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Well, that was good fun! We (Fine Lines) played at the o2 Ritz in Manchester, supporting Kiefer Sutherland on this re-arranged date. We were on the full UK tour last year, but unfortunately, he caught covid, meaning the last 4 dates had to be cancelled. We weren't sure if we'd get any of the new dates, so were really happy to get Manchester, as it was almost a home gig for us. We certainly had a surprising number of people venturing from our home town to the show, possibly not all to see us, but it seemed like a good proportion did, judging by the repsonse. The crowd were brilliant, some of the ones on the front row knew the songs (from following thebtour previously) and they were very enthusiastic in their responses. We played with a dep drummer, who did a great job and really put some work in, having had only 1 rehearsal with us. All in all, quite a splendid time was had by all.

I don't need to tell people on here about Alan's work, It's not really a secret that ACG basses are up there with the best but I have realised I haven't mentioned this bass yet. I contacted Alan towards the end of 2022 as I had my 40th approaching in April 2023 and I wanted to treat myself. After far to many emails from myself I settled on a spec that would remind me of some basses I have let go but miss the two most noticeable a fretless sei flamboyant 5string and an Everson fretless 4string. So a plan was hatched build a bass with features I now know suit me the most (passive, Shortscale to name a couple) Full spec. Body core Black Limba Top veneer AI Black ART Maple with black veneer. Back plate Black Limba with black veneer and Set Neck with 5 piece Padauk Wenge woods P/W/P/W/P. Finger board wood AI Mac Ebony with Maple fret lines Radius 30”Side dots Blue Luminlay fretted position. Headstock Black ART Maple with black veneer . Bridge ACG Hipshot 19mm spacing Black Pre-amp Passive Vol/Tone/4 way rotary/3 way toggle switch for any combination. BZ1 bridge pickup PB neck pickup. I have to say Alan was great to deal with the bass is everything I wished for and more (it was even delivered two months earlier than expected) I can fully recommend if you are looking to have a build done. Some of my poor quality photos along with Alan's that show the bass off better.

An arty shot of the JMJ taken by Saturday’s house photographer.

Over the last few days (laid up/knee), I've been reading Liam Newton's rather excellent biography of 10cc; 10cc: The Worst Band In The World and in keeping with the Supertramp thread, I've been immersing myself in their back catalogue while reading. I'm enjoying this immensely. My brother is ten years older than me and as a kid fed me with cassettes of his purchases, the first 10cc album was in there, still buried deep in my conscience. More than aware of the do-wop and powerpop stylings the like of Johnny Don't Do It, Donna and Rubber Bullets, I've dipped into the catalogue beyond that previously (Sheet Music, Original Soundtrack etc.) and I'm more than aware of their singles. It's a phenomenal story, from Graham Gouldman's pre-10cc career (in his mid-teens he was writing for The Hollies, The Yardbirds, Herman's Hermits and Wayne Fontana), Eric Stewart's work with The Mindbenders and setting up Strawberry Studios in Manchester (with the fledgling 10cc effectively becoming the house band and providing music for a lot of Jonathan King's UK Records projects/gimmick singles). Did I mention Neil Sedaka? My heart pines for times when music was like this; I grew up on a steady diet of Sweet, Sparks, Mott The Hoople. I honestly wish I'd paid more attention to 10cc. There's a rather splendid BBC documentary from 2015 up on You Tube - link below - that's well worth the watch if you need a primer before exploring:

Coming on BC suggesting that 45 years of age is in some way old is a brave move! You should probably head over to BasschatJnr.com which carers for the under 50’s 👍

NOOOOOOOOOO!!! If you're trying to get back into playing, do not under any circumstances try to start a new band. You will be entering a world of pain, frustration, communication breakdowns, hypocrisy, and total lack of commitment. It will put you off for life. Let some other poor bugger go through all that and set up a new band. Then go and join it.

It's funny: recently, I had two incidents of people spontaneously complimenting me on my bass sound. First instance was when I just bought my USA Lakland, which is absolutely fabulous. Second instance was last weekend, when the guitar player of my ABBA tribute said "dude, this bass is amazing". It was my 1970. And I must say: I was actually pretty surprised by how well it worked. Amplifiers can hide a lot of imperfections on a bass, but the real test is playing it with in-ear monitoring, as we do with the ABBA tribute. And the low-mids on this bass are just...oh boy. So phat. So punchy.

Got a refund! Unfortunately despite my request for them to cover the fees, I lost $75 in fees and about £100 more in exchange rate difference between when I paid and when I got my refund. I’ll take it though just to be done with it. Thankfully that ordeal is over. If all is really as described, some lucky dog can score a really nice midibass without having to wait 3.5 years. If anyone here goes for it, I’d be grateful if I could at least have a play on it. 😆

I care what my gear looks like but I don’t care what others think it looks like. There are undoubtedly some very fine instruments that I would probably love playing but I’m unlikely to ever find out due to how they look.

