Leaderboard

Hello all Let me preface this review by saying I really have no need of buying a different type of cabinet to these. They are really excellent cabs. I might mess with effects more or amp heads more, but no change needed for cabinets for me. You can see the specs of the cabs here - https://www.lfsys.co.uk The Silverstone You may recall Stevie, the maker of LFSys cabinets, sending out flat packs for a semi-DIY kit for a brilliant 12” cab a few years back. I documented my build here - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/347017-stevie’s-12”-frfr-cab-build-thread-basschat-cab-v3 . This cabinet has served me well since 2019 for all sorts of gigs/bands/rehearsals and I have never felt the need of a second cab for volume. Stevie sent me an upgrade kit for the cab to upgrade the crossover and horn even further, and this turned the cabinet into his Silverstone model (albeit with my paint work and aesthetics). Here’s what it looks like without the grille on. All I can say is, this upgrade took an excellent cabinet and made it even better. The highs are now somehow even sweeter, the mids speak more clearly towards the upper mids, and it remains as light and easily handled as ever. The bass end is unchanged, but I was always happy with this. What goes in sounds like what comes out, every bass and effect speaks clearly, with little colouration. I do run a HPF to maximise efficiency of the driver, but I’ve never run out of volume… When paired with my old GK MB800 or my new to me Berg B Amp mk1, it’s very loud and I’ve always felt myself to be heard clearly standing above the cab or standing far from it. This is with keys, drummers, horns, guitar, what have you. It’s just plain great. My only ask would be for a small 10” version to see if I can get away with an even smaller woofer. Lol. The Monaco All that said. The Monaco that Stevie kindly sent me to test out takes everything I like about the Silverstone and kicks it one notch higher, though it weighs more. The highs and mids sound the same to me. However the low end is tighter and just sounds really well formed and not boomy without needing any EQ. Stevie tells me there is a response in the low end slightly more like a sealed cabinet, and I love it. If I didn’t already own a Sliverstone, I would definitely buy this cabinet as my ‘ultimate’ cabinet. What goes in is what comes out, same as the Silverstone, and it sounds brilliant. It did great at the rehearsal I took it too in a confined and very loud little space where I was literally standing right in front of it. It does weigh a few lbs more than the Silverstone I have - just over 30 lbs. I understand this is because the woofer is even better quality and better power handling than the one I have in the Silverstone. I have said to Stevie that I plan to buy the first of his 10” cabs that he makes with these horns/compression drivers. (As long as they sound like either of the 12” versions!! He has promised this already, lol.) I think they sound fantastic; for the 12” variants I really don’t think you can go wrong with either option. I would stretch to the Monaco if I didn’t already have the Sliverstone, I do like the slightly tighter low end though it’s not a deal breaker. If you’re already running a 1x12 non FRFR setup this is a big upgrade. If you’re running a 2x12 of low quality, it might do with one cab what you need 2 to do presently. If you’re running a high quality 2x12, you’re likely to get less volume but a better sound, as the horn and compression driver are expensive and the crossover is smooth. If you’re running a Barefaced Big Baby cab, this would be a smaller cab delivering slightly less max volume but in a very appealing form factor, and with a horn that I prefer to the Big Baby. We live in a great era to be a bass player. I eagerly await the 10” LFSys cab… Pete

A few years back I importedt an old '64 P bass in bits and in quite a sorry state. The previous owner had been able to afford a neck refinish from John Kallas (owner of JohnK Vintage Guitars who's built or restored some crazy amount of instruments over the years!). However, he ran out of money and offered it as a parts bass to get it finished. When he first bought it, the entire neck & body had been stripped back & finished some sort of horrible, slightly sticky to the touch, lacquer: Here's how it arrived to me in it's original, but totally knackered, case: I contacted a few people about refinishing the body but quotes were either really high or they didn't want to take it on given how nasty the existing finish was. Then, one day, I was chatting to my good friend, and local luthier, Julian Mullen. I mentioned that I wasn't sure what to do with this albatross and he took a look at it. He had actually closed the refinishing part of his business because it was too time consuming and a pain in the donkey to try and run a paint shop. He had a good look and confirmed that everything definitely appeared to be original and that the first colour would have been Olympic White as you can see the overspray in the pickup and wiring cutouts. He then said he had just one pack of genuine US nitro paint kicking around in his workshop and it just happened to be Olympic White - it then became a bit of a challenge for him and he decided to take it on. One of the first things he discovered, having stripped away the lacquer, was that the body was a little thinner than it should be for a '64 but that he could rebuild it up using a few more layers of paint than usual. This was no easy job as it required several coats of primer and nitro with full sanding down between each one. ules is something of a perfectionist and carried this out over a long period, making sure it was completely dry and ready between every coat. He then fitted all the parts that came with it, pickguard & pickups not show in the pic above. After all this work, this is how it looks now, I couldn't be happier: All pics taken on my phone so apologies for the quality. I've tried to show the true colour of the paint and this has darkened the board and guard a little. The guard is a lovely deep red tort and the board has some really nice dark grain running through it that almost looks like ebony (it will be brazilian rosewood). Hopefully you can see that the nitro is already checking nicely and the neck has begun to do this as well (the neck was refinned back in 2011 so it's had a good 10 years to 'catch up' with the body finish). It should now continue to age gracefully

