Leaderboard

Rescued this from a pal’s studio, dusty and not working. Actually only needed a good clean, a tweak of the jack terminals, and a new mini switch. Put an old set of medium gauge Fender flats on, and tweaked the action over a day or two. Plays beautifully, balances well on a strap, and the series/parallel sounds from the Dimarzio pickup are very usable. I’ll be gigging it soon. Dry happy to bring such a lovely piece of woodwork back to life. The odd shape actually makes perfect sense when you’re playing it.

Played at our monthly local pub residency last night with the acoustic duo. By the time we’d got set up it was rammed, standing room only etc. Plenty of requests as a result with many of a Halloween nature, including ‘Don’t fear the reaper’, ‘Spooky’, ‘Bad moon rising’, and ‘Highway to hell’. Finished off with the inevitable ‘Bat out of hell’ which we managed without laughing too. Took my usual Ibanez electro acoustic and also a Squier SS Jaguar that a mate of mine wanted me to try. Plugged it straight into our Yamaha powered mixer and it sounded fine so ended up using that just for a change. Nice not having to worry about feedback for once, found it quite liberating! Not sure about how it fits in with the ‘acoustic duo’ image though, so don’t think it will become a regular thing.

So. 75% of my basses gravitate around Precision basses or Stingrays, 90% FSO's. I'm in a new band and I enquired about some builds with folk we all know and respect. A fair £1300 quote came back, that even if fair, is much more than I want to spend these days. So... I budgeted about half of that to build my own - I've seen past guitarist spray nitros and do a decent job out of it, but I want to open this thread to triple check as I'll have questions (plenty, mostly surrounding paint). First, the inspo: An update on a Precision bass, mid relic in Sherwood Green. DISCLAIMER: this is NOT an accurate period correct project. Ingredients: * Roasted maple jazz neck with rosewood board. From eBay China, I had my reservations but 4.9/5 stars and a description that the maker provides for 'other factories' kinda won me over. For the money, I'm willing to take the risk - thinking the worst thing with it may be a fret edges sanding? Not too pricey if all else is in place. * guitarbuild.co.uk 3 piece body, in swamp ash, classic P shape, 1.8kg. A bit steep, but again happy to 'indulge' on this, especially for the weight. Research tells me most alder is around 2/2.2kg, and other swamp ash bodies I've seen were a heavier 2.5kg. * Thomann order: Gotoh res-o-lite tuners, EMG Geezer Butler P, knobs, neck plate, Gotoh 201B bass bridge. Now paint/finish, and here comes my first questions - after looking on northwest guitars info: * Rustins Grain filler, natural - recommended since swamp ash has lots of grain uniformity * Rustins Sanding Sealer vs Clear nitrocellulose sanding sealer - are both of these the same? do I need one and not the other? * Nitro gray primer, instead of white, hoping that helps the sherwood green darken? I want that 'almost' racing green look like the picture. * Nitro sherwood green - I went for the V1 here, as opposed to the V2 which looks a bit more turquoise. * Nitro clear gloss, for the body, as I want that glossy sheen rather than matt (again, picture for reference). Some simple questions: * How to apply grain filler? Planning to rub it in with a cloth * Do I need both sanding sealers? Rustins and/or aerosol one... * At which stages do I sand the body? Thinking Once I receive the body, as it comes After applying the grain filler After applying first primer (how many coats?) I understand no need with the sherwood green nor clear coats (how many of each?) High grit ala 2000 after all is finished for the glossy effect? I will then proceed to age the hardware and sand down areas rubbed, scratches, dings and dents etc but won't consider that until that is finished. Same for the neck, I don't think I'll rough it up much but good to take that in carefully. Some pictures of what I've got on the way.

As not everyone will naturally read a Gibson FS ad (can't think why), this is to draw your attention to a fundraiser to help BC stalwart Andy Travis and his daughter Iris. See within this ad. Cheers Clarky https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/503434-gibson-“the-ripper”-1976/ ... and here is the JustGiving link https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mark-clark-3

Two & a half years!! Two & a half months would be too long. I’m in three covers bands, in all of them the policy is A. Plenty of numbers in the bank so we can mix and match according to the audience and B. Constantly add new numbers. The later is for several reasons 1. We don’t want to bore ourselves 2. We don’t want to bore an audience who see us more than once and 3. There’s so many good songs in this world, why restrict yourself!

