Leaderboard

I didn’t gig yesterday because I was at my cousin’s wedding, but my ACG TKO did 😄 Katy stepped into bass duties in my absence and borrowed my bass as her Mustang has been a bit temperamental recently:

Cici here! Well, sadly I can’t help being a girl, and I have long hair because I like it. It has nothing to do with my playing, and I’ve never rested on my looks to gain followers, nor am I interested in anyone who does. I take great pride in being the best musician I possibly can be, and it’s about the music for me. I also dedicate a lot of my time to trying my best to help other people pick up the instrument, sharing any info I have, and seeing where I can push the instrument in my solo bass jams. I’m not interested in being an ‘instagram girl’ so please don’t diminish me to that, and take the time to truly look at what I do (whether you like it or not is fine). Thank you.

Turned out to be a fun gig. We didn't start " clicking until the 3rd or 4th song My line6 wireless failed and I had to ditch my pedal board . Very appreciative crowd. The 2.5 hours went by quick with a 20 minute break. Pics 1. Fair grounds 2. Load in back stage. Air conditioned trailer with a refrigerator stocked with water and beer. 3. Stage pic. Thats Rebecca & The Grey Notes. They played before us Blue

Off to the Golden Fleece at Berry Brow for leg 1 of our 2-leg world tour of Huddersfield. Given the size of the pub I elected to give the Elf another outing and again it didn't disappoint. It was rainy and humid, but fortunately things didn't get too sticky. We had a few technical issues, such as my bass cutting out a couple of times during the first song, but that was swiftly rectified by checking the connections of all my patch cables after a recent pedal board reshuffle, and then I was good. We had a guitar that wouldn't stay in tune, the singist's mic being muted during soundcheck that almost led to some toys being de-prammed, but things settled down. We had an appreciative crowd in, none more so than the hammered guy who tried to steal the mic, and the woman who decided the best place to dance during one number was in the singists pocket. These two characters being dispatched swiftly to parts elsewhere the second set went down a storm. A very nice (and evidently sober) man came up to me afterwards and said my tone was the best bass tone he'd heard for some time, which is leading me to having second thoughts about offloading my Sire to fund the purchase of a new Sadowsky MetroExpress. I am hoping that the bonus associated with me (hopefully!) gaining a professional qualification around Christmas will do that instead, so in the meantime there are other things I might look to acquire, including a five-string, a two-bass gig bag, and a slightly larger pedal board. Decisions decisions!

I always find Bristol to be one of the friendliest cities in the south of England, and last night we played the Hen & Chicken. We supported The Radio Makers at their album launch and had a great show. I got to road test my new Boss mini pedal board (it passed with flying colours!). My missus managed to offload the kids and come down to support us and I got to hang out with a bunch of old mates from my student days in the early 90s. The winner of the night though surely must be singer Nick's Mum, who at 86yrs old, travelled an hour to come and support us!

Another early birthday session yesterday, this one was for both the singer/guitarists in the band who celebrated their 40th and 50th in the week. A tad bittersweet as our drummer has had to go on hiatus due to not having the time to commit. He has a young family so it's understandable, no bridges have been burned and the doors are all open. We're going to gig as a 3-piece but with backing tracks for now. We played an absolute blinder, people watched and were appreciative. The sound was good despite a cobbled together selection of kit which I managed to wrangle a decent noise out of! My bass decided to get a spangle on afterwards...

What it was like to be in a gigging band in 1976

Played an ‘ex-serviceman’s’ club last night. Decent enough stage and a good sized room. During soundcheck an early punter said it was too loud, which didn’t bode well, but they were the first ones up dancing; people are weird. An OK gig, but again there were timing issues of starts, stops, etc, which is starting to grind my gears a bit and it looks like I’m going to have to start counting everything for everyone else’s benefit, to bring them in with nods, etc. Audience seem very low key and felt it wasn’t a good venue for us really, as it all felt a bit flat. Another gig in 2 weeks, hopefully, that’ll be better.

