheap beer, lack of skinheads, somewhere to practice and people actually love coming to watch live music these days.

Interesting - I had a ACG EQ1 and started it with the high filter from the bridge and after playing with it a while ended up with it on the neck pickup ( Oh no! Now I just have to start fiddling about with my bitsa project bass again. Screwdriver time.

Each time someone new gets done someone needs to get down to the pub where Mason goes and record him mouthing off about his latest sucker. Sooner or later we'll have him on video with the exact amount.

Well that's mine just paid for and should be sent out Thu/Fri no idea how long it'll take to get here especially if its held up at customs until payment made. or do they deliver and just send you an invoice for the money to be paid ? Dave

Destroying your gear looked stupid in the 70s and it looks stupid now.

Moog Taurus 3 pre-Mike McCready: Moog Taurus 3 post-Mike McCready:

I recently watched a documentary called Laurel Canyon. This womans music popped up.. Fabulous.

You're the guy who didn't think that there was a difference between a tax break for people buying a bike to ride to work and an offshore K2 tax avoidance scheme. Nuance is everything. I know that this something that you have no experience of, but FFS. The point is that it was a reply to Al about the relative importance of various members of a band i.e. the idea of the principal members and the more replaceable other members ('hired hands', sidemen or whatever you want to call them). Usually the principals tend to include the LV / frontperson, but there are exceptions. Obviously not all bands are the same, which is why I qualified my statements with terms like 'generally' and 'tends to be', etc. Anyway, enough of this nonsense - I'm sure that anyone who has a clue about (or is interested in) how bands above the pub circuit level tend to operate will be able to understand the point that I was making.

This is all true, but, if it's really that important, it behoves of either each musician, or the band leader, or the management, to be sure that there's a suitable dep 'on the books' (maybe two or three..?). It has happened, in the past, that, for one reason or nother, gigs have to be cancelled, too. So..? It's not an Ideal World, and one plans things as best as possible, but the expression 'The best laid plans...' has a ring of fatality to it (plus 'Sod's Law', of course...). OK, keep only those 'reliable' professionals', paying them adequately, and carry on. No problem. Others deal with the lemons Life deals out in other ways. It's all good. I had a week's break, end of season, late '70s, so booked a trip back to Blighty to see family and friends. The Sax/Flute and Bass came with me, for the jaunt. We spent our week, and caught the ferry back, from Portsmouth to St Malo. We also caught one hell of a storm. The ferry couldn't approach any harbour; it had to circle Jersey all night and all next day until it passed. All cabins were opened; we all spent 36 hours on that crazy rocking boat, being tossed like a cork. The sax/flute bunked down; I went to see how he was faring, and understood why seasick passengers are portrayed as being 'green'? He was very, very 'green'..! The dining quarters were opened, and free, but no-one had any appetite. I was able, by joining the long queue, to make a ship-to-shore 'phone call to announce to our band leader that we would not be able to make the gig that evening (we should have been docked the day before, but no sign of any let-up...). He called upon his resources to do the dates for that week-end, and all three of us were 'let go'. A pity, as it was a good, solid, working band, doing five-hour stints of dance variety all over the West of France most week-ends in season, but we, all three, just picked up other dates and the World spun on. Unreliable..? Define 'unreliable'.

😨 Double eek! This is what should happen in these situations.... X Factor judge in common sense shock!

Maybe give Gentle Giant a shot if you haven't already, too. Start with Free Hand or Octopus.

I once had a glass of lemonade in a Temperance bar. No Whisky. No Bourbon. No IPA.

Tales from Topographic Oceans, as well as plenty of Steve Howe's solo output from that time is chock full of eastern scales and esoteric widdling - his contribution to Yes is that they would have sounded far less exciting and inventive if he were a more regular guitar noodler. His playing on their version of America is brilliant. If you can find it (coz it's not on Spotify) - get Keys to Ascension I and II (both are double discs) - it's mostly a live concert (2 or 3 nights) from a hall in San Luis Obispo, plus about an album's worth of new material. The live material is fabulous: Siberian Khatru, Close to the Edge and Awaken are pretty transcendent - their best versions in my opinion.

That must have been really tough 😁

Nice, and good to see that Reverend are now using something slightly more prominent to write on their serial numbers. My Rumblefish had a small indistinct black mark on the back of the headstock which I wiped off before realising that it was supposed to be the serial number! If you don't need all the options of a ten-way switch consider swapping out one of the pots for one with a pull switch to separately turn on either the neck or bridge pickup which will then also give you neck + bridge and all three pickups as options. This is fitted as standard to my Burn Barracuda, and I've found it most useful.

Your cat is a double for mine from that angle, does she have a T800 style bi-colour face by any chance?

Dancing in the Dirk ～ Brooce

Saw a date on that tour. I was already a huge fan of everyone involved and was lucky enough to have seen Metheny and Mays in small clubs for small money many times, which was easy if you lived around Boston or pretty much anywhere in New England in the mid 70s. Seeing Pat play in a sold out hockey arena and eschewing the rock star persona was just uber cool. The spotlight suited Jaco perfectly though of course.

I've gotten back into ABM's of late and my current favourite versions are the EVOII models. These are generally well built in my experience whether UK built or PRC built models. There are some nice quality features like metal DI sockets which disappeared on later evoIII and beyond models. They are also fairly inexpensive if you can find a decent one. I picked up a non working( faulty TD0531 transformer issue) ABM500 EVOII big chassis model for £45 recently. The good folks at Ashdown supplied a replacement transformer (one of their new Euro build XTE1 types) to get it working and it has been gigged successfully since and sounds huge and works perfectly. There doesn't seem to be much love for the big chassis models, probably because of their weight but they do sit nice on a bigger cab like a 4x10 or similar. The big chassis models also seem quieter to me than comparable normal chassis ABM's. All in, a near mint and now fully operational EVOII 500 for a whisker over £100 seems ludicrous for the performance an ABM provides. 🙂

And if I get to play through one it’ll have a knob trying to make noises with it too 😀

Hi Pearly Kings and Queens !!!! Mike McCready here ! Any of you guys in England recommend a decent amp/guitar tech in the Amsterdam area? My geetar has developed some fret buzziness and my amplifier is making weeeeeird noises ........... wtf !!......... Easy fix for a qualified master luthier/amp tech here in the Netherlands, hey, lets reach out to each other? Yeah ? Help a Bro out here???? You all know we are a VERY VERY socially aware band 'n' it would be so cool if we could play some kinda benefit gig for orphans/refugees/displaced persons etc.. etc..whatever it was we last discussed with the image management team. Cool guys. And Gals obvs!!! As always we must think of those less fortunate than our own selves. Can one of you kind folks lend me a Tubescreamer???