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Busy weekend. Friday night went to see Dansette, a motown type band complete with horns, arranged by my partner, so delighted that the place was rammed with some new faces. Their drummer agreed to dep for us in August. On Saturday played a 'beer garden' gig at The Bell Inn for Caerleon Festival. Not a huge attendance, but a pretty good crowd considering we were on after a thunderstorm followed by a Morris Dancing troupe. Acid test - for our last two songs it rained and everyone stayed - so we played Purple Rain as an encore. That evening our guitarist played another open air gig with his other, younger, band, and I was on the door at a sold out gig headlined by my brother's band, met two guys I hadn't seen since I was a teenager. Their drummer played with the support, a Faith No More tribute as well, he must have sweated off a stone by the end of the night as the portable coolers struggled to keep the place habitable! Yesterday evening at Cubanas, a club in Barry. We got confused about start time so went on about 15 minutes late, but only took a 5-minute comfort break and went about fifteen minutes over with encores so everyone happy. The weather and the fact that many of the regulars went to my bro's band's gig the night before (traitors!) meant we had a good crowd, but not packed like the previous time. A local singer got up and joined us for two Free songs at the start of our second set, which went down very well. Here's a Facebook video, I think it's set to public... We played Gary Clarke's 'Bright Lights' and it being all on Am somehow I ended up improvising a very rambling, jazzy walking line under Alex's solo which I was enjoying then he got a glint in his eye and stopped playing, so I found myself just blattering the fetboard as many positions and rhythms as I could think of, which to be honest was an absolute blast, and apparently it was OK out front, which is a relief! We got lots of positive comments after both gigs, but I'm knackered, so I won't be going to an open mike tonight! Punter pics: Up the dusty end!

The first time in Hull for us (Headsticks) at the New Adelphi Club. I've heard of this place and I gather a lot of big names have played there. Apparently the sound engineer has done every single gig there since it opened. He really knows the venue and it sounded fantastic. Not a massive crowd but it's a small place so felt good. Everyone wanted to chat before and after, which is always nice although I do get a bit bashful if I haven't had a pint. Another sweaty one! I changed after the set, put my stage shirt in the van, and chucked it over the line when I got home at 3AM. It was still soaked at 10AM! I might have to bin that one. I've nicked a photo from a fan on facebook.

Bit of an omnibus coming up, all related to the Dereham Blues Festival. Thursday night I was in the house band for a jam held in a pub on the outskirts. Not as big a turn out as expected because there were bands playing elsewhere in town. However, it gave me a chance to hear what my rig sounded like in others’ hands. I quickly realised that the combination of an Orange Terror 500 and Barefaced Two10 (retro) was too old school. I love both bits of kit but I’m not going to pair them again. The Terror cuts through much better when paired with my two Orange 112s and ditto the Two10 with a more modern sounding head. On the Saturday of the festival I played 3 one hour gigs with the Checkmate Kings. This was pretty challenging : 3 set-ups and breakdowns in different pubs. We had to bring everything, as there are no in-house PAs. To add to the challenge, we had one hour between the last two gigs and the weather made it like being in a sauna. I got through 4 shirts in the day. The gigs went pretty well, especially the last one in the Kings Head that has a band stand in a huge beer garden. They set up a real ale tent and food stalls, which guarantees masses of punters on a sunny evening. The down side is that only the front 50 or so folks near the stage are actually there to enjoy the bands. The rest are getting hammered with their mates and would rather listen to grime, or Beyoncé (depending on gender). Lesson learnt from Thursday evening: I paired the Two10 with my Warwick Gnome Pro (280 watts), which worked really well and was really loud at quarter volume. Mishaps: my previously trusty Boss WL20 wireless system packed up during the first number at the second gig: I missed a whole verse while plugging in a lead. I had hoped to get more than 5 years out of the Boss, given the price. I thought that was it for the festival, apart from a leisurely afternoon jam in the beer garden on the Sunday but our guitarist was on the phone first thing to say that we had been offered a two hour slot due to a cancellation. A quick ring round revealed that our drummer had taken his partner to hospital for a procedure and was too tired to do another set anyway. In desperation the organisers found us a step in drummer and a couple of hours later I was doing yet another set up in a different beer garden. This time I had to provide the whole PA set-up (apart from the desk) as the drummer normally provides a tower. Somehow we got through it OK and got some really great feedback from the punters. All tribute to Henry Lascelles on drums. We had never met him before and he managed to hold it down for two hours. Especially amazing as I felt my timing started to slip in the second half of the set and he was keeping it all together. Turns out he is a drum tutor: highly recommended IMO. I don’t think I could have got through all this with a standard scale bass and old school kit. I used a Maruszczyk Elwood 32” and although not the lightest bass around, the neck is just brilliant for my arthritic left hand. The Two10 and Warwick Gnome are just so light for the tone and volume they put out. It makes set-up and breakdown so much less demanding. I haven’t got away with it entirely: my left shoulder and back are giving me a lot of jip today but I guess after 7 hours of playing and all that gear moving it is only to be expected. Now for a rest!

