Leaderboard

That turned out to be a wonderful night of Glam rock with BLOCKBUSTARZ at The Stair Arms in Pathead near Edinburgh. Wasn't actually a Biker Rally but a private function invite only. We had folks there from Denmark (approx. 20) Germany, Belgium and Holland along with the various Scots & English contingent. Dancing from the first song with the dance floor full before the 1st set ended. 2nd set we had the floor packed from midway thru the first song. It seemed to be the foreign bikers that started off the dancing and they were well up for it from the sound check when we had cheers, whistles and loud clapping so that was a good start. Started at 8:30 and finished at 12 with a 15min break but what great fun was had by everyone there and for us. Some gigs just have a great atmosphere and you want to keep the party going and this was one of those nights but we literally ran out of songs. For the first time we played every song we've ever done. Superb night. Going home very chuffed. We were told by the organiser that several people had approached him for details on the band and asked where the feck did you find such an amazing band. That was a nice wee compliment too. Several folks also thanked us for a great nights entertainment and we kept getting asked for more. We were due to finish at 11:15pm but alas we simply ran out of time and songs We've been asked if we would consider playing bike rallies in Germany but probably never happen. I'd need to renew my passport. Do passenger planes still have propellers on long haul flights Bit of a nuisance trying to pack up as the dancers continued with backing music from the organiser but several folks both male and female offered to help load our cars but most were worse for wear so we thanked them all but said it was fine and easier to track where things are when loading if we do it ourselves. Always nice to be asked tho. Easy drive home with very little traffic so that was a bonus. No pics as yet but will post if any become available. You can probably tell that i'm fair pleased tonight Dave

Bit of video action VID-20241005-WA0008.mp4

Possibly my last gig at Leicester’s legendary music venue The Donkey. It’s changing hands next month and no certainty it will continue to host live music. We (the Andy Wales Band) stepped in last minute to do this gig, and there was a fairly good turn out of appreciative people including some unexpected old friends and familiar faces along the way. On a geeky note I was glad to be back to my Markbass head and cab after the last few gigs for which I’ve used an Ashdown head - nice sound, but just not for me. Bass is filthy and sweaty this morning - usually the sign of a good, loud, hot gig in my books.

Cracking gig at Dublin Castle, Camden. Great sound guy and engaged crowd

Gig? Unimportant. Venue? Walls and roof, next question. Audience? Yeah there was an audience. Great, now that the preliminaries are out of the way let's talk about the really important things. I put LEDs on my board. Fiiiiiine, photo of everything else. Post setup, pre tidy.

Did a 3-set, sit-down jazz and blues gig at a swanky bar. Clientele didn’t seem too intestates but we earned the most money we have ever done as a band.

I gig my '73 Precision all the time: B neck, 8lbs 3oz, all original with excellent original case. Paid £3300 at the beginning of the year. Worth every penny.

I've now done 4 or 5 gigs with my Monza, and I promised @stevie i'd post my thoughts so here goes. All gigs were with my Chicago-style blues band consisting of bass, drums, 2 electric guitars and harp/vocals. Moderately but not bonkers loud and all through backline, no PA reinforcement except for vocals, kickdrum and the harp combo is miked. On-stage volume is to loud to be comfortable, discussions about this on-going. All medium-sized pubs, no stage. My signal chain is double bass -> Krivo mag pickup -> Headway EDB1 preamp -> thumpinator -> BeCos Stella compressor -> EA iAmp doubler -> cab. The Monza has replaced an EBS Neo 2x12 with no apparent loss of volume. Comments from other band members along the lines of 'that box puts out a lot of sound' and 'the bass sounds fantastic' . The bass frequencies are rich deep and warm. The Monza is much more sensitive to mids the the EBS or the EA VL110s I've also used, and I've found that some careful adjustment of high-mid and low-mid on the pre-amp has been required to remove any nasty nasal edginess whilst still sounding as much like a double bass as possible. I've also found it necessary to roll off a bit of the high frequencies. This is an ongoing process but I think I'm getting close after 4 or 5 gigs. My guitar-playing son was in the audience last night and was full of praise for the bass sound. The other observation is that this cab is happy to handle as much power as I have needed to throw at it, and seems to sound better the louder it gets. I've been told a couple of times to turn it down, which I'm happy about given my earlier struggles to get enough volume without massive feedback issues, in fairness mostly caused by pickups rather than cabinet choice. I've now sold all my other cabs so I'm committed to the Monza, either with the iAmp doubler or my Walkabout Scout head for bass guitar when the opportunity for that arises. Hope that someone finds this useful, happy to answer any questions if I can.

Have to say I envy @Clarky a lot: yesterday there were over 200 people, band was in good shape, and I haven't got any pic or video. But people had good time on stage and on the floor.

