Leaderboard

This arrived about an hour ago. Keeper. Just put flats on it. Amazing tone, sustain, intonation, playability- yep 👍 well done Yamaha taking it to studio tomorrow- first gig Saturday

The Abbey regularly run music events, usually of a classical bent but also pop, poetry, bugles of The Rifles, etc. etc.. Our drummer (who lives near Shrewsbury) negotiated and persuaded the Abbey to try our Blues show. The business manager who is into music had seen us in another Shrewsbury venue so knew what they were getting. The money side was a complex arrangement of costs, equal shares and then door split, about 290 tickets sold, we organised the online tickets. The sound was challenging. Usually we are playing to about 100+ audiences, pa takes vocals only, we play to the volume of the sax and trumpet, i.e. deliberately lowish volume. The PA was at its limit in the Abbey, they also took feeds off vocals, guitar and the horns which went into small satellite speakers throughout the building. The delays due to the speaker separation and the reverb from the roof and altar behind us were very noticeable. Really tight stops in numbers ended up being `blurred`. If we did it again, we would hire in a sound engineer who knows the venue and has the kit to manage delays. We chose no to at the time since the whole venture was a bit of a financial unknown. The Abbey were more than happy with the number of tickets sold, significantly more than the target. We now have the (nice) problem of choosing RCF 945s or 932s since the `war chest` has been topped up. On a personal note, it was the largest audience I have played to since 1982. I only dropped two noticeable clangers and played my way out of them. In another number some solid bass playing dug our irons out of the fire. Live music, stuff happens or doesn't . A good night at the office.

After being unceremoniously fired from my nascent pop rock band it was nice to play a no-pressure, little gig for an old friend. Slightly awkward as the rhythm guitarist from this band is still in the pop rock band that fired me, but there's not too many hard feelings between us as it's the singer who's the problem. Well, he'll tell you that I'm the problem, so fair enough. The guitarist in my old hard rock band (that still gigs very occasionally) was turning 50 and he had assembled pretty much every musician he'd ever been in a band with to play a couple of songs each at his birthday party. Guitarists, eh? "What should I do for may party? Make everybody watch me play, because I'm GREAT!" The hard rock band did 5 or 6 numbers, but we were joined by said birthday boy's 15 year old son on drums as our old drummer is incommunicado these days. I also played with another band of his where the singer couldn't make it so the bass player stepped on to lead vocals, only to find that some songs were tricky to play and sing at the same time, so I filled in on bass for 3 songs there too. Good fun, nice to play a show again as I currently don't have a band, although one is in the works. Rig was a Warwick Thumb, into my HX Stomp and we used my QSC wedge as backline as it was also the keys and edrums 'amp' for stage volume. Weird to play a gig where not everyone has in ears these days, but the keyboardist hadn't played in 20 years and the drummer is a literal child, so I guess sometimes you have to do things the old fashioned way! Videos from soundcheck/messing around. I don't know why they're so bad, my wife has a great phone and does social media for a living, but it really struggled with the lights for some reason.

Sunday at Shrewsbury Abbey. Getting something approaching a good sound was a challenge, a negative reverb feature would have helped considerably. Apart from my cables, the kit is all BC supplies (SG bass, Ashdown EVO combo), no effects just as it is. Hands got cold in the first set despite the heating (hmm) being on, being gentlemen of age we all found the temperature challenging. Aptly started with "Burning Hell" and ended with "John the Revelator" into "Let the good times roll". Pretty well filled the Abbey so a good result. Playing pic to follow.

0750 this morning in my garden... Just stopped now.

A couple of months ago, my eldest son was just starting his BTEC music course at high school, but didn't at that point play an instrument, so he needed to choose something..... Being a super cool kid, he obviously chose bass! 😅👌🥳❤️ He's just turned 15, what a great age to start! (I was 14) I was going to sell this cool little Ibanez GAXB150, but I gifted it to him instead. 😉 Some of his best pals are on the course too, and they've got a band going already, and have been super committed, and working hard to get where they want to be. They've even got their first performance at school next week! He's loving old school thrash metal, so we're off to see Anthrax this week too! 🤘😎 Happy times!

