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This Vintera Telebass is, for me, probably my best purchase over the last three years. Incredible thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/13/immediate-family-documentary-summary-stevie-nicks-james-taylor Should be an interesting film. The session players behind some of the singer songwriters of the 70’s and 80’s.

I have best which are my Fender JMJ Mustang basses, and then the worst - even though they’re amazing they’re not as good as the JMJs - my Squier Classic Vibe Mustang basses. So I suppose I’m rather fortunate on this one with best being super amazing and worst being just amazing.

The covers band I am in has been together for going on for 8 years now and we can be quite busy. We play fairly telepathically, but our guitarist sometimes has issues with the idea of new stuff (especially if I suggest them) and sometimes with some of our existing songs. Things fall out of the set occasionally and sometimes it's a job to get them played again. It's normally a comfortable enough rut for all of us, even with some occasional personality clashes in there. We know what not to do and say to each other. The thought of starting or joining something else at this point in the game horrifies me, though if I had to I would. I've got a couple of years of playing to go.

Happy Christmas to me… this is the best. The worst… I bought a Boss LMB-3 and it stayed in a box from the day it arrived until I sold it. I didn’t need it…just a pointless purchase. weirdly…I need something of that Ilk now.

Depends on the individual. I prefer to be left alone to work on something without half a dozen pairs of eyes watching my every move. You can't generalise..

Sent BD an email, they responded with the below. @yiorgos, if there's a bass you want, maybe talk to Bass Direct as the website you were looking at appears to be showing their stock.

If I'm honest, I'd give this a go for a laugh.

Bought and sold a few things this year. The best has to be an Ashdown Little B 30w valve head last week. Absolutely lovely and pokey too!

Best purchase of the year was my used but well cared for Fender Player P-Bass The purchase was in the bag by 1pm on New Years Day 2023 so it also qualifies as the first and quickest blag of 2023. Closely followed by a shiny red box purchased from @Chimike and which is just as fantastic as the P-Bass. Nothing really bad purchased at all this year. I did buy a used Boss SYB-3 out of curiosity but that was moved on quite quickly so may qualify as worst purchase purely as it was only in my possesion for a short time. But it wasn't really so bad, just not for me.

I've been rock climbing and stood at the top of cliffs and mountains without a qualm. Put me on a ladder or balcony... 😱

I'd love to play in a band, I keep looking but clearly not in the right places. I have no desire to join a working band, I have a full time job that 1) I like and 2) pays me enough to keep the wolf from the door. I did join a jazz band for two hours a few months ago. I answered a Facebook ad, was told to turn up in the masons hall in a nearby town by the band leader, 7-8 proper musicians and me. People all very polite when I arrived. I nooddled along to jazz songs I've never heard of before. Simple bass lines, four beats to the bar on the chord, thats all he wanted. At the end as we were packing away, one of the other members of the band commented "Could she be told when she'd been fired from the band please". The band leader had fired the bass player, not told anybody about it, recruited me, so when I turned up it was a complete surprise to everybody, but being British, nobody said a word. I felt absolutely awful about it. When the chap phoned me a day later, I told him I wasn't interested. Thats not the way I work and I still feel bad about it now. So all I want is a couple of other players to play rock and blues with. No interest in pretending to be rock gods, I'm a little too old, pretty sure the spandex leotards aren't quite for me. Make some tunes of our own, have a laugh and play a few gigs in places where I won't get stabbed. I'm easy to please. Thanks Rob

That drummer has much sneakiness. You should have told him you already had a replacement to see his reaction. Dave

My band has a group Facebook messenger chat, and one day out of the blue our drummer just sent a message "Sorry, I can't be in the band anymore." My first reply was, "Are you okay mate?" My second thought was about the gig that we were due to play in two days time. My third thought was oh #&%$ we'll never find a drummer as good a fit as him. He then sent a follow up message, writing "I'm now playing with these guys." and included a some other band's pr photo with a guy who looks exactly like him in the shot. My fourth thought was WTF?!? Why would he leave us out of the blue for some other band? I even announced to my wife that our drummer has decided to leave! Turns out our drummer played an evil joke on the rest of us. That group photo just had some doppelganger stranger who happens to look JUST like him in that band image. Long beard, piercings, etc. Thankfully he's still with us... but I remain shaken and paranoid. I am really happy with all of my current bandmates, and I do appreciate that we might all be incredibly privileged / lucky. But, I guess it could happen, one day, with any of us... someone could just decide to move on (or up!).

