Leaderboard

Just in the door at home after a weekend of smashing gigs in the UAE - first time over there, it's totally amazing! Brought 2016 US P Bass, HX Stomp and IEMs with me and it sounded great! Local crew over there were superb and provided all PA stuff. Can't wait to get back over there!

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.

Can’t believe the “big” board is now more than 2 years old which is kinda good and worrying at the same time. 😬 Although tbh the small board is kinda enough for my pub band right now.

Following, this ped guy sound like an idiot!

Change strings? 😳

My Stingray , got it new , I guess it’s about twenty years old now.

A young Laurence Cottle also hung out with this chap who you might recognise -

Now, folks, stop right there! I know, I know, I KNOW!!! And more to the point, so does the owner of this 56 year old beauty (the bass, that is), our very own @ped And the bass is a delight. My Canon SLR doesn't cope well with reds, but this gives you at least an essence: OK - to stem the torrent of 'DON'T DO IT' posts, it is clear that it has already, in its past, been significantly and irreversibly modded. I'm pretty sure this is closer to what it would have looked like out of the factory: So, originally: no bridge pickup; early, smaller, split neck pickups. And so to @ped's wish and desire: - The present PJ pickups, while parallel with the bridge, are absolutely not square to the strings and neck. So is it the bridge that is wrong? And if so, was it always? Or was it the replacement pickups that were put in skewwhiff? Or is it the neck? Or all of the above? - The pickups aren't as originally fitted. Neither the bridge nor the neck pickups are original. Nor is the P the original size. So the body has already been retro-routed and the scratch plate has already been retro cut. - And so, if @ped fancied some different pickups, there would be no major impact on the value...and it's probably a keeper anyway (and if he doesn't want to keep it, then I will - and I don't even really play bass! It really is a thing of beauty) - And if different pickups were to be fitted...well could the bridge be straightened up at the same time? And there was a long PM discussion And it's now on my workbench

I got the Bass Terror about a year ago. Coupled with a GR BASS AT212 slim (4 ohm version so I get the full 500W on tap), it's been my main rig for rehearsing and gigging with the busier of the two bands I'm in. The combo has an excellent sound for the sort of blues-rock I'm playing in the 'power trio' so just one (normally overdriven) guitar to compete with. We have a quite sensible stage volume and even for small gigs I go through the PA so the ample power on tap has never really been explored, master volume never gets past 9 o'clock. I did turn up past halfway at rehearsal once, but it was scary and I was audible outside the village hall and 100 yards down the hill... So... raw power isn't an issue. The sounds is great, rumour has it that there's a fair 'scoop' built in. I usually run the tone controls close to flat with a touch of treble and bass boost and rely on playing with pickup selection and tone on the bass I'm playing. Sometimes the PA is too bass heavy and I boost the treble. I always DI out of the amp, with ground lift on, although any hum issues we've had have always come from something else in the end. I wind the gain up to anywhere between 2 and 4 o'clock depending on how hot the bass is (Jazz with 62 PUPs needs more gain than Epiphone with humbuckers or P-bass). This gives me a very controllable sound, from clean to a nice growl or even a clank if I dig in without a huge leap in volume. It's very easy to find the sweet spot for different basses. Sound is good - so good, everyone hearing it for the first time seems to compliment it. At a beer festival gig, the sound man said I sounded like Jack Bruce (which may not be a good thing...) I've stopped using effects for several months, but may start reintroducing some, but the setup works brilliantly with or without. The weight of the amp is not great, with the AT212 I can carry a cased bass in one hand, speaker in the other and amp over my shoulder in its bag and have enough power to play any stage IMHO. Own downside, when using an octaver one night, the amp nearly vibrated off the cab. Since then, I keep it in place with an (orange) ratchet strap over the top and through the cab handles. The bag is nice, but three of its four feet fell off quite quickly. The fourth stubbornly refuses to come off, despite me trying to persuade it. The front pocket just holds a speakon lead, a kettle lead and its europlug extension. I keep meaning to swap over with an extra long kettle lead. Zips are heavy duty. The handle warmer velcros in place, and is sort of worth using but looks silly so I take it off during gigs. One gig the amp started buzzing, realised it was mechanical so did a few gigs with it on the floor. Turned out that the internal shield had started to touch the valve covers causing a loud rattle. Was easy to gently bend the cover, so this doesn't happen, but required 14 screws to be undone and replaced! This was a bit disappointing, I noticed that the other side of this cover has a sponge strip so it doesn't rattle against the outer cover. Ideally, the valves should be fitted 1/8" or 3mm further forwards. Other than these minor issues, the amp is perfect for what I want. Note that it has a clean setting and a pad switch for active basses, but I definitely wanted the Orange sound - a good rich overdrive but not an insane one. I'm also a total convert to the idea of a real valve preamp with a class D power stage.

