Leaderboard

Hey gang! Short version: Got a '71 P. It's in amazing condition*. B neck, 8.8lbs, balanced, resonant. It's a stunner. Long version: It's had one owner before me - an ex-pat Glaswegian, and professional bass player, who bought it new from a shop in Hamilton, Bermuda(!) in 1971. He was the resident bassist in the house band at the Princess Hotel on the island, and gigged it for decades. I suspect he may have used it to back some massive stars over the years, as it was a big venue on the circuit (no provenance of this, unfortunately). He returned to Argyll in his twilight years where it remained in its case, until he sadly passed away last year at a ripe old age after living a remarkable life. His family decided to sell it on, and I'm the lucky recipient. As you can see, it's incredibly clean. From talking to his family, it sounds like it never really left the hotel. Also in the case was a manual (with the purchase date, store name and price - $315 - handwritten on it), some REALLY old guitar cables, his strap and a back of old tortoiseshell picks. There's a mark on the back of the neck from a guitar stand, which I think will come off. There's also a sticker on the back with the hotel details on it.. I think I might leave this on, but I'm not sure. One of the tuner screws has been replaced. In addition to that, it looks like it may have had a refret at some point but I won't know for sure until I've taken it to be looked over by the legend that is Dave Wilson. Dave will also be looking at the mystery of why the bridge appears to have been moved to the 'E' side very slightly - I really can't see a reason why. If there isn't one, I'll ask him to shift it back. He's also going to pop the pickguard off to check the wiring, pots and pickups are original. It's been used so much, maybe something has been replaced, but hopefully nothing major. All-in-all, I'm VERY happy with it. It's getting gigged tomorrow night before it goes to Dave's. 🙂

Because for a certain generation, the sound of a bass guitar in the music of their youth was generally a dull thud. For some reason they aspire to this in later life.

Listen closely to the sublime, glorious bassline of For Once In My Life, and then tell me again that he had an easy ride

Just got the bridge today from the legend @Old Man Riva Im totally blown away by his generosity, he posted it next day delivery as well, a credit to this community.. Thanks Mick

This popped up in a thread on the fleabay a few days ago. I put it on watch and deliberated while doing some research. It’s a 70’s model 450B fretless. Going through many old forums it looked to have its original Schaller tuners original engraved picks ups (mighty mites?) and seemed in relatively good nick throughout the finish, knobs, switches and covers. there’s some marks but it is 40+ years old. I took a punt when no other bids dropped and lo and behold it arrived a few days later in a decent box I had a quick noodle and it sounds great, the pickup heights were all over the place but are sorted now and the action seemed a little high but I stripped the neck and there it was, the shim from thick tape plus it seems someone used blobs of something that set to lift the neck. I’ve removed it and the action is fine and it’s playing lovely. I’ll strip it properly the weekend and give it s good clean and service but my punt paid off and apart from having to replace the wooden pickup surrounds (we have a 3d printing shop at work) I’m well chuffed

Cheers, all! Just made a quick murky vid. It sounds exactly like a P with ancient flats should sound.

I'm not sure if I've missed How1's point - but some Motown tracks e.g. Ain't No Mountain High Enough had three guitars (Willis, Messina, and White) and a string section. There was a lot of instrumentation but Motown was arranged and produced really well. Isolated guitars Isolated strings

My pleasure! Pleased it’s done the trick!

It's a fairly uninspiring tone by itself but in the context of the material it is just perfect. A common theme with P basses actually!

Easy on the ear, catchy riffs and great tones. I'd love to have written half of his riffs.

We all spend our playing careers trying to replicate "the sound in our head". For anyone listening to pop music through the 60s, that sound is most likely to be a Fender Precision strung with flats, and quite possibly being played by James Jamerson (not that any of us had a clue who he was until many years later).

That's certainly one way of looking at what she's doing...

OK, this is a list so far of definite and possible attendees for the Absent Friends Memorial SWBB 2023. Feel free to copy/paste/amend/etc: The food. Oh god, the food. @scrumpymike @Jabba_the_gut - an array of stunning builds, probably @Rich - Spector Q4, Shuker 5-string, G-B Shuttle 9.2, Barefaced Super 12T @Kateplaysbass - assorted short scale loveliness and Ashdown ampiness @Woodinblack - Ibanez AGB205, possibly NS WAV5 bass, various amps for mooted amp shootout (tbc) @basstone @Phil Starr - the usual top notch collection of home built speaker projects and other fascinating stuff @BreadBin ✝️ @MichaelDean @TRBboy @Chienmortbb - loads of stuff @Thor - a few bits @Frank Blank - Jabba short scale fretted and fretless, Ibanez SRC6, Grace Design Alix, QSC K12.2

My current G&L contingent

It must be true: if you fart at the urinals at 852Hz, someone will always say 'Better out than in'...

