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Following on from the thread "Things I'd like manufacturers to do...", I just now remembered a success story. I visited Hobgoblin's London store, in search of an acoustic bass. I specifically wanted a 5 string, in their Ashbury range, but they did not make them. So, I emailed the Head office asking if they had any plans to do so. No, they had not thought of it, but they were due to visit the Musikmesse Frankfurt that coming Easter, and would ask if their suppliers could make that model. By October of that year, I got an email from head office. They had made a run of five prototype 5 string basses, and one was at their London store, and would I like to pop along to try it out. I went along, liked it, and bought it. So, companies do listen, and respond.

First gig in a while with my semi-regular dep, doing songs from the golden age of American music. Nice old-school social club - great-sounding room, lovely people, cheap beer. Second chance to use my new Handbox valve amp, and sounded lovely. Here's a clip.

I wonder why John McVie is selling this gear at this stage? It's not as if he needs the cash. I suppose he's got to the age where he realises that all he really needs is a Harley Benton Precision and a secondhand Fender Rumble 500. As we all do eventually

J'arrive! I've actually got the guitar version of this, which means I've ended up finding out quite a bit of info about these. These are among the earliest Japanese copies and probably first appeared around 1969-70, and were likely available for three or four years around that time. As was mentioned upthread, they're quite common in the UK branded as Jedson, also sold as Vox, plus numerous other names. Like many old MIJ instruments, plenty were sold unbranded. Most names on instruments like these are just brands, not manufacturers, but these also come up labelled Sakai, which was a 60s/early 70s Japanese manufacturer.

I read a few mixed reviews on these before I pulled the trigger! Couldn't find one to try locally so ordered untried online. Really liking it so far, satin modern c neck with a pretty flat radius feels really good and fast getting about. Never had a Fender PJ before and recently started to like playing basses with dual pickups. The active circuit seems pretty tame and easy to dial in a fairly natural sound (at least to my ears). Really like the tight sound of the j pickup blended in slightly with the p I get to try it with the band next week and hopefully sounds good.

Spent Friday and Saturday being driven to gigs by the singer, which was nice. However, a smallish car meant taking a smallish rig. I chose an RCF powered pa cab. As much to see how it performed as anything. Used a small preamp to get some eq control and compression. Come Sunday the final gig was in a much bigger venue. I was in my own car by then (heading home post gig) so space less of an issue. I keep cabs dotted all around so grabbed one out of her garage, and as I always carry my Elf I set up a curious hybrid rig. RCF on top of the generic 15" which was driven by the Elf. Tried the DI out of the Elf but it appeared not to deliver much volume at all to the RCF. So I came out of the headphones socket instead and wow! Anyone gives you a scientific reason mixing cabs and speaker sizes can't work, my advice is just try it . I think by the way the Elf would have handled the venue just fine but with the RCF in there too it was huge. Very few people came out which was disappointing but we got paid and the management want us back so that's a win. A nice three hours set to round off a great gigging weekend.

So my custom ABM EVO V landed a little while ago, but this weekend finally saw it leave the house for a gig. This thing is everything that I expected; slightly different character to the EVO IV, in much the same way the EVO IV was different to the EVO III, and still needs some tweaks to the EQ as everything is interactive as per the previous ABMs. Suits my ABM 610 perfectly. Great sound, stacks of headroom, the intelligent cooling is a nice touch, not as b*stard heavy as my old ABM 900 EVO III. Smiles all round!

Provide info about what strings are fitted to a new instrument, to give the option to replace them with the same.

Simple "off the shelf" type board... Does all i need wonderfully

Rain day = bass day. Just put together another p bass with jazz neck... Stained, oiled and waxed quilted mapel top on popular body. Great weight to it and a nice bright tone

Purely as a treat for the ladies (and some men).

I'd like all effects pedal manufacturers to standardise on input, output and power socket positions. It would make it much easier to wire boards neatly. What would be really nice is a wire free design with pedals clip on to the board with all connections integrated.

