Leaderboard

Bit of a "Meh" gig last night - Cantina band at The Lounge in Boldemere, Sutton Coldfield. Usual story - not that many people there, a few enjoyed it enough to dance, dep drummer (mate of mine, top bloke), we played really well and sounded good, I got paid to hang around with some mates and do what I enjoy, so I can't complain. Played some songs with a pleccy again, which was gratifying... sounds great with the EHX Bass Soul Food on Blitzkrieg Bop and Anarchy in the UK. Punktastic! First outing for the new expanded mini pedalboard - upgraded from a Nano to a Nano+, replaced the Harley Benton ISO 5 with a Cioks DC7 (lovely bit of kit) and added an EBS multidrive and a TCE Sub 'n' up to the Soul Food, Hookers Green Bass Machine and MXR chorus deluxe. The Multidrive sounds great (Tubesim setting for me) and absolutely roars with the Soul Food in front of it. Also used the Sansamp VTDI in Rock mode for the first time - Wow! Played the Sterling -> mini board -> amp board (Thumpinator -> VTDI) -> Markbass 121. O'Neills Solihull tonight with the Saturday night covers band, usually a really good gig... fingers crossed!

A bit of a quiet night - except for the bloke that bellowed FREEEEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRD at regular intervals. Not a busy pub but those that were there seemed to enjoy it. Had some issues with the Xvive IEM’s cutting in and out in the second set, and finding somewhere to put the transmitter that doesn’t wipe out either the router in the desk of my iPad for my mix is becoming a right royal PITA. I rather think I need to search for a better solution. Our sound guy had a new Allen & Heath CQ desk and WOW 😮 the difference between it and the old Behringer xAir was night and day. Everything in my IEM’s was clear and separated and but for the my system cutting in and out I was very happy on that front. Still need to get levels properly set for my mix but it bodes well.

Played the Brit club here last night, a surprisingly excellent gig. Not for any other reason than we weren’t sure how well a blues band was going down, but as it turns out very well. This is the first outing where it’s been a full evening of just us, we advertised it as an ‘evening of blues’ and an appreciative audience turned up. The guitarist introduced us with ‘if you don’t like psychedelic blues you’ve come to the wrong place’! Also first outing for the Marshall stack and sounded awesome. Went old school for this one, back line and only vocals thru the PA.

I do love a sitting gig at my age. Lovely little jazz club in SW France near where we used to live. Went down great. Percussionist couldn't make tonights gig but still worked well. Well paid, but I would have done tonights and last nights shows for nothing as the sax/keys player is gravely ill and it was simply an honour to have been asked to provide the low end on what may well be one of his last gigs.

Church Weekend away this weekend. Our sound man wins the best t-shirt competition by a country mile!

As you can see from the photos, it's a reddish brown colour. In photo 2, the sunlight coming through the window was stronger, which seemed to really make the colour brighter. I have mostly switched to Short Scale for gigging bass guitars, but the neck on this is slimmer than my P bass, and its not overly heavy at around 3.5kg. I'll hang on to this unless I come across a lightweight short scale fretless. Really enjoying playing this bass. But I promised Mrs S that I would reduce the collection. Now, someone please buy my P bass. 😀

I think most folk are happy to go and hear songs they love, played well, it doesn't really matter how many original members there are

No probs, here’s a pic of the Gator if it helps. I went to Gear4music and tried it in person, they were very helpful

My band were recently (Saturday) honored to play at the LGGF 25th anniversary ball in Birmingham. For 25 years the LGGF has been fundraising for Marie Curie and Cancer Research and this night was a very special milestone for them and they celebrated in serious style. Such a great night for us and everyone in attendance!

Some of you might recall I bought a Squier Jag H from Thomann, and it got bashed in transit, followed by a massive hoo-ha about whether or not I could keep it for a discount, discount offer was unacceptable, couldn't get a DHL "service"point to accept a parcel that size, currently waiting on a courier to come to the house to collect it. In the meantime, I managed to snag another one on eBag and here it is (next to the ill-fated charcoal one) So, I took it to a gig, and it played quite well, stock pickup is a little muddy/vague so I thought I could make it a little better. I acquired a fine replacement pickup - the Ibanez CAP dual humbucker out of an ATK810, thanks to @TheDaivisch of this very parish (arrived today, thanks mate, over and above). Today I fitted the pickup: Unfortunately, it's a chunky bugger so the pickguard doesn't quite fit over it. Gonna have to attack the pickguard with a file. Sounds good though, it's a mighty fine sounding, punchy, articulate pickup. Just wired it in series just now with the stock electronics, it will get treated to a full rewire with new pots and probably will fit a 3 way switch for series/single/parallel options, because why not. Earlier, before the pickup arrived, I did some idle scheming in the GIMP: So as you can see, I'm thinking black pickguard and some black "blocks" ie. stickers just to make it a little fancier.

