Leaderboard

Here she is in all her glory. Will take some more photos tomorrow when the light is better. Stingray Classic from 2011. Lake Tahoe Blue with an ebony fretboard and birdseye maple neck. Stunning instrument. Beautiful condition. Only issue is the nut seems cut a little high on the E string. Maybe it’s just me, I’m only used to P basses. This thing is solidly built and the finish is amazing. Was thinking about a Stingray Special with blue body and ebony neck, but when this popped up at bassbros I had to have it. delighted. Plugged in to my Ampeg SGT DI and it’s sounding mighty.

Abba are AWESOME and some superb bass lines too…

Are you insane?

Clean and very punchy. Cab weight is 10kg. 🤠

Righty then. On to the actual making of stuff. The first job was to cut the damaged headstock off the neck blank, which I did with a tenon saw, and to plane down the fingerboard. The neck already had its truss rod channel routed into it, but because the brass headpiece had its truss rod access hole in completely the wrong place (the reason, I suspect, why whatever project it was made for got abandoned), I plugged the headstock end of the channel with a piece cut from the scrap headstock and opened it out at the bottom for a wheel-type body-end adjuster. The fingerboard was a piece of Pao Ferro I'd bought on clearance and forgotten about. I planed it flat and cut the fret slots into it. I had no intention of putting frets in, but I like my fretless basses lined. Unlined fingerboards just feel like making life unecessarily hard for yourself. I marked out the board for cutting by printing the neck section of my technical drawings, taping them to the board using a centreline for alignment, and then scoring through the paper to mark positions. I cut them using a straight-edge and a fretting saw. After the neck was roughed out, I started work on the body. This is the bit where the lack of pictures is annoying, as the construction process here was quite clever. When I was designing this bass, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go up to my wife's workshop to use the routers or pillar drills. As a result, the body had to be planned out with my limited tools in in mind – whatever I came up with would have to be doable with just a jigsaw, small drill-stand and chisels. I knew the drill stand wouldn't reach to the centre of the body, and I couldn't freehand things like bridge mounting holes and pickup routs, so I designed the body so that the two halves would only be joined together after all that stuff have been done. This is my blueprint for one of the body halves against the dimensions of the board it was to be cut out from. The vertical dotted lines are the location of the dowels I'd drilled laterally through to keep the halves aligned. (They didn't actually go all the way through, obviously). This picture is from the process of drilling the chambering into one of the body halves before I glued it up. It's about the only actual picture I have of the process. This is the finished body with the dry-fitted neck. The marks left by the drill show you clearly how I made those routs. The recess for the tuner access was roughed out with forstner bits, and then tidied up with a mixture of chisels, gouges and a massive amount of sanding. So much sanding.

Carpet? Luxury. Jaco only needed lino.

My hybrid 4 arrived today. The usual fettling with these but worth it imo

So my 2017 Sandberg Cali II VT4 HCA got some new pick ups yesterday! Went with the EMG GZR set. Their push fit set up is something else! Decided to go all passive, as I'm not a fan of on board preamps, and have enough tone shaping on my board. Also binned off the bridge pickup, I don't like how close it is to the neck pick up, so it never gets used... so away it went! cant wait to give this a proper blast!

Red Red Wine by UB40.

Wonderwall. I will go out of my way never to play that again. If it comes on the radio I will turn it off. I can’t stand it.

Brown eyed girl, Get Lucky, Valerie and Summer of 69. Mostly due to them being played and murdered by many covers bands (including ones I have played in).

So some already know I’ve quit playing live gigs and was selling all my gear. Ive decided to hang on to my American PBass and SVT112AV cab and today have ordered the Ampeg Micro VR head as a neat home only rig. The rest of my gear is sold or up for sale ( two Vintera basses ) but I felt I would miss playing at home hence the mini rig

Treated myself to the Sledge Hammer from Moose, lives up to it’s name!!! Always wanted a RAT like drive, this gets that sound and much more, the finish is perfect too. I think this is one of the first clean blends in a drive that I’ve actually liked the sound of. (Yet to try the MBD though) Thanks to @danbowskill for enabling my dirt problem 🙌

Not one I’ve ever been asked to play (thankfully) but Cher’s ‘Believe’ has to be one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard. I’d probably put Beyonce’s new country tune in that category too tbh. Ghastly.

Not many songs I intrinsically hate as I tend to zone out if I'm uninterested but there are definitely many that have outstayed their welcome in my head thanks to radio saturation e.g 'Dont stop me now' (Queen), 'Alright now', 'Born in the USA', 'Livin' on a prayer', 'With or without you', 'Come on Eileen'. Oh yes, come to think of it there are 3 tunes that have me trying to rip my ears off...'Perfect' by Fairground Attraction, 'Young at heart' by The Bluebells and 'Real gone kid' by Deacon Blue.

Adding the 2x10 to my Rumble 800 was fun!

