Leaderboard

My 735a arrived yesterday. First impressions are really favourable. There are a lot of useable sounds and the preamp seems great, useable and subtle, which suits someone that generally leans towards passive basses. The blend is great between pickups and a very slight bias toward the P pickup gives me what I’m after. The neck pocket isn’t as tight as my BBP35, or quite as well finished. Nor is the fretboard as nice of a slab of wood. But, that is fault finding and entirely expected. The pickups and bridge are superb and the matte black finish is very well done; in actual fact it is probably better than my Sandberg was. I forgot how flat the fingerboards were on them, but I don’t mind that and it was very easy to set up. It looks “sexy”, according to the other half. Feels great and is going to suit any gig. Not much to complain about, really.

Experiment time as I'm sat here looking at my '22 734a and '85 1100s. The 1100s is the earlier one with the old style pickups with bezels so I'm assuming classed as old school tubby. They are both very similar to the eye bar a few slight changes. I'll list the changes on the 734 compared to the 1100. The upper horn curves neckwards more, presumably for strap security or possibly balance. The second change is the neck heel as they have the six bolt mitre fixing and a curved lower edge for better upper fret access. Neither of these noticeably change the physical feel of the bass really. The change that makes it feel smaller is mainly on the upper side . The upper bout is a few mil narrower and the waist is around five mil narrower. But the actual transition from bout to waist is different. The 734 bout continues higher up the body making it feel less pronounced as it doesn't curve back in to the waist as drastically, even though it actually curves in further to the 734's narrower waist. This changes the line between the two lowest points of the waist to more parallel. In reality the actual width between the 734's narrowest points may be be the same as the 1100 but the 1100's being diagonal increase the measurement. Taking lines straight up parallel to the neck from the narrowest points and measuring would give a true reading. Here's the difference in angle across the waist. The lower horn is also closer to the neck which makes the body appear wider but probably won't change the feel of playing it unless seated. The body thickness is the same on both and everything else seems pretty much identical. So the difference in feel seems mainly down to the 1100 not actually being much broader, albeit it is a few mil, but more to the actual shape of the lower bout cutting back in much sharper to a lower down the body waist. It makes the lower body seem more squat and wide than the gentler curves and taller waist on the 734 giving a more slender appearance. But all that said and done, a few mil here and there can make all the difference in feel and we all like what we like. I'm now curious as to the comparison of the 424/1024/2024 series as my 424 (and previous 1024) both feel more like a traditional BB than the 734. Is it actually measurements, or mind games?

I was in the process of clearing out all my spares and extras, after making a board I'm happy with... but there were too many pedals I couldn't part with, so I stuck a new spare/compact/practise board together.... I'll move the genzler r-eq on to the smaller board once I get a lpf pedal for the big one. I might swap the tuners around too. The Boss is a little quicker, even though it takes up more space....

*The Smiths have entered the chat*

Hoping to use this rig at the weekend. It's the Harry D special named after its only previous owner. Harry bought it as an 1115 combo in 1985 and at some point in the nineties chopped the head off to make it a head and cab. The pre amp is an AH150 GP11 MK V and the amp section is an AH150 4 x mosfet air cooled power section. The cab has its original 38 year old Fane Sovereign 15-250w cast frame driver and even now sounds phenomonal. I recently posted this cab on a thread and tried using port tubes to change the cab tuning but in real world testing it sounded its best with the orignal TE tuning. The whole shee-bang was recovered and refurbished in a fetching alligator tolex from the eighties I'd bought years ago from a disco supplies web shop. It's fairly unique in that its a combo chopped into a cab and head but it sounds awesome and has that TE sound anyone whos ever used old school TE stuff will recognize. 38 years and still going strong. I had to consider if bass-chatters will be posting 38 years and still going strong about their boutique class D heads in years to come? Hmm I would suspect not!🙃

Something that came my way recently as a service and repair was a '71 Marshall Superlead 100w from a local contact who had bought it purely on spec without testing it. This thread has drifted somewhat off the orignal 'DSL" theme as various Marhsalls that are not 'DSL's' have crept in so I thought it worthy of a post. This particular amp hadn't been fired up in earnest for more than twenty years and needed little maintenance to get it working to a giggable standard. The thing that struck me most was the highly useable bass channel on the amp. My USA p-bass plugged straight in with no effects or anything to alter the sound was phenominal sounding. Transported me back to many a gig in the early eighties where all that you heard was a p-bass plugged into a Marhsall super lead or superbass with one of those curly coiled guitar leads that were all the rage at the time. Good times and a sound that is sadly missed these days. it was a wrench giving this back to its owner but i couldn't afford to buy it from him. Pre 72 Marshalls are fetching ludicrous amounts of money these days. This one had late nineties JJ pre-amp valves and the power amp section had mid nineties winged C Svetlana's in the power amp section. All biased perfectly and sounded awesome. Orignal mains and output transformers and old school tag board.