Last Friday’s gig took an unexpected turn when a drunk came on stage between sets—someone none of the band knew. I later found out that he had almost certainly stepped on my Peterson pedal tuner, cracking the plastic screen. Thankfully, the LCD beneath wasn’t damaged. I reached out to Peterson’s customer service, and they were excellent—sending me a replacement screen free of charge. It’s a reminder that for every bad experience, there’s often a good one right around the corner. Peterson gear may be pricier, but their quality and customer service make it worth every penny.

The Pre and Post you mention @Frank Blank is the the Pre Ernie Ball era, so the Leo Fender era starting in 1975, because of the non compete clause after the sale of Fender to CBS in the first days of January 1965. The first instrument, the Stingray, was made in June 1976 with the Radio Knobs, a white pickguard alongside long pole magnets pickup and the last in early in March 1984 when the company was sold to Ernie Ball. The preamp was first black epoxied, so unfixable. Check this website for all the explanations needed: http://www.musicmanbass.global/ Having a 1978 2 EQ and a 1987 rosewood fretboard 3 EQ at home alongside 2 Sterling by Music Man Ray4's (a Sunburst turned into a Radio Knobs with a Nordstrand MM 4.2 pickup coupled to a Nordstrand 2B-MM preamp and a Pueblo Pink fully stock except for the pickup wired in parallel for more tone accuracy), all I can say is that the real tone of the Stingray comes from the pickup wired in parallel coupled to the 2 EQ preamp. The 3 EQ preamp is interesting, but the added midrange changes the overall tone. If you are short money wise, buy a Sterling by Music Man Ray4 and simply wire the pickup in parallel, you'll be amazed by the tone. The maple fingerboard works terrific with flatwounds and the rosewood fingerboard works very well with roundwounds. If you have the money, buy a Pre Ernie Ball, but prefer a model from 1978 on as all the original flaws have been corrected: the mutes won't cut your hands anymore, the saddles are aligned with the strings, the pickup has lost its too strong long pole magnets and the preamp is not black epoxied anymore (so fixable), but still lacks an anti reverse polarity diode and a battery switching output jack (yes the battery is always on even when it's not plugged, but the consumption of the LM4250 chipset is deliriously low and won't empty your battery before years, no kidding), but it takes 2 minutes to solve this.

Here's a picture of the CNC machine Took six months to build during lock down. The dust extraction system was my design. It took a lot of space up in the garage so it went to the school as-is. Rob

I read ( talk bass?) that Stan Clarke tours with a ply bass ( teats them as disposable). But he records with a 100+ yr old carved one. In live performance what notes you play probably counts for more than the sound ..especially if there's a pa between you and stadium! horses for courses. I only have space for one double bass and ploughed all my savings into the German brute some 35 years ago so it has to do everything. Peter and the Wolf for a church full of children today. Mingus session tomorrow.

Eh? I trust an 8 ohm cab to be an 8 ohm cab. You do, we all do! I also trust an amp to be able to run within its specified ohms range. If that is 2.67 then it is absolutely safe to run 3 x 8 ohm cabs. I have done this for years with zero failures. If you had problems you weren't within spec or your gear had other problems. It was nothing to do with the subject of 3 8 ohm cabs and amps running at 2.67 ohms.

Hoping for a repeat (Sky Arts) at a slightly earlier hour (having to get up too early for these midnight finishes...) but this looks like a great watch. Winston Reid's voice sounds magnificent!

She's Right I'm Left, our acoustic offering is back at The Harley Motor Restaurant tomorrow Saturday 5:30-8:30. Daryl

I played an Epiphone Newport the other day. I could not find anything not to like.

So, you know when you nonchalantly chuck an eBay bid on something not expecting it to get accepted... Forget about it.... Then find an email saying PayPal is taking money off you to pay eBay and you have no idea what for??! That's how you end up with this. Keep in mind I am big fan of jazz basses and stingrays. It's in a bit of a state. I have no idea if it even works. The fretboard needs a clean, well the whole thing does tbh. Going to unscrew every part, clean and rebuild over the next few weeks. No idea if it will be a keeper or not.

Founded by Gilles Peterson and James Taylor the record label became a genre. I have always loved it.. please share your favorites. I should add there are lots of Acid Jazz that are not the Acid Jazz label but are still Acid Jazz/modern Jazz Funk. This album is a classic from James imo... Andrew Mckinney on bass.

I have put together the new loom using a typical p-bass circuit. I'll finish off tomorrow and solder the white wires from the pickups to each side of the switch, and then the black wires from each plus the bridge and body lug grounds to a blob on the shell of the tone pot. If it all works first time I'll celebrate with a small glass of Bushmills 10 year old single malt. if not I'll have some troubleshooting to do. I found that the new iron made it much easier. I didn't have to hold it on the components so long to get the solder to flow. I used the lead free as I need all the brain cells I can keep hold of. Even though the original Korean pots closely resembled CTS pots I had to get out the tapered reamer to open up the holes in the control plate so the CTS ones will fit.

I can't reconcile with them being anything other than £500 bass on a good day. I don't think they're worth any more than that, whatever you rose-tinted glasses might say.