I heard several LFSys cabs at the SE Bass Bash. IMO they are worth investigating. There is no "lack of bottom end". There is plenty of bass but it is tightly controlled which eliminates much of the boom and woolliness you get on many gigs.

I don't get all this "eggs in 1 basket" stuff. Get out there and mingle. Network and make opportunities happen.

That's kind of my situation. I am 66 (how did that happen?) and play in just the one band - a blues/rock trio. It is the band I most enjoy of all that I have been in - I play music I love with a two laid back guys who are absolutely on the money. If and when this band folds I'll most likely pack it all in as I will never find anything like this one again.

Back to the factory bridge. Acoustically a bit quieter. But who plays these acoustically 🥴

If it weren’t so politically incorrect The Proper Vicious Lesbians would be a great band name.

Got my Baby Sumo in the post today (after paying the carrier £96 in vat and other charges, grrr). I wanted a clean, quiet and punchy back end for my Noble preamp. I've tried it in the studio through a couple of One10s, and so far it's just the ticket, silent, clear and punchy with no colouration, letting the Noble do its stuff unveiled. Rehearsal and gig next week, looking forward to trying it out (trusty Elf in reserve in case it all goes tits up).

I bought a new bass this week, it hasn't even arrived yet... And yet as soon as I log in to Basschat, I find I've navigated straight to basses for sale. Surely this is not the behaviour of a sane man.

It's this beastie. The depth knob gives quite a wide range of sounds. I'm not sure what you mean by thick or wide, but you can get a lot of different effects from it. I spent ages happily noodling away through it in Scayles before buying it. Plus, although it uses Eden's 15 volt power supply, it runs OK at 9 volts from a Voodoo Lab unit. As they're now out of production, along with every other Eden product - thanks for all the investment and support, Marshall - you could probably pick up one dead cheap on fleabay.

Best by miles is my Ashdown ABM600 head. An enormous upgrade from my old Orange Terror. I'm still working out settings but already sounding great. The Ibanez SRMS805 is very good but the pickups and preamp are a bit weak. It plays great though and was a bargain, like new for half the price of a new one.

Why did it take me so long to try Vigier?

Sounds like perfectly normal behaviour to me

Surely it shows more respect if you say you're going to leave the control room so that X can concentrate on their part without the rest of the band (critising) distracting them? But I agree, either be involved or go outside into the breakout area. Don't be semi-engaged. After all. Everyone has already agreed and practiced their parts and overdubs so when you hear the final mix there shouldn't be anything unexpectedly added while you were away. 😆

Yep. That massive low end may sound good in isolation and at low/practice/studio volumes, but use it in a live situation and it's usually mud city.

File under "Drummer Humour" 🙄

Presumably they stopped producing when it was no longer their anniversary.

Shot the lacquer this morning, three coats, looks ok, but the temperature started to drop so I did what any self respecting bachelor would do… and I moved it into my downstairs toilet to keep warm.

Don't move then!

First time it took a couple of months. Second time I put a post on FB and the guy who sang for my brother's first band 35 years ago got in touch the next day! Then we had to wait three weeks as one of our guitarists is recovering from ten broken ribs.

Many moons ago (I had hair and a much smaller belly) I played a gig in a pub in Nottingham which, before we started, began to fill up with Sheffield Utd fans after their match at Notts County. All was well-ish, until one or two of the braver/more whizzed fans started trying to get up on stage and use the mics. Pete, our roadie, took obvious exception to such loutish behaviour and threw the perpetrators back into the crowd. Things got very very tense very quickly as said bunch of fans tried to decide whether they could take on Pete the roadie and the rest of the band and give us a whipping. We were backed into a large bay window so no handy exit stage left (or right, or anywhere) was available and I was just considering taking off my bass and wielding it like Thor's hammer when, rather like the dorsal fin of a shark on a calm sea, two pointed blue helmets with nice shiny silver badges appeared at the back of the room. The landlord, bless him, had anticipated that these footie fellows might cause a ruck(lol) so had sent out his lad to fetch plod from the beat (yes, it was a loooong time ago). Sighs of relief all round, a quick trip to the loo to change soiled underwear and we played the gig to rapturous applause.