Another hot, sweaty pub in Crawley on Friday night. Lots of punters in the beer garden but we did the full two and half hour set with a dep drummer who did well although hard work for me helping cue him all night. Guitars were struggling to stay in tune but my Status was rock solid, in fact forgot to check the tuning until I had to retune for a drop D in the first set - gotta love some carbon graphite! Bit of a break now over the summer while we search for a permanent drummer.

Hurtsfall were in Derby at the Victoria Inn on Friday supporting Chaos Bleak and local band Courtesan. Somewhat frustrating as the PA were very slow to set up and they appeared to have run out of working channels on the mixer or multicore by the time we were ready for our sound check requiring them to use channels from the other bands, so playing first was a definite advantage as there was less likelihood the sound changing between the sound check and the actual gig. Also it meant that were almost 30 minutes late starting. In the end it all worked in our favour because by then there were lots or people there - as soon as we started playing they flooded in from the "beer garden" and were very enthusiastic, especially when we played our forthcoming single "Tilting" and even the new song which we were only playing for the second time was well received. Only issue was one of the synths was very quiet on the last two songs, but we carried on regardless and I doubt if anyone other than us even noticed. We'd gone in expecting the gig to be fairly quiet and were intending to treat it as a practice for next weekend's Goth City performance, but were pleasantly surprised and even sold a couple of T-shirts and Lucid CDs.

We were Passing the Dutchie and headlining at CamperJam last night in Weston Park. Great audience considering there were a few heavy downpours, there were still shed loads of people who still stayed out to catch our set.

According to Mick, he's not playing anything at all 😂

A corporate family fun day event, for Cat Surveys in Brentwood - a.k.a “CatFest”. Really nice setup when we arrived, with a small fun fair for children (inc dodgems and lots of inflatable bouncy things), pizzeria, candy floss station, hotdog wagon, waffle vendor and bar… all free! We were given a 90min slot from 6pm, after a children’s entertainer and before the DJ, in a lovely, large teepee with plenty of space to set up an and a generous dance floor. Not a lot of time to set up everything - just about 1 hour, but we did it with minimum fuss and with discipline. We finally got our IEM issues resolved with a single, balanced mix for everyone (some of us wired and some on wireless all from a splitter box). Me and the two guitarists each brought our usual frfr speakers as backline which were left switched off - I finally feel like we’ve reached the point we don’t need them anymore. The IEM sounded great, and the recent addiction of a sub woofer has filled out the FOH sound. As such, all our vocals were on point - a couple of songs with big harmonies/backing vocals such as “Blinding Lights”, “Long Train Running” and “I Gotta Feeling” sounded massively incredible in my ears. Apparently the sound out front was just as good. We played well, and kept the set moving with minimal gaps between songs. It took 20mins or so for people to have the courage to come in and have a dance, but after 40mins, the dance floor was full and stayed full (which surprised me as it was twice as hot inside the teepee than outside - sweating buckets!). Only a couple of fluffs from me, one brain fart and one where I jumped a song in the set, but I saved them both and nobody noticed apart from the band). Happy people and happy customer who said they loved it and definitely want us for next year’s shindig. Oh, and the heavens opened just as we finished packing the cars - so we stood in it and basked in the cool rain. Obligatory photo of the setup:

Replying to my own post, but we have had some of the pro pictures come through which are great.

