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Well the shell pink Sandberg Lionel didn't end up in my possession so I picked this up instead. It looks like it's been reliced by Scooby Doo wearing a blindfold but it plays beautifully, sounds fab (passive electronics) and weighs under 7.5lbs. Love it

I decided that a P bass would be suitable as I slide into my 50s this weekend. Can't wait to take it out gigging tonight. I've always leaned to the jazz bass style so looking forward to the change.

Played at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool yesterday... It's a big old venue! We were in the Arena. Onstage sound wasn't particularly good - I had an Ampeg fridge which had no definition and was either too loud or too quiet , the volume knob just seemed to jump from one to the other! And there was also terrible FOH sound - the room was very echoey so the engineer presumably tried to compensate by turning everything up, which meant feedback from the bass drum mic and absolutely no defined bass, which is a shame as we're a two bass band! However, we played well, though our guitarist completely forgot what to play in one song... There was a reasonable crowd and nobody threw anything. Also had the pleasure of meeting @cheddatom and seeing his band, Headsticks, who were most excellent - in my top three of the day (with Splodgenessabounds and Culture Shock). Today, looking forward to Spizz Energi.

A gratuitous '70's bass collection shot. '73, '73, '78/79 Rob

This mysteriously showed up at my house yesterday? (Cheers for the heads up Tony!) I spent a little while last night tweaking it to my liking, a little truss rod adjustment, LaBella LTFs, saddle height and intonation, and pickup heights. It will need some new foams under the pickups (already ordered). But, by the end of it, I got the action low and it plays really well despite the original frets being fairly low by now. This bass has certainly lived a life and has all the marks to show it, but it’s a joy to me. It will be going with me to rehearsal tonight for its first outing. 1973 Jazz Bass. Rob

A pleasure to meet @Leonard Smalls yesterday. His band are great but there were definitely issues with the sound. After the first 4 songs myself and guitarist (from Headsticks) got sick of the droning feedback from the bass drum and went to leave. Walking to the top of the stairs to a small balcony made all the difference, suddenly we could hear the band clearly, both basses were cutting through, the drums sounded great... we stopped to watch some more, and then a security guard moved us on. You're not allowed to stand where it sounds good apparently! The Almost Acoustic stage for us in the afternoon and it was awesome. Plenty of people in at the start and they kept coming. It's a big room with a load of reverb and bright lights. Last year there were lots of tables and chairs so people sat down and it felt pretty empty and echoey. This year, no tables or chairs, just loads and loads of bodies to soak it all up. Great gig. Here's a terrible photo from the stage halfway through the set

Wisconsin State Fair this Saturday. Blue

Are you left or right handed? I'd probably spend a few quid more & get a brand new Harley Benton from Thomann if I were you.

This is not true if the product is not exclusive. People will buy the product - but not necessarily from BD. Website responsiveness and minimal click through is a massive influencer. If you want to buy something and you can click to buy in three clicks (e.g. integrated checkout with ApplePay, Googlepay, PayPal without being nagged for details all the time - you are onto a winner. You only have to look at the speed at which you can do a quick checkout on Amazon to understand why this is a massive part of the UI and can influence the user to chose them as a store as opposed to anywhere else. The "Buy Now" button in Amazon is a great example of this - why would the user want to go anywhere else when it is so easy and negates the traditional checkout experience. Appreciate, as good get more specialised and if the price becomes significantly different, this those attributes becomes a factor in accepting more laborious experiences). As someone who has done a fair but of UI analysis for some government websites (which I know are mostly pap), responsiveness is a massive part of it. There's loads of money spent on active monitoring using real users as opposed to doing offline testing. You can see where people are bailing out and how they are attempting to use the system - because they may be exhibiting behaviours that were never accounted for at design time. Anyway, dont want to derail the thread will all that kinda talk. Anyway... as a quick example of UI annoyance, it's annoying to me (and surely to others), that I cant navigate BD site and drill down into an item by clicking on the picture. In conjunction with the text, that would offer a larger click point and cater for both sets of people who want to navigate pictorially or via text link. I know BD have probably just bought this as a COTS e-commerce product, probably based on price (or maybe even being free) so it may not even be a configurable. Again, just a musing.

