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Finally got some pics of this one

My newly acquired shorty 👌

Just arrived home from Skegness where we was playing with the Verity/Bromham band. I kept things simple, Squier Jazz into a Zoom b1fourx (just compression) then into the house SVT Classic and 8x10. Best tone evaaaaaaah! We went down a storm and I won the prize for the lariest trousers. Even had a guy come up on stage and propose to his Girlfriend! Happy Daze!

This was the 2nd gig of 2023 for us and it was a cracker. Pretty much a full house at one of the best venues on our circuit and the atmosphere was a bit special. I fell off the gear abstinence wagon already and used my new to me Orange 4 Stroke amp - I'm really pleased with it so far. It weighs half as much as my normal Mesa BB750 and sounds really similar. It's a lovely meaty big rock amp.

I feel bad now after hearing the difficulties you guys are facing regarding getting gigs, chasing gigs can be soul destroying at the best of times ☹️ - my first outing last night, the first of 45 gigs booked for this year so far (still have 4 dates to fill for later this year), we played a working men’s club in Chandlers Ford and the place was busy with lots of singing and dancing all night - not quite sure what bass face I was pulling here? Looks more like gurning to me🤣

Decent gig despite some reticence beforehand... Playing a town centre pub, it's been in the diary for a while... We see an ad by the pub on Monday advertising a Great Gatsby themed party. I'd love to play in a swing jazz style band, but I don't. We do early 2000's covers. We were a bit nervous about what to expect but it turned out to be a great night. The party was off in the corner and people in fancy dress occasionally came forward for a dance but the usual Saturday night crowd were well up for some loud music. Somehow there was even a conga, or a "train" as the youth were calling it, a first for me, shame I wasn't wireless.

We played a fund raising gig at Darlaston Town Hall last night for the boxing club our lead singer coaches at. We went down pretty well the audience were appreciative and danced to many of the numbers. The venue put on some snap and drinks for us and we impressed enough for the people who run the venue to consider putting gigs on again. If they do we will get a booking😁

Great gig at The Harley Motor. And nice hours 5:30-8:30. I was home by 9:30. We had a blast. Blue

I sold my Cirrus since I have a hard time playing 35" after a stroke 2 years ago. I really miss it! I figured this would be almost like it, but 34". I really like the playabllty and looks of the bass. Construction wise it like it more than my old Cirrus, but i liked the cirrus electronics more. It somehow felt more solid. Great sound though. My main bass right now. I thought about installing a more modern preamp and keep the pickups, but I changed my mind. I'll keep it as is!

Not since they brought in Chip and PIN ...

Just because, here's the other 2 colours Peavey issued for that model I think the dark one is called T-Black, though it was really some kind of nice burgundy/brown. Cant remember what they called the light red model. It'll be on the web somewhere.

I teach Physics, and agree with this 😬

Same thing here in Ontario, I live 41/2 hours north of Toronto and it has been a struggle to get gigs for years and Covid has really had an impact and gigs are few and far between. As has been said in previous posts it is easier and cheaper and safer to stay home and as more venues cut back on live music things will get worse. My main band is a seven piece swing band and there are limited audiences for this type of music up here and right now we have nothing booked, we had some gigs in '22 and are rehearsing and hoping things will get better. Luckily I have a theatre gig in June to get ready for. I'm old and have had a good time playing gigs for about 60 years but I feel sorry for young musicians who just can't find places to play. I'm all about playing for live audiences but I can see why a lot of folks have decided to record their music instead of gigging but that's not for me. It's one of the reasons why I started taking DB lessons and working with the bow, maybe something will open up with a totally different kind of music for me. I'm also jamming with friends on a casual basis with no plans for public performances and that has been fun and it keeps me playing and working on new material.😊

We did that with the Glam band. We hired a venue and sold tickets plus pay at the door. You'd be surprised how many friends and family a band can pull together. We agreed if it wasn't a success we would at least break even and it was just a paid rehearsal if nothing else. We've also had recent gigs where clubs have told us prior to booking us that a lot of people are still not coming out but they still booked us. Some gigs have been less than busy but again we treat them as paid rehearsals and we still put on the same full show. With the punk band i only joined a year ago after the pandemic and audiences haven't been anywhere near where they were pre-pandemic in same gigs the band have always done. Things are now starting to pick up and we've had a few fully booked gigs with the Glam band and getting better for 2023. If all you want is to play together as a band then do it any which way you can, the money doesn't really matter at this stage. Its simply about playing together as a band in front of an audience no matter how big or small it is. I'd say go for it. Dave

