Leaderboard

A nice change from the pub gigs with pisht punters on Friday night - album launch gig (Persona Non Grata by Noel Fraser - it's on all the streaming sites) for my erstwhile Singist/BL...he's gone all Country(ish), hence the daft hat and my check shirt. Unusual venue (tho a touch epic), the sound was apparently good out front, but onstage it was the swirly, bouncy, reverby nightmare I'd feared. The drummer was using a mix of sticks, hotrods and brushes, and he and I had to have his drums in our monitor , because even standing next to him it was tough to hear what he was playing on the more subtle songs...a good evening, though... I like this one, tho it's more about the bass than me...

Great gig at one of our local music venues, first outing for my Rics, which performed amazingly well! Nice Bank Holiday vibe,

6 months on. EP recorded with Band - just waiting on mixes. Opposite of writers block; I’ve been writing continuously since December. The output has been of a consistent quality but it’s too much for the band to keep up with (and there are 3 other songwriters in the band so it’s busy…) 3 Festivals booked for summer. Have started a second project for my spare ideas with singer from new band. No funk, so it’s a change - just come home from second rehearsal with side project.

Mrs BC and I were in Hay-on-Wye for a break over the weekend and I happened to chance upon a guitar shop (predominantly second-hand stock) that had opened since the previous time we'd visited (2021). In the window there was a lovely Yammie SG, and a couple of nice PRS's, so I ventured in, not expecting much bass-wise. However, there was a really nice Wal sitting on a stand right in the middle of the shop floor. There was no price ticket on it, so I tentatively inquired, expecting to be told it would be in the £4-5k ball park, only to be told that one was about £3k, and that they had another that had not yet made it's way into the shop that was a little under £4k. The one I saw was a four string fretted Mark 2. Looked to be in pretty nice condition, though it needed a set up. Anyway, to anyone who's in the market, it might be worth a trip. It's not on their website yet either. I have no affiliation or connection with the shop, but thought someone amongst the BC fraternity might be in the market, and this one seemed to me quite reasonably priced in comparison to some of the daft prices being asked. The shop is called Wye Fret.

Been fascinated by this for years, partly due to the fact that it was two days after I was born, but mainly as it is such a wonderfully 'odd' concept. There is also a longer film available on YouTube for those who may be interested.

I was actually there for that program. It was just up the road from where I lived. They used a disused station and brought all the artists in from Manchester Central Station by steam train.

I feel as soon as I’m getting bored with music I play with other people and inspiration returns. While some may enjoy music as a solitary pursuit, I’m not one of them. If you’re anything like me, I bet your mental health has improved too from being out and being creative. Love to hear some so post it here!

Finished….. Absolutely delighted with these Sunn P basses. Honestly. We’re not talking Fender custom shop here, but we absolutely are talking “up there” with any MIM Fenders and even some of the US made stuff I’ve had. Yes, I’ve done a lot of work, but I’ve very much enjoyed doing it, and now I have another fabulous Sunn to add to my collection. FYI….. the strings are LaBella low tension flats.

i can't quite believe my luck. One popped up on eBay, black, description said he was listing it cheap because it was tatty. I made a low offer and to my astonishment it was accepted. It arrived today and I would say it is no tattier than any others I've seen, but £200 cheaper! Result. I may take pics when I have cleaned and fettled it but, well, it is a black Longhorn.

Wimp! 😉 In the 70s we used to play "football" with a tennis ball during school lunch break whilst wearing platform shoes. It's a wonder none of us broke our ankles.

First gig of the year on Saturday!

The current version of my bass board. This serves as my whole live rig, with IEMs having a separate signal chain that ends at the rolls pm50. I then have a custom signal/IEM cable. The IEM line also doubles as a signal chain for feeding my two Headrush frfr112s if I’m at a festival and don’t want to run on in ears. what’s odd about this set up I guess is the sheer amount of preamps! The nux acts as a front end and hpf, the sadowsky is really for my jazz bass, but it stays on mostly for everything. The mooer clean boost is for my GMR which is lower output and the sparrow is on the IEM feed to tone tweak headphones or my Headrush set up. The boom ave is there purely because I happen to enjoy the octaver on it and I like to be able to quickly add it over patches on the zoom that don’t already have it. whilst the zoom B9 is a bit of an antique these days, I find I just love the thing and always keep at least one spare one, as they are getting on a bit now and I’ve killed a few, but it really is my core tone (heard in the Rio cover below) with just a touch of the Walter woods amp model through an SWR 4x10 cab sim. The zoom ms60b beefs up the amp emulation in my IEMs to give me more of a live feel while providing dual outputs the Headrush(s). FOH DI is from the zoom, pre the ms60 and sparrow. But there are multiple Di options for a blend channel. The cheap eq is linked to the loop switch purely for a bass cut in a royal blood song. Linked below. it’s an odd set up, but works for me. I’m currently mulling a switch to helix, but don’t want to lose my big synth sound that I use in a few tunes like the cover of Blinding lights linked below (bass had to redone and is slightly out of sync, but you get the idea) I’m unsure if it’s possible to create this sound in a helix