⅞, for example... 😁

I'm hoping my boy will have a passion for music too. Whatever he chooses to be passionate about, I'll support him. But obviously music would be great! He's already got his own little drum kit that he loves, fairly competent using the pedal and sticks... not bad for a 20 month old!

Had a great gig with STRAY at The Stables in Milton Keynes. We put ourselves under a bit of pressure with four numbers we’d hardly ever played or hadn’t played at all. I used my new BF Supertwin (thanks @JGSpector and GK MB500 plus a full in ear mix - the back line was for my other band members! Was the best gig we’ve played there and the second set in particular was smoking’! (IMHO!) A couple of acousticcy numbers gave me the rare chance to air my Epiphone Rumblekat which was nice. All filmed for posterity as well!

As I mentioned in the DIY Effects thread, I've recently purchased an Aion FS-50B kit from Musikding - The kit is based on the pretty awesome sounding amp used by players like Bob Weston from Shellac and David Wm Sims from The Jesus Lizard. It's a 50watt solid state amp from the late 70s/early 80s I believe, and has a pretty big following in alternative music, especially for recording. The Tronographic Rusty Box pedal is based on the same amp and used to great effect by Adam Devonshire in the Bristolian behemoth that is Idles. Think snarly, mid heavy growl but thick and chunky and you're in the right ballpark. It took couple of weeks for the kit to arrive from Germany, and when it did arrive it was sans enclosure - I had a card in the box saying it was on backorder. A bit annoying seeing as I had to chase the guys from Musikding up to see if the kit had been posted (They say allow up to 7 working days for the kit to be marked as shipped but I didn't hear anything for 8 days so dropped them an email which seemed to get the ball rolling). Hopefully it won't be long before the enclosure arrives 🤞 Kit looks decent, all quality parts with the PCB being a really nice matte finish, all components organised into bags and the hookup wire has been recut and part stripped so it should be easy to hookup once I get the enclosure. 1. Ready to rock and roll! I printed the instructions out from the pdf, everything is really comprehensive. 2. The PCB comes with a perforated link that you can snap apart if needed, hopefully I'll be able to keep it all in one piece within the enclosure and just run the jumper wires for power and signal to the main part to the power/switch part. 3. All nicely organised - FYI all pots have plastic covers which helps avoid any accidental grounding to the soldered side of the PCB 4. I always start adding parts from smallest to largest, so it's resistors up first! 5. Even though all values are labelled, I still double check them with a multimeter just to be sure as I've been caught out with this in the past. Thankfully these were all spot on. 6. It also helps my brain if I check the values off the list when I've soldered them in. I tend to solder 3-5 parts at the same time but depends - If there's loads of the same value I'll do all of them together. 7. Working through them all... 8. With added inductors (These look like larger resistors in the bottom left) and diodes - only 3 small ones in this circuit. 9. Capacitor time! Again working from smallest to largest, I tend to add ceramic/film caps first then electrolytics at the end 10. Once they're in, it's time for transistors and ICs. I pretty much always socket transistors and always socket the ICs - It's a lot easier to swap them at a later date if needed but more importantly they're really sensitive to heat and it can be easy to cook a transistor. So sockets in first. I also added the big ass power supply chip (TEC 2-0923) in the bottom left of the smaller board. Never used on of these before, but it's a one stop shop for converting 9V DC to 15V DC. 11. All ready for the trannies! 12. That's the board pretty much as far as I can go without the enclosure - I tend to add the pots and switches to the enclosure and then add the PCB to that before soldering all in place, it makes it much easier than soldering them to the board then finding out they're misaligned!

Thanks for the various likes and comments everyone. Much appreciated! A bit more done. Its going back together nicely. So far... Neck back on. Bridge fitted. The various metal plates back in position New jack plate fitted. Old strap button holes plugged with toothpicks & glue. I'm waiting on new covers for the pickups. Someone up the thread suggested cream/white and I like that idea. I'm also waiting for pickup screws and a step drill bit to ream out the tuner holes.The new Grovers are a fair bit more substantial than the original own brand Hondo ones. I hope to have it finished by the end of the month, if all the various bits arrive.