A club gig just outside of Pontefract for the Glam band last night. Two of our compliment of four were struggling with some sort of flu bug but soldiered on like troopers propped up by our mobile (legal) pharmacy. Despite this we performed ok save a small blip due to brain fog on one of the afflicted’s part (we covered it well!) and we had the punters dancing from the first number. One thing of note was the failure of my smooth hound wireless set up leading me to hard wire for the second spot. There was so much mobile activity in the venue (I guess) that all the red lights were on and my set up couldn’t maintain a connection.

After much, much, much consideration of late, and despite having gone to largely shorties over the last 3 years, I acquiesced to my inner beast and picked this up from @Bassman Sam of this parish today. Firstly, thanks for being a diamond with last minute arrangements etc. Sam and the best of luck with the knee op as and when that happens. Anyway, whilst far from a new offering these days, the bass is as good as I’d read and hoped for. The pickups are absolutely bloody marvellous. Very much looking forward to cranking it through a big amp with my massively noisy drummer. Thanks again, Sam.

My son has just finished a week's run of School of Rock the Musical in a youth theatre group, he was playing the bass player in the kids band..sounded great and looks great..a little promo clip ..https://fb.watch/mfzZk7i_kd/ 👍

Can't believe I've done this. I've been playing for 25 years or so (with a gap of a few years in the middle) but I'm no more than an enthusiastic amateur. My main 'gig' is in the band of my church. Always said that one day I'd love to get a really nice bass, and that day has arrived. Sold my previous pride and joy (motorbike) and have put some of the funds to work on this. Just had delivery of this beautiful Sandberg California TT4 in aged rochfort blue. Just getting to know it a bit, but overjoyed with first impressions on noodling about with it! I love the attention to detail which has clearly gone into the aged finishing.

After stupidly selling my lefty Sandberg TT4 last year, i'm pleased to be back in the Sandberg club. Just taken delivery of this lefty Sandberg VT4 hardcore aged in marley blue. First impressions are great, can't wait to try it out at my next gig on Saturday 👍

I appreciate discussions regarding these were a less than a 'hot topic' 20 years ago let alone today.. 😬 This little combo cropped up on eBay last week for a ridiculous price so I pulled the trigger. Costing less than £40 including the tin of contact cleaner and the fuel to fetch it, it seemed a true bargain although it was certainly looking a bit sorry for itself. The sellers' description was fair and honest suggesting it worked and passed audio but the pots were a little crackly. I decided it was best to pull it apart and sort the late model 12" Trace combo from the ground up. ❤️ I hope the pics show it's short story from grubby to gleaming plus a little look under the bonnet of how they built them all those years ago - a date sticker says 03/2001 although the transformer sticker suggests it may be a little later than that. After a few hours of scrubbing, cleaning and a quiick polish plus half a tin of contact cleaner, the Commando 12 once again lives to fight another day. I played it for about half an hour after I'd put it all back together and it worked faultlessly - the budget Trace sounds surprisingly sweet despite the modest 100w rating and that somewhat marginal 12" Truvox Celestion. I still need to find a missing jack nut but that's about the worst of it. It will go to the college when we start up again in September (I'll not keep it - I have enough Trace gear!) so it will go on to help the next generation of musicians hone their skills and find their own sound. 🥰

Two gigs this weekend. Saturday was the Exchange, a pub that loves its blues rock, and we had a great night with much uproarishness. The vocalist of a very good local classic rock band was in, and he congratulated us at the end. You can see I was prepared for a boisterous evening. On the subject of bass stands, I have a 'new' car and forgot to put, my stands in it., After encores I rested it on the bach of a wall seat, and it slid over. I thought it had knocked the G. We got hauled back for a final song, so we did Sultans of Sing as we've never played it live, I checked the G, and it needed a tiny tweak and we dived in. Of course, my A string was almost half a semitone flat. I gave up trying to tune it on the fly, muted myself and used a tuner, got back in time to finish the first verse! This afternoon was a small benefit for Alzheimer's in Llanelli. We all underestimated the travel time, and the drummer was quite late. The acts and landlady were very helpful and swapped round, so we could go one about an hour late. It wasn't packed, but was slowly filling up over the day until we left about half six. We were very different from the other bands/performers - swing jazz to the jazzy end of blues, so I was worried how we would go down, but it was great and the landlady said we were bloody amazing and should insure our guitarist's fingers. My partner and I stayed around, so we saw about five other acts. Not a paying gig, but we have been invited back to do a full gig for them.