TODAY! My third outing of the weekend, depping on Sousaphone for a local wind band. You wait ages for a wind band concert, then two come along at once. They're like buses - big, noisy, unwieldy and no-one likes them. Full on suited and booted (Midnight Blue DMs) affair, I even wore a dicky bow! The band are really good, really high standard, I did OK considering I was sightreading. Usual wind band stuff, including three pieces I played last week. The highlight was fitting into my suit trousers and still being able to breathe.

Last night we headlined the Off The Rails event in Leamington Spa. We only got an hour to play, considering we usually play for 3 it felt like it was over before it began, but really awesome night. New things learned though, playing in arches with lots of walls and chambers and...well arches meant the sound went everywhere, P Bass sounded incredible as usual.

Just got this and had a blast through headphones for 10 minutes. First thoughts are built like a tank and it sounds great, very warm but I had turn the volume down on my stingray to get a clean tone, so will need to spend a bit of time sussing it out. Hopefully get a chance to try it through speakers tonight. But quite excited by it!

Perhaps I should have gotten round to posting this thread sooner. Indeed, just having a Warwick Dolphin in my collection at home is grounds for celebration. I had waited, however, to get it set up and get used to it. More on that in a bit... Now, I wouldn't normally preface every NBD thread with a backstory. Or would I? Perhaps I would, because these days I don't really buy a bass unless it's something I really, really want or have wanted for years. Maybe this leads to less 'wildcard' revelations but all the same, I have never been disappointed by taking a more selective approach to buying. I keep saying I'll get back to selling or trading but so far, I keep getting things I can't bear to let go. I've wanted a Dolphin since I was about 15. I've long been a Warwick fan and I've had Thumbs and Streamers in the past. There is room in my collection for a few more, I dare say, so watch this space. My affection for Warwick goes back to the turn of the millennium, when I was first getting into Talkbass and discovering the world of boutique basses along with a world outside of rock and metal. However, I was very familiar with that world at the time and Warwick were very visible in that field. If you were anyone in the nu metal game, you probably had a Warwick bass and a great tone to go with it. I remember the Dana B. Goods Warwick website (indeed, I'm sure that they owned 'www.warwick.com' and enquiries would take you to their site rather than Warwick.de). In short, Warwick were everywhere and I loved them. Nothing sounded like a Warwick, particularly the 'dark' wood models (bubinga Corvettes, ovankgol and walnut Thumbs, boire and ovankgol Dolphins etc). I had consigned myself to never seeing a Dolphin in person, never mind owning one. The one I ended up buying was in fact, the first I've ever laid eyes on. The moment of seeing those unique and unusual proportions in person will stay with me forever, a bit like seeing the leaning tower of Pisa or whatever - you know them innately, by exposure, but seeing them in person is an experience on another level. So there I was at work in late March on a night shift, idling away. I'd seen the advert here for the Dolphin in the classifieds and considered it but thought restraint was more satisfying than indulgence. In that moment though, I decided that spending a little dough on something I'd wanted for two decades was a fair trade. Communications were made and a deal was done. The bass came looking, plainly speaking, like a new instrument, save for the frets. Like most Warwick bell brass frets, they need occasional attention to polish them up. But the wood was as smooth and satin as any Warwick I've touched and the gold hardware completely unblemished. The action was sky high and the strings were absolutely dead so despite getting the bass in my hands, there wasn't much to report on getting it home. I played it for about ten minutes and felt it had a huge potential, then put it back in the Warwick flight case and put it away. On another note, should nuclear war ever start I'll be hiding inside that case. I trapped my fingers between it and the car's B pillar when I brought it home and howled in pain. I accidentally stubbed my toe on it putting it into my car once and felt like I'd kicked a boulder. Built to last, it is. A visit to the greatly-esteemed Bass Doc, Howard Satterly, finally had the Dolphin ready to play. Strung with some EBMM stainless steels in .45 and with frets polished and the action brought down to a realistic level. An instrument of this level deserves a professional setup and will receive any necessary tweaks by my own fair hand in future. But man, does it play nicely now. Getting it home and plugging it in, I could finally give the full appraisal. The weight is surprisingly light. This is no Thumb and whilst I have no means of measuring it, it is lighter than my Spector NS-5CR and my Pedulla Pentabuzz. The rhomboid body gives it an offset position over the body, such that the bridge is almost offset from your midriff. It doesn't quite hang in a jazz bass position but it's not far off. If the central position and long reach to first inherent in the Warwick Thumb is not to your taste, you would probably prefer this. Seated, it's a joy to play in a classical position over the left knee. I never do this with my other basses but I could find some mileage here, since it seems to encourage a very right hand position that produces a very clean and articulate sound. The sound is absolutely classic Warwick, hi-fi and crisp with a distinct growl in the low midrange. The humbucker back pickup sounds absolutely great and so far, I've been running it solo. With both pickups on full, the sound is so rich with bottom end that my neighbours have been banging on the wall in a show of appreciation. There is little to none of the 'tone suck' that some basses experience when running both pickups on full. The coil tap for the back pickup is also super cool, as running both coils gives a big, juicy sound. Splitting them gives a more classic jazz bass style honk, and you fan further accentuate this by pulling the other pot up to run the bass in passive. I've mainly been playing it through my Markbass Jeff Berlin CMD-151P so far, occasionally running it through a Samsamp GED-2112. However, I've found it most satisfying just running straight into the Markbass and getting some very sweet hi-fi sounds as a result. Well, all I can do now is put the miles on it and see how my opinion of it moves. So far, it has been absolutely and unwaveringly positive and I've been having a total blast with it. A Thumb or Streamer could yet find it's way into my collection, but I feel as though the crown jewel has already been located.