The 77s played the Friday night of a local private festival called The Big Stiff, near Sevenoaks. They had hired in a full lorry to play on, and a full pro PA and lighting rig, along with sound engineer. It was great to play on such pro equipment compared to our usual Facebook marketplace PA & lights. It went pretty well, and we were able to get some good pictures and videos for social media. All I had to take was my bass and pedal, and one of the best things about the night was it only taking 5 minutes to pack up! we played for over 3 hours, which became a bit of a drag to be honest, as it had been a long hot night. I am trying to convince the rest of the guys to play for a bit shorter duration - less is more etc

I wasn't planning on buying another bass any time soon, just got a CS Jazz with which I'm very satisfied but when this showed up... I've always wanted a late 60's/early 70's Jazz, with the TV logo, block inlay but with 60's bridge pickup spacing. I drove 3 hours, picked it up, took it apart (and put it back together) and took it home. It's a 1970 Jazz with replacement pots, bridge and case. It's also a refret and refin. But it's a lovely refin, the frets are good, the sound is thunderous and the neck is to die for. So, the 50th bass I've ever owned (yes, I keep a list) is my third vintage Fender. The colour is very hard to catch. It looks Lake Placid Blue, but it's more aged Ocean Turquoise. 1966 vs 1970: 1966 vs 1971 vs 1970:

Today has been hardware fitting day. Hipshot tuners - though not the Lollipops I wanted as it turns out... Hipshot didn't actually have any anywhere despite telling the supplier they were in stock - shout out to BTN Music for all their help with that and getting me the ordinary clover leaf ones very quickly. Bridges... hmmm... yeah. Bought a Hipshot Vintage but it just didn't look right. Then found a Stingray style bridge on Aliexpress (one of these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32839427267.html). It arrived very quickly but, again just didn't look right for the more minimalist look I wanted. Ended up buying a Hipshot A Style Fender fit bridge from BTN Music because they were on sale. Got the aluminium version. String tree is also Hipshot. Knobs are John East. The EMG MMCS with BTC Control 2-band EQ behind the scenes packs a punch 😮 Only issue at the moment is that something is funny with the jack socket so it keeps cutting out... job for the weekend. Still some serious tweaking and setting up to do, but it's shaping up to be a very very nice bass. Neck is old-skool jazz width 38.8mm with Graphtech nut that just dropped right in and doesn't look like it's going to need much work. Front to back it's quite chunky, but I like that, very similar to my Warwick Thumb bass in fact. It's light too at just over 3.8kg, and that despite being all walnut with a bit of maple. And to add - the fit of the neck to the body was perfect - quite tight, but once on everything lined up perfectly without needing to faff around. That was my biggest worry... having to adjust the fit of the neck. My worries were unwarranted!

The pots and case also turned out to be non-originals. To be honest: I don't care. It sounds amazing, looks absolutely stunning and it can be set up really smoothly. I will give it some new strings and oil the fretboard. I got a little discount because of the case and pots. The case is pretty old but I hate cases so I'm definitely selling it.

NBW = New Bass Week, as it is 7 days since I bought it. I've been a Precision devotee for some years now - a good P does 95% of what I want from a bass guitar, so I had ended up with 2 actual Precisions (a '73 and a RI '63) and a Dingwall Super P 5-string. The other 5% is what you get from more than one pickup, and/or a bridge pickup on its own. Jazzes never did it for me though, and I recently started looking in earnest for an alternative. I'm not drawn to active circuits either, which narrows the field considerably. My shortlist included the Dingwall D-Roc. Bass Direct had 4 in stock, which dropped to 3 even as I watched, but then one came up on BassChat so I arranged to check it out and duly purchased it from the gent known on here as @Jimryan. The following day dawned with a serious case of buyer's remorse - had I blown a considerable on something I didn't really like? Then I got it out to play again, and all such thoughts swiftly evaporated. I have spent some time fettling it to suit my own preferences, which involved filing the nut slots, fitting new Elixir extra-long strings (I didn't care for the Paysons it came with), and making adjustments to the truss rod, action, and pickup heights. I spent some time at home getting used to its range of sounds and how it responds to my playing. The major wow happened when I took it on a wedding gig last night - Demeter 800W head into BF Super Twin. Not only did it play effortlessly but it sounded phenomenal in all 4 positions on the selector switch. Those different sounds cover all the main bass pickup 'food groups'. You can get an after-market replacement switch to give you 2 more options, but tbh I think Sheldon has nailed it with the ones he's chosen. The extra tension in the low E (with a scale length of over 36 inches) meant that I could play notes on it that I would normally choose to fret on the A string, with no flub whatsoever. A friend asked me 'Is it as punchy as it looks?' and as I told him, 'punchy' is definitely within its repertoire! The position of the strap attachment points means that it balances perfectly, and the head end is not uncomfortably hard to reach. The only downside is that the bass-side part of the lower bout sticks out where you don't expect it to, resulting in the occasional clash with (a) my cab and (b) parts of me. I've included the second photograph in an attempt to convey how sparkly the finish is - it's as sparkly as a very sparkly thing on World Sparkle Day. More so under stage lighting - we're talking Sparkly Mc Sparkleface here. The eagle-eyed may notice the absence of the black striped vinyl 'scratch plate' - that was removed before I bought the bass, a modification of which I approve 100%. I can barely wait to play this live again - would it look out of place in a Dire Straits tribute?

