Leaderboard

Hello there! OK.. So here’s the latest iteration of my board. I play in a covers band. Mostly rock and soul, but I also need to play some synth parts. Signal chain is Polytune (tuner) -> Cali76 (compression) -> OC-5 (octave) -> Red Muck (fuzz) -> Microtron IV (envelope filter) -> Pork and Pickle (overdrive/fuzz) -> Harmonic Booster (eq) -> Ripley Fall (chorus/phaser/vibrato) -> ARP-87 (delay) -> Vong (HP/LP filter) Mostly playing a jazz with rounds (Aleš Vychodil AVBJ4 and Elixir Nanoweb nickels) The Vong is the most recent addition. Really tightens up speaker response.

I come back from Limelights and Stingray Specials - I’m genuinely impressed with the AO’s Jazz and Precision I got…!

Just landed - I've been after a black and maple one for ages but the series 1 (with scratch plate) versions are quite hard to find compared to the series 2 models. I ordered a custom scratch plate from TinyTone who were great and pretty quick too. BC member @wright/watt had a spare excess plate which he kindly sent me so it was used as a template. The black plate arrived the same day as the bass! The bass is really interesting and I can see how Vigier have taken their idiosyncratic left of field approach to a bass which is more traditional in terms of shape and feel. It still has those Vigier staple touches such as the supercar shape, unique electronics and graphite 10/90 neck without a truss rod. As soon as it arrived I took the strings off (it's been a while since I've had a quick release bridge on anything so that was easy) and gave it a clean, changed the plate (bit of a mission given how the pickups are attached to the plate using bolts) and knobs. Chucked some Elixir 40-95s on it (the 10/90 neck is designed to be dead straight with this gauge string) and I've been getting to know it this afternoon. First of al lit's very light. Seller said 3.3kgs which I can believe. It's made from two pieces of ash with a very thin coat of paint - the grain texture is visible below. The neck has a satin feel and having settled after its ride here it's got almost zero relief. The pickups are two Benedetti single coils which I'm quite familiar with, having had them in various versions in a number of Vigier instruments. They can be a little noisy, so here there's a hum cancelling circuit which is adjustable through a hole in the scratch plate. It works pretty well, and hum is vastly reduced and consistent throughout the pickup pan range. Since installing a mesh router in my office I can get hum at certain angles but generally it's quieter than a standard jazz bass, certainly with the pickups soloed. The controls are vol, pan, bass +/- 10db and treble +/- 10db. Weirdly the controls aren't centre dented which threw me at first. Honestly there's so much sizzle onto I find a neutral setting is bass on 0 and treble on -10. With pickups roughly centred there's a 60s spacing jazz bass with a bit more bite and a thoroughly growly bottom end. The highs are a little more focused and less 'open' than my Celinder, and my fave found is slight front pickup bias which gives a nice Rickenbacker style clank. I think the front pickup might need to go a little lower, but owing to the design I will have to use some washers behind the bolts - that'll mean removing the pick guard screws again which I can't face this evening! The bridge is nice, a little tarnished (actually the whole bass has marks, bumps and wear on it which I really don't mind) with an interesting system - intonation is a bit of a faff because you have to move the saddle with the string slackened and it's tricky to get right. There’s no saddle screw/spring which looks nice though. Once set everything bolts into place nice and securely. What else to say.. well what was nice was that I emailed Patrice Vigier a while back asking about the Excess range (I've never had one despite being a vigier fam for 20 odd years) and took the opportunity to congratulate him on his retirement. He said 'It's all been possible because of musicians like you' which I thought was nice. Good vibes. Just some quick snaps for now!

Image from the Bass Gallery website - but only cause i can't find a suitable place to take a picture at home but It's HERE WOOOOOOOOOO and boy does it sound good even through the cheap old Thomann practice amp i have in the lounge getting up the studio tomorrow so i'll push it through the Barefaced 212T and get a real feel for it. Oooo i think I might have a problem coming with buying new basses lol

How's this for the most unbass player like image ever?