I think some of of us may have mentioned EBS recently 😝 And certainly not the most common effect on the vast majority of people’s boards even in genres that they might otherwise be associated with. I’d imagine that octavers would be second most common after dirt and then modulation (chorus, phaser etc.)……filters a distant fourth. But it’s so genre specific and it takes only one intrepid player/band to bring it (back) into fashion. In the hip hop/electronica world, Thundercat comes to my mind as a player who has made the filter and phaser so en vogue within that genre that any player - myself included - will want to emulate that sound; as well as make it more acceptable to other musicians and general listenership alike. Also getting slightly back on topic for this thread, I love the EBS but have been revisiting the 3LEAF over the weekend and deconstructing some Thundercat; filters are just fun! Also, my revisiting the 3Leaf was due to my having made the decision to sell…..just to assure myself that I’m making the right decision! This is what I put together; three separate bass tracks with two featuring a filter and one dry track. https://m.soundcloud.com/jasonpower/thundercat-1

Always a good one, we have plenty of fans in Barry 🙂

I've caved. I've ordered one. It's too new to find any secondhand yet, and I think this will be a great cab for me, having experience of a few of their other 10" offerings. Estimated lead time is 6 to 8 weeks, so I'm going to be waiting a while! Rob

I don't pick up this bass as much as I'd like to, because it has 70's pickup spacing. But boy, is it a pretty bass.

Heresy! I've got a pair of very fine Leema Xavier speakers which were modified by Nordost so that all internal wiring is in silver monofilament.... It's a whole new level of performance over the standard, common-or-garden copper-wired ones - inkier blacks, airier highs - it's like the musicians are in the room with you! BTW, I'm having a minor "giraffe", as yer cockneys say; I worked in BBC sound for many years and even there we couldn't convince one of our dubbing mixers that audio cable couldn't be uni-directional, so I understand the many foibles of hifi-dom. In fact I often peruse the Machina Dynamica catalogue for what self-same cockneys also call a "bubble bath"!

I was in a band that played all those artists music. We just called it country rock.

After a fret job this morning, I can tell you, this is one lovely neck now….

Jesus wept. If I had 3k I'd be in the car right now. Sounds like an absurd bargain.

The Band, a classic example of Americana if there ever was one, were 4/5 Canadian

OK. Just weighed it (not 100% accurate as it was balancing on the scales whilst I was on my hands and knees squinting through my cheapo reading glasses trying to differentiate between the little lines, which definitely looked all squigly). About 4 1/2Kg, which is more than I like for a gig (I usually go for 3 - 3 1/2Kg), but is OK for those 'metal' songs, where a metal bass is essential

Some of these companies/people are operating under the assumption that soldering is some kind of alchemical art. It's not, it's easy.