Friday Night Acoustic Gig Blue "Hey West Bend! THIS Friday night! Live music on the patio at King Pin Bowl and Ale House! If the weather cooperates, bring your favorite chair! If the weather doesn't cooperate, we'll play inside, so you won't need your favorite chair! Hope to see YOU! Special guest Kevin Henkel joining us on percussion." She's Right - I'm Left

Two for me, both without our engineer, which sucked. We got by and both gigs were… fine! Not much to report. Just, fine

Forgot just how great sounding the non class D, heavy stuff sounds. A/B’d my Eden WT550 against my Markbass LMT and it blew it out the proverbial water…proper heft, fat tone and of course back braking heavy! Great vintage vibes at a non rehearsed classic 70’s rock gig with the first outing of my Zon. Sounded sublime! Excuse the dusty end pic, only the ‘tic toc’ of Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ 😂

Here's a photoshop one of me pretending to know what goes on in the nether regions...

...combine it with the same amp that Jason Newsted used on "And justice for all" and you're set for stadium rock heaven : )

Same old situation

This is going to be a design for an 8" 200W cab for loud home use/practice or use a pair for a lightweight portable gigging rig. It's clean sounding with a rich bass for such a small cab and I will get the design up over the next few weeks. This is just a taster. For those of you who play upright we have tried the cab and this cab pairs really well with a 'proper' bass. This was a covid/lockdown project and was meant to be a one off for @Chienmortbb to physically match his souped up Ashdown After Eight Combo. It was never meant for publication in this form. It's an unusual shape for a cab, almost a cube which is all 'wrong' acoustically but it looks really cute and sounds great so I'm publishing it like that. I may build another as a conventional shaped cab and put up both designs. The cab is 33x33x30cm and will probably cost you less than £100 to build. It uses the simplest construction method possible. I've added a couple of pics so you can see just how bijou this little cab is. @RichardH has kindly offered to do some proper drawings.

I'd rely on my skill of walking away.

It hasn't so far, and getting sunglasses is a proper pain.

Love my Squier VM jazz fretless, one of the best basses I’ve ever owned. Upgraded pups, preamp (still passive) and nut, don’t care what the resell value is as will never sell. Plays a treat. With the resin fingerboard and flats, everyone who plays it loves it.

We played at Dublin Castle on Thursday night. Seems to have got fair reviews.... 😁 😁😁😁😁🤘

I'm expecting one of these in the post tomorrow. I love my Mutron pedals, but I found the phasors a problem because they need a 110v power supply and can't be used with batteries. This is a clone of the II circuit and uses a similar style case to the original, albeit a bit smaller. I love how they've recreated the Mutron knobs though, because they're impossible to find and expensive. Full findings when it arrives. I'm mostly using a Phase90 at the moment, although I tend to use my Russian Bassballs for a less subtle phasing sort of sound. Nonetheless this will be fund to try. I hope they do a Mutron III clone too.

I'm still doing a few 3 hour shows. It's long. Blue

I tried putting it into Google Translate but smoke started coming from my phone….

It does. I have been helping with some testing and given a few suggestions to help the overall experience be as simple and intuitive as possible. I think the new site is a HUGE improvement on the old without becoming the soulless box shifting experience you may see on other big sites.