With a bit more thought and effort Fender could probably make a half decent BB copy. 😉

...And as if by magic it all comes round again, that seemed very frenetic for February, but boy did it produce some quality. At the top of that most excellent list of tunes, congratulations are due to @NickD with the added bonus of choosing us a pic for March... "I was messing with chiaroscuro style lighting for a photography project last year and asked the Mrs do do her best gangster impression for me. I think it might make for some interesting results." this could be very interesting , but if you are going to go all gangsta rap on us, you'll have to bleep out the rude bits Simple rules ✔️ Entries must be <5 minutes and recorded between now and deadline. ✖️ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on ✖️ Bagpipes. please no bagpipes, the St David's Day truce truce has passed us by . ✖️ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you.. Deadline wise , we will go for the 24th which means you'll probably have till lunch time on the 25th ....if I'm working on the Saturday morning A line or two of blurb as well for the vote thread will be lovely. Have fun

My pretty humble first try at a pedal board! Still have to figure out how to place my power supply nicely, align everything up nicely... and well might be getting even more pedals and do some shuffling.

Should be ready the middle of next week according to Jon!

Only Queue - Yazoo

If it were me Dave I`d refrain from barging in there shouting "you dirty diseased biker scum". Just saying 🤣

💁🏻‍♂️

Here's another nice photo of Si/Norm, taken when our bands were on tour together last year.

I’ve not written a new bass day post before but if I don’t do it for this bass I’ll never do it. I sold my flat at the end of 2022 and my partner and I are now renting somewhere together (i.e. a home that could house two people and bass gear) while we save for a new place together. I figured that this is probably the only time I’m likely to have the cash balance to justify acquiring my dream bass (even if only for a while) so I went for it. Shortly before Christmas, I was lucky enough to have my prayers/wanted ad answered by a kind member of this forum and acquired my holy grail bass: Please meet the newest member of the family, a beautiful Wal Mk III 5-string with shedua facings. It’s absolutely thunderous and everything I hoped it would be: the preamp is a dream, the B string has the smoothness of my Warwick Streamer’s mixed with the raw aggression of a Stingray, and the gorgeous tiger-esque facings seem to move in the light. I’m sure like many folks on here, I’m a big fan of Justin Chancellor’s playing with Tool (I tried quite hard to avoid saying I am a big Tool fan/fan of Tool there) and the preamp gets me in the tonal ballpark (my playing is miles away from his though, sadly). While not really on topic for the NBD post, I was lucky enough to bump into Justin Chancellor when Tool were in London last year. I was entirely starstruck and stunned into incapacitation for a short while before recovering my senses enough to ask him if he wouldn’t mind signing a wedding card I was carrying for my brother and his now wife as they met owing to a mutual Iove of the band. He was very gracious and my partner and I seem to take it in turns to wear my/her hoodie that he gave to me at the show. Anyway, back to the post… If you happen to see me posting basses and pedals in the classifieds over the next few months, this is the reason why. A big thanks to those that helped make this happen, particularly @dyerseve and @TrevorR. May you all get your holy grails in 2023!

I'm 60 on Tuesday, so wifey gave permission: I've already got a metallic blue Charvel PJ4 and its my favourite bass. The neck is just perfect and it looks and sounds great too. I wanted a back up bass that had the same string spacing and nut width, and as I hadn't got any metallic lime green basses in my collection, I thought, why not buy another Charvel. I had to spend two afternoons working on it to get it playable: fret sprout filing, removal of supplied pre amp, shielding, installation of John East pre amp, replacement of strings and then set up. Worth the time spent, it feels great. And I love the colour; this will probably be my first choice over the metallic blue.

Just came across this, which could be useful. https://missinginstruments.co.uk

well , no time to rest , there's compositions to be composing

It's quite different from the ShuttleMax amps and about 1/3 the size. I would expect that you will start seeing Subway products in Europe in the next 3 months or so, we are finally digging ourselves out of backorders and parts sourcing issues. Crazy times we are living in.

Dirty Boy - Cardiacs

How it started vs. how it's going, part II... Bridge fitted and some old strings thrown on just to get it working. Frets polished, fingerboard cleaned but could do with a light oiling. Still needs a proper setup, and a good body polish. I like it already. To my utter astonishment and delight, it is nearly 2lbs lighter than my 2-Tone J. Depending on how well it fits tonally, I think this might be my new ska bass. I know gold hardware is a bit marmite, but I think this looks the absolute feckin business. Oh, and I've found out why these gold tuners were in the spares box... one of them is fecked something inside stripped out as I was tuning it. Into the bin it goes, and off to ebay I go...