And took delivery of an Ocean Blue Metallic 2014 Standard. Passive with V/V/T

If anyone wants to see a Mullarkey in action, here is some footage from our gig last night https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/7919-how-was-your-gig-last-night/page/739/#comment-5332908

Er not on this occasion! But I got a damp cloth out this morning and got all the grime off it.

That sounds amazing @pete.young. My Monza should arrive next week, which I'm extremely excited about!

There are many issues with talkbass, but not the ones involving logging on or getting to the site!

I wouldn't even pay the postage cost for it if the bass was free. £150 postage!!!!

Guitar Guitar are knocking these out at £200 less than Thomman. Why? Because they’re all likely to be customer returns, warranty repairs or something else. I’m not criticising the OP as these are all advertised as brand new, no issue basses but they’re clearly not. This is duplicity on the case of the seller and should be called out. But when something appears too good to be true there’s usually a catch…

Rival to Shirley, you mean I'll see ya later ...

Last week, I started the "greatest bassline of 82" thread - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/501289-greatest-bassline-of-1982/ It attracted some really good posts. Thanks for the great contributions 👍 Instead of starting the "greatest bassline of 83" thread, I decided to jump 10 years ahead and start the "greatest bassline of 92" thread instead. I was a kid in 82 and an adult in 92, so I came across more great songs and basslines in 92 than in 82. Here is my personal fav. For me, it is not only the greatest bassline of 92, but of the whole 90s, and, I know some/most of you will disagree, one of the greatest of all time. I am a huge AIC fanboy, so I am obviously biased 😉

We're there on Sunday 27th (The Cheeze). It will be a sad, sad day if it's our last time ☹️ You don't wipe your bass down at the end of the night?! 😮

Enjoy! I’m very happy with mine. As @pete.young said you do need to experiment a bit more with your eq than you might with other cabs that have a baked-in sound. The Monza will reproduce everything that goes into it. I found out how top biased my Warwick Gnome iPro was. @Phil Starr pointed out that the Gnome has anything but a flat response when the EQ controls are set at 12 o’clock and you certainly hear it with the Monza before adjusting the EQ. That lesson learned, I have really grown to love it. It pairs extremely well with my Blackstar u700 that has a number of preamp and power stage voicings. Most of the time I am using the more classic valve amp voices (covers and blues) and that is exactly what I get out of the Monza. If I want a more modern “hi-fi” sound, it’s there too. This is unlike, for instance, my BF Two10 that can only really do vintage (by design). The U700 classic voices with the Two10 can be too old school and a bit ill defined. Volume wise, I don’t have an amp that is ever going to push the Monza anywhere near its peak but TBH, even with 250 watts @ 8 ohms, I have not yet needed to have the master much above 12 o’clock for most pub gigs. I find I can hear it even when I’m really close to it, which you can’t say about a lot of other cabs. I did try it on top of my Two10S at an open air festival gig: 700 watts @ 2.7 ohms but that volume level was completely unnecessary because of the excellent foldback provided by the organisers. It was also somewhat unbalanced with the Two10 getting 2/3 of the oomph and struggling to cope. It did make me think how good a 3 x Monza stack would be though🤟😀. I’ll have to win the lottery though, at the moment I’m aiming at another Monza when my piggy bank is full enough. Sorry for the word vom. Enjoy your new cab day!

As someone who, like @Mickeyboro, worked extensively for some years in the reissue world (we had the pleasure of working together on quite a few releases), I can give you a factual answer for the first question and an informed guess for the second. These outtakes have been tied up in ownership rights. Anything a band recorded, even if it didn't get released was the property of the record company (often in perpetuity or for a long period). Live recording would also be subject to re-recording restrictions - so even if Thin Lizzy had left Vertigo their old contract would prohibit them from re-recording (in any form) any of their Vertigo recorded material. Major labels only became much more active on the reissue market late on, as it wasn't a big enough money spinner for them, allowing companies like the one I worked for to put out these tracks. Only once they saw the royalties that we were paying them (300.000 copies of an Alan Parsons Project compilation) did they start to take notice. That explains the 'where have they been'. The 'who buys this' is really down to a small but ardent fanbase and completists. One of the bands I worked closely with was Deep Purple. We could have sold a couple of thousand copies of a CD of Ritchie Blackmore farting in a jar. The fanbase is quickly contracting for the reason your wife points out, but there is a new generation of fan - look at some of the niche stuff that Record Store Day throws out every year!

To complement that, watch this till the end, you'll understand what a player he is and it's on a bass he just plugged in without knowing it...

100% this. I don't gig anymore and the chances of doing so again are increasingly unlikely so this is my haven for whatever small scraps of creativity I can come up with. I treat it as a bit of fun with a DIY punk ethos.

