Leaderboard

Have been on the lookout for a while for a Fender US Standard 2013-16 Precision in Olympic White with maple neck, weighing less than 4kg. I’ve found recently that on brightly lit stages I can’t see where I am on a rosewood fretboard. Having a bad back basses under 4kg are my limit and for some reason even though I’ve arthritis in my left thumb playing a big fat neck doesn’t cause me pain. I’d decided to seek one out as Precisions are my fave basses so I’m going to play them until I physically can’t anymore. This one, a 2014 turned up so I bought it. Has a set of 45-100 Chromes on it and they sound & play really nice.

Not mine. I could never land on a definitive combination for long enough. But the structure of this looks lush.

I replaced the HX FX and the normal Stomp with the Stomp XL. The musicom labs mk5 looper (in other words all individual Stomp boxes) are in the first effects loop of the XL and the mighty VENTRIS in the second. the mk5 allows me to change the order of the individual pedals, so that there aren’t any real limitations sound wise. I’m so very pleased, and the whole setup weighs more than 3 pounds less, which is a nice bonus! 🚀

Just try taking mine away…….

Years ago I went to a photography exhibition and in one of the photos saw the name Nancy Johnson plastered all over some prescription pill-pots in one of the photos, I just thought, 'Ooh, cool name,' and wrote it down. As part of a small project for coding websites, I purchased the co.uk and set about all manner of goofery about a fake band called Nancy Johnson and their ridiculous escapades touring Europe and the USA (I think you can still go to the internet archive and pull up most of it). Roll forward a couple of years and by jingo, I'm in a band, we decide to adopt the name Nancy Johnson and off we go. Where things get stupid are that promoters are reading the website and think we're something we're not AND once in a while promoters seem to thing Nancy is a real person and actually ask us where our singer is. Inevitably, the line up changed (much like Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees) but I was the constant throughout until I bailed because of personality/musical differences. During the interim period, the new singer decides that we need a new name and adopts Who Killed Nancy Johnson?, which somehow reflects a change in musical styling from a fun pop/punk band to something a little more aggressive. If I'm brutally honest I wasn't really a fan of the WKNJ? rebrand. At the point of my departure, they carried on playing material I'd written/co-written and went through three bassists until calling it quits last year. Of the name Nancy Johnson, I don't know whether ownership comes into it to be honest, it's just a name, but in my little world I suppose that name came through me and I was the main driving force; I'd have preferred if the rebrand had been under a different name entirely and not including the original name.

A few Facebook videos of our gig in Holmfirth a few weeks ago. Obligatory Dakota A Town Called Malice, where it was a combination of the drummist cutting out too early and our singist getting confused as to where he was in the song that made things go a bit wrong in the middle. With the benefit of hindsight I should get more familiar with the lyrics, because if I'd have realised where the singist was starting from in that section I'd have kept that little chromatic line going a bit longer rather than trying to force things back to the chorus - lesson learned for me! Are "Friends" Electric - this is one of my favourite songs that we play, it sounds great when not recorded on a crappy phone microphone. I was very gratified when our keyboardist told me after the gig that for the keys/bass duets he programs his parts, meaning my timing isn't as rubbish as I often think it might be!

Just arrived.

The front is black.

I would say get the bass you want and get it repainted, rather than buying a bass you don't want just because it's the right colour.

... not its not @cetera. Not even close! 854 basses. Wonder how many handbags his wife has? https://guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2024/8/musician-whos-shared-stage-with-legends-owns-worlds-largest-bass-guitar-collection

😎

I suspect they don't really know why it works

Well it does show that you can’t tell the difference between Monaco and Monza in a pic, unless you see them side by side. Good looking cabs IMO and in this case, you can judge the book by its cover.

I bought an ABM 300 Evo 11 and the pair of Mini Cabs 4x8 and 1x15 must be 25 years ago. Gigged the hell out of it dropped it threw beer over it and sold it for something shiny and new. Since the GAS has brought me so many amps I can’t think to start listing them! On Sat night my senses returned and I ordered and ABM 300 Evo IV at a silly price direct from Ashdowns bargain basement. It feels like coming Home …….