Tried is at rehearsal yesterday its a keeper I think the key is to not get carried away with a million presets the Bassman 300 clean is very Mike Dirnt and it'd damn loud. Not the wats mean a lot buts its 400w at @ohm (internal) 800w with ext which I can't see needing. Editing is easy without the app. Footpedal is tough and it's a one hand carry. Pub gig this Sat rock and metal covers a proper test further reports to follow. Stealth

Thank you! The top knob was pushed on too far, I pulled it up a little and loosened it now it works fine.

Sounds to me like the Sumo is very insensitive requiring you to drive the Preamp into distortion. The GSS website is appalling. No mention of input sensitivity, no online user manual, no real spec at all. Also don't believe the Class D denyers. They have probably worked out so much to carry their SVTs that their thought processes have been distorted🤣

I think beauty in basslines comes from a sense of melody - not just defining the chords and rhythm by moving through the root notes, but finding a tuneful line that is compatible with, but different from, the main melody of the song. It's counterpoint, basically, so a study of that would be a good starting point. My perception is that to feel beautiful, the bass needs to define a more complex chordal form - getting some seconds, thirds, sixths and sevenths in there as well as the 1-4-5. That means understanding harmony to some extent. I think a study of basslines that feel beautiful would also pick up the use of ornaments and incidentals - extra little details that highlight parts of a melody and adjust the harmony temporarily.

I want to try posca pens, I've done paint then transfer paper, vinyl stickers and more recently metal stamping. Also want to try proper UV printing

Managed to pick up a boxed barely-touched Novation Mininova for an excellent price. They're smaller keys, but more of them, and it's polyphonic just in case I fancy doing something daring, like learn to play keys properly

My daughter plays bass. She took on my first bass when I upgraded. Over the last four years, she's got far better than me. Her alternative rock band have played a ton of gigs this year after winning a battle of the bands competition. She's just started a commercial music degree at Bath uni so now playing lots every day.

For me, playing in a band was all about the sound of the whole band as one. I'd get my moments to shine but if I was concerned about expressing my emotions I'd have chosen to play guitar. The bass is about putting in the groove and making people move.

I was away with Mrs Norris last week visiting her brother before he retires from foreign parts. I don't know if I picked up something on the plane back, but have had a worsening cold ever since we set foot back in Blighty. So Saturday I felt like death warmed up. Not quite bad enough to call the gig off, but definitely lacking in energy. It was actually a pretty decent gig. We got them up dancing, which hasn't happened there before. The landlord was very pleased. I had put a new set of D'Addario Pro Steels on my Sire P7-5 for the first time in two years. It sounded great (Boss GT-6B into my Fender Rumble v3 500 combo) - nice to have a bit of twang again. No photos because I felt like cr*p and couldn't wait to get home to bed. So then I woke up this morning feeling a little bit better, but couldn't speak! The cold, phlegm, etc. has moved onto my vocal chords, so all I could do was whisper and squeak. This afternoon was planned to be an "acoustic" gig, as it's a small pub and could easily be far too loud otherwise. With my vocals not working it was an extra stripped-down gig - literally just my Stagg EUB straight into the Rumble and a clip-on tuner. It was actually great fun and we tackled a lot of random requests from the crowd (Hotel California, Ziggy Stardust to name a couple). The EUB is fun to play - lots of silly phrases and slides to put off the guitar/vocalist. Oh, and the landlady booked us because it was her one year anniversary of taking over the pub, even though we only played there a few weeks ago and have another in the book for next month. It's always nice to be the landlady's favourite band 😁

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've done quite a bit to the bass. I decided to leave the finish as is, so I gave it a bit of a buffing which left it nicely battle scarred. Its been rewired and the cavity shielded as you can see from the pics. I wish I could say I was this good at soldering, but I'm not. I paid someone to do it. The neck has been stripped, sanded and tru- oiled, I've also put new frets in (currently in the process of de sharpening the fret ends, which is thereaputic). I clear coated the fingerboard, not that you can see it here for the masking tape. I also handily managed to dot some superglue on it (the fingerboard) at various points during the refret, so there will need to be a bit more sanding and clearcoating done, I think. One quite nice touch, I needed to make the fret slots a little bit deeper, and I found an old fret saw of my fathers (who was a very handy amateur carpenter) which acomplished the task nicely. The old man has been dead for nearly forty years, but I like to think he was smiling at me from somewhere whilst I was doing this... What else...I've bought a set of SD Curlee accurate Grover machine heads and I found an old Gotoh P bass bridge in my bits box which will fit the bass nicely. I need to get a step drill to ream out the tuner holes. The original Hondo tuners were in pretty bad shape, one was entirely knackered, and the other three were pretty ropey forty years ago when they were put on the bass, so best replaced.

