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5 Stings, y'say? Mark

This bass is all finished now……👍🏻🤘🏻

Wedding gig near Birmingham depping with my brother’s function band last night. Real good vibe, lovely audience, and got to try out my Darkglass Vintage Microtubes pedal to give it a bit of grit in a couple of the heavier songs. Plus pulled pork rolls. Winner.

21st birthday in a pub. 3 fights, finished at 22.00.😂

Yesterday afternoon I was resigned to a two gig weekend then I got a message inviting me to a last minute gig in Bath. Squashed into the tiniest corner we played to a typical Friday crowd of ever changing gangs of pub crawlers. Went down a storm and got home in good time. I took minimal kit as parking is a nightmare, so I had to be prepared to sack truck my gear through the streets. I must say that's two nights on the trot I've used the Cort, it usually gets overlooked for whatever reason. It's a simply wonderful bass. Light and beautifully balanced, rich tonal palette, fast comfortable neck.

Last minute gig last night at the Butchers Arms in Inverurie with Nine Lives (as in the band that was supposed to be playing dropped out on the day due to illness). Luckily, our drummer happened to be perusing Faceache at the time and saw the venue put a cancellation notice - just one of those serendipitous moments. It was a bit of an odd one, not super busy with an odd crowd that would alternate between great dancing and singing along then nothing at all. Typical drunk guy was in attendance - put his arm around the singer's shoulder, barely coherently requested some Bad Company and got escorted out a little later. I thought I played ok, but I made a massive flub in one song (the "f*** I've lost my place entirely, quick, make some s*** up in the rough vicinity until the riff restarts" type) and some drunk guy manages to film that exact moment in a 3 hour gig - typical! Win of the night - finding out that somehow my amp and cab fit in the boot of my wee Colt. Score! Equipment - Markbass Mini CMD121P IV + NY121 cab, G&L CLF L-1000, Yamaha BB1200

The Bush in Cwmbran, pretty compact but wonderful pub. Had a real blast. Sound was very boomyn asked sound to turn down my bottom end and he replied I have can you turn yours down and I said I have! Stone flag floor and stone wall behind rear ported cab... I had to repair my finger with superglue after slicing the tip on Wednesday. Three layers lasted the night. My playing was a bit scatty on a couple of songs and the night seemed to suit sticking in some frills and whistles 😁 noone seemed to mind and we had a few musos in so that was ok. Alex was trying out his new Gretsch Electromatic for the first time. I barely appear in the short vid below, but it gives an idea. https://www.facebook.com/story.php?id=100024370338008&story_fbid=1613621292793533

Glad you pulled. She's got an unusual name, hasn't she?

Got a tc electronics bh250 on eBay. Works with headphones, I’ll get a cab when I can afford one.

I've never been totally convinced about the real benefits of replacement bridges. In the 90's I did the usual high mass bridge "upgrades" to many of my Fender basses but ultimately went back to the original bent metal versions for aesthetics and authenticity reasons. Likewise, I've owned a 2018 Rickenbacker 4003SW for a few years and tolerate the original bridge shortcomings. The intonation and saddle height adjustments are laborious and a bit of a compromise, but the end result is acceptable. So I thought I'd always stick with the original design that I prefer the look of, even above the latest Rickenbacker variant. However, when a Hipshot replacement popped up on here I thought I'd see what gives. Anyhow, all I can say is that this bridge has transformed how the bass plays. The intonation and string height are now perfect and the bass just feels more "alive" somehow. Sustain is improved and there's a bounce to the strings which Hipshot describes as a benefit of this aluminium version. I would thoroughly recommend this bridge for the tonal and playing improvements, and the aesthetics have already grown on me.

It's a sign that I spend too much time looking at gear on this site that I genuinely thought this was an Ampeg. 🫤

Nice set up buddy….similar to mine, fits nicely in the back of a 5 door mini.

He's not So Lonely now !! John

You have a Sire and you've just bought a Sterling and you want other people to tell you which one you prefer?! Use your ears! ...and then keep the Sire. I much prefer my P7-5 to my Sterling sub 5 - much more punchy and articulate 🤪😂

Played at the Ipswich Regent Theatre last night with The ELO Experience, my penultimate gig with the band. Bit of a nightmare journey of around 200 miles each way - one of our vans broke down on the A1 en route to Ipswich. Clutch master cylinder was to blame, so RAC summoned to trailer the van back home whilst a replacement LWB hire van was found in nearby Grantham. This resulted in us being nearly 2 hours late arriving at the venue, so a mad set up and sound check with little time to eat etc. The Regent is a big Grade 2 listed theatre built in the late 1920’s. With a capacity of around 1500, we had it just over half full. Was a slow start but they warmed up into the second set - maybe took us a while to settle into it after the rush to get there. Used my GK800RB into the Neo 410 cabinet - last time with this cab for me as I sold it after the gig! It’s been a great cab, never missed a beat. (For my final gig with the band this Saturday I’ll be using my trusty Loud 4x10.) For once a drive home with no diversions, but still got in around 2.30am. Must admit I won’t be sorry to see the back of these long gigs - driving over 400 miles in total and two long sets is getting a bit much for me. Easier drive to Birmingham tomorrow though, so looking forward to it.

