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For those of you that follow / contribute to the "How was your gig?" thread, you may be familiar with my old school mate and I mucking about with an 80s Goth duo, usually on unusual folk instruments. I think we're probably taking it a lot more seriously now, but it just feels like a laugh all the time. The band took off when Nick bought a mandocello and as of now, I have officially joined him! 8 strings of low end goodness (tuned C G D A, if anyone is curious). We play differently as I'm really a bassist and he's really a guitarist so I am looking forward to a twin mandocello attack! It's not too heavy, well balanced and a beautiful instrument. I've always been impressed with Gold Tone's stuff. And of course just screamingly good fun to play too (pic below is me playing Nick's one which is exactly the same, pinched from the "How was your gig" thread.

Support to xSLF (IE Henry of stuff little fingers) at a pub near Gloucester... We played very well, only one mistake where drummer miscounted a 6 beat rest as eight. Luckily I was watching him! We supplied the pa which was added grief and made it a much later night but at least we got paid! Highlight was when the singer from the other support took his shoes and socks off and ran into the crowd - this was in the pub garden. Unfortunately, unlike me with currently seven dogs, he didn't have the turd eye. When he got back to the stage he complained about a terrible smell, checked his bare feet and noticed the smeared dog egg 🤣

Weird, quiet night last night. Meagre attendance, only sporadically interested in the music, sound was off/weird too - nothing I could put my finger on but my JC was misbehaving and feeding back when I had my overdrive pedal on the high setting no matter where I stood, it just seemed to take a dislike to being anywhere near my amp, the singer's monitor, the PA speaker, so anywhere really. Used the OD on the tamer setting for the rest of the night. When I say sporadically interested, there was one lass who was VERY interested in our drummer, sort of draped herself on/around him and mimicked hitting drums, mid song while he's looking at me with his eyes screaming "HELP?" - he managed to power through it until she was persuaded to leave the area. There was this guy who came up to us, seemed interested, named a bunch of stuff he likes THAT WE ACTUALLY PLAY FOR ONCE, then was missing for most of the stuff he spoke about. Like I said, weird night. It was a case of grin and bear it, be professional, get paid, eff off home. Hoping for better tonight - different venue, different town.

I’ve long been of the opinion that trying to prevent cookies is basically pointless. Pressing a button that says “reject all” does not guarantee that all advertising and tracking cookies are being rejected - we are basically taking it on trust that the sites and their affiliates are actually disabling all of the advertising and tracking features as we’ve requested. Saying that, I trust BassChat a darn sight more than most (any) other sites and I’m prepared to accept that the guys are trying to find a way of generating some income from the lurkers and non-supporting members while giving paying subscribers an ad-free and track-free experience. With all due respect though, I do wonder if this might have been implemented in a slightly more inclusive fashion? This is a community so maybe it would have helped to give us a bit of a heads up about what was going to be implemented. I’m not suggesting that we should be given any kind of say in the matter but I generally think that if you tell people what problem you’re trying to solve, they’ll work with you to solve it rather than react badly when change just happens for no obvious reason. Anyway, I’m happy to let the guys work through this and iron out the wrinkles. On a separate note, I cannot understand how companies can believe that online adverts beyond a simple banner can ever be effective and help sell a product or service. How on Earth, for example, Grammarly expect me to subscribe to their appalling word-mangler just because they interrupt anything I want to view on YouTube every thirty seconds to show me 5 seconds of the same fecking advert is beyond me. Still, if someone seriously wants to pay money just to know that I’ve entered this month’s photo competition and am a bit interested in the Ampeg DI box then good luck to them. As someone pointed out many years ago, if you’re using a service and you’re not paying to do so then you are the product…

Hey y'all! Due to financial issues, I was down to zero playable basses for the last three months.. This Jim Harley Pbass copy was given to me pre-Covid by a couple of friends after it had sat in a garage for 10+ years. Metal parts were rusty, pots were scratchy, the bumpy pickguard would come off everytime U'd pull the jack out... It's made of really shitty soft wood (is it even wood?) and the screws were just spinnin' in there like there was nowhere to cling to lol... Pics of the bass before & now below: - Guyker bridge with brass saddles (no through body option, sadly enough, but that'swhat i had so that's what i had to work with), - Squier CV tuning machines, - Harley Benton strap pins & knobs, - MusicLily CTS 500k pots, - Ancable input jack, - Sprague Orange Drop capacitor (0.047uF), - copper tape shielding - cloth covered wiring & - D'Addario Nylon Tapewound strings. This will have to do until i get smthg better.. Hopefully soon... Aesthetically not really different.. i do plan to refinish it in Pehlam Blue or Dark Lake Placid Blue with dark red tortoise pickguard if it turns out i like the bass a lot.. I am curious though. I can't find much online about Jim Harley as a brand. There are a few really dreadful reviews of this bass on Audiofanzine in France for instance.. but other than that... Does anyone know anything? Where it was manufactured, etc? There is a sticky area behind the headstock on mine where it seems a sticker was at some point, probably indicating country of origin & serial number.. but it's been removed... Before: After:

Give it a watch, like subsc... oh I can't be bothered.