My favourite story about 10cc is one that Graham Gouldman told to Mo Foster for his book. They were just starting out, and were playing in a crappy social club one night. The MC gets up to introduce them: "Right, well here's a new young band, not my cup of tea quite frankly but anyway... put yer hands together for EYE-OCK!"

I'm surprised with the amount of "looks don't matter" comments TBH. There are lots of basses that I wouldn't be seen dead with, irrespective of how well they play or sound. Test after test has shown that most people can't tell what bass makes what noise - a test at one of the SE Bashes showed that many of us couldn't even identify our own basses. Joe Public certainly can't tell.

I have some Marshall style tolex here that I am using for my 2x12 build but I think I will have enough to spare an A5 sized offcut. Drop me a pm with your address and I'll send it to you.

But mic'ing the kick is a quick'n'easy way to put a smile on the drummer's scowl. You don't actually need to plug the mic in, you understand; just so long as he sees you putting a mic there, he's your friend for the rest of the evening.

Picking up on a comment by @Phil Starr it would seem sensible for a bass playing forum to have a section for PA and related equipment, equipment and operation. At least half the bands I know have their bass player either supplying or operating the PA, so it seems to go with the territory. Thoughts?

Too old at 45 - Rubbish! I just had my 74th birthday and joined my current band last year. I found them on the JoinMyBand website. To quote Nike: Just Do It!

I just got mine delivered about an hour ago and its absolutely solid, quite heavy and solid construction. The tuner is super accurate so my polythene is off the board and likely retiring now, I am doing an outdoor show later today so will report back how it goes! I have ordered a Levy's holster which should be here later so won't be here in time for the gig unfortunately so will either have it on the strap or in my back pocket.

Agree, def one of the best basses I’ve ever played, they just work so well (for me that is).

You DO NEED a JMJ, certainly not herd behavior, they are truly excellent basses as everyone will concur !

I'll bite - warranty, brand new item, peeling protective film off pickguard, not having someone else's dead skin cells in your bass, also not everyone feels confident navigating the second hand market. Don't get me wrong, I hear you, but you did ask...

Form vs Function? I ride a Harley Davidson, so I think it's fairly clear which end of that spectrum I inhabit!

You're only 45 ... Wtf.. Of course you can join a band 😁

Hands up if you are jealous. One of @Jabba_the_gut's beautiful creations which came to me via @Owen.

i fell in love with the tone of an old Peavey 400 series mk3 head, now own a mk4 and one of the much older bass heads, all pretty similar in certain ways but i have them more for collection i can interchange them given how i feel. however my main sound comes from my Rack pre amps which are before the amps An Ashdown ctm valve pre and Geddy 2112 tech 21 which i blend for either a fatter of more aggressive tone.

I'm vaguely in the same boat (played a bunch in my 20s, had a 10 year break, picked up again early 40s). Finding people to play with is definitely tricky, and committing to a gigging band is tricky with family and inconsistent work hours (e.g. occasional travelling for work, early/late starts/finished, etc.) is tough. Finding a more casual band to play with seems to be the hard bit, there seem to be plenty of adverts for super serious people expecting to be the next big thing and want to practice/gig 3 nights a week, wanting to be "festival ready" for summer, want you to be heavily involved in social media marketing, etc. I'd rather just find some nice likeminded people to jam with, see how writing material goes, and take it from there.

Forget about being picky about the music. Go and play with everyone and anyone you can find. Play every style of music. Become selective in a year or so.

Looks like you're sorted now thanks to the kindness of others. Good stuff... For future reference, THE RANGE is my "go to" for wadding and covering. They usually have a half decent black and brown in stock sold by the metre. I bought a load of purple and green covering from an online source a couple of years back and it was stretchy beyond belief. Actually made it harder to cover cabs than a more "stiff" material. It now resides in my shed and will continue to do so Dunelm also sell decent covering. I bought some really good oxblood red from them a while ago. I used it to cover my basschat 110T project cab.

A little update on this. Yesterday was on the phone with Paypal which advised phoning Thomann and failing that, Citizens Advice or police to report potential fraud. Citizens Advice said my options were limited since I didn't have any proof of collection. After being on the phone with Thomann they said they were going to investigate with DHL. Surprisingly today I receive an email saying the parcel arrived at their warehouse and refund will be processed in a few days. I genuinely don't understand and I wonder what would have happened if I didn't push things forward. Bottom line is Thomann returns just simply don't work and the label they supplied via email wasn't recognised even by DHL when I tried to understand what that was as there wasn't a clear tracking number. Customer service is a nightmare and this was the last time I used them for my musical needs.