Hello! I blooming love these basses. I’ve had a few Korean 90’s ones - PJ and JJ and they were great! I snagged this Mats one in a Gardiner Houlgate auction a couple of years ago. £220. Swapped out the pups (which didn’t work) to an EMG 18v set. Sounds mega.

My mate who is a solicitor phoned me. He said that he has decided to change job. He was walking past a guitar shop, popped in out of curiosity and "bought a guitar and I am going to be a full time musician". "WHAT? Is it like you had an epiphany?" I asked. "No, it's a proper Gibson", he replied.

Come On Eileen ～ sorry

More random guitar builds….👍🏻🤘🏻

Some more random bass builds…….👍🏻🤘🏻

Yep, it's very loud and there's an amazing weight to the sound. Best digital power section I've used (and I've used a lot!). There's so much going on I'm a loss to know where to start right now, but I'll try and review in a few days. The cab calibration is amazing. The effects sound lush and are endlessly tweakable using the software. Low and High pass filters. Preset shapes. Vintage and Modern tones. I bought the footswitch as well, which will be a game changer for live use. I was giggling like a kid at Christmas when I started playing!

Last year I built this bass out of a MIM body and a '79 neck, and it was very nice. Too nice. It actually went together with such little stress that I didn't really bond with it. Plus, the blue wasn't really working for me. I'd been itching to pull it apart and try a different body with the neck, but this time I was going to pick something rough so the project lasted more than a couple of hours. I then found this body on eBay. I liked the fact that it was a single piece of mahogany, wasn't too heavy, and had a nice grain. It also looked to be in rough shape and had a pretty substantial flaw in the form of body filler making up a significant part of the neck heel. Plus it was only £75 - perfect. Once I received it I wasn't sure what to think. The routing wasn't great in areas, and the body filler looked way worse in person than online - let's just say £75 didn't feel that cheap anymore. Still, I decided to persevere because I'm all about type 2 fun. Looking closely at the grain, it looked to be filled with... something. I assumed it was a mix of paint and paint stripper after someone abandoned an attempt to strip it, so I opted to start off with applying more paint stripper to see what happened. I didn't take any pictures of this bit, but what it did was remove the left over stripper packed into the grain, revealing lots of black paint still sitting in the grooves below. My guess is this body was originally intended to be a natural finish, but was damaged during routing so repairing with filler and painting the body was the only way to salvage it. Someone later down the line then decided to strip the body, saw the body filler and must have jumped ship on the project. So, what to do? Given the paint looked so comfortably embedded in the grain, I decided the only way forward was to start sanding... ...and look at what was sitting underneath! Lovely, fresh mahogany. At this point I started to get optimistic that this might actually be worth doing. I started sanding with 150 grit, then moved to 180 grit, then decided that was enough (it was not). I also decided at this point that things were going so well that hiding the body filler would be easy (it was not). Once I decided I was done with sanding, I started thinking about how this bass should look. I felt it would be nice to honour the '79 neck and go for a 70s look, so the body had to be appropriately brown. I also wanted it to smell good, so danish oil was the obvious choice. Here's how the body looked after a couple of coats of oil. It looks alright in this picture, but what I couldn't get a decent shot of was a weird shimmering effect I kept noticing whenever light moved across the body. It would go away if I brushed the surface in one direction, but came back if I rubbed it the other way. I eventually worked out that I'd torn out some of the softer grain during sanding, causing a small amount of fuzz which, once oiled, made the body look like brown velvet. Very 70s, but not the right kind of 70s. My wife suggested lightly brushing the surface with a high grit sandpaper to take the fuzz off. I'm glad I married her because this worked like a charm - I chose 600 grit and sanded as gently as I could. This sorted the issue completely, so I went on to add another few coats of oil (5 in total). Here's what it looked like once done. I stopped at this point because I didn't want the body to be too shiny - this felt like a nice balance between an intentional finish and natural wood. The few bits of black paint still stuck in the grain gave it a nice patina too. Now came the issue of how to hide the body filler around the heel. At this point, the total seconds of thought I'd applied to figuring this out was still in single digits, and in hindsight I probably should have added to that total before starting work on it. I had vague notions of painting the filler to match the wood grain, but Googling this made it look very hard to get right. However, poking around on Amazon revealed a technology that was new to me: furniture touch up pens. These are basically felt tip pens in various shades of brown, designed to hide small marks on wooden furniture. I decided this large piece of body filler was nothing more than a small mark, so I bought some. Before I started with the pens, I used some 80 grit sandpaper to score the filler and give it some 'grain'. I then used pens in various combinations of 'oak', 'maple', 'mahogany', and 'walnut' to try and get somewhere close to the oiled mahogany. This is how it came out. It's not that close, but it's better than the white filler that was there before. Am I happy with it? Not really, but I coloured in a bass with felt tips like a toddler so I'm not sure I should be happy with it. It would be somewhat easy to reverse with nail polish remover, so if I suddenly get an idea that's actually good I can always try again. Now came the time to put this brown boy together, but as I offered various parts up to the body it became obvious I was going to have to drill a lot of new holes. First up was the bridge. I opted for a 1980s Schaller 3D largely because I already had it in my parts drawer, but I also love how these bridges look and function. What I don't love is the fact they don't use a Fender screw pattern (though I'm pretty sure they totally could with some tweaks), so some drilling followed. Next up was the scratchplate - this had been on a few Fenders in its life so I knew it was correct, but not one hole lined up. Much drilling followed. I then lifted the pickups and wiring out of the original blue body I had (why did I take that bass apart again?), and got it all into this one. This took some sanding in the cavity to get everything to sit flush, but more annoyingly the pickup screwholes were misaligned. Yet more drilling followed. I then went to fit the strap buttons, and noticed the lower one was about an inch off of centre. My drill was out of battery by now, so I just put the strap button in the hole that was already there. I guess it's extra character or something, but it does look a bit odd. The final touch was a thumb rest in the late-70s position. I already had a standard black one ready to go, but then out of nowhere a random eBay scroll revealed something I'd been hunting for for years (genuinely - years and years): the brass thumb rest from a 1980s P Bass Special. It was also priced very reasonably, so after losing my mind to the point of dropping my phone, I bought it. And bugger me is it heavy. So now I had a choice of thumb rests. Should I go for the subtle, light weight, sensible option? Or should I add needless extra weight in the form of a piece of bling that doesn't even match a single piece of fitted hardware? Obviously I went for the stupid option; It looks like a gold tooth, and goes well with the felt tip finish. After a quick set up, I'm calling this one done. I really like how this bass came out, and it was enough of a ballache that I actually feel attached to it now. Here it is with my '86 MIJ and '77, looking cool 😎