This old girl has just had a set up, fret dress and polish, hand carved bone nut and a new Jack and pot clean. I can’t wait to get her back. I keep looking at some of the budget basses that look really good for the money, Harley Bentons etc, but I decided to spend the money on getting my first bass match fit. I’ve not gigged her regularly since 2013. I’ve got her back in time for the weekend and a gig in a tight spot where a lyte bass will be welcome.

Tonight Friday 10th March 11 pm Quest How Do They Do It The making of the Fender Stratocaster

So my NBD was yesterday, when the Elwood 4a medium scale i bought off eBay arrived, just in time for a band practice. I am very pleased with it. It is in as new condition, having been completed on 31 August last year and it doesn’t look as though it has had a lot of use. I love the translucent matte finish. The grain shows through nicely. Build quality is excellent and all the screw heads are intact. This one has a 38mm nut, 12” radius and a slim neck all the way up, which suits me perfectly. It looks as though the C neck profile gets a bit flatter towards the top of the neck, which means that it only gets a few mm deeper. It has the standard Maruszczyk jazz pickups and a two band preamp. The build sheet doesn’t say the manufacturer of the preamp. It is fitted with 45-105 flats, which look as though they might be D’Addario but the build sheet gives a Maru reference no, so maybe they just have the same ball ends and blue silk windings. I am not sure whether they are ideal for me. I think I am going to try some D’Addario round wound nickels for a bit more growl. I’m a bit nervous about that because the standard Maru bridge looks a bit complicated to adjust and there is not much scope for fore and aft movement in the base plate. It weighs in at around 3.9 kilos (approx 8lbs 9oz), which is a bit more than I was hoping for, without being grossly heavy. There is a little neck dive on a strap but quite a lot when seated with it on your knee. At some stage I might consider lightweight tuners but I don’t want to have unsightly screw holes at the back of the immaculate headstock. Here is the obligatory pic. The lighting is a bit warm, which is making it look more cream than it is. The bass alongside is short scale.

A bit like mine!!

Showing my bundle of joy lately…: yep, I’m having it relic’d soon! Looks lovely as is but main to be my main gigging bass. Just advancing the unavoidable lol

Considering he's still defrauding folk and his earlier activity keeping bands deposits from nonexistent venue bookings plus his conviction how can he just be getting away with it??? I will be speaking with a mate who is former police officer and asking how to complain to made the loudest noise on this so something gets done.

hahaha long as you’re paying the suitcase allowances, getting ridiculous these days aye! Friday it’ll be there, may sneak in my power supply to give it a play since I have a bass there I could plug it into 😁

We should all have had them delivered to that address, I’ve got a spare suitcase you could have borrowed. 😁

Thank heavens for the ignore function

Aaaand to make things more interesting, they’re gonna deliver it to my Spain address since I’ll be there from next weekend for a week - saves me all customs taxes etc, win win!!!

My latest PBass

He was on the right track 7 years ago. Who knows where he night be now? 😂

Oh yes! I think I may even have commented on your dual-channel Moose! That looked amazing! Have you got any demos you’d be willing to share? Why did you go for what you went for and are there other pedals/brands you’d recommend? I’ve only tried the Nomad octave fuzz but I really like it and I’ve been considering trying the Sledge Hammer or something similar. The Sledge Hammer appeals as some of the early architecture seems to have been based off a collaboration with Nick from Dunwich. I like Nick’s circuits, and bought Nightowl, Doesitdoom and Magic Pedals pedals because of his involvement in the design. The Nomad is earmarked as my next IG post. You’re the second person this week to recommend the Lusithand Alma to me and I’ve only seen positive things. The Wetter Bass Channel did a feature on it, I think. His reviews are great, as are Hondo Felder’s. Other companies I’ve got pedals from recently that are a bit more off the beaten track but worth checking out are Kink, NRG, Mask Audio and EAE (popular on here I think). Good comment on Warwick. I still love them though!

Guiltyyyyy

Haven’t been on here in a while as I’ve been busy trying to build up my business which is going quite well and getting good feedback from my builds Heres my latest build is it a P or Jazz bass I don’t really know to be honest?? The body is made from old floor joists and the neck is a scratch built Oak with Oak fretboard from an old chest of drawers I’m using a Hipshot A style bridge and some modern style jazz pickups……👍🏻

Fender have released a 50w Adam clayton combo. Tube pre and tube power.

