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Another trip up to The Lookout on the Pier in Scarborough for our acoustic duo last night. The bad weather had subsided and it was very mild so an easy drive there. Usual capacity crowd in this small cafe bistro venue, lots of familiar faces so a nice atmosphere. Christmas decs up in the room, and some of the boats in the harbour had lights on as well. Lots of requests, mainly more old stuff from a more err….mature audience. These songs included ‘This Masquerade’ , ‘Africa’ ( I really have to concentrate singing the harmony in this one whilst trying to remember the bassline), and one of my favourites, Springsteen’s ’If I should fall behind’. Audience were very enthusiastic, and we did an encore of ‘Sultans of Swing’ ( which went on a bit but made more interesting for me by a small trawler coming in to moor up just by the window behind us). We’ve just been offered a regular load of gigs for 2025 in this great venue. It’s a 100 mile round trip for us but never a problem, so really pleased. Ibanez PCBE12 into Rumble 100 combo / DI into PA. Clarks black suede chukka boots, size 10.

Holidays throw a serious monkey wrench into the delivery system. So next week this should be here.

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Fundraising gig for International Women's Day at Edinburgh's Wee Red Bar last night. Pretty packed, lots of people dancing and a great vibe. VID-20241125-WA0000.mp4

I recently scored this SB700 on ebay for a rather ridiculous price. There is an issue with the jack socket though and it needs a tweak to the wiring inside to make the switch work properly. I've always wanted an old Aria, due to some of my bass influences playing them. Cliff, Neil Murray, Rudy Sarzo etc... I know that a lot of those guys played the 1000/ elites etc.., but I'm a died in the wool passive kind of chap lol It's a September 1981 if the serial decoders are correct. I really enjoy the feel of the neck - meaty without being fat, and quite wide as well but not uncomfortable in the slightest.

As an addendum to Satdy night's thoroughly Meh gig, I witnessed one of the most extraordinary shows of indifference I've ever seen; I've played for a very long time in all sorts of venues and, like most of us, have experienced many types of indifference: the Working Men's Club Institutional indifference(1), the Wrong Band In The Wrong Pub Indifference(2), the Wrong Couple On The Wrong Night Indifference(3), the Passive Aggressive Offended Indifference(4) and many others, but this bloke was something else: he sat off to one side, on his own, drinking steadily but not quickly, looking across the room. No paper, no book - at one point I had to check he didn't have earbuds in and an audiobook on the go - nothing to entertain him but his own company. He'd glanced at the band as we were setting up, and then completely ignored us for the rest of the evening. It got to the point where I was trying to catch his eye to give him a thumbs-up or something, anything to provoke a reaction, but nope, nothing. As we were packing down he finished his pint (possibly his third or fourth, it's not like he was there for a session) and left. Very odd. (1) The one where everyone yaps incessantly to each other all the way through the first set, and then if you drop a plectrum during the bingo you get shushed and tutted as they concentrate on winning that late-dated hamper that's been dusted down especially...they might get up for the last song for a stilted dance if you're lucky, and then bizarrely at the end tell you at the bar that they thought the band were great... (2) You can feel this one coming a mile off from the clientele's dress sense/age, and they've made the same assessment of you at the same time. Works at both ends of the age spectrum. See also 'That NYE the agent booked our semi-acoustic trio as a 7-piece Soul Band' (3) That couple that sit at a table right where the PA speaker's being set up, but refuse to move and spend the rest of the night alternately rolling their eyes and hollering across the table at each other... (4) OK, this one's fairly specific, but I had a bloke come up to me before a gig and tell me my bass was 'All wrong; it's got the wrong neck' - this was the Shukerbird, and he wouldn't hear about Leon Wilkeson or John Entwistle, he went back to the bar and spent the rest of the evening standing sideways to the room, except when people were applauding, when he turned to face the band and didn't move...

Just wanted to say thank you to all at BC who have helped me with advice over the last few years on here All my main bass gear is now sold and gone and the final small bits are slowly going or advertised on here. I feel very happy with my decision to quit playing especially live and I will enjoy playing my acoustic guitar at home and concentrate on enjoying a non gigging life. Once again thank you to all of you who