Me and Al Anderson from The Wailers and now leader of The Original Wailers. We grew up together in New Jersey. Blue

I've owned a couple myself. One In that colour too. The other was a dark finish Wonderful bass. This was one of mine and a sound sample

Updated board shot. A bit of a rearrange and a new pedal (the afterneath) The afterneath with a fuzz before it is a lovely atmospheric type sound, i doubt i'll be able to use it much in songs but i'm sure i'll find something to do with it. Chains is: Tuner (labelled for reassurance purposes 😂) > Wilson Mini Freaker Wah > DOD250 > Switcher - Loop A (Bloop into DS-1) - Loop B (Megalith clone) > BF-2 > EQD Grand Orbiter > EQD Afterneath

There are a lot of people that are still not going out. Covid continues to rage on. … we’ve found the numbers are not what they used to be , but they are getting better.

It really is the luck of the draw. We've had support slots for bands that hold sold out shows in Europe twice the size of the venues we supported them at. Yet the turnout was dire in comparison. Yet other shows where i don't expect anything have been rammed. Just no logic at the moment. Sorry to hear about it guys.

Well I've actually had it for a couple of weeks but only gigged it for the first time on Friday night. You can play it at home, but it's not until you get a bass in a proper band situation that you can properly evaluate it. Out of the box it was very close to being in tune. Action was good, intonation pretty much spot on. Probably set up by Anderton's (? good job if so) but not damaged by DPD either. Factory fitted d'Addario strings were a nice touch. Gigging wise, well it's a Precision so what's not to like?! Clear, articulate & punchy and slotted into the mix nicely (guitar, bass, drums trio). Plenty of positive comments from the audience too, including many musos (which is always fun when you're not so familiar with 5 strings!) There's a lot of knobs! Master volume/master tone (split), pickup blend, active treble, active mid/mid frequency (split), active bass. Then an active/passive switch. The balance between active and passive is pretty good, although I stayed on active all night. It is a very impressive bass for the price. I was actually looking for something like my beloved (passive) Squier P-bass Special, but with 5 strings. It seems that Fender don't have much to offer currently, and latest Squier reviews indicate that production standards have dipped again recently. Sire seems to fill that gap according to the reviews I read. The Sire seems to be well spec'ed and built, with some very nice features for the price. Build quality is very good. The one thing that lets it down slightly is the battery cover, which is is held on by 4 wood screws rather than a compartment with easy release cover. However, that is the only negative thing I've found about the bass so far. I enjoyed playing it, it sounded great (and looks great imho) and is a keeper. Oh, and the B string is nice and tight, and well matched to the rest of the strings

Ours does. Unfortunately it's my wife so I still get to carry it.

Corporate function at a safari park yesterday. All very glitzy and shiny as one might expect. People appeared to like us. Which is nice. I went for medium scale Marooshchick in gold, which I put into my recently acquired Little Bass Thing and two TE Elf 10s. The LBT is actually quite big compared to my Elf but still a perfect match for the Trace cabs. I pulled stupid faces above a gold tie.

😄

I like prog a lot, but being a true believer I'm too deep in naval contemplation to talk about it.

Two stories: 1) Yes, as a 17yo or so, and by classmates. They'd made a fan club dedicated to me, and asked for my autograph. I axed them the question: "WHY? You don't know my music and probably wouldn't like it. So WHY?" Answer: "But you're gonna be a famous musician, and then WE will have the low club member numbers!..." That taught me all I need to know about fandom. 2) No, not asked, but still funny: When some famous jazz dudes visited our city, I was allowed to play with them as part of my training ... but was warned beforehand: "Don't behave like a fanboi; they don't like that." So I meticulously ripped some dirty pieces of paper into particularly rough shapes, and equipped those with my autograph. Handed them out the moment I entered the room where these folks were, and just waited for the obvious question: "What's this?" Me, innocently: "Oh, that's my autograph; I thought you probably were dying to get yer hands on it." Laughter broke out, ice was broken, and no awkwardness ensued. That taught me something about jazz musicians.