First impressions, it feels quite dinky after being used to old one! Seems about as tall and wide but length is quite a bit smaller. Metering is so much more useful than the crappy old jewel light, makes seeing what's happening so much easier. Plus will be fun to see the lights bouncing around on stage! 😆 Sound wise I'm not hearing (nor was I expecting) much difference but that's only after a quick play on my desk, will gig it this weekend and see how it behaves.

Just got it home and tweaked the bridge. Action is low , might raise it a hair , it has an older set of rounds on it , I may leave them on , I have Thomastik flats on the yellow one. These are a good looking pair!

I'm concerned it's his last offering according to the thread title...🤔

Does this break some sort of record for longest time to sort a problem...?

I took my bass and (very small) combo on the bike (and motorbike) a few times......not the most comfortable experience, particularly with a helmet on....! I know trailers have been mentioned, what about one of those kiddie trailers? They generally have large (so more stable) wheels, usually come with a (waterproof) cover/roof, and harness (add some extra foam, strap the combo in...!?!) I used one when helping a friend's company set up an event at a Center Parcs (so no cars/vans...), it worked pretty well Devil's advocate, two miles isn't THAT far, why not bungee the combo/gear to a sacktruck and walk? (Also done on occasion.....)

Esentially it was designed as a guitar to be tuned one octave below standard. It can sound either more or less identical to a standard bass guitar on the bottom 4 strings or like a baritone guitar depending on how you employ the pickup selector and and the bass cut switch.

That looks great, love it! 🙂

And here's my little bute.

I'd like to be able to produce something a bit like this... Party piece: Plus the tone and pure groove of this - BTW, the SI unit of cool is the Bootsy, with a theoretical max of 1 Bootsy as epitomised by the man himself. Most folks get into the milliBbotsy range!

I see you spotted my typographical error.

Excellent Next?

Jason Newstead played a 5 string a lot when he was in Metallica. I couldn't tell you which songs, though. I'm not really a fan of their music, just remember the basses. He's a very good bass player though, for sure.

+1. Good gear is an investment in your future.

The SG’51 (I ended up using the original body and I’m gonna use the second body on another build!) and the Warbird are now finished……. I’m keeping the Warbird but the SG’51 is going up for sale…….👍🏻

The 01 still exists but it is not the same as the early ones which was all I was saying. Yes that was the plan for the top end of the highpass. The upper ring on the lowpass filters does the same as the push/pull on the Wal but again it is variable. I know the Wal preamp very well I played one for years. The 01 was my attempt to address what I thought could be improved from my perspective. There was also a bit of more is better and both myself and John are a bit prone to that so that lesson had to be learned. What I am also trying to get across is that filter preamps are not for everyone. You don’t need to have a filter preamp in one of my basses if you don’t want it so don’t let the filter preamp put you off my basses if you like the designs etc.