In a lairy environment I put the Stomp near/under the kit meccano, not out in the open - I don't have to, erm, stomp on it much during songs (only a couple), so access doesn't have to be all that free all the time. Talking of lairy environments, last Satdy's gig was in a new (to us) venue Burnley way; big pub, been successfully re-launched by a newish landlord - it was rammed when we got there, because the football was on (tho what interest Arsenal and Villa have up that way was debatable), luckily it wasn't a late kick-off, so by the time we were setting up most of the footy types had buggered off and, like last week, been replaced with a more regular pub-going crowd. It all went well, we have several dates for next year, including NYE at a grand for a trio gig, but the landlord was extraordinary: he was all over the place, the life and soul (it's no surprise the place is doing well, he really put a shift in), and he even mucked in carrying the PA and gear out to the cars - I can't recall that ever happening in all the pub gigs I've done... Best part tho, was when he was apologising for the quietness of the place (as I said, I thought it was busy) and then followed up with: 'You should have been here last night, it were proper bouncing...mind you, there was a bit of trouble...see this?' - he pointed to a long mark just above his eyebrows - 'Two proper vicious lesbians kicked off...got a pool cue broken across me head...' I burst out laughing, and he looked a little hurt, so I had to backtrack quickly... So, in conclusion, if you're gigging in Padiham, keep an eye out for those proper vicious lesbians...

If it's not too loud to damage your hearing, put your head down there and listen. It might even be a foot or 2 away. Put the capsule where it sounds best. Then put damping materials to get rid of any room sounds. But that's in a studio. Agree with others to put it close in a live situation.

Yes, and that would also make it a bass with Fralin pickups. Pretty darn good basses, those early Skylines.

He wasn't up in Padiham last Friday night, was he? 😐 Hope he's on the mend quickly...

I'm lucky enough to be in two completely brilliant bands. My great fear is that if I lose them for any reason (e.g. moving out of the area), I'll never find anything again. My age is against me, for starters.

Slipknot & The Co-op.