Yoghurt To Fight For Your Right to Party - Beastie Boys

I have designed all kinds of products over my career, mostly pro audio and bass products, but some acoustic and electric guitar products too. This includes both high end touring electronics/speakers as well as lower end electronics/speakers (including for some popular brands/models). I first look at the requirements, both performance and cost, and then look to see what components are already on the market that I might be able to use or easily adapt into the enclosure that the product will need. I will also look at my historical designs to see if I have already designed a driver that might be suitable. I really don't like reinventing the wheel, especially at the higher end where the transducer engineers have spent a fair amount of time and money on. That said, I probably put more energy into the lesser models because I NEED to squeeze out the most performance possible for the least cost. This is true in all product lines actually. I find it more challenging to get the maximum performance out of the minimum cost, that's what separates the experienced engineers from the onanists. In the middle, giving up a dB or two of performance may not matter as much but at the low end every dB counts, and may be the difference in a viable product and one that's not. At the very high end, there's a LOT more effort placed on pattern control, the evenness of the response at the edge of the pattern, distortion, power compression (thermal and electromagnetic), and also structural since the cabinets may end up over your heads.

This is a Moon that I bought directly from Japan and according to the seller it is a custom order, I did some research myself and I think it is correct as it is rare to see a MBC-6 with a neck though in this colour. The blue colour looks different in the presence and absence of sunlight, when there is not enough light it looks more like dark blue. Mahogany body core, Flame maple top and back Wenge and maple neck, ebony fretboard The pickup is Bartolini with XTCT+MCT375 preamp String spacing is 17mm Weight is close to 5kg or just 5kg. The crack in the neck area should only on the finish and not reach the wood, it does not affect the playing and sound. The action right now is very low, the truss rod I tried still turns easily, but I didn't make any major adjustments because I don't know how to set a bass... Audio or video recording is available, if interested please pm me directly The reason for selling is that I find the 6-string still not manageable for me... The current price for a brand new custom one seems to be around £3600 WITHOUT shipping and VAT, I think this is a great opportunity if you are interested in the moon flagship model The price is 1350+shipping Now available part trade with apollo solo or twin USB version Scam Warning！！！ My Moon bass was just stolen from Facebook marketplace today A man meet me and used a fake AIB bank app to transfer money to me and I let him take the bass. I'm not sure what needs to be done with a post, but let's just want to make a warning

Hi Just a quick run through of a small job I've just finished for @3below - changing the binding and repositioning the side dots on his bass ukulele neck to give him on-the-fret-line dots rather than the existing 'fretted' positioning. I don't have a photo of the removal, suffice to say that it was a straightforward 'warm it up and ease it off with a single-edged razor blade. This was it with the binding removed. The original dots were drilled and inserted through the binding into the neck wood and so are still visible: A micrometer check all the way round flagged that the deepest point of the binding slot was 1.4mm deep so I opted for 1.5mm. A check all around with a small length of offcut confirmed it: Next task was to cut flush the old dots and clean up the channels all round - especially in the corners: Next, with the neck fully masked up, it was the careful job of gluing the new binding . I used medium-slow setting CA glue and did it a few inches at a time, holding the binding firmly against the two sides of the channel with a heavy-duty-glove'd hand until it was cured and then moved on to the next few inches: For the two tight corners, I heated the binding (very carefully!) with a heatgun to get it round the corners without leaving a gap (too cool) or distorting (too hot). Great relief! And it was done. Next job would be trimming the excess and shaping the binding into the neck. So next was scraping the binding flush with the fretboard top and neck sides. For this I used a cabinet card scraper, being very careful to scrape down to the masking tape but not deep enough to dig through the paper into the neck finish. Off with the masking tape with fingers crossed that there wouldn't be any gaps! Big 'PHEW!' @3below had asked for the new dots to be in Luminlay. Happily, they have started shipping from Japan again after a few months of no shipments due to having to fly the other way round the world to avoid Ukraine/Russia. The Luminlay method and equipment is simple, but essential is a good quality brad point drill...especially for the 2mm dots fitted to a narrow binding strip. I use a sharp-pointed punch to mark the holes for the bradpoint to follow. This shows those two and also the Luminlay stick being pushed into one of the two dots at the 12th. After a trial fit, I pop a drop of CA on the end, push it in and then cut flush with a single-edged razor: And after some final tidying up, here it is:

Come away Ossie, they 'ain't worth it.

Smoke is home. What a bass. It plays as good as it looks.