I spend most of my time learning songs that I possibly won’t play, but you never know ,I look at as I’m widening my bass vocabulary

No, it's plain nasty. Go back and listen to the original for as many times as it takes to cure you 😉

I feel so sorry about all this. I do love everything about BassChat. The sense of community, the general good manners and positive contributions everyone has made over the years. I'm trying very hard not to have a knee jerk reaction to this but I am not happy to be part of this world where everything I do is tracked and ultimately to have no control over where data about me ends up. I have read through each and every post on this thread and it seems quite clear to me that Ezoic is not a morally responsible partner. The idea that because we have left the EU this is legal and somehow therefore acceptable is not one I subscribe to. To date Bass Chat has held higher standards than the general population not lower ones. I'm not prepared either to spend my days trying to outwit tech companies by installing extra software or ticking and unticking boxes or clearing cookies, the whole reason I am here rather than on social media is because this is a community, a safe space, somewhere I can trust. I don't know how deep the financial need is, it would help if this were shared with us. My greatest hope is that it is accepted that this is not the way to go, that Ezoic is not a suitable partner and that it's practices have no place in this sort of forum. I hope that the community spirit of BassChat will be able to continue. That this partnership with Ezoic will be ended and other solutions to a problem that has not fully been explained can be found. I hope that those who run BassChat will think again and recognise that this is just a mistake. It would be a shame to see Bass Chat end this way.

His third version was no better - a tribute to Mother Theresa, who died shortly after Diana - "Sandals in the Bin"

The nut seems like a logical place to start a build? Some experimentation: I still had a piece of brass from some previous attempts in making a brass nut. This time I started by making a template in CAD. Picked up some brand new drillbits that are close to the regular 105-45 strings. I glued the template on the brass, drilled through and then hacked off the extra material on a belt sander + files. This way I need to use the actual nut files only in the final touches. I actually made 2 prototypes with this method. I'm not yet sure if I'm going to use a brass nut in this one, but at least I know I can make these quite easy and fast.

Resurrecting the thread with my new to me Super PZ-5

I totally forgot that earlier this year the singer from Hot Chocolate Kennie Simon was coming along to our gig so we learned one of their biggest hits You Sexy Thing and he sang with us for one song. Kennie is an absolute gent of a guy and one of the nicest celebrities i've ever met. Dave

The Mercy Seat ～ Nick Cave & co.

I've informed @Frank Blank that, as his co-pilot, sole passenger and trolly dolly for the short internal flight from Hessex to the venue, I am point blank refusing to hold any trays of martinis. Last time it took weeks to get rid of the stains. In any case my French maid's outfit is still at the costumier having the side darts let out.

Get Offa My Land ～ The R. Stones

And as for awful covers, well any Lloyd's Bank advert in the last few years 🤮

This album made me want to be a bass player.

We (Deadlight Dance) played one of our local pubs last night. Nick (my professional other half) has been committed with family stuff for the last couple of weeks or so, so it was brilliant to regroup. We worked up Revolution (The Cult), Science Fiction Double Feature (Rocky Horror) and New Dawn Fades (Joy Division) as mandocello / mandolin arrangements. We also reworked our album acoustically. My absolute highlight was my 16yr old stepson (he has Down Syndrome and Nick is also his teacher at school) dancing away to our acoustic originals that he's seen on YouTube. Sadly, I fear I'm his second favourite member of the duo (!) but I think I still make the grade.

...there you go http://www.audereengineering.com/FAQ_PUMag_Gnd.htm#:~:text=If you are getting noise,a new wire to ground. Different pickups alone may not solve the problem

Love that Seer track, reminds me of Uncle Acid and the deadbeats too

Now that would have been funny to watch from an audience point of view but an absolute pain in the bottom for any band let alone the drummer. Shows the professionalism when he didn't just stop the song and tell her to go sit down somewhere .......... outside. Dave

say no more

I had this monster 400W valve amp in the workshop this week for a check over. Generally in good shape and just needed one ECC83 in the preamp and a new thermal trip. Thankfully all of the power tubes checked out OK otherwise it would have been an expensive job. I Was quite impressed by the build quality and it was easy to get to everything and set the bias (see photo for procedure). I didn't get to try it out in anger with a bass and cab, but the tone options seemed to work quite well.

For me it just had a more precise sound, still the same sound just more definition to it.

Pedal board for a minimalist feels a little bit contradictory?

His studio efforts are pretty good. But I've always liked Robin Trower Live!

...thus making it a sub sub sub-only forum. 😁 All together now, "🎶 we all live in a yellow subsubsubmarine...🎶"

Recorded this after driving for 7 hours so no good playing there but U can hear it played close to the neck & palm muted: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cwn_wCvszdn/?igshid=MmU2YjMzNjRlOQ==

It does. I would love to hear what could be done with the tech used for The Beatles to extract the instruments from the mud and remix it. Or better still find the original show tapes and start again.

Hi, nice job, as long as it’s playable and it sounds good you’re good to go 👍

I agree that that single is a feeble version. 'I Want You To Want Me' was royally messed with. Years later, Cheap Trick re-recorded the whole of their second album In Color later on, because they hated the utterly gelded Tom Werman studio production. Jack Douglas did their first album and it's superb. Unbelievably, Werman produced Heaven Tonight (their 3rd album) and this time he was not allowed to mess up the sound on it.

Would be great if Guy could bring Betsy and his Spector NS2 , so much musical history created with those two basses.

Mariah Carey's cover of Without You. Too many notes.😧

There's a number of nu-metal bands who did some awful, earnest covers Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes Machine Head - Message In A Bottle

I wish I'd had the choice...

k.d. lang's version - sublime and practically peerless. Jeff Buckley's version - incredible. Alexandra Burke's version - execrable, horrendous travesty.

So excited that I forgot to upload some pics! As well as the mute and decals, I also asked Mark if it was possible to supply an extra scratch plate that just covered the control cavity. He came back with the genius idea of cutting the regular scratch plate so all I have to do is undo a couple of screws and then the bulk of the plate will lift off. Will show what that looks like when it arrives!

Almost every live album is hugely doctored in the studio. "Frampton Comes Astudio" being the prime example...

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!