Have you tried your less than satisfactory pickups at different heights or with different strings, these things can make a difference too Manufacturers of instruments do R&D playing around with all the variables to arrive at a suitable compromise, the more high end companies hopefully don't factor cost into the mix too much but as we know there are plenty of budget instruments that sound just fine so there are ways of adjusting the variables (wire, magnet types, winding, pole pieces etc...) to arrive at reasonable sound and output when used with any particular mix of wood, build method, bridge, nut and strings mix Aftermarket pickups are always advertised as better, louder, clearer, vintage, modern etc...but don't take into account the actual instrument they will be used with and how that will be set up, so are a bit of a lottery and why perhaps so many of them get sold on after being in fact no 'better' than the manufacturuers' fitted ones despite being so much (and so much £) 'better'er

It happens quite a lot on tour around the merch tables. Posing for selfies too. I don't think it happened until my mid 30s but i would say I get asked dozens of times every year for the last 12yrs or so. I'm realistic in that it doesn't mean anything. I have no delusions. The funniest thing I remember was a few years ago at a festival gig, I was with my old singer and a girl came up and asked him to sign one of our LPs. He did and without thinking he then handed it to me. I'd played on it too and was one of the main band members. I signed it and handed it back to her. She looked at it and said, "Oh, you've signed it too!" She was okay about it (I think she just came across badly) but it was pretty funny and teaches you to stay humble. Thankfully everyone else who's asked for an autograph has always chased me around venues and festivals with sharpies. People are funny about musicians. We're just people with the same boring lives as everybody else.

Cool shots👍 Blue

From reading the Warman website I seem to remember that inductance (Henries) is as, or more, useful a measurement as resistance to estimating a pickups tone, but I can't remember why. As far as I'm concerned electricity is witchcraft.

Short answer : Yes. ... A bit more serious... Seymour Duncan on guitar pick-ups ... '...What is guitar pickup resistance? Many believe that a pickup’s resistance directly correlates to its output. The higher the number, the hotter the pickup, right? Not necessarily. A pickup’s resistance is actually a measure of how hard the current has to work to get through the wire coils. But more windings (which usually means higher output) also means higher resistance. Therefore, people often equate the two. In reality, it’s not that simple. A host of variables determines a pickup’s output. These include magnet material, gauss (magnet strength), wire material, and the number of coil winds. So, a pickup with a strong magnet can still have lower resistance and plenty of output. Likewise, another will deliver low output, yet yield a higher resistance. A pickup’s resistance is only important when considering all these other factors. Therefore, measuring a pickup’s resistance is a diagnostic tool to help confirm your pickup’s health. It does not solely determine its performance characteristics and output. ...'

Cat litter in a sock for the case. Works on trainers. Can't help with the bass.

My tax bill has come in and a great degree under predictions, which means I’ve bid on this. Quite possibly I’ll get nowhere near it, but you have to try. I’ve had a nice chat with the seller and he seems like a great guy so if I don’t win it and you do, I’m sure you can be confident it’ll be everything it says it is. But please let me win it.

The HiFlier arrived Friday , and I got to use it in a little instrumental project rehearsal. It was well set up but I’ll tweak it a bit in the days to come. Quite light , sounds good , the band loved it. Great shape for a fifty year old cheap Japanese bass. I quite like it! I’ll drag it out to the gig tomorrow night.

This turned up today…

Something new from Fender. Available in 2-Color Sunburst, too, but it just doesn't work. Sorry Fender, you should've gone with Shell Pink. Sweetwater...$1,299.99. (Yes, a lot of money for an MIM, but...)

Reminds me of this from David Mitchell

Nice to see the comments are keeping instep.

as a person that does not really know how pickups work, the way I understand it is that at the end of the day you do not chose the pickup based on that. You want pickups that you like the sound of, or people say you'd like the sound of. That's all 😁

Taken me a while to use the 912As I bought towards the end of last year, in anger. I've been cheekily making use of other band members' PAs to save me having to lug the load...but they had their first outing last night at a busy decent sized pub and it was definitely the best PA set up I've had with any of the bands I've been in (not on a par with @bassfan's but there's a lot more to their set up in terms of amount of kit involved). Handled 5 string bass really well and good sound upfront. Not going to help with me trying to get away with not using these on future gigs though!

Bicarb... For the case... sprinkle... leave... vac.

Why make life harder for yourself than it needs to be. I’ve done TV shows where I had to use a TE combo rather than my rig. Was it my sound? No. Was it good enough? Yes. The only person that really cares is you. To most other musicians ‘it’s just bass isn’t it?!’

If you think about it the DeLorian must be the least driven car ever. It was only ever driven from time to time.