I was asked to take pics of the innards. In answer to your question, I think it does. It has a good usable drive, and a very flexible EQ section. I've used it as a preamp and as a distortion pedal.

Obviously a few bits not original but is suspect this is an awesome bass: https://thebassgallery.com/collections/bass-new-arrival/products/hybrid-p

OTM was a standard finish option for several MIJ Fender basses for years. It's a shame they don't use it more, it's so tasty! I'm with @BassAgent though. When I Google aged OTM most results have a more blueish hue. I think it might very well be an aged sherwood green finish. The Fender Custom Shop do a finish they call "faded aged sherwood green" which looks like this:

Little grub screw holding the knob(s) to the shaft(s)? Slacken the screw of the top knob and lift a little, then tighten the screw... looks like its just resting to tightly on the lower half...

I think it used to be Sherwood Green.

No you don't. Just sing. IME singing puts the least number of barriers between "intent" and "performance". And when you have sung something that you like, play it on the bass.

I've gone for the Entwistle Neodymium job. Before they put their prices up too! Thanks to everyone who contributed to https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/235314-entwistle-bass-pickups Tonerider is probably still a great pickup too, but a 40% price hike in one go is a bit harsh, left a sour taste.

I was once recognised in a Morrison's supermarket. Does that count?

Bargain that is. Literally everything you need (and adjustable) in one small lightweight box. Fantastic. I love my 210 combo. Haven't tried the class d head, but I'm sure the sounds will be great.

I wrote to Yamaha over a year ago to suggest they capitalize on the Revstar and make a short scale bass version, pointed out the success of the JMJ and Joe Dart ss etc.. got a polite reply from the European distributor, I doubt the suggestion made it to Japan though

Great to hear. It's always good to see children follow in their parents footsteps. I'm sure he'll have a blast. Our son took up drums quite some time ago and is also our drummer, which we all appreciate.

Think most people start around that age, it was the age I started to play bass too. Yep, Anthrax, roll on Saturday.

Well, my youngest plays drums, and the middle one has just started teaching himself guitar, so the three of them were jamming the other night! Basic, but they were making music! 👌

It's not mine but this is for sale here in the Netherlands and I'm sooooooo tempted. Fender CS 1960 gold sparkle.

We were at the soon to close York Vaults last night for a couple of hours of Nirvana anthems and deep cuts. A proper little dive bar, full house at about 130 people. It was loud, hot and sweaty. Absolute perfection 👌 Weapons of choice, ‘97 Tbird, ‘74 Ripper, Hiwatt and Barefaced 610.

Hi Mickey. Yes you are correct. That is a Lakland USA 'Bob Glaub' 44-64 which I bought from @three in 2021. I don't really get on with full fat P necks, which appears to be sacrelige to some apparently (including one bass player at the gig last night), but it's an outstanding bass and fits the Queen vibe nicely. As good as the Lakland is, it's really there as a back up to the black Shuker on the other side which I used for the gig. [the black one is actually a JJ Burnel signature, but no-one notices] I've asked Jon to build me a natural looking P to take the place of John Deacon's stripped P (which he later refinished in black). Hopefully that should be ready in 2025. Another year of gear abstinence failure 🤷‍♂️. Cab is obviously a Barefaced Big Twin (Gen 3). The amp is Darkglass Electronics Microtubes 900 v2 Limited Edition 'Euryale'. The pedal board looks unnecessary and it mostly is for this gig. The only things on it I use for Queen is the Shure GLX wireless and the FEA Dual Band Compressor Limiter. The other pedals I use for other bands. I'm too lazy to keep chopping and changing pedals 😂.