Hi all @ped of this parish has very kindly offered to donate three (3) subscriptions to the raffle. Winners will get a code allowing them to post items for sale and so on for a whole year for free. Great news and a great kindness.

I have received a parcel full of goodies from our glorious and generous leader @ped... ...I really must scrub that table!

Jamerson, Babbitt, Duck Dunn and Nathan East. The sound of a bass. You can sound different but you won't sound better.

I also said to her yesterday, should I save up and just buy a really good bass. she said no. buy that one. You have adhd. You’ll want one that does some other thing in 3 months. 🤣🤣

None of it.

If you listen closely his playing , note lengths and articulation on this is amazing, when I learn something I like to play it exactly note for note ,and it wasn’t until I tried some of his basslines that I realised how good he was

I am a proud owner of a Squier VM Jazz! I bought this Tuesday really but I never celebrate until I know I will keep a bass (so, setup to my liking, new strings if needed...). I remember when I was 18, playing my Cort, I dreamed of buying a Fender Jazz bass. I did not have the money then, and after chatting to people who had no clue (this is how information gathering worked at the time) I got convinced that Squiers were no good. Within a year, I gave up playing because of a strong, recurring tendinitis. No Fender J for me.. After picking up bass again a year and a half ago, I soon decided it was time to buy a J. Now quite aware that the internet could be used for things other than downloading music and other stuff, I decided to buy a Sire V5. But it didn't work out. The bass was heavy, the fretwork was poor. And it sounded too harsh to me (although I'd be curious to revisit that opinion now). I sold the Sire V5, bought a Sire V7fl. Great bass to be honest except for QC issues so it had to go back to Thomann. Plus it was heavy. As I was planning to mostly play passive, and I cannot play fretless anyway, it felt a bit like overshooting, so I got a HB JB75fl instead. Great bass - for the money - but both stupidly heavy and a neck diver. I sold that as well after a while, and realized that I was not that excited about J basses anymore. Until now. I bought this Squier in the classfields without big expectations. I was curious to try again, and I could re-sell it with minimal to no loss. But I am not going to sell this! Great fretwork, lightweight. A bit neck heavy as often the case for light Js/Ps, but when a bass is good I don't mind investing in lighter tuners. I love this Duncan Designed the pickups. I would not be surprised if they were ceramic, they are quite aggressive, but not in a way that does ny head in. I understand the pickup positioning is 60s, but in another forum there were two people talking of an Audere report stating that the pickup response per se was extremely similar to a '74 Jazz. For what I gather from youtube videos, this makes a lot of sense to me. Squier gets a lot of criticism for supposedly not being on par with other new brands. I had big QC issues with Affinity Ps. But in the end my experience is that a good Squier is a great bass!

Brilliant bass player, many folks wouldn’t argue with that. He played on a LOT of great songs with basslines that caught the ear even on tinny transistor radios. Yes, the Precision bass with flats thing is done to death now but he made it work throughout his career. And no, he didn’t have an easy ride. Not in the studio at Motown at least. Try playing live alongside a drummer, two percussionists, a vibraphone player, two guitarists, piano, Hammond organ, horns, etc, and be expected to nail it first take, every time. Several tracks every day. Day in, day out. His bass playing and sound have stood the test of time. It’s recognized as classic. The isolated bass track for “What’s Going On” is a superb example. Tone, phrasing, note choice. Brilliant 👍

Did some cable management on my completed board. the good thing about these Rockboard pedalboards is that they come with lots of railing so that you can hide the cables from the pedals side and keep them all under. as an example, I cabled up the compressor directly to the capo input carrying the cable underneath the broadcast instead of around… same for the power cables etc. it may not be too obvious versus previous pictures, but this and a couple cable ties underneath and I’m a happy guy. it’s gotten bad now though, officially a bigger board than my guitarist, what has the world come to! all these hours ‘invested’ in pedalplayground have definitely paid off, everything fits down to the millimetre, Jesus! PS: I’m also hiding the voltage doubler (truetone) under the central pilar of the pedalboard - now it’s running at 24V 😊

Haha cutting through the mix is a double edged sword, its great people can hear you but unfortunately means you actually have to play the right notes in the right order.