My BB obsession is approaching some kind of monomania. This thread is partly responsible. Currently own: 404 414 735a 1024 2004 Used to own: 424 Incoming: G5s

Going to gig mine in Saturday. I'll report back.

That really is pretty terrible. Depping one or, at a push, two members due to illness or unavoidable issues is one thing but depping whole bands is just misrepresentation. If our front man is ill or suddenly unavailable for a genuine reason then our agent will always notify the client and offer either a dep, a different band or a refund. The band has to look and sound as close as possible to what is advertised.

We have 5 members and our inputs are 3 x vocal, guitar, bass, keys and a fully mic'd up kit. At the moment we're using Alto TS215 tops and a single Alto TS215s sub although will most likely be upgrading to just a pair of RCF 745 cabs when we have enough band funds, the Altos are surprisingly good though. For monitoring we just use the Behringer P2 packs with KZ ZS10 IEM setup recommended on here, most of the band use the Mixing Station app on their phones but I have the full X Air PC app on a Windows tablet. Previously we used a Mackie DL32r with 2 x RCF 725 tops and 2 x RCF subs, tbh the subs were huge and weighed a ton so I don't want to go back to using that sort of setup really. In fact we've just got some bookings at a venue we used to play which has horrible fire escape stairs for loading in and it was a relief knowing our PA is much lighter and smaller than it was the last time we played there! Here's our entire desk/router etc in the 3u rack bag, the little laptop to the side of it has an 8" screen and is about the size of a small hardback book for size comparison, was using it to record the gig:

A quick update for you who may be interested . Played my Yamaha BB734 through the amp for 2 hours at a rehersal tonight . Sounded great to me and compliments from other band members . Had it up way too loud and made the point it was to stress test the amp . It coped with the above plus 20 minutes or so idling between songs . A couple of quieter tunes to give the ears a rest and finished up with a full on hammering . Now here is the thing ...... No noticeable heat at all . Played with it on its side for a couple of minutes at the end , and no noticeable heat from the upper reflex port . Not even detectable above ambient temperature . I couldn't tell you if the fan even ran as it would be impossible to hear unless cabinet was dismantled . The rehersal space is centrally heated to 21 degrees (70 F) . Very pleased all round , the only possible casualties are the windows which got rattled a bit . Thank you all for your help , assistance and ideas . Any further reports or problems in the future I will post it here .

Tonights jam night rig - 2 Aguilar SL112s and a Mesa TT800

I think we set it up in about 2017 maybe... really as a bit of fun and initially as a semi test environment for BC. It's clear to me that the reason BC is so huge is because of the timing; it was really the only UK bass forum around in 2002 when it was called Bassworld, and with forums, if you have the audience, you have the market. Bass players are also such a nice demographic to cater for, being largely fairly non egotistical, relaxed, middle aged blokes with a bit of disposable income. You can't say that about most guitarists!

Give me 38mm or give me death!

My only experience is trying 3 different pino signature basses over the years, all of which were top drawer amazing. Sounds like I had a better experience than most with the CS.

Changed from 0.95 Optima Gold strings to .110 Rotosound flats. Completely new bass;

Saucy Jack - Spinal Tap

gah.. bass has been delivered - why do i have to be at work?!?!?!?! ah well something to look forward too when i get home - then i'm officially part of the BB club

Creep - Radiohead

Upcoming show a week today Friday 18th of November. Trillians in Newcastle. If your in the area come and say hi.

Coincidentally, I just ordered a phaser pedal kit from Musikding and then informed Mrs Axe that she had bought me a birthday present. Both of us are happy with this arrangement.

I did a review of the BB434 last week

Thought I'd responded to this but my phone says otherwise! I live towards the South of Derbyshire and the Derby/Burton scene is pretty awesome really. A few great bands and tributes playing out of here. Also... my band is playing the Latch Lifter next Saturday (19th). Always a good crowd there. 👌

I can't stand them short socks... End up under ya heel when walking, and have to take ya shoe off to hook em out. Worse with boots...

The most ridiculous way. never wore glasses before and they gave me varifocals so 3 different areas. I’d just put them on and everything looks like a bubble. missed a step and went down like a pole axe with my arms out in front of me landed on the one heavier 🤓 I didn’t break my glasses though so bonus!!

