Leaderboard

Not our best performance but we put on an honest fun Maple Road show. Our first lead guitarist had a fantastic night. Me, I made more than one mistake. We recorded the evening live. The best part was this very cool intimate venue. This guy turned his old 3 story Victorian home into a a little concert hall with a full size bar. BYOBB ( bring your own brown bag ). Plenty of cool couches sofas and davenports and a section with theatre type seating. This might seem shallow, however I did enjoy the attention during our break. I like and enjoy that people I don't know want to talk to me only because I played. If I look at my life on the whole, other than my playing there's no real reason anyone would want to talk to me.😀 Great crowd and all ages. The place was packed , looked like about 125 people. Very lucrative gig. Acoustic gig toda at The Ziegler Winery, 1-3. Blue

I went out last night for a rehearsal with a new band after a bit of a break from playing. Things in the last year or so really knocked my confidence on top of covid and a whole host of woes. So, it felt a bit like a rather tall horse to try to get back on. I did as much homework as I could and was even a bit nervy walking in for the first time. It went really well and the whole band (two new members added on the same day) gelled really well, like-minded had a great vibe in the room and I'm playing stuff that I've never really covered before. It felt rather liberating! I took both of my MIJ Fenders with me and the Berg' stack. Sounded absolutely brilliant - and the first time I'll be gigging on just 4 strings for .. I dunno! 25 years?? It felt good.

I did have this monster at one point... Fun, but utterly pointless!

The old fretless technique of playing with a box on your head to avoid looking at where your fingers are. 😉

A sensibly balanced double neck, and not that heavy either. I call it the A2-B2.

It was awesome! My band did its first ever live TV appearance on The Late Late Show in Ireland (not to be confused with J Corden's paltry offering) for St Patrick's Day. Viewing figures estimated at 1 million plus! I will probably create a seperate topic about the whole experience in general but it was simply amazing. Vid below for anyone interested:

Friday night was St. Patrick's day lunacy with beer spilt on monitors, pedalboards (not mine I don't use pedals of any description) and a bent mic stand which surprisingly failed gto stop a 16 stone punter hitting the deck. Saturday night was Dormans Club (ex British Steel works club) a place I could use the two new girls again, in safety. Suffice it to say Friday night's gig was more rewarding in dancing punters than Saturday nights.

I had this one for a good while, then got fed up of trying to shoe-horn the case into the car. I hardly ever touched the guitar neck and eventually sold it. The problem I found was the difference between the guitar and bass parts when switching through a bass amp. I'd probably find it quite useful now. The bass was lovely to play.

Just got in from gigging and it was the first official gig outing for my sea foam green HB Gotoh Mustang whatever the model number is. I have to admit that even though it's still in the honeymoon phase that bass exceeded expectations in terms of tone and performance. I'll try and keep it brief-ish as I need to go to bed but I'm still wired! It's still pretty much stock other than having been copper shielded and a new scratch plate (my Homer Simpson design to replace the naff tort plate that came with it). The strings are still the stock ones, no idea what they are but they're lower tension that I usually use and were comfortable to play and sounded great. It's not unnecessarily heavy, a complaint made against a few other HB models and it was comfortable to play over a 2 hour+ set with a wide strap. Balance was spot on, no neck dive. The neck is slim and comfortable to play, the couple of slightly rough fret edges having been dealt with weeks ago. The frets are jumbo sized which are chunkier than I'm used to but took no time to adjust to. The biggest gripe leveled at this model is the lack of a pickup blend option but not only did I not miss it, it never even crossed my mind that I needed it playing a set that ranges from country rock to 80's cock-rock to synth pop to contemporary dance numbers. It just sounded great whatever we played. I'd sunk the bridge pickup down a touch and raised the P up a bit to give a sound that is biased towards the neck pickup but it still had a chunk of that hollow-both-pickups-on sound but with a bit more low mid thanks to the extra dose of the P pickup. I left the tone wide open all night and it was clear and defined without getting abrasive in the top end. For me, the best thing about the bass is the pickups. They're not just good for the price, they're fantastic pickups full stop, IMO. Deep, clear lows that don't get bloated, plenty of mid range detail without getting muddy and sweet top end that is clean and clear but not shrill or overly bright. The gig was on in ear monitors, no backline. Through the PA at sound check the bass sound was excellent, big and punchy and defined but not overpowering, and the sound sat with the guitar and keys perfectly. Giving the pickups a gentle squeeze of compression enhanced the punch and overall sound in a way that left a big grin on my face all night. They also sang nicely with a touch of low gain saturation from my drive pedal which added an extra dimension to the tone. My preamp pedal had minimal tonal adjustments for the room but the bass doesn't need any extreme EQ settings to make it fit in, it just worked as it is. My main gigging basses cost several times what I paid for the HB but the cheap and cheerful little thing held its won against them. I only really bought it as a 'stunt bass' for more rowdy gigs but I can see it becoming a regular gigging machine. It's a ridiculously good bass for a pitiful asking price and the pickups might well be my new favorites ever regardless of price.