Looks like Thomann have very little stock of the old 5 string. This is about half what I paid for my late 2020 one although I think the headstock on this says 2019. https://www.thomann.de/gb/sadowsky_metroexpress_21_5_vin_mo_sgmp.htm Still very tempting. I did the usual to mine; fitted a VTC preamp, filed the fret ends and added a hip shot string retainer to mine and I love it. It’s sadly not my Ampeg rig in the pic though.

I've said it before, but I'm not a huge fan of the large pole piece Delano style Sandberg pickups. They have enough output, but are a bit flat and lacking in character and warmth. I reckon if you put a set of Alnico V pickups in there, you'd find it a different beast. The Glockenklang preamps are very uncoloured, so it should complement the core tone of whatever pickups you use.

I give you Dancing in the Street - the Silent Music video. No music at all - "It's like two drunk mates making their way home from the pub. " Watch it and laugh. . . . Dancing in the Street -- Silent Music Video - YouTube.url

I hate - Johnny B. Goode, but with a great great passion, because it's the best song as an alarm sound in my mobile !🤪

There, fixed it for you. 🙂

It's really good ! I had the waza airs and I'm not noticing any difference in sound qaulity (using good headphones). I hated the drift on the waza airs so always disabled ithe spatial thingy anyway. Well worth the money IMHO.

Sweet Child of Mine. Horrible screeching over tedious clichéd bad American rock music.

Indeed, the piece stands or falls on the end harmonics. Such a shame to ruin it that way.

I've played London a lot but a first for my current venture. I can't wait!

"What's up" by the 4 Non-Blondes I was in a covers band for 2 years and we rehearsed weekly. Every rehearsal would start with that song, and every week the guitarist would mess up the intro lead. Now every time I hear that song I hear him playing along in my head.

Way out at the front of the pack for me is Valerie. If I never hear it again it will still be too soon! Sam x

No. but it is an increasingly obsolete view. He, and others like him, have musical careers. They are getting paid to play. That it is not to your taste is irrelevant. That they are getting paid by advertising revenue rather than getting 2% of physical media sales is also irrelevant. He is not releasing music on 78 speed vinyl, he's releasing it on youtube and he has built an audience over years of hard work. And it is hard work. It's coming up with 4 or 5 new vids a week. Planning it, filming it, editing it. Dealing with copyright issues, etc etc. And that ignores the investment of the time needed to be able to play as well as he does. He's probably putting in more than 40 hours a week on it. That's a lot more than most musicians do, or even attempt to do. Complaining about modern ideas is a weird thing. We are on this forum because we play an instrument that has only been around for about 70 years and was laughed at when it was invented. I suspect that when Bottesini asked for a 4 string double bass rather than the traditional 3 string one the response was "Why? What's the point?" as well. Things move on. People like him do not affect the traditionalists ability to get pub gigs, or record what a traditionalist gatekeeper has decided is valid musical expression, or any of what has gone before. It's just something new to go into the pot. And like or not - he's inspiring people to play. 99.9% of them will never reach his ability. But they are playing and increasing sales of kit and making manufacturers invest in more product ideas etc etc. For some reason I had this view that bassists were somehow more rational than guitarists - many guitar forums are filled with people complaining that many new young guitarists say they were inspired to play by Ed Sheeran! Who GAF how they decided to pick up an instrument? The important bit is that they did! As for the amazingly dim sounding "I bet he can't play in a band" type argument.... ye gods that's a poor argument to present. Loads of the flashiest players spend most of their day doing sessions for other people. Just holding down the bottom end, playing roots. Marcus Miller does it. Billy Sheehan does it. There is zero reason to think that someone who can play like CB cannot play what a song needs. I used to play Classical Thump and Colorado Bulldog etc. And I had no problem joining a 25 member jazz big band and just playing what was written. I loved it just as much.

Often the case.

My latest pedal Sovtek EHX Small Stone in mint condition. The pedal was only taken out of its box for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

Okay so over the weekend I decided to pass on my Harley Benton MM-84a to my son, This left me with a vacancy in my bass rack so I decided to check out some p basses. I used to have a 1982 JV Squier that I stupidly let go while my mind was in a fog after my wife passed away. While surfing the web I came across the Vintage V-4BLK with mirror guard (Phil Lynott & Steve Harris are amongst my bass idols) Out of the box she virtually perfect. Just a slight truss rod tweak and the action lowering to how I like it Paintwork & hardware fit and finish are perfect Intonation was spot on The pickup sound fantastic through my Ashdown ABM EVO III 500 Both controls are super responsive. Minor niggles Fretboard a little dry - sorted this out along with frets The frets needed a re-polish (a couple of rough spots) The bass weighs 9Lb 14ozs but is slightly neck heavy (thats what wide straps are for) Factory fitted strings are rubbish to say the least - restrung with Rotosound 77's Flatwound. I'd never tried flatwounds till now - really enjoying the change The only mods I've done are (only because I already them in my parts draw) Pure Tone 4 point jack socket 3 string tree to stop any A string buzz (though she doesn't have any at the moment) The biggest problem I now have is, I am gonna have to get the Vintage V4 in white with maple fretboard and make a Steve Harris version.