'Cos it's in D minor.

A Short is usually a single, I prefer a double. Both pickups were sourced here on Basschat along with the Lakland bridge and Schaller tuners. The Hipshot bridge and tuners were direct from the States. Both made by J Douglas Guitars in Leeds. First was the multi coloured, so pleased with that I asked John to make another. Both are a bit unusual. The gold one is absolutely thunderous, so deep its fantababoomulous!!! If you fancy something a little different then talk to John.

Not buying a Shure system has already saved me a fortune.

I find myself crying every time our guitarist plays anything.

The answer is thimbles of course

Cold 'n' brown - The Stranglers

One on the left. Harley Benton PB-50, cost £78 split new from Thomann back in 2014. Just a simple P-bass but it does it's job very well. Bought a few more to mod but that remains stock, everything works grand so no point in change for change sake 👍

Scots Bass Lessens. As above, but not so much.

The best (only) compliment I ever had on bass was from a session guitarist who said "I love how little you play". My algorithm is one 'moment' per every other song, a moment being anything from a short journey to the dusty even if only to play the same part an 8ve up, to some growly E-string stuff, usually a slide up to a Bb or similar. Try to hold down the bottom end but not noticeably so, in fact from a audio POV they should only notice you're there when you stop playing. Visual POV very different of course, DB is THE centrepiece Don't take too much of that seriously BTW, but it generally works for me 👍

Because I then have to find and eradicate every twist and turn when they try and sign me up to Prime. In fact, Amazon is a good example of a mixed user experience - search function is so poor you only find things by accident, and when you do buy something, you have to find your way out of them automatically upselling you to Prime. Plus the bastards don't pay tax and [this rant continued p94].

Me too…. But the ‘easy’ options sound great. And to be fair the number of people in the audience thinking ‘he’s leaning on root five a bit heavily’ is likely to be minute (unless you’re at a jazz club or a double bass convention I guess). Not that I don’t want to progress, perform chord subs on the fly etc, but I think one of the wonderful things about DB is that simple lines played in the pocket sound so damn good.

Disappointed ～ Bob Mould

I've said it before but I believe the 40th anniversary basses will become the 'new' JV series.

On a serious note, Boring electronics warning (Bb?) one of the best reasons for using a higher voltage is that the circuit will operate for longer even when the batteries are close to discharge. Transistors and Integrated circuit designs will have a minimum working voltage beyond which the circuits become non-linear. In the case of fuzz, overdrive and drive circuits, more non-linear and unpredictable. Most Operational Amplifiers work on twin rails with one positive and one negative rail. To use them on 9V means some form of voltage divider, so each side has only 4.5 volts nominal. The voltage divider may itself reduce the available voltage. Take the workhorse TL072, this has a minimum working voltage of 4.5V. If you use a rechargeable 9V NiMh battery the nominal voltage is 8.4V and as it discharges it will reach 4.5V before two batteries in series that would be at 9V at the same point in the discharge cycle. Now the voltage swing of an Op Amp is limited by the supply voltage so at 4.5V, in an ideal world, that would be 4.5V peak to peak, 2.25V peak or just just over 1.5V RMS. Using 18volts (2 x 9V) that would double the minimum output to 3.0V RMS, a more useable output. Of course modern Op Amps will operate on much lower voltages but clearly, these are more expensive and often not used on many designs.

The recent SBL Geddy Lee vid that was posted elsewhere talked a bit about the "clank" you get from moving your plucking position closer to the neck. If you watch vids of early Geezer, Geddy & the Ox, they all play closer to the neck. Always thought it gave a more "plummy" sound, almost double bass-ish, but if you play a bit harder, it does have that bit more of an attack. Another thing I've noticed is that you can get a bit more of an attack by using the side of your fingers rather than the tips. If you angle your hand a touch toward the neck from where you anchor your thumb, you can change which part of the finger plucks the string. Works for me.