Well well well, I could hear the bass last night. Not a boomy mush but almost difficult to distinguish from the guitars as it was quite toppy, it could still have done with bring far more prominent giving that this is The Who. Several times though I noticed that only Roger, Pete and Zak were spotlighted with the rest in darkness, also the bassist was hiding away at the back almost behind the drums. But it was a fantastic night and they were on top form, the orchestra really lifted the sound.

I've seen the "You must log into Facebook" screen loads of times. I'm still not going to sign up 😁

To get the familiar comfortable short 30" scale length of your Höfner, the Mustang-esque Harley Benton MV-4MSB Gotoh Deluxe Series, hands down (199£/229 Euro) : https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_mv_4msb_gotoh_bk.htm Just astonishing value for the money. Or for something even cheaper, but still genuinely great, check out their cheapest P Bass model, the Harley Benton PB-20 SBK Standard Series (111£/129 Euro): https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pb_20_sbk_standard_series.htm But really you can't go wrong with pretty much any Harley Benton bass. They just seem to be one step ahead pretty much any other similar priced budget brands in terms of quality.

purdy I desperately need a JMJ. don't know why, probably herd behavior...

My choice of bass (or guitar) goes like this: 1. Looks. If I don't like how it looks it won't even get picked up. I don't care how great it might possibly play or sound, I don't want IMO boring or ugly instruments. It's not the 70s any more where there are only a handful of decent playing and sounding designs and everything else is awful. These days you have to look pretty hard to find a new bass that plays or sounds bad, so pick something you like the look of. 2. Playability. Entirely subjective. Spend some time playing without plugging the bass in. Concentrate on how it feels to play. If you gig standing up don't forget to try it on a strap first. I made this mistake with a Squier VMF Jazz. It was fine sitting down in the shop. On the strap I found reaching the G-string machine head difficult. 3. Sound. For me not really an issue. I can get the sounds I want out of any bass once it has gone through the Line 6 Helix that I use by adjusting the EQ and/or my playing technique. I've yet to encounter a bass that met the first two criteria that couldn't be made to sound right in the band mix.

Join a band. Or form your own. I'm in a band that I joined when I was 57 and at 59 I've just put together a 3 piece in the last couple of months, as the first band doesn't play often enough for me. Have a chat with your guitarist mate and see if there is common ground for you to become the pair around which the band forms. Be prepared to compromise a bit. The 3 piece I mentioned has me (a certified prog rockist), a guitarist/singer (very much a heavy blues/80's metal-ist) and the drummer (from early 70's via big band and jazz). If I'd gone with their genres, I would never have through they'd fit with what I wanted to do but with a bit of wiggling and some subtle hints, we're working on a bunch of tunes that we all like and which, because of the way we've arranged them, seem to work together.

To the OP: What sort of music do you want to play and what sort of a band do you want to be in in terms of commitment? If you want to go covers get along to some jam or open mic nights and start networking. If you want to do originals go to local gigs and get a feel for the sort of band you'd like to be in and get to know who is doing music in that style in your area. One of the bands I play with at the moment, I joined simply because I was a fan and was following them on Facebook, so knew when they were looking for a replacement bass player. Of course you could always put an ad up on Join My Band. Be specific about the sort of music you want to play and the sort of commitment you are prepared to put in and what you want out of any band you would like to join and that should filter out most of the time-wasters. And these days age is less important than ever for most genres. I formed what has been my most prolific and probably best-known band a few months before my 50th birthday. I'm now in my early 60s and at the moment I'm playing in one well-established (two albums out working on our third) and one up and coming band both in the post-punk/goth genre. When I'm not gigging (I have gigs with one or the other band at least every other week) I'm writing and recording new material. Over the last 15 years I've never been busier musically.

Had a change, I wanted to go back to my smaller board as it’s festival season (shlep season!) This still allows me to run a separate chain to my IEMs with amp sim etc (or to my Headrush cabs) and then send my main signal to FOH. The EQ on the right is for a few notes in a royal blood song.

It started at a small festival, the first time I used the Stage Bug. The new 9v battery in my GEB-7 pedal went flat after only 30 minutes right in the middle of our set. Maybe it was faulty, but as the first time with the Stage Bug actually connected to a mixing desk, I harboured suspicions that the Stagebug was somehow drawing power from the pedal. I looked around for various alternative batteries but anything good seemed expensive. But, I found an article on the internet about using a drill battery and I had an Erbauer cordless drill and impact driver (https://www.screwfix.com/p/erbauer-ebcd18li-2-18v-2-x-2-0ah-li-ion-ext-cordless-combi-drill/785hf) with a couple of batteries and a mains charger. I found a guy on ebay who 3D prints connectors for the battery - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/194015784172 - the 4Ah battery fits straight on, the 2Ah needed a little modification. The battery is 18v, I found a pedal power supply that runs off 18v and has a bunch of 9v outputs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07D8NTK6Y After that it was a just a bit of soldering. As a bonus, the pedal power supply has a USB socket too, so I can charge my phone. I should probably add that lithium batteries can be dangerous and I have no electronics qualifications, so while it worked for me, anyone copying this is on their own!