As I said in the video description, I'm not 100% sure this is right, but it's a great tune to play!

The massive, weighty cab quest/collecting is at an end. I think I’ve finally scratched the itch. This cab was the final ‘must have/try’ cab that I’d lusted after as a young player. It took me 35 years to find one of them. I drove to London to collect it in December. It came with a blown driver and missing one piece of plastic trim. Thankfully this one didn’t need re tolexing. Only a couple of small nicks which I was able to glue down. the plastic trim was impossible to find. A very flat ‘h’ shape with a coloured insert. I had to create the profile with 3 separate pieces of plastic trim and then get the colour matched and ended up painting both trims so the matched. The colour is remarkably close but the remaining trim had been non uniformly faded/stained with nicotine. the grill frame had cracked but only required gluing. I added some wooden fillets to the baffle as the grill and whole front is angled back and was Probably the cause of the crack as it wasn’t supported and difference of about 20mm between the top and bottom. Baffle painted, new 600w eminence installed and the Badge attached, I’d bought the badge around 15 years ago ’just in case’. These cab restorations often end in great disappointment when I play them in a band context. This wasn’t the case with this. Very loud and consistent timbre. It’s a great cab and now Part of the ‘keepers’. There is no other cab I fancy and I’m no longer searching. That said, if a second one came along or a second peavey 3620? 🤣

Is patch 61 Hysteria2003 any good?

The Grand Old Duke Of York ~ Peppa Pig

I have been around the Uke Bass block once or twice. The upshot is that the nature of the strings are not hifi and zingy so there really is not much to go wrong on them. You can spend more money than I care to admit to publicly and get some stupendously built instruments. But the bottom line is as long as the piezo bridge is seated properly the rest is not a big deal. It gives a lovely dull thud

Thinking further on this, it's probably an excuse to bump up the price of the standard Sub Ray4 and in turn, the Ray34 range. It's all about squeezing pennies from customers without providing much extra value.

Anyone in Bristol fancy a bargain BB424x. On Facebook Marketplace, electronics need looking at apparently but worth putting a new loom in as they are only want £80. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1499494460940478/

I have an Ashbory, which is pretty much an electric uke bass. (Don't try and do slides, though - you'llburn your fingers!)

We are the Otis Jay Blues Band. Fairly clear labelling. Otis Joseph is my two and a half year old grandson, born as we got together. He owns the name, I guess!

It's next week. Bass duties will be shared by Bubby Lewis. Coupled with Dennis Chambers it promises a lot of fun. 🙂

Oh dear I hope this does not descend into a "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" thread.

Kala used to do the SUB range (I have one, a fretted 5). They dropped those some time ago, in fact they'd dropped them when I got mine so Thomann were flogging them off (just call me Betamax man). They are now doing a cheaper bass uke range, but these are steel strung with magnetic pickups rather than rubber strings and piezo.

They leaked from my CD controller on to a Love CD cover last week. Brought a new meaning to Acid Rock!

It’s hard to carry on this or the Tonewood debate without lots of opinion and/or hocus locus. The truth is that every component contributes to the sound of a bass. In fact the largest influence on the sound of a bass is the lump playing it.

Don’t know why I’ve never yet listened to Patrice’s albums between 1974’s “Prelusion” and 1982’s “Straight From The Heart” (the one with “Forget-Me-Nots”). I will be rectifying this oversight in short order.

Dancing On Your Grave ~ Motorhead

Old good stuff

Possibly this:

While most people here start threads for discussion, your first posts tend to feel like you want an argument. It might not be the case, but it is how they come across sometimes. You also tend to go back and edit them quite heavily. OK not a massive problem in the scheme of things, we all have good days and bad days, and like you said earlier you’re a very long-standing and well-liked member and have earned respect on both those bases. But as I also said earlier, if you don’t want arguments, perhaps don’t start your threads argumentatively? Anyway, back to Charles Berthoud 👍

The Track IV looks a lot nicer IMO, some of the prices are mental though.