I wonder if the custom shop could replicate this bass of mine The wear under the G string is casued by my third finger digging in when I play with a pick (mostly I play with a pick) This bass has done a lot of gigs in its 34 years with me. The wood is actually gouged out, not just the finish It's actually a '73 not a'75 (I have the original bridge with the long screw for the G string intonation)

Ok, this board can be signed off as done now. Changes from last time are the Cog 66 and TC Corona being replaced with a Schu-Tone ‘FLOverdrive’ (BB Bass Preamp clone), and a Schu-Tone ‘Finn Chorus’…both named for my kids. Add a couple of Barefoot Button Tallboys to make the switching more reasonable in the cramped conditions…plus a stacked Mooer switch topper for the tuner. The Barefoot buttons were necessary due to the Mooers not fitting the smaller SPST switches on the Schu-Tones…relay switching and all that. All on a PT Nano, powered by a Cioks Sol. Cheers Si

ok I can explain………. am well I got a dope priest…….and Jhs sent me a flight delay…..

Yeyyy it's here - and it turns out I can use a tape measure after all, it fits perfectly! I had a brain wave last minute and had the handle moved to the centre of the lid so that it stays flat when moving.

https://amzn.eu/d/2UuJoHo rechargeable transmitter / receiver in real plastic wood (thanks Peppa pig) cheap as chips and worked right out of the box. (Once paired) no noticeable latency or noise

As someone who has had no trouble finding bands at ~60: Find your local music scene and speak to people, and jam when you can. Don't be afraid to use social media. Don't be too precious about what you will or won't play, especially at first, a band needs to get a couple of sets together to get gigging and start building a reputation, once that's done you can refine your offering.

It’s pretty similar for me, we started my last band when I was 48 thinking a few Tues/Weds gigs, turned out to be so much more. I think being a bit more advanced in years and no longer interested in the free beer in the dressing rooms we just had a much more professional approach to it which enabled us to proceed quite well. Helped of course by writing some pretty decent songs too. But imo the main thing is to have someone driven steering things. With the same songs but me at the helm rather than our instigator we’d probably have done 10 gigs in 6 years and never recorded a thing, rather than the 200 plus gigs all over the country and Europe, plus the four albums and a few EPs. Drive and focus essential.

I've ordered some La Bella Low Tension Flats to try. I've been curious about them for a while so hopefully I like them!

James Oliver with Mark Kemlo and Norman Watt-Roy at the 100 Club.

Hey guys, Some more info for you. We have Warwick and Sadowsky confirmed as exhibitors as well as Ashdown, Chowny Bass, The Vintage Bass Room, Barnes and Mullins and Rotosound. Also have Steve Lawson and Scott’s BL confirmed as well, with hopefully 2 sessions each day in the clinic room (tbc later) I'll add more info as it becomes avaliable.

The other thing I have come to realise now that I'm in my mid 60s is that age is less important than overall fitness and health.

The SB-1000 has some pretty crazy tone circuitry. I don't know of any other non-Aria basses that are similar. You can buy a replacement preamp (or at least you could a few years ago) on Ebay, made by a chap that used to be on here but I've not heard from in ages (Prostheta). As for the 6-position tone switch, there are/were diagrams to be found on the Internet with the cap values. It's quite complicated if you're going to make one up yourself. I have a 1980 "batwing" SB-1000 btw Edit: this might be useful reading, on a site that is my last known hang-out of Prostheta, who is the real expert in these basses https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/49256-aria-pro-2-sb1000/?page=2

Can't do much when someone is not a team player. A shield around him could be a good idea. It doesn't need to be transparent 😉

So the dreaded return to the Monthly Misery place fell through (I didn't ask why, but it's always nice to get through a gig without the 5-0 making an appearance, so gift horses and mouths, etc) and we ended up doing a last-minute return gig at the Weasel Dust Palace in Burnley. We had our guest girl singer (who is very very good) and her presence means lots of changes to the setlist, which is a breath of fresh air. Most of the crowd were in Halloween fancy dress (tricky to tell some nights in Burnley, but I'm pretty sure this was the case), and it was a chemically-assisted (on the part of a lot of the crowd) Banging Night. Stooopid late finish, tho (the landlord wants bands on at 11pm), and because you play at the far end of the dance floor, the punters encroach as you're packing up: the drummer shifted his drum bags to his car, came back for his carpet, and there were three girls dancing on it... Satdy was a house party/birthday at a huuuge house on the West coast part of the Wirral (the posh bit of the Wirral where they get out of the bath for a wee), very nice people, catered, free bar (obviously, seeing as I had 70 miles to drive home...pfffttt...), nice early start to go with the extra hour later. This one was remarkable in that we lost the left hand PA top (we were using 2 x RCF 12s and the 12 sub, no amps and triggered kit) at the start of the second set, and nobody noticed. Nobody at all, other than the three of us. I turned the right hand top to point more directly at the dance floor and they all carried on oblivious... Lightweight cheapo P, Stomp, inears...