A bit of footage from St Helens last week. https://www.facebook.com/brunosrodiziosthelens/videos/820914312987716/

It’s arrived. I’ve restrung it (Fender 9050 flats) after adding my Ronnie O’Sullivan pic and it’s all set up with a newly oiled fret board. Guys I’m kinda blown away with this guitar for £129. It’s light, the frets are all rounded off and plugged into my Sansamp RBI it sounds incredible and really Punky. I get why Tony James has chosen this bass to tour with Generation X now. I’ve got some racing stripes on the way and the only thing I’m gonna change are the tuners for a set of Gotoh’s just to have a bit of stability. I own a Ricky, a Nate Mendel and several other bass guitars but I’m gigging this thing tomorrow night and here’s to many more nights with it for a bit of fun. I don’t know what pickups are in this but wow for the money 👏👌👍😂

That's a nice looking thing https://valiantguitars.com/collections/mini-bass Really mini - 27 inch scale Wood: Hard-rock maple, quarter-sawn, titanium-reinforced Profile: C profile 1st fret - Depth: 21 mm/0.82" Width: 38 mm/1.49" 12th fret - Depth: 23.5 mm/0.92" Width: 50 mm/1.96" 22nd fret - Width: 54 mm/2.12" Scale length: 27"/685.8 mm Fretboard: Roasted hornbeam Radius: 12" radius/305 mm Frets: 22 Nickel silver frets, extra-hard, Jumbo, width: 2.8 mm/0.110", height: 1.65 mm/0.064" Truss-rod: Easy-access, stainless steel truss-rod wheel Electronics Neck pickup: Valiant Guitars B-system single-coil Bridge pickup: Valiant Guitars B-system single-coil Controls: 2 volumes, 1 tone Jack: Pure Tone Hardware Bridge: Valiant Guitars duralumin Swift-RS-bass, quick-release, with bell-bronze saddles Nut: GraphTech, 38 mm/1.49" Tuners: Valiant Guitars proprietary Other features "Trinity" ebony inlays Duralumin enhanced-grip knobs with wooden pointer Full shielding Duralumin cavity covers Valiant Guitars hard-shell case included

The shell pink was a loan and unfortunately I didn't have enough dirt on the owner to get to keep it!

congrats! I’m sure it will serve you well. You guys are making me crave my mid 70’s p bass even more lol

The previous owner has just been in touch as a result my post! I’m quite pleased about that.

it looks great, I think you got yourself a good one there Rob, congrats, I hovered over will’s number a few times but I’m holding out for something else at the moment , nice one

Simple lines, intertwining. I'm a mixture of these two. As I've grown older, I have become the most dreadful cynic about most things. You know in Monty Python & the Holy Grail, where they first sight Camelot and the old geezer goes "bleh, it's only a model"? That's me, that is. But having said that, I have become incredibly sensitive to films, TV and especially music. Some pieces have always set me going, Elgar's 'Nimrod' leaves me in helpless floods for example, but now I find my eyes pricking when I listen to all manner of things. Even happy things. Bloody southern softie.

In my apprentice days, 50 odd years ago, the biggest threat said in an electronics workplace was “ I’ll stick that soldering iron up your derrière, handle first”. Looks like she would have no trouble getting it back out.

Having an early bonfire night Stubbs old man? Or do you need new oars for your fleet of coracles?

With me it's the reverse, I'm even more cynical than I was in the first place....

Disagree. "A bloody good grudge... was like a fine old wine. You looked after it carefully and left it to your children". ©T.Pratchett.

Welcome to the forum. Post a 'hello' in the introductions thread and let everyone get to know who you are.

I’m still gobsmacked on just how good these basses sound and play. I feel no need to upgrade anything. I heard they were good but I’m truly dumbfounded!

I had a quick look at it on mobile and PC. While it looks a bit snazzier, I think it is less clear to use, and seems to mean you flick through a lot more 'pages' to find things, whereas before, everything was laid out in one 'area'.

I'm going out on a limb here - but maybe he wants to because he likes it? Wild shot in the dark and all that!