Well, it was Cheltenham race week for me. Normally I do 6pm till midnight for five nights on acoustic and vocals, on an upstairs/downstairs rotation with two other guys in the first pub next to the race course. But since the whole nearly dying of covid thing, I can’t do that anymore, so I was on bass this year and only did three shows a bit further into town. The first two were standard race week stuff, just fighting off utterly hammered, red-faced, tweed clad muppets demanding oasis for every. Single. Song. But last night was a birthday party in a local pub and was just lush from start to finish, one of my fave gigs of the year. Plenty of space for me, no muppets crashing into me (ok, one did take a tumble over the foot lights, but only one), I had a great sound in ears and had great fun locking in with the drummer. Top night. E3E2671B-5307-44E1-9471-AA736120A7BB.MOV E2FA44FD-F1C9-4E05-AAAB-A6BA0EA41F80.MOV

In fact, the DI was fine. I had plugged the bass into the return of the effects loop, and thus bypassed the DI. In my defence, the amp head was vertical rather than horizontal, to save space - and I was disoriented and used the wrong jack socket! I'll get my coat.... EDIT. Actually, it was me who moved the amp head onto its side..... so, my fault entirely, and laughably indefensible. I won't even try to blame someone else!!

Wet and windy wilds of Wiltshire yesterday. The Woodbridge Inn is a real homely boozer with extremely friendly staff and about a million lovely dogs in residence. They even have their own pooch sofa in one of the bars. The room we played in sounded really good. I used my GT Core as preamp into the effects return of my Veyron. It really does produce a great sound. Tidy and tight and nicely in the mix. Unfortunately I am still awaiting any news of payment from the BL and there was virtually no one there to watch us. We're out again this evening. Hopefully better things await. As much as I love playing my bass, I can do it for free to nobody quite happily in my room at home. Edit: Payment came through via bank transfer - the hold up was the band NOT the venue. Don't want to slander a lovely pub .

John could be a real derrière but his collection of Conklin basses was impressive. I'm thankful for the support he gave Bill Conklin as it meant that he could keep doing business and making basses for great players like Bill Dickens. This double neck was always a bridge too far for me though, despite the amazing woodworking. It looks like it weighs as much as the moon. The picture of John playing the fretless neck gives the impression that it is extremely bulky and unwieldy. Something about double necks has always appealed to me but when a lot of bass designers struggle to a great ergonomic instrument with one neck, the scope of design problem becomes clear. On that basis, the Basslab DN1000 is easily the bass I GAS for most these days. I can imagine it being an extremely light and resonant instrument due to the materials that Heiko uses. Kai Eckhardt's Schack double neck was probably quite manageable too. I've only ever seen him using it once, on some footage from the old John McLaughlin Trio in 1989.

After a traumatic week at work being made redundant I needed a good night out and some cheering up. This did the trick nicely. We sacrificed all musical integrity and pumped out an evening of rocky crowd pleasers in a sports bar type pub local to me. Dance floor full from 30 seconds in. Opened with She Sells Sanctuary and didn't put them down until Killing in the Name Of.. as the 4th encore. A week of extremes for me - on the floor on Tuesday and high as a kite by Sunday morning.

When I had mine built I knew which body shape I wanted because Sei had been mostly picked on that basis alone, that it was going to be a 34" scale fretless 5-string with an ACG01 preamp and I had a photo of a Nordstrand (IIRC) bass that I liked the colours of. That was it. Martin helped me pick out some woods that would give the visual result I was after and then sent me away to measure my favourite bass for the nut and bridge spacings. Once I had those I spent an afternoon in the shop trying out various basses the get the right neck profile and pickup voicing to suit how I played and how I wanted the bass to sound and after another 18 months this was the end result:

Heard this yesterday, first time in a long while

This popped up on my YouTube home page earlier. I had forgotten what a superb Jazz Musician Dudley Moore was:

Very happy with these but sadly I don't get much opportunity to use the 650-Vanderkley setup. I think I've only used it three times, two rehearsals and one gig. Great sound though. The little EBS rig gets most use as rehearsals are in a small practice room now and not the old club with a large stage. We have a few gigs booked so looking forward to blowing the dust off.