Swimming Horses - Siouxsie & The Banshees (Because "Hippopotamus" means River Horse in Greek).... erm, I'll get my coat!

Well my ‘cheap’ Thomann bow and Pops rosin arrived today, so here we go into a brave new world 😎

Mine was 8.25lbs. a veritable lightweight.😁

I picked up a bass for the first time after many many years in December 2021. At the time, I was mostly listening to old jazz, some fusion but only a tiny bit really. I much preferred the sound of a doublebass to that of an electric bass. As I did not want to play the metal of my youth nor jazz as it looked like a lot of work, I started googling for electric bass players that I could like. Luckily I bumped into Jamerson and that amazing generation of soul musicians. I immediately fell in love with the sound of old flats, neck pickups and mute. It did not sound to me like a bad copy of a double bass. Close but different. I was coming from jazz and so did Jamerson (him for real as a player, me just in my bedroom with headphones on), so I guess it makes sense that he wanted that sound and I like it. True, they had it easy in many ways, their sound would not come out in a hard rock band. But nor would Ray Brown's doublebass. I am not sure this means his sound is not cool EDIT: let me add that three guitars can be two to three too many

That there is a Vintage Modified Precision Bass V. Mine's 4.1 kg (9 lb). That style of tortoiseshell is not my favourite, so I swapped for mint green:

So… finally got my rig of choice! plumped for a boss GT1B but honestly, I found that the synth bass sounds didn’t track very well at all. So that has now moved on to greener pastures and I picked up an as new line 6 pod go from the bay… I haven’t tried it yet and I was looking for a hx stomp but this, I’m sure will meet my needs. also… bought a QSC 10.2 which turned out to have a fault (this was a shame as it sounded amazing - kudos to @lemmywinks for a quick and easy solution. Saw a Headrush for sale locally, picked that up thinking - that will do… then 2 days later saw a QSC 12.2 for sale locally to me which I am now organising collection. so… that’s me sorted. Line 6 pod go into a QSC 12.2. Should be banging! first outing won’t be for a while but I shall feedback on here with the outcome for anyone else considering it…

And Today was another New Bass Day… 😍 Leduc Masterpiece 624 from 1992. Neck : One piece of Canadian Hard Rock Maple Fingerboard : Brazilian Rosewood from 19th century Body : French Ash Pickups : Leduc/Benedetti Single Coils with Hum-cancelling Preamp : Leduc/EBS EL-5 Bridge : Aluminium Leduc with Brass saddles Tuners : Gotoh GB707 Year of birth : 1992

A few weeks back I bought this off @fuzzylogic. As I'm in south Wales he very generously delivered it to my parents in Coventry. Today was the first chance I had to come and get it. Rather than a round trip in a day I brought a bass and cab with me. I also got a new badge for the amp from Ashdown. This sounds so bloody good. Now my CTM300 has a Mini Me. I can't wait to get back home on Monday,.

Incredible band. Unique, brilliant.

My Friday evening choice, Bitty McLean , sly and Robbie, top tune

It's that era specific and studio specific and engineered specific of that bass with old strings played with thumb and fingers DI into the desk, maybe originally recorded along with something like a B15 mic'd up and the two mixed and bounced down together on tape; a tubey, harmonically rich, compression thing which is generally more appealing than transistor or digitally recorded stuff to many people; there's a pedal/DI box available that tries to replicate it based on what was used originally

Every time l gig with my R400 l get compliments about my sound and that they can hear every note crystal clear........l'm beginning to think it not the amp but my incredible technuque😂😂

Ditto! the fuzz sounded great through the monitors/FOH too and think the LPF had something to do with it. Funny enough the Mesa WD800 doesn't add a lot of colouring, just a bit more compression and presence (likely due to the passive mids control as I keep all else pretty flat) so I plug the pedalboard on the input (not the return of the effect loop on the head) as it's easier to adjust volumes and dial in EQ from there if need be.

Late to the party but i went to Kenable for the same reason. My 2 x PA cab mains leads were stiff as a local councillor, and i needed 6 metres x 2. The Kenable cables that turned up were fabulous and cheaper than Lynx