A photo from last night's gig.

I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won - The Clash

Keep on pushing - impressions

I'm pretty sure they'll give you a crisp tone!

Some Mothers Do.... ～ Reuben

Finally got an Oc5 , what a fun pedal it is.

Having auditioned the LFSys Monaco, Silverstone and the new 10" Monza with @Phil Starr and @stevie back in May I quickly decided to put my money on the Monza. It arrived about two weeks ago (my delay, not LFSys) and since then has had two outings. The first which was a full band rehearsal where I was so troubled with a noisy pedalboard I hardly paid any attention to the Monza. But last weekend I did my first gig in about five years with the Monza paired-up to my Gallien Krueger Legacy 500 at a small 'psychedelic' festival in a medium-sized marquee. I have to say the Monza was bloomin' great! In fact I think the sound on stage was so good I'm fairly sure the PA mix guy didn't use the DI feed I provided. I could hear myself pretty well throughout our 55 minute set, and although I didn't move far away from my spot on stage, whether I was facing forward, backwards or side-on I could hear clearly what I was doing. This hasn't always been the case in the past! At the end of our set two of the stage PA guys (separately) approached me both congratulating me and the Monza for the fabulous bass sound. One of these guys had been sitting off stage at 90 degrees to my left whilst we played, and he said how great and 'flat' it sounded, which I take as a big compliment. Then, whilst I was packing my bass and pedalboard (because there was a rush to get the next band on) he asked me if he could carry the Monza off stage. I agreed, he picked it up expecting it to weigh so much more and immediately vocalised a 'f**k' about being totally amazed at how light it was. In fact he could hardly believe it! I think that's a bit of a win-win-win for LFSys, the Monza and me.. Hooray!! Here's a pic.. spot the baby Monza!

Thank you so much everyone, I have to admit I didn’t expect such a warm welcome! I really really appreciate that great to be here!

Holidays in The Sun - Sex Pistols

We've found that soundcheck in an empty hall always sounds louder. Once audience get in they deaden the volume a bit and all is well in the world again. Dave

I regularly use an Elf and One10. We play blues at average volume. I have a second identical cab if needed but it stays in my room for 19/20 gigs.

Constipation Blues ～ Screamin' Jay H.

And here's mine.

I will say that although I think their site is an improvement, their weekly email isn't - before it was just a text list of things that they had, esp including used basses grouped by strings which let you see if there was anything interesting. now it is a load of very small pictures. I am only really interested in 5 strings, thats hard to see on a picture!

I think it would be easy to look too far back. A 75 year old was 16 in 1964; so early Beatles and Stones etc. An 85 year old was 16 in 1954; Rock n’ Roll about to explode. One option is to ask them what they’d like to play. The answers might be surprising! Well done on the project. I did a similar thing with teenagers. They mostly wanted to play old songs and I’ve got a hunch that my group and yours would have the same preferences. Rock from the 70s 😆

Honestly I've gone back to using it passive because I haven't had a need to boost/cut anything with the preamp. The preamp is very versatile and will let you minutely fiddle with the tone until the sun explodes if you so desire, but the base tone is very decent so I've just left it be.

Kramer Duke or Hondo Alien.

As our sound guy always says, once the meat baffles are in everything changes.😆

Thanks Dave, Yes, I felt pretty good yesterday. Next week we have a road trip to Plymouth Wisconsin with a late 9:00pm start. Daryl

Are you initiated in the society of knobs?

Just swapped out the neck PU for one I found (after a huuuge rummage) Problem gone, just emailed ironstone, hopefully this gets resolved quickly.

Thread resurrection, but just want to add that I used a Fender Rumble 500v3 tonight at a indoor Festival with my Fretless Fender Precision and I was really impressed with it. Loud, punchy and great sounding. My octave pedal sounded amazing through it, so much so that our singer complimented it mid song and then to the audience after. The band on after, the bassist was using a Stingray so different to my bass and he also sounded great. Seriously considering one now after tonight's gig.

Ideal for getting one back on the neighbours with noisy kids.

Chop it up and make a shelf. I actually really like this.

Version 1. I far prefer string slots rather than holes.