My pair of Musicman USA Sub 5 basses. Really don’t get the use they deserve!!

Still Got The Bruise ～ Gary Moore

Ok. That did what I wanted it to. Energised.

And so, on the basis that everything affects everything, before I start plugging and fixing the new bridge, are the pickups chosen in @ped's concept going to fit? The two pickups that @ped got sent to me are a hot Ric-ish Gemini Pickups 'Surfrider' for the bridge and an equally hot Thunderbird-ish Gemini Pickups 'Degenerate' for the neck Here they are in their approximate positions: The bridge Surfrider will need a sympathetically chosen surround made as it is slightly narrower than the J and there is the base plate to hide. It will be hard against the bridge as with the original J. The ring with the Thunderbird so very nearly covers the existing P - it only fails because that is at the skewed angle and that leaves a teeny gap. I will make a thin plate under-ring just a couple of mm larger than the metal ring to hide the gap. There will be switch(es) - Mustang slide switches if they will fit - for coil tap. And that should be that! Just got to do it

When Leo left Fender he took all the rulers with him

I don't think The Beatles have the sort of status they had 20 years ago to be honest, Sgt Pepper as "The greatest album of all time" etc. I think time has been quite hard on a number of their albums, and while they had some incredible songs, increasingly their status is seen as a function of their era and their cultural and artistic contributions to it as opposed to inherent musical qualities. I've Got a Feeling remains in my Top-10 of all time however Now that Mozart, he's a different kettle of fish altogether

I've decided to have a couple of really interesting pickups added in place of the P/J. Partly because: - Putting an original pickup in will mean a new pick guard (boo) - The J will leave a big hole that'll be impossible to hide; even moving the J pickup might leave an untidy edge so I thought a different pickup to fill that gap which may or may not either fill it or maybe require a bezel would work - The bass has already been modded and will never be 'original' and I don't care about originality much anyway - The bass plays wonderfully and feels amazing, but I could quite easily buy an 'original' if that was the aim - in fact I have a Squire CV Mustang which probably sounds 99% the same as a Fender version (really it's very nicely put together for £300! - The pickups I have chosen are super cool and two pickups in a Mustang sound awesome I'll leave both tug bars if there's room next to the new pickup (which I'll let Andy reveal in good time) - they've been on so long they've stained the pick guard and actually I quite like using them in different ways.

A notification on this post today has reminded me that I have posted no pictures of the finished article! Best I get on and do that!

Whenever I change strings I can't find anyone to take them so they usually end up in the bin. Maybe pin these threads.

The connection to the Tone studio is supposed to be more stable in this update.

Hard To Handl ～ The Black Crowes

My Rose Has Left Me - Mulligan and O'Hare

Nice 👍

For the last 30 years I have hung my basses on Hercules hangers with no discernable negative effects on my basses. The only time I have heard of any real life problems is when the screws into the wall fail 😢 or even rarer is that the foam used on the support reacts with any nitro neck coating. Will hanging my bass have a physical effect upon it eg: the weight affecting the neck etc.....nope! I base this on the strings having a total tension effect upon the neck of approx. 170lbs for a 4 string and 200lbs for a 5 string (at standard tuning). By hanging the bass by the neck it adds the weight of the bass to this (approx 10lbs) and would have negligable effect (~+5%) on the stress within the neck eg: no real world effect. You can check my maths by using the D'Addario string tension chart - here. There are no other forces applied to the body / neck of the bass when hung which could affect it. Remember....use the correct wall screws / anchors and you're sorted. 👍

Here's my entry. The picture gave me vibes of looping and continuation, so a repetitive bassline and yes it goes on a bit 🙂..... The words (such as they are) came from a bit of word association: Blue Circle > Cement > Concrete > Abstract Finally, the sad death of Keith Levine means I tried to channel some KL/PIL.