Here’s the pedalboard that my church supplies us bass players with 😁👍🏻

For those of you who are anti-Ric and don't like headless, I give you the Rickenberger!

No? what about this one? This is partly why I sold my Celinder - the 70s jazz sound from this bass is massive, I have never had such a good P and J sound in one bass and if you told me it would be on a mustang I'd have thought you were mental!

A stomper... Written by Eddie Hazel!

Hi y'all! Just 2 weeks ago I wouldn't have even imagined I'd ever own a bass like this. I accidentally ran into an ad for an Ibanez EHB1005MS for less than half the new price (presumably because of an issue with a tuner). I made my homework, checked for monorail bridge+tuner prices and made sure I could repair whatever issue for cheap, and pulled the trigger, with MOSTLY questions (many firsts, first headless, first multiscale, first bass with the horrible Bart BH2s, etc.), but that of the "investment", being that cheap, if I don't happen to like it I can get rid of it losing no money, or even earning some. On a side note, I've been looking for a cheap travel bass. I know this is not as cheap as I'd wanted, but it's a hell of a travel bass (as per dimensions) and much more, a perfectly competent instrument. The bass happened to work OK, no tuner problem, 100% user error AFAICT. I don't know what string gauges were on that bass, but they were THICK, and the SUPOSED G string measured thicker than my regular (.065) D. Being that the scale for that string is 33", you will always max out the tuner threading before reaching pitch. WIth my usual strings it works perfectly and I have lots of threading left in the tuner. BTW, no need for weird string sets on this bass either. The same as a Schecter CV-5 I used to own, my usual Warwick Red Label Nickels are long enough, there's about 1cm of string winding left past the nut. Surprisingly I like the bass a lot. Plays wonderfully and has lots of nice features. It has 2 problems tho', one's stupid, the other is a REAL problem. The stupid thing has to do with fret markers. The front markers apparently aren't for the player, as you CAN'T SEE THEM, the low B string completely covers them from your viewpoint when playing. The side Luminlay dots are nice... IN THE DARK, AS IN NATURAL LIGHT THEY GET COMPLETELY LOST. I don't rely on markers much, but being this my 1st multiscale I'd love to have clear markers for the upper register, where frets are more tilted, at least while I adapt, as I occasionally might get lost. Nothing some stickers won't correct. Now the real issue with this bass is the crappy Bart BH2s (not real Bartolinis, but a "licensed copy" some chinese manufacturer produces for Ibanez), which come wired in series and sound totally DEAD (excessively and unnaturally scooped). I don't have a problem using a soldering iron, so I rewired both as single coils (neck side coil of each PU). I don't discard going the Nordy Big Splits route in the future, but the change to single coils at least made that necessity les urgent, it's the only way I find these BH2 pickups acceptable, they're beyond crappy. It's silly that Ibanez offers this bass with such poor pickups (IDK about you, but I DON'T PAY 1200-1300€ FOR DEAD PICKUPS). But also, the next EHB/MS model up is simply paying 200-300$/€ more for just pretty wood, USELESS. You have to pay 500$/€ more to get Nordstrands (plus the useles fancy wood, guess you can't avoid that). Just don't get it, my Sire V3, at 1/3 the new price, has 10X better pickups. I insist, once rewired to single coil the bass sounds a lot better. Not as good as the demos I hear with Nordstrands, but definitely a "normal" usable bass guitar. The rest of the bass is awesome, comfortable, light, steel frets, the finishing, the neck profile (sorta' D, but as skinny front to back as SRs), the roasted maple, the birdseye in the fretboard, I even find the aesthetics on this graceful, or let's say it could be worse (it could also be a single cut, for the ultimate aberration). Here's a clip I've recorded with the EHB, a song by Argentinean supergroup Divididos. The EHB here does a great "impersonation" of the original neck pickup Jazz Bass tone, with highs cut and lows slightly boosted. My stable looks like this now...

I can't stand seeing so many basses (many of them 'vintage') all just leaned up against/on top of each other! 🤯 Still, with that many basses he probably can't afford the same amount of stands....