Been after one of these for ages, but every time one came up, I was either skint or needed something more urgently. But now, thanks to GuitarGuitar, I finally have one, and I must say, it has all the tones I had in my head. It's very easy to dial in Messiers Giblin, Thompson, Pino type sounds, and just as easy to make it sound like a "normal" bass. Obviously, the two magnetic pickup volumes and their active bass and treble eq, the Piezo volume and tone, make it a very, versatile bass with Mwah to die for. Construction is nice. All round and smooth, though because of the extended cutaway and finger (arm length, more like) board, I was playing one position up at first The only thing is now I'll probably get rid of my Ibby SRH500F even though it sounds more double bass-like, as We are now operating a "One in, One out" policy. So I've been told

nice to see some Buttholes being posted... ... wait, that came out wrong!

Did anyone mention Adam Ben Ezra?

Hi mate no worries, if I helps I could do a video showing them. Yes I mean the big box silver versions with the foot switch in the left hand corner. The + version has an effects loop and two filter speeds but sounds otherwise pretty much identical, although the gain is different on my + compared to my non-+, I use the + more because the foot switch on the other is a bit hit and miss. We also mustn't forget the new version of the Mutron in the smaller housing, which may be worth trying. I never have as I like pedals that take a battery. With regards to the AF9, I think the only reason they changed to the two knob version was because they could no longer get the fader pots for the old version. I'm told it's identical otherwise. I prefer the look of the two knob version (the little switches are really neat) but had real trouble finding one. I ended up importing one second hand from Spain or Italy, can't remember which. Cheers ped

Yet another resonant LPF based EQ pedal, this time tweaked a bit for upright bass duty:

Hello everyone, very interesting construction of the Wal..ish also a pleasure to read and learn more about the low Wal. Sorry for my english, I'm using an internet translator. The first time I heard the sound of a Wal bass was on Rush's Power Windows album, especially on Territories, this was in 1985 or 86...I'm a Rush fan. A few years ago in a store I had one in my hands and everything surprised me, especially the sound. Then, at home I started to draw a model in autocad with the little information I found on the internet and photos and this was the result.

Don't forget my oft repeated mantra which came courtesy of a Pat Travers interview. Buy the bass that feels right , anything else you want can be fixed with a screwdriver , a soldering iron or a spray gun. In this case you probably only need the spray gun

SPB3's were a bit mid shy for me. I can recommend the EMG GZR P pickups for punch and growl - not overly high output and not just for the Geezer vibe, but a good old school mid Precision bit of grit.

For giggles, I took my wee Marshall guitar head along to and rehearsal tonight and plugged it into my Ashdown 4x10 and used it as a rehearsal rig. Instant valve warmth goodness on the clean channel and loud enough for the rehearsal room. I could probably gig this with PA support. On the dirty channel it was just insane (in a kinda good way). Certainly made me want to get a proper valve amp again.

Almost totally a sabre convert now, cant believe it took so long to get one, every bit as good as i thought they would be, and then some. Definitely my favourite basses without a doubt.😄

I pity the fool who doesn't want a Mr. T tribute bass...

realised at practice last night alot of the drives/fuzz tones i had were in a very narrow ball park so decided to switch somethings up to give a bit more variantion

Solution found. I checked the intonation on the bass and found it to be way out. The bass had been in storage for a good few years, and the saddles were actually stuck together. Cant believe that the thing ever was in tune...who knows. Stripped the bridge down, thorough clean. Reset the intonation correctly and that solved the issue. I assembled the tuning mechanism without the top plate to see where the string blocks sat an the one securing the offending d string was 1mm from being maxed out. Went over the whole bass full set up and boom shes up and running again with one very relieved ex-session player/owner.

And listening to a bit of Jeff - probably almost the opposite of the Buttholes!

Love 'em! Saw them a few times - most memorable was at the Mean Fiddler in 1988ish... Gabby was covered in blood after being hit by a glass, then he set himself on fire (as you do) as the band played on. And meanwhile, there was a riot outside due to the amount of folks trying to get in without tickets. Worrying and still excellent!

Plus one from me for these - lovely middy 70's tone. But still very clear and articulate.

With bright onion you can choose the colour of the pedal, the writing and each led. Awesome pedals.

Buy the other one and sell the 1st one, albeit at a slight loss...

Reminds me of the time I played with the KISS tribute at a biker rally the day after Dumpy's Rusty Nuts had played (& stayed over). Our dressing room was the old caravan that Dumpy had stayed in overnight.... man that thing STUNK.... sweat, leather, alcohol and the WORST tramp smell you've ever encountered.... How we didn't catch anything is beyond me! 🤣

Probably good advice. I'll not bother then. Those guys were seriously lucky you talked me out of that. Our singer Lynn knows them all and was there from the Fri - Sun and said some already had the virus symptoms on the Fri night. We played it last year on the Fri night and she caught the virus then too but rest of us were fine. Dave

A long time has passed since this, about 15 years or more and thanks to this thread I found the files on an old hard disk... I thought I had lost it. Today I would like to share it with all of you and also be able to count on your knowledge to make the necessary adjustments so that this model is closer to the original. Once these adjustments are finished I will share the cad files with all of you. The following images show the data that I would like to verify.

I’m like this in practically no other area by of my life, but when it comes to bass purchases I like to think it all happens for a reason.