I'd drown him out with thunderous slapping and popping and learn him, learn him real good.

Bit late - But I saw Steve Harris's band British Lion, then Iron Maiden in Manchester on 29th/30th June. British Lion were at a small club called Rebellion on the Thursday, no more than 500 capacity I'd say, and nothing like that amount in there. Excellent gig, they really are a great live band. 2nd time I've seen them and still amazed to be that close to Mr Harris in full flight. Support band Stray were also excellent and featured Basschat member King Tut on bass, what a treat! Iron Maiden then in the Arena on Friday night. Anyone who knows me knows I love Maiden, and they were brilliant. Somewhere in Time is probably my favourite Maiden album so to hear the Title track, Stranger in a Strange Land and Alexander the Great was a real treat. The walk on Eddies were awesome too. Excellent set list overall and delivered with the professionalism which is synonymous with the band. No mistakes that I heard anyway, and there have been a few on this tour. Top couple of days overall and Manchester impressed me as a city as well. Rained on the Friday, but you can't have everything!

A park bench in DC. Quite surreal!

Honestly mate, just go with it... 😂

I bet they have.. Dirty buggers...

Interestingly as I view it, you are simply trying to achieve a sound that you desire by the simplest means possible. I found that an active Streamer at max bass + treble (no mid control) gave me a core sound I liked and it never saturated the front end of my amp to the point of distortion. I concede that I could likely get the same result if I left bass EQ flat, turned up the input gain and boosted the same B + T frequencies that the onboard preamp was set at BUT... there's no guarantee that an amp I was plugging into had the ability to boost those same frequencies. Does that make sense?

A beautiful rare bass. nice one, it looks absolutely killer. My 77 is one of the factory rejects.. Black over Inca Silver. In direct sunlight it looks bottle green. It quickly became my number 1. Great neck. I love the mojo of yours, but a clean one would also be lovely.

GK Plex, MB200, Neo112!

We did our annual gig last night at Conkers Discovery Centre, which is in The National Forest in Derbyshire. It’s an outdoor gig, in a small natural amphitheatre next to a lake. Great PA from Roger at Sonar PA and Lighting, and a capacity crowd despite the dreadful weather - torrential rain and lightning. Most of the audience were under cover but those who weren’t didn’t seem to mind! They were very appreciative of local band ‘Landslide’, who played a brilliant set of Fleetwood Mac tunes to start the night. We then went on to do one 90 minute set, which flew by. Quite disconcerting to hear torrents of water lashing down a few feet away from your bass rig, but no real issues thank goodness. The usual speed limits and diversions all the way back meant I wasn’t home until 2am, feeling rather knackered.

Just back from my first gig in 8 months. The break was due to osteoarthritis in my left hand fingers. A few weeks ago I bought a couple of short scale basses (Mustangs) in the hope that I would be able to continue playing, and tonight was the time to put the theory into practice. Well, it certainly worked - we played as a three piece, so lots of room for interesting bass, and we held a good crowd outside a small pub in Witney, even though it was pouring with rain. We had a gazebo style canopy over us (that the bar owner put up) but the weight of water on it caused a small waterfall to cascade between me and my amp & cab. Luckily, the mains plug and socket was just out of range, but we stopped and moved the sensitive bits somewhere safer. Home again, no problems with my fingers after nearly two hours of energetic playing. Good to be back!

This weekends rig!

It does make practice easier as it’s always just ready to go. The usb c means all my devices use the same cable (more or less) But, I am sure the mp2 had less noise than the pro. I kept the mp2 in a gigbag in the US so I don’t have to take anything there. But the usb c is more convenient so that’s what I carry with me and any noise is unnoticeable when playing with songs.

I was going to say, make sure you get the holes in the correct place tho, That template would be just the job.

Have you ever considered writing lyrics for Jon Anderson?

You've got to hand it to Behringer - when they do it right, they make the competition look silly. I had the BX4500H head for a while and it easily kept up in terms of sound quality an output with the lightweight amp I had at the time - a Markbass LM3, I think. The only problem with it was a noisy fan, which I fixed with some resistors. It's a great second-hand buy for the impecunious bass player. I'm currently using the Bugera Veyron, which is *much* cheaper than the Aguilar Tonehammer it replaced.