I can relate to this. I slipped a disk late 2015, years of commuting in the car, desk job, and carrying heavy gear on gigs. I tried everything, but nothing fixed my back until surgery in summer 2016, but still 10 months signed off sick. Since then I have a regular exercise and stretching regime, and use the lightest gear possible, and it’s been manageable. Look after your back chaps.

Got the model p and the stellar tone ready to fit🤘 just waiting on a vol pot and trying to decide if i want to include a series parallel switch or just plug the unused hole in the pick guard. They don't look as good as the EMG but pretty confident they'll make a huge difference tonally.

i shall try it when I'm better. I realise we need our core strength as we get older and will be working on it

Sorry I meant to write about my experience with the bass after posting but just pulled into something else. So I ordered the bass, through Vulf in the first run on the second day they came out, had to sell a few basses to make up the scratch but I made it work. Being a massive Vulf fan at the time, I just jumped at it with no real consideration as they where only for sale for the month of March that year. They where also sold directly through Vulf via Gumroad, so any questions where handled by Vulf, and I exchanged a few emails with Jack about spec and questions I had about the instrument, so that was cool. I had originally contacted Musicman with my questions and had pointed me at them directly. The bass was shipped from Musicman in the middle of August so I got it in the UK around the start of September. It cost me about £1700 plus £100 for shipping. Naively, I never looked at how much this bass would cost on import tax, this is my first time buying a bass direct form the US the only way you could get them. So when the postman arrived at my house, I had a £600 import tax bill..... I was very shocked but again its on me for not doing my homework. So I was already in the hole for £2500ish just getting the bass to my house. The bass was really really cool, it came strung with half rounds, which is what Joe uses, i'd never played them so really enjoyed the thump of them being half wounds they also had a little sparkly on the top end when you slapped, I have since used them a few times. It was built to an exceptional quality and I could not find a single fault with it. I loved that is was also the Sterling body shape and not the Stringray, slightly smaller overall and lighter. Now in reality the idea of having just a volume knob, was really refreshing, no getting lost in tweaking, just plug in and off you go, i think that was the beauty of it. But yh forgetting how much of the tone is in the fingers, I couldn't get it sound anything like Joe Dart haha again likely on me. Also having to use the EQ on my head to tweak really was a bummer as usually I can afford to leave it pretty flat and just use the onboard to add what i needed which obviously you cant do on the Joe Dart bass. So meant I had to keep adjusting it back for my other basses, again not a massive issue but just something I had to think about where I didn't before. Also worth noting, I was playing in hardcore and metal bands at the time, so the Joe Dart bass was for me at home, I didn't dare risk someone stage diving into it and breaking it. In the end, after owning the bass for a little under a month, I decided it wasn't worth the £2500 I had sunk into it for the amount of use it was likely to get. My band at the time was also about to embark on our first European tour, and I my head had decided to die which needed replacing so that also forced my hand a bit. Being a fickle bass player, by the time I received the bass, i'd moved on to GASing for something else haha. I ended up selling it and recouping all of the charges and sold within 24 hours. It was actually purchased by Scott Devine of Scott's Bass Lessons and gifted away in one of his bass competitions so was cool to see it being played on his channel and he was professional and dealt with me direct through out the whole purchase. I hadn't even removed the tags and still had the original box with only a few hours of play so it was still a brand new bass by the time it got to him. A few more photos of it, I didn't get many

If Status ever opened up their shop again, this is what i would order -

Ooooh, I'd like to come along this year. Not been to a bass bash before!

35" to Fretboard side of Nut to Mounting Screws - or slightly more say an extra 1/16" - 1/8" to ensure E intonation - checked a few and a couple are close to the bridge limit for the E. Especially with a Std bridge, no issue overhanging the body, as with a chunky high mass jobbie, plus extra distance from string retainer to saddle should reduce the chances of any string silk resting on the string to saddle witness, contact point. My P Bitsa Body came with bridge pilot holes Aria J Ibby GSR200 Ibby SR300

https://www.walrusaudio.com/collections/all-effect-pedals Walrus are doing some cool stuff at the moment. The Slo pedal is bonkers.

Beat the clock. Sparks

Here’s my latest precision build…….👍🏻

Heading over to Indonesia for this laid back tune.

Another jazz tune improv on the Jaydee, this time i set the bass on 70%, Mid on 100%, Treble on 5% , Tone rolled right off and back pick up selected... only thing with this setting is the bass is quite a bit quieter, probably would need a volume boost pedal if i was going to switch to this setting and then switch to a normal slap sound in a gig.

Yes, te Fender Custom Shop Jaco Pastorius was similarly a rip off, I lifted it out of its case with the reverence that it undoubtedly deserved, plugged i in to my B-15 and started playing, and it sounded like some fecking idiot from Kent was playing it