I have a Three10 on order and it *should* be due this week. I will update when it arrives.

We had a trip to Telford yesterday to play at a "punk and alternative all-dayer". Our other bass player had to bring his kit, but I had a lovely TC electronics head and 2x 2x10 cabs to play through that the venue had provided; Parker into Helix into that sounded great, a proper meaty slap tone that cut through beautifully. We played well, weren't booed off or even beaten up, was accosted in the toilets by a chap who though we were great which is always nice when you're having a piddle. I was stopped a few more times by folks who enjoyed us... But strangely, we had the smallest crowd! As soon as the hardcore growlers started the room was rammed but our far more melodic punkyfunky stylings were much less popular. Each to their own I spose! However, there was a most excellent Indian restaurant 100m away which did Paneer Chilli so I was very happy. Not only that but I discovered a B road route back that took us 61 minutes for the 50 mile drive... Next week we've got a Dingle To Dottingham, supporting the incomparable Soap Girls (!) at the Old Cold Store. Edited to add photie!

😎

The control input lets you add any generic expression pedal without midi controller. (but agree about midi controller, I built my own for about £25)

Theoretically current capacity can be a concern, but in the real world that only applies to mains cables. What matters with speakers is resistance. Even with a 6 metre cable keeping the resistance well less than 5% of the load impedance doesn't take a large cable, 18 gauge/1 mm will do with a 4 ohm speaker; the main benefit of going larger is durability. In PA use very long cables don't have as much of a problem with resistance as they do capacitance and inductance, which can cause high frequency losses. For this reason 15 metres is the practical limit for speaker cables. To that end major PA rigs keep the amps close to the speakers.

I'd be spending that money on a soldering iron, the S99 on AliExpress is meant to be a very good and inexpensive USB Type C iron, also get some decent solder, a cleaning tin with wire wool in it and one of the little stands, all cheap eBay/AE stuff. Realistically three good quality pots will set you back £10-£12, practice soldering/desoldering on your old pots. This.

...which is in the continent of North America. I think for a concept as broad as Americana many Canadian acts would fit in, as do some influences from Mexico.

LAST NIGHT! Katie O'Brien's 'Irish' bar in Leicester with the 3 piece version of Azura. We've played here before and had a cracking night *and* it was our first gig for a few weeks so we were looking forward to it. We were anticipating a mad one as Leicester Rovers had just won the Big Soccerball Challenge or something, lots of football shirts in there when we arrived. Not massively full, but it was only half six. Load in is a bit of a pain, down a dark, slippery, murder-y alleyway, there was a solo acoustic guy on so we had to unpack the stuff 'backstge' (in the corridor to the kitchen and the staff smoking area - glamorous!) and stand around nursing a lime & soda while he played. Set up was pretty easy (using the house PA speakers) and the place was filling up nicely. First set went down a treat, we played really well and enjoyed ourselves. Couple of flubs, nothing too heinous. Second and third sets were even better, the crowd was out for a good night and got well into it, packed dancefloor all singing along. We had a couple of new songs in the set which kept us on our toes and the DJ played a couple that we happened to know so we decided to chuck them in as well. It wasn't as rammed as we were expecting, but nicely full and a decent crowd. I sang lead on a couple which is always gratifying (for me, not for the audience). Played the Jazz for a change -> small board -> amp board -> MB 802. Wore the 'other' leopard print Converse, foot fans! Lots of compliments afterwards including from the manager, so we're looking forward to a rebooking. Home about 1 for a Thatcher's Vintage (8.3% ABV) A good night out!

'It's not the size of you pencil that counts, it's how you write your signature.' - John Hancock, 1776.

Thought I might add an update here. I’ve had some rehearsals with the party band startup where I knew the singer. It seems to be going very slowly as other band members’ commitments make it hard to to find dates we can all manage for rehearsals and gigs. No sign of the latter atm. More promising was being head-hunted by a drummer with whom I’d depped a few times. He was starting a 70s glam/pop covers trio and needed a lead guitarist. I was initially put off by (1) wigs and flares, and (2) backing tracks, but it turns out the former are not mandatory and the latter are for enhancement. The drummer is the kind of person who has good contacts and gets things moving. I’ve taken on the job of editing the tracks and bought a digital mixer to help with setting up our IEM mixes. There’s every indication that this band will be a goer.