I love it 😀

The Beatles were just a second rate Oasis. Lennon would have been nothing if he hadn't ripped off the Gallagher brothers

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't 'get' this stuff about what other folk think of X, Y or Z. We're all different, of differing ages, from different backgrounds, and have listened to, and liked or not, different stuff over the decades. What earthly point is there in this sort of comparing, or looking in the rear-view mirror..? Maybe it's just me.

And so to that bridge. Using my long rule running up the fretboard, I positioned the bridge square with it at the correct length. Then I checked the two string runs from the nut slot to the saddle grooves: So - did ANY of the bridge holes line up? One! The far left above the E saddle. And only one of the through-body holes (the A) although all of those will be usable. It wouldn't have made too much difference if none of the screw holes had lined up - but it meant that, without any plugging and redrilling, I could secure the bridge to stop it sliding about... ...while I double checked and triple checked and quadruple checked, etc, etc, etc

I can totally understand that the polished front is less legible. I know the ins and outs of the amp well enough that it isn't an issue for me.

I'm kinda with you on this but would have to add that when i was learning i was trying to copy my fav players which at that time were Jack Bruce, Neil Murray and Glenn Hughes and of course Geddy. They were the players i was aiming to be like and after a couple of yrs learning the basics from lessons and music sheets back in mid 70's i decided it was time to look at Jazz / Prog Rock players and that took me into a whole new world listening to Richard Sinclair, Tony Levin, Mo Foster John Wetton and a few others and of course Neil Murray again who can play anything. That led me into listening to players that were way out of my league like Jeff Berlin, Percy Jones, Jaco P. To this day i still listen to guys i cant copy but i can pick up little bits and bobs that i can use in my day to day job. With the amount of social media and interweb the younger generation have a fast entry into how to play fancy bass licks but i worry they might be missing the basics and what's needed in typical pub band. I know bands that have auditioned some young guys and all they wanted to do was slap and pop and couldn't hold a basic rhythm with the drummer and they obviously were over-looked for the simpler player that could hold a song together. Most bands aren't looking for a bass soloist. Just my own views of course. Dave

Keep them for rabbit snares, you're probably going to need them the way things are going... Unless you like eating boiled grass with a nice piece of dried larch bark, all of the time.

What I do, and that's just what works for me, is I take a little recorder with me to rehearsal. An ancient Zoom H2, but even a mobile phone does a good job these days. So I record those songs including intros, ending etc... then I can just take it home and learn that. I don't need the rest of the band to do my homework. Maybe something like that can help? I'm playing on Saturday as a dep with a band. I had around 30 songs to learn. I took the versions I was asked, wrote my charts, then I had one practice with the band, so I got all the starts and endings and variations and I learnt those. Did one more practice, it was giggable already. And I am not exactly amazing... but recording those bits and taking them home is very efficient, for me.

Hmm, I'd be a little concerned about that request. Essentially PL cover *is* indemnity insurance - in that the insurer agrees to indemnify you on the happening of a claim arising from loss or injury occurring in the course of your activities. I suspect the venue want you to indemnify them against claims, losses etc - or they don't know what they're talking about. If the former, be very careful as if you agree to such you could invalidate the terms of your PL cover. I would go back to the venue and ask why they suggest PL cover is inadequate and what they require over and above that. Certainly a venue requiring an express indemnity is very unusual IME (musician of many years' experience and solicitor who used to specialise in insurance law).

Mandy Boat Comes In - Trad.

That's my days of playing in a CCW team done. I told the WL that I was stepping back a couple of months ago, but remained in the Team chat. I've not been to church since, & during that time no one from the church has been in touch to see how I'm doing (One person got in touch to ask how the renovations are going, but that's only because we're both bassists & regularly talk. We didn't talk about church at all). So last week, I decided to leave the worship team's WhatsApp group. 4 days later the pastor's eldest daughter (who was the WL until about 4 months ago) got in touch and just said "Hi, hope you're okay. Saw you came out of the team chat. You're missed this season & hope it's just temporary". It leaves me feeling only valued for my bass playing & not actually valued as a person. So on that, I think I'm done with organised religion. I do still believe in God, just not this cliquey false compassionate organisation that claim to represent God.

...Blue Ribband blues? 😆

Bullitt With Papillon Wings ～ Smashing Pumpkins

Horace Andy. Tiny Desk (Home) concert. Filmed in Adrian Sherwood's living room.

one of the advantages of Basschat is that singers (and guitarist) don't come on forums for bass players. at least I hope our Singer doesn't 😂

If you have a bass and drums, all you need is the novelty acts to top it off!