In all seriousness though - you're always going to get neck dive on thunderbird bass type shapes. I guess your choices are use a grippy strap or don't take your hand off the neck when playing open notes!

It's been a while since I ordered a Sei, but I've done it twice before and will be doing it again soon. I guess the trick is to take advantage of Martin and John's experience - particularly Martin's, as he's been doing this for a long, long time. You do want to go in there with some idea about how you want the bass to look (which body shape - original, Flamboyant, single cut, Jazz/P, etc), what woods you like the look of, some idea of what sort of neck dimensions you find most comfortable, and so on. If you have a bass with a neck you really like, bring it with you so they can measure it, or just find something at The Gallery you like the feel of (as you know, they've got, like, 150 basses hanging on the walls there). If you have strong opinions on the sort of sound, pickups, etc you want, tell them, and they'll make it happen. Otherwise, just describe the sort of sound you're after, or play them a track with a bass tone you like, and they'll advise you the best way to go. Word for the wise though - don't go in there with too many ideas set in stone. Let them do their thing and take their advice. Let them have fun with it, and you'll end up with a better instrument. It'll be a long 12-18 months while you wait for it to come to life (don't expect anything at all for the first six months!) but the anticipation is one of the best parts! And there's nothing like that day you go in and collect it, when Martin opens the case in front of you and hands you your bass. It's a journey - enjoy it.

First date for In Isolation and Gothzilla mini-tour, playing upstairs at The Olde Salutation Inn in Nottingham: With X-Superstar and Feather Trade also on the bill for this gig it was a bit cramped on stage and I had to do a bit of a rewire of my "bass rig" in order for Feather Trade's bass player to also use it, but the gig went well and we seemed to have the biggest audience of the night. Just getting ready to go to Heckmondwicke for tonight's gig.

Just listening to Paul Gambaccini doing Pick of The Pops from 1982. Great years for the bass guitar, very prominent in the mix and great bass lines too.

Do Stranglers count as early 80s? I think Peaches has the greatest bass tone ever. Absolutely disgraceful and brilliant at the same time

Acquiring new gear because it suits a new genre or band is my main thought process when it come to GAS. If I was honest with myself, however, I’d probably come to the conclusion that I’m just using that as an enabling mechanism, which I’m actually OK with.

It was my one man world tour - scaffolding was to stop the screaming hordes invading the stage 🤣

Around the table in the board room. 🤣

Gotta keep an eye on the outlet. It changes all the time

First ska gig outing with the Q4 last night. Perfect. Sat well in the mix esp. when I favoured the neck pickup. And so wonderfully light! To say I'm pleased is a total understatement. The Trojan logo and the neck 'inlays' are all vinyl stick-ons, easily removed without a trace. I'd have like some Spector crowns but they're next to impossible to find. EDIT: see below for updated pic!

Mudpup's strap room - nothing to read into there

I'm desperately hoping they may give me some if I say nice things..... Here's the link to the outlet https://www.richterstraps.com/en/c/products/b-stock

They are really very good basses and I agree regarding the pice (I have a 1 and a 1A). Now, that Mighty Mite would've been something - it wasn't the Peter Cook model was it?

Most of my gigs these days are with in ear monitors and I use a DJ stand/table thingy for my little 2U rack that houses my wireless systems, so I usually have my board next to it up out of the way off the floor. I'm not a big effects user so most of my board is always-on pedals (preamp, compression) and those pedals that get switched on and off (tuner, drive) are done by hand between songs as I don't currently need to switch anything in or out mid-song. It also has the added benefit of being out of the way of our singer who's as blind as a bat and tends to walk all over whatever is on the floor no matter how many blinding LED's it has 🙄😀

Best? Only you know what is best for you. Decide what it is you want to have at the end of the process in terms of tone, ergonomics and appearance before you do anything else.

Went to an open mike on Wednesday with two guys I never met before k(guitar and cajon) to jam some stuff shared online. Was a bit ~ (6 doesn't work if the cajon player isn't expecting it) so to finish I called a straightforward 12 bar blues which went fine. Actuallya video shared later showed it was quite good but you can only see my headstock!

Quite. I'm guessing the £35 delivery charge won't include insurance!

Some neck progress

The Prince's Trust Concerts were always the highlight of the musical year for me in the 80s To see Phil Collins, Eric Clapton ,Nathan East, Mark Knopfler, Elton John and many others all on the same stage and often at the same time in an amazing supergroup was just so incredible. Not to mention the millions in Armani suits being worn in one place 🙂

For a used BB, I would go straight to the source, i.e., Japan. I recently got my 1200 from there and it is in great condition for a 45 year old bass. Reverse P and neck-thru, sounds huge!