SIRE V5 24-5 & P5R 5 REVIEW: Specifications V5 24-5: Body: Alder Bolt-on neck: Roasted maple Neck profile: C Fingerboard: Maple Fingerboard inlays: Blocks Fingerboard radius: 241 mm (9.5") Nut: Bone Nut Width: 46 mm (1.81") Scale: 864 mm (34") 24 Medium frets Pickups: 2 Marcus Vintage-J Revolution Single Coils 2 Volume and 1 tone controls Pickguard: Aluminium Gold Marcus Miller Vintage-S Bridge Mechanics: Premium Open Gear Hardware: Chrome Colour: Tobacco Sunburst - The weight of the bass reviewed here came in at 4,45kg. on my luggage scales. - The current price for a V5 24-5 in this colour at Thomann is 659€ and this includes a chrome pickup cover for the neck pickup and some basic tools to set-up the trussrod and bridge saddles. Note: Except for the V10 and P10 series Sire basses do not come with a case or gigbag (they do in the US, but not in the EU), so keep in mind you'll need to buy a seperate gigbag or case in case you don't have one yet. Specifications P5R-5: Neck: roasted maple Fingerboard: Rosewood Neck profile: C Scale: 34" (Long Scale) Fingerboard radius: 241 mm Nut width: 48 mm Bone nut 20 Medium small frets Pickups: Marcus Vintage-Fat Precision Revolution Split Coil Volume and Tone controls Tortoise pickguard Marcus Miller Vintage-S Bridge Chrome hardware Colour: Cream White - The weight of the bass reviewed here came in at 4,34kg. on my luggage scales. - The current price for a P5R-5 in this colour at Thomann is 498€ and this includes some basic tools to set-up the trussrod and bridge saddles. Note: Except for the V10 and P10 series Sire basses do not come with a case or gigbag (they do in the US, but not in the EU), so keep in mind you'll need to buy a seperate gigbag or case in case you don't have one yet. So now that we've got the technical details out of the way we can move on to the actual review. 🙂 First up I'ld like to mention that the changes Sire made to the pickups and necks are really taking these basses to the next level. Both the newly designed P and J pickups (for the passive series) have a significant amount of extra lows and low mids and sound less "thin" and "modern" than the previous versions which already sounds like a big improvement to my ears. Also, the roasted maple necks with the satin finish on the back and the rolled fretboard edges make playing these basses so easy and comfortable that the neck-feel alone almost justifies the cost of buying one (or more) of these basses. The V5 neck has a nice tint to it that lies somewhere in between a dark roasted neck (like the one on the P5R) and a lighter roasted neck as you can find on many of the V5's and has some very nice grain and even some striped patterns in there you usually only find on more expensive "grade A" maple necks. The neck on the V5 is noticably slimmer than the beautifully dark roasted maple neck on the P5, but to my surprise it's also a bit deeper, making it lean more towards a comfortable D-shaped neck whereas the P5 neck is a bit wider and feels more like a flat C-shaped neck. Personally I loved both neck profiles, with a slight preference for the P5 as I prefer wide and flat neck profiles in general. The set-up on both basses was close to perfect straight out of the box, with the action being slightly higher on the V5 24, but nothing 5 minutes of adjusting the height of the bridge saddles couldn't fix. The set-up on the P5 is as close to perfect as I've ever found on a production instrument straight out of the factory and I haven't found a reason to adjust anything on this bass so far. I literally took it out of the box, tuned the strings and started playing it, and it has been very hard to stop playing ever since. Regarding the pickups; The biggest difference here is noticable on the P5R as the original P5 pickup was a little mid forward and lacked some low-end and some warmth, while this newly designed P5R pickup (which will now also be used in the regular P5's with the maple fretboard) has plenty of low end and added warmth in the sound, which makes it more suited for more vintage sounding styles of music while still retaining the note definition and clarity needed to slice through the mix like it was butter. Even though I usually end up swapping the pickups on almost all of my Sire basses, this P5R has me wondering if I should do that this time as the pickup it comes with from factory really sounds great in a band context and might not need an upgrade at all. With the V5 pickups I can also notice a similar high roll off and some added lows when compared to the previous versions of these pickups, but the difference is less pronounced and obvious than when comparing the new P-pickup with its predecesor. The only flaws/dislikes I could find were a little discolouration on the side of the roasted maple P-neck and the fact that the end of the fretboard and the neck pickup are so close together on the 24 fret jazz bass that it can make slapping -in the right spot- a bit more of a challenge. Also, the tuners are still quite heavy causing some neck dive, but as Gotoh recently came out with some super lightweight drop in tuner replacements for these Sire basses (Gotoh GB528) replacing the tuners with some lighter and better ones now became a lot easier for the modders amongst us. All in all both basses play and sound great straight out of the box and wether you're more of a P-bass fan or a Jazz bass fan, you can't really go wrong with either of these i.m.o. Since I've grown to like the Pbass sound more than the Jbass sound over the last couple if years I couldn't help falling in love with the P5R and therefore I will be keeping this one. Considering it's one of the few decent 5-string Precision basses on the market under 2000€ and it being this good (compared to a MIA std. Precision 5 and a Fender American Pro 1 it definitely held it's own) for less than 500€ it really is a no brainer for anyone looking for an affordable 5-string Pbass i.m.o. If you're in the market for a new bass I would definitely advice checking some of these new Sire's out as you could easily be surprised with the tone and playability that these new Gen3 series have to offer. Greets & Grooves! Don

"Should be", implies he well could be..... Doubtful he knows my secrets as I am a secret squirrel from outer space.

I wouldn't want that in my search history...

Thanks... I guess? 😆 It sounds exactly how it's supposed to.