I'm sure that 99.95% of the punters at a gig don't care what the band's gear looks like or cost, as long as it doesn't sound terrible. The other 0.05% are probably other rather envious bass players who haven't got a gig that night...

It's a real shame we have no home for PA issues but I suppose the techie people hang about here so you should get lots of opinions. The first thing is that the weak part of the PA is usually the soft fleshy bit that twiddles the knobs You can easily spend thousands on a PA so I'm not going to suggest a wholesale replacement, I'm kind of assuming you will use what you have first and you will grow your PA rather than welcome the suggestion to bin stuff. The Soundcraft mixer is decent enough for a basic PA. 2x15's are overkill for most PA's now but if they are really old, and a 450W rating suggests they are then you may have limitations, but the BOX speakers are fairly well regarde and you won't know until you try The current 2x15's are rated 700W. Just play some recorded music through them at volume and make a critical appraisal paying attention to the sound of the vocals. How big are the venues you are playing, I've never fully mic a kit for a pub gig, the most I do is mic the kick. The drumkit is usually the loudest sound for most pub bands downing out the rest of the band and bleeding through the vocal mics, the last thing you need to do is amplify your loudest sound. Obviously there comes a stage when the venue is too big for unamplified drums but if this is your first PA I'd expect it to be a while before you reach that stage. Amplified drums rarely sound as good as they sound acoustically. It's really quite a technical job to mic the whole kit and takes a lot of time to set up, a lot of venues won't welcome you taking that time especially if you are in a pub where people are finishing meals before the band comes on. Monitors are crucial, if you can't hear each other you can't play tight as a band. If anything you need better quality monitors than your PA. Because they are closer to the mics than the PA Mains they are likely to cause most of your feedback problems. A flat response here really helps. Fortunately you don't need them to be particularly loud, you are close and almost any monitor will take you beyond the point where feedback means you have to back off the gain. You don't need extended bass or treble either. In the days when I used monitors I used my RCF ART310's, not exceptional speakers but no sonic nasties, despite being 10's they could reach ear bleeding levels on-stage. Why you would want to make your ears bleed baffles me though!!! That brings me to another aim you ought to be working towards; reducing the sound levels on stage. You can use what you have to give you a vocals plus backline system which people have used since the dawn of rock'n'roll. You really don't need 15" speakers for vocals only though. The problem is having bass and guitars loud enough for the third row back means they a re deafening on stage and will swamp the vocals in the vocal mics which will be picking up more drums and instruments than human voice if you aren't careful. Plus your choice to wear ear plugs or lose some of your hearing. 2x15's were basically built for disco's not for bands but they should handle bass, kick and obviously guitar so I'd be trying to put as much as I could through the PA. So when you are buying I'd always be looking to buy once, to build up the PA you ultimately want. I really wouldn't buy separates now, I'd be looking to replace things with active speakers. I'd also be looking to replace the mixer with a digital mixer as a next step. They are so much more versatile and will unlock all sorts of potential whilst ultimately being easier to use.. Monitors first though in all probability. First step is to set up a technical rehearsal, Hire a decent hall and set up as if you were gigging, Take your time and try and get the best sound possible out of your PA, note your shortcomings and try what solutions you can. I really wouldn't get bogged down in miking the drums at this stage, kick only Good luck

Only place you should see competition stripes

Just a heads up, not enabling or anything (much ) :

Yes the rubber things used to be terrible, the newer ones have the problem solved and are much better

I have heard it's going to be next month, but nothing official from either Sadowsky or Warwick.

I find the most interesting thing is the proof that a 65 year old Fender doesn't have to look as if someone's used it to hammer in tent pegs.

I'd advise getting onto Gumtree, JoinMyBand, Facebook groups and so on. such places often get short shrift on this forum but I've had success finding people to play with through them. In fact one band I found through Gumtree was exactly the 'Mum & Dad' set-up the OP mentioned ! Good luck @How1, keep at it and something will come along...you may need to kiss a few frogs along the way, but such is #basslife

Don't know if I'm really careful or just lucky, but I've never ever had a bass 'fail' on me at a gig, and my only major problems with amps have tended to be for external causes. Manufacturing standards are just so high pretty much everywhere on the planet that it's quite unusual to find an instrument or an amplifier that lets you down. Pedals, now, ah well, that's an entirely different story ...

Little Umbrellas - Frank Zappa

The bass has to invite you to play, whether that's how it looks or that you know that it feels right (despite it's looks). I quite like the idea of the forlorn looking instrument that you've nursed back to being a great feeling instrument.