For that price I’d want a taxi thrown in to get me to the fret board. Have you seen the action on that??

The legendary Abe Laboriel was a classical guitarist too and has a similiar dexterity across the board and strums a lot too.....similiar technique.

trainer ts100 back on the board first inline as an always on

I don’t see this as a competition really . I would soon be disillusioned if I thought I was competing against the quality that gets presented here. It’s a challenge , which is to create a piece, yes I try to make it fun or interesting and as good as my time and commitments allow, but I’ve always had aspirations to make music and this little corner of the web is just heaven. help, advice, a bit of pisstaking and a great bunch to share it with.

Not on my list of "10 bassists you could name". Had to DDG him to find out he was in Blink-182.

And Cort basses are, by and large, good. I’m the end, all manufacturers will have problems. These basses clearly should have gone back to the manufacturer but through some chicanery were probably left with the retailer at a massive discount. I have no vested interest in Cort but I’d like at the retailer here.

He's probably in the top ten most famous bassists on the planet, it's not surprising really. Lovely bass, needs a maple fingerboard.

These exemptions apply to instruments etc taken out of the country for one's professional use, ie : to play a gig. If, outgoing to a continental gig, there is no instrument, but there is one when returning, it would be cheating, of course, but could pass, as there's no record, or list, of outgoings and incoming. If it's just returning after a weekend jaunt to Europe, though, with no gig, it wouldn't apply at all, and should be declared.

Yes, quite a trek. Lower Normandy, really, halfway between Rennes and Le Mans. Worth it, though, and we played further afield than that occasionally, too. One memorable Saturday playing near Marseilles, with an overnight dash back for a couple of us for a 'freebie' gig on the Sunday, near home..! Over a thousand kms clocked up, that weekend. At another festival, south Brittany, I fell ill (sunstroke...), got taken to hospital, so missed the tour bus, and had to walk and hitch-hike home, 400 kms, in the early hours of the next dawn. I couldn't do it now, of course.

Hiwatt seem to be the last of the old-school British amp companies to get on the small-but-powerful bass amp thing - Laney. Orange, etc have been at it for a while now. Now, if Marshall would just get back into making bass amps...

Congratulations on the upcoming big birthday! If you’re keen to get one in your hands on or near your birthday it probably makes sense to have a chat with Bass Direct as a Dingwall dealer if you’re not already doing that. They currently have a build slot for an ABZ ready to be confirmed according to their order table https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/brand_page/dingwall/ so you may be able to shortcut the current three year wait time (as per an interview with Sheldon at Guitar Summit in which he notes they’re working to bring that down). Dingwall are also potentially offering a fast-track/semi-frills version in future. I’ve linked the interview at the bottom. Bass Freaks in Belgium are another dealer with good stock options and I’ve seen the odd used Dingwall bass at the Gallery and Bass Bros. I recently received a D-ROC Custom and found the team at Dingwall to be very helpful in terms of describing what wood combinations work well and why, and they’re not shy to give their opinion. There’s sometimes a delay in responding but overall I can’t really fault them. I already had an NG3 with a maple neck and opted for a wenge neck and wenge fretboard on the D-ROC. I absolutely love the feel of it and the resulting tone. I’ve got a used model with an ovangkol neck on the way and I’ve seen the roasted ash get some love over on Talkbass recently. I’d like to think it’s hard to go wrong. Congratulations again and please keep us updated with the route you go!

Result !

How do they know what each other thinks without posting opinions on here? And who determines what opinions are allowed? I'm a great admirer of Charles but there's going to be some who don't like what he does or how he does it. Their opinions are obviously wrong but they're still entitled to post them.

There's plenty of videos of him playing live and I believe he is either on tour at the moment or just about to be. It's interesting how on one hand youtube has given a lot more opportunities for musicians to get their work out there, but at the same time seems to attract more criticism of the musicians compared to those who have come to prominence through the historical non-youtube route. Very few people are saying "Steve Vai - yes he's good but it's all rehearsed to within a millimeter and he doesn't really have that much flair..." The fact is Charles Berthoud is one of the best bass players alive today and unlike most of us has actually come through a more formal route to get there (Classical Piano & Berkeley) - if people don't like his music then fine, but it seems a bit unfair to imply he somehow cheats - he epitomises the success that a lot of both talent and hard work can get.

Had a little jam around an old band mates house some months ago, ended up a bit drunk then left my specs there. Popped over to collect them today and whilst having a cuppa me mate say's "I've a bass upstairs that you used to gig with...I'll just go bring it down" Next he hands me this 1974.... but I can't remember ever using it. He is adamant I did. Unfortunately I didn't have time to play through an amp but will return to have a blast with it soon.