1984. New Model Army

We keep our XR18 in a 3u shallow rack bag, similar size to a traditional bass head. In there is the XR18 itself, a power strip with everything plugged in, the router and an aux to bluetooth adapter so we can stream music wirelessly from phones etc. One plug and it's all ready to go, no faffing around hooking up routers or anything. This is the rack bag we use, they do 2u ones for the smaller digital desks as well: https://www.gear4music.com/Recording-and-Computers/3U-19-inch-Shallow-Rack-Bag-by-Gear4music/WNQ?origin=product-ads&gclid=Cj0KCQiA37KbBhDgARIsAIzce17S6t1xIeBq8JfKQgEfifJ7lwgcR4a1usDFz9goN6g-OuoB7qEBecEaAkJtEALw_wcB Has a shoulder strap so you can carry your entire desk and still have both hands free! For the main mix we use a slim 12.5" convertible laptop/tablet which can sit on the rack when we don't have a FoH engineer, we transport it in a slim bag which weighs nothing. For my own personal use I have an 8.9" tablet on a clamp attached to my bass stand, this goes in the dedicated laptop/tablet pocket in my Gator gigbag so nothing extra to carry on that front either. It's the smallest most easily transportable full band PA I've ever used, also one of the cheapest and means we don't have to lug amps/monitors around or use a van.

Serial number: 2512 Stollen… (I miss the bad jokes thread)

We were doing a charity gig in Ardrossan last Saturday night and as guitar boy had brough his rather fine pa, I decided to make it easy and use my RCF and a couple of pedals. Sounded good and just took 5 mins to set up.

Visions Of China

I have wasted a lot of time aimlesly noodling and mucking about with effects, I suppose it is fun/relaxing and there is some benefit but I now try to always play along to metronome/drum beat/the original tune as being able to keep time/groove is essential for playing with a band - more than how fast notes can be played, fine-tuned fuzz tones, slap skills, or knowledge of modes. If I can be bothered with a proper structured practice routine (which is rare) then it is this: Rhythm/timing: Playing single notes to a metronome, gradually slowing the metronome right down and trying to still hit the note exactly on time. Change to 1/8ths 1/16ths etc. I usually just do this in 4/4 as that's 99% of the music I listen to but I do also try other time signatures like 3/4. Fretboard/notes: Doing as above to a metronome/drum beat but randomly changing notes/finding them all over the fretboard e.g. G# for 4 notes, then the same note on other strings for 4 notes each, then swich note. Trying to get to the point that it is second nature to know exactly where every note is on the fretboard without really thinking at all. Chord tones/Modes: As above but incorporate scales/chord tones, go through the different modes and switching between the differnt playing patterns (e.g. G minor all along one string, then just two strings etc. then root 3rd 5th etc.). Still always focussing on this being in time - to a metronome or drum beat, and changing the speed and time signature around. A big focus on timing really. Like this guy says, there are plenty of very well known decent bass lines that are almost entirely reliant on timing/groove, some just using a couple of notes. If you can play in time, instinctively know where the root notes are, and know how to add the correct chord tone notes then that covers the vast majority of basslines needed for bands : As it's all about playing along to stuff I play through a Zoom B1 Four (for the drum machine & metronome), or into an MPC One (drum machine), or into DJ mixer (to mix with backing tracks via phone, laptop, vinyl, with their bass reduced).

I still can't believe (actually, sadly I can ) the amount of luddite hate that ERBs get on Farcebook whenever a pic of one is posted in a bass group. It amuses me that everyone who posts "that's not a bass it's a harp" or "just get a piano" or "Jaco only needed 4" seems to think they're the first ever to say it. Still, at least by publicising their bass bigotry it makes it easy to know which idiots to block. ERBs are very much not my cup of darjeeling, but I take my hat off to anyone who makes music with one. I like to see boundaries being pushed. Although only using 2 strings seems like a weird waste!

Here’s a non-sunburst and tort bass for your delectation 😎

I am by nature ill disciplined and more drawn to novelty than to repetition. So until I began taking lessons with a superb teacher my practice consisted of noodling or learning a song for a gig. Now, because I know that every two weeks I will need to show the fruits of my labours, and because the work is structured in such a way that it needs to be done daily, I work far more strictly. Most importantly I keep a diary so at a glance I can see what I've been doing and make sure nothing gets missed.