Right. Last part. I noticed when I was looking back at what I posted yesterday that the last picture doesn't quite show the body in its finished state. The upper bout inlay was missing. I now remember that it took me a week or two of procrastinating before I bit the bullet and actually carved that out. I was scared of screwing up the lovely walnut top after every other step in the process had gone so unexpectedly well. As it turned out, the process was fine. I used various sizes of drill bits to do the radiused corners, and to remove the bulk of the area that the inlay would cover. I then used small chisels and gouges to tidy up the edges. There's a wee bit of filler in one spot to cover the effect of an uncooperative bit of grain, but it otherwise went well. The inlay material itself is cut from a ~3-mm-thick offcut of ash I had lying around. Here's a picture taken during the finishing process. As with my other instruments, this is polyurethane lacquer applied with a brush and then later sanded down. I used the same lacquer on the neck, though I masked off the fingerboard. The reflective finish in this picture is actually just very hard wood that has been planed and sanded to a gloss finish. (I forgot to sand the saw marks off the bottom of the neck blank before I stuck the truss rod in, but it's not visible in the assembled bass.) Here's the finished bass. It has a pair of StewMac Golden Age jazz bass pickups (because they were on sale when I was buying some other things) and a basic vol-vol-tone control layout. The head-piece has turned out to be plenty strong enough to hold the strings in place. Here's view of the back, showing the control cover which I made from the same ash offcut as the inlay on the front. It's actually from a totally different batch of timber, but the grain matches surprisingly well. I had it set up with D'Addario half-rounds initially, but found them to be very dull-sounding. More flatwound than roundwound, I think. From the moment I first plugged it in, I knew that it blew my old Warwick Corvette fretless out of the water (not least because it was about a kilo lighter and didn't neck dive). Nicer feeling neck, lower action, clearer sound – the Warwick went straight to the Bass Gallery, who sold it on consignment a few months later. As a postscript, about a year after it was finished I was down in Brighton seeing some friends, and popped into GAK because I wanted to try out a Trace Elliot Elf. After noodling around for a while, I asked if they had a fretless I could try it with. The clerk gave me the only fretless they had in stock, which was – oddly – a Fender Custom Shop Tony Franklin signature. The neck and feel of this bass was a transcendental experience, and I realised that I'd set the bar too low by merely going for "better than my Warwick". When I got home, I removed the neck and reprofiled the fingerboard. I lacquered it with a layer of superglue (poor man's epoxy) and obsessively sanded and polished it until the neck was perfectly flat. I'm still not quite sure if I've managed to match that Tony Franklin bass, but I think I'm close enough that I don't mind the difference. Since then this has been my main at-home bass. I play my fretted bass in bands, because that's where the money notes are, but this is the one I reach for when I'm practicing and keep on a stand next to my desk. I'm considering spending some money this year on updating the electronics, just because they're not really up to the same standard of quality as the rest of the instrument. I'm tempted to go for some beefy DiMarzios or Bartolinis, and perhaps try out one of those Lusithand filter preamps, as they seem interesting. Anyone have any experience with those?

😎

This is so true @Nice Guy Rich. If you offering praise to the King of the Universe, it needs to be the best you can possibly play/sing. As an aside, it’s really difficult for a congregation to get a lead from badly played music. I remember one time when a music group was endeavouring to play “Indescribable” but really weren’t getting close and someone said it was more like “Unrecognisable “. I hasten to add I was not in that band.

I’d probably agree with most of your other choices, but have a listen to the original version of DITS by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - pure pop magic, and 60 years old this year.

Another vote for Red Red Whine - indeed, any of UB40's later cod-reggae covers, especially "I Got You Babe" - if you can't play 3/4 time, just don't bloody play songs written in it. Continuing the red theme, "Little Red Corvette" and "Raspberry Beret". Irritating trite little ditties.

I think we’ve had similar threads before and nothing has changed for me, no 1 is mustang sally😬, and I find it hard to listen to ed sheeran and George Ezra for more than a few minutes

I know we've heard geeetards play this every way possible but I thought a bass version might go down well here.. https://video.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.1790-2/10000000_770978667855224_2670692218194705908_n.mp4?_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=55d0d3&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InN2ZV9zZCIsInZpZGVvX2lkIjo5NzY3OTU0Mzk5NTU5MDB9&_nc_ohc=PHPMxueKdMUAX-X6X3Y&_nc_ht=scontent.fltn3-1.fna&oh=00_AfBse_J8UJNHHlFF9c-uAlLowXD5tPwRSZZWAMhaKO4lcA&oe=6609D26B

The way I see it, the guy has by any reasonable standard entirely mastered bass playing. His collection of videos, taken as a whole, look like the product of a high-functioning musically aware individual. I'd think he's definitely smart enough to know what is needed for a scenario, and to decline to take part if he didn't fancy playing.. I suspect he'd be a delight to play with because he has plenty of mental capacity left over from playing to listen and create little details.