That was a very deep rabbit hole, a quite expensive rabbit hole in both time and money. Not doing that again. Printing a guitar or bass is positively sensible compared to that. Rob

I think a pool table base would be excellent. It was fun building it, wiring it though was a nightmare as it had something like a 100m of wire for end stops and motors going through the tubes. I learnt a lot, mainly not to build another one Mine would not machine aluminium billet, well it would, but at approx 0.1mm per day. Rubbing the aluminium with wet tissue paper would be quicker. It was fine on ply and softwood. I started writing a 2.5D design package for it as the ones for CNC stuff were either eye wateringly expensive or crap. I'd got as far as working out all the cut paths before I had an outbreak on sanity and realised it was a mad idea.I had quite a lot of code written but still had a long way to go. 2.5D design code is hard, 3d is even harder Rob

Guy Pratt & Gary Kemp do the Rockonteurs YT channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz902KiwFM9FthzFVd-WUlQ

This. A driver is a reactive, not a resistive load, hence the variation in impedance with frequency. Below is a typical impedance curve. You can see impedance is highest at the resonant frequency (the lowest frequency the driver is capable of reproducing). It drops to around 4 ohms through much of the useful frequency response, rising again at the upper end due to voice coil inductance. I pointed out earlier that the stated impedance of a speaker is an average (the term usually employed is mean impedance). In practice - again as stated above - there is a safety margin with any good quality amp, which means they will drive lower impedance loads as long as you don't push things (either via cranking the volume too much or presenting them with a very low impedance load). That means you don't need to worry as long as you are sensible. The danger signs are obvious - sound gets dirty, volume drops, amp gets too hot, etc.

Yes, he’s the bassist in the band. The drummer is Nick Mason of course, and so there’s the Pink Floyd connection. The keys player is Dom Beken, and the rhythm guitarist is Gary Kemp, of all people! The lead guitarist is Lee Harris who’s played with The Blockheads and Wilko Johnson as far as I remember. Cracking band, live 👍 One of my friends was the support act on their first tour. She was absolutely in awe of them, and also blown away by getting to play in all the beautiful old European theatres and outdoor performance spaces.

Stereo IEMs? I can’t hear the band in stereo with back line and neither can the audience. Surely if the mix is clear and balanced, mono should be more than adequate? In my own case, I have 5 players and 6 Aux busses. To go stereo as well as as going wireless, and do it properly £4 grand approx? That is about what we wi earn this year in total.

Ah, now I understand what you mean. That's pretty simple to do. The video is around 75% TinkerCad and 25% Prusaslicer. It's a lot easier doing what he was doing in TinkerCad in Fusion 360. Once it's in F360, a lot of his alignment in PrusaSlicer goes away as well. He had a very laborious way of alignment and setting things up. However all said and done, he did make a nice phone case, I hadn't thought of changing the infill at different heights to get the flexibility. I'm normally trying to make things as rigid as possible so that was a good idea. The downside to this is that constantly changing the filament is painfully slow with a MMU (Multi Material Unit) as it's manual. Until recently Prusa's MMU was seen as a joke, an expensive joke, the new MMU might be a lot better. However doing a large number of filament changes makes the printing very slow. I have an issue that where I have my two printers, doesn;t allow enough space for the MMU as it takes a lot of space up as well. None of this is that difficult, I might do a Union Jack this weekend to check what I thought was right is actually right. I also happen to have red, white and blue filaments close to hand and open If it spurs some ideas for you thats great. Thanks for sharing the video Rob

Voice Coils impedance varies with frequency; multimeters read DC , that is zero Hz.

I think that’s because they’re free to experiment and enjoy the material not slavishly stick to it like tribute bands do. Ive not seen them but a friend who did said the musicians looked like they loved it!

Watching the Funk Bass GOAT piece it's interesting because I always found Zender's lines so completely intuitive to play - not saying I do so with any aplomb - while the guy on the left describes how he finds them less so. I mentioned Zender as one of my key influences on here about 10 years back and I think a few folks replied suggesting that he was a plagiarist as opposed to an innovator (although the same could and probably has been said of the whole band), but I hear more in his playing than I ever heard in the funk players he was alleged to have borrowed from. Stunning player, especially given how young he was at the time 👍

I'm a big fan! They're a bit different from your usual widdle-meisters because they have a definite sense of fun and put on a bit of a show... And besides, who needs melody? That's for boy bands

Some cracking stuff has been released on Acid Jazz, though worth noting that Acid Jazz records was founded by Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller, and not James Taylor. Eddie Piller helped Jay Kay in the early years, and (a version of) this track was originally released on Acid Jazz before being re-released on Sony…

Multimeter DC ohm resistance across the driver is roughly 3/4 of the averaged cabinet acoustic impedance seen by an amp. So don't let a 6ohm DCR on an 8 ohm cab scare you.

Here we go - "Escape the Internet" tour - I hope it works for them - it's a sort of 2020s version of G3!

i see his main strat went for $910,000 dollars and was donated to the national museum of Ireland