Ibanez do that for at least some of their basses on the published specs. What's on my wee certificate is confidential between me and my GP.

An absolute no brainer for me is for tuners built into amps to be as standard as a volume control. My MiniMax has one - one of my TCs has one.... still the exception rather than the rule though.

I know that I will get agreement from all owners of AJR basses. All bass manufacturers...install electronics covers with magnets rather than screws. Makes access soooo much easier.

After the first gig out with it this weekend, I can finally post a picture of my current setup, including my new custom ABM EVO V! This thing is absolutely killer, and sounds particularly good through a big cab like the ABM 610. Definitely a little different to the EVO IV, in a similar way the EVO IV was different to the EVO III. Still working on the EQ, as is typical for the ABM as everything is quite interactive. Loving it so far!

Fender should change the knobs on their Jazzes to volume, blend, tone. The historical arrangement of volume, volume, tone irritates me.

OK I'll confess it's a vanity project, GAS or inertia depending upon your point of view. I've been giving the same advice for several years that one good 12 would be loud enough for almost everything and two would cover every possible eventuality. I decided to take my own advice and go for two 1x12's For years I've been taking all sorts of half complete prototypes to gigs and the band were beginning to get more functions so I wanted to up my game by having a consistent and good looking rig. I was going to build two BassChat Mk3's and ordered the crossover components from @stevie He wanted me to trial the Silverstones which use the same drivers so we did a deal to use the drivers I already had and he would build me the case and crossover . I've also sold my old passive PA and have no passive speakers but retain the amps so I have top hat mounts in my Silverstones so they can double as a PA if I ever have problems. Ironically the band have now moved to in-ears and may be losing the backline altogether so no bass amp might become my normal. I'm convincing myself that any working bassist needs a decent amp and speakers 'just in case'

Made it smaller. Made it lighter. Made it louder. No mean feat that now you could skateboard to your gig with more firepower than an Ampeg fridge rig.

@Ashdown Engineering - revive the brilliant graphic preamp from the Superfly/Superduperfly and make it a stand-alone pedal. All bass manufacturers - make more headless basses. As evidence that this is required, see the endless whingeing on the previous five pages about headstocks.

So, my first foray into playing bass with a band has fizzled out. The band leader has decided she has too much on to keep it going and has put the whole thing onto the back burner. However....... Last month I attended the Jazz Jam in Lancaster and was really impressed by the standard of musicians that showed up. I approached the bass player who spent most of the night backing up all the musicians and asked if he'd consider giving me some pointers on jazz standards. He said he would, and on my first lesson, he said "you can play!". On the second lesson he told me he was intending moving to London in January and would I mind if he passed my details onto the bands he plays in with a view to me being his replacement! The upshot of this is that I have an audition on Wednesday for a jazz band, most of whom attend the jam, and it's jam night this Friday too. So', I'm going to nail four or five tunes from their set for the audition and hope they like me, and play at Jazz Jam on Friday too! Buzzin! Yee har! Rob

I want to see people's faces when I wheel that rack with the four Terror Basses and a pair of SVT4's ininto The Old Dog & Botfly.

Just started up with a new band. Mature people, no prima donna's. It has all suddenly become enjoyable. I still chat with the old rhythm guitarist. They asked him to play bass. He told them where to stick it This is all water under the bridge now and I posted it at the time in part for reassurance. Given so much time I'm firmly aware that it was down to this guitarist and his personal issues. Sad as I put a lot of work in. It wasn't ever about artistic nuances. It was about his inability to play a consistent structure and then having a hissy fit when I politely mentioned it. Peter

Some interesting pieces... https://www.julienslive.com/auctions/catalog/id/443?page=1&catm=any&order=order_num&xclosed=no&featured=no&key=bass

henry lee - nick cave and pj harvey

I've just done a similar change to my Roscoe adding a DPDT to the electronics. I used one 12-pole switch which is like 2 of your DPDT glued together and operated via one lever. To wire it up I used the following diagram from Bartolini which seems to align with your colour coding. The bridge and neck switches are wired up slightly differently so that when you're in single coil mode it still has some hum cancelling properties (from what I understand). I couldn't determine if the Dimarzio switch you mention is Type 1 or 2 as it makes a difference to the connections made internally. Might be worth checking out. Hope this helps, Mike

Matching headstock finished. I’m reluctant to cut pickup holes until I have them! Still waiting on Bass Culture.

Also punk heads probably disapprove of Nouvelle Vague but I do like this one

Warwicks have that, and it's fine as long as you and all the preceding owners are reasonably careful, but the clips can break and getting replacements then isn't always easy. I'd vote for magnets.

The main groove in this is so cool. So much space. In the playalong above, I tried to keep it relatively sparse for the first couple of sections, then started to fill it out a bit. However, the bridge is a note-for-note version of what Andre Bowman laid down originally. Mary J. Blige - 'Just Fine' [notation / tab] Original bass: Andre Bowman Transcriptions archive

I haven't had any issues with any of the three basses @Andyjr1515converted to magnets for me. He installs enough to make it safe.

Got to see him for the first time at Blues scene Thames hotel in Windsor with John Mayal's blues Breakers when I was about 14-15 I think. Not sure of the year. Jeremy Spencer unbelievable on slide and Mick Taylor on lead and I think D. Heckstall-Smith on sax. Great intro to blues at the time Loved it.

I do find gear with provenance to be a bit of a weird thing. The sadness is that many fans will not have deep enough pockets for (most of) this stuff and inevitably they'll end up in the hands of the Hard Rock Cafe or as vanity purchases by people who have little or no intention of ever playing them. I'd put my hat on most of this stuff never seeing a live stage again. Shame.

The Jean Genie - David Bowie

Played another one last night - second day in a row, new pub for us, it was originally booked when we were going to merge with another group as we were losing our guitarist and they were losing bass and drums, but it didn't happen, so we thought we had it, and it turned out it was theres. A bit of a conversation and their guitarist had hurt his foot and was more than happy to not do it. I see why now, it was upstairs which involved going up an outdoor metal staircase! It was weird, it looked like a fancy eating pub downstairs, but upstairs was this 70s social club vibe with bowling alley and mini bar. thought well, noone is going to come up here, but turns out they do in large numbers. Downside of the evening is that at the end of yesterdays gig, I thought my XVive IEM had run out of battery as it died, but I put it on at the start of this, and unless the tx and rx were touching, there was no function - looks like they are dead Also, the drummer met someone in the town where we did the gig last night and said they were coming to see us tonight, turned out on the facebook poster, although I put the right date, it said saturday! oops. Still, it was busy anyway. After all the gig was heaving and pretty good. Second half a lot of numbers were quick, I guess the drummer had a bus to catch, but it went well and they seemed to like us, and on unloading, it was now raining so the metal staircase outside was wet, that was fun! Oh and there were a group of 4 drunk guys arguing in front of the door that I had to ask to move a about 4 times and then had to shove them out of the way, until the drummer walked into them with the drum frame, then they moved!

Got mine finished & it's went a very different direction from what I thought it would. Starts off with a heavily processed hi hat to make the swooshing portal loop sound. Guitar part is me on bass playing up the dusty end. The rest is a mix of NI Komplete & Roli Equator2. Just got some unexpected time, so I've added the horn solo that I wanted. Played it on the Roli Rise.

Got to agree. I currently play a lined fretless, but the fret lines just get you in the ballpark. Your main tuning tool is still your ears.

Here's a very interesting video on the lined/unlined debate I saw recently. I rarely play fretless, and haven't owned one for years, but I always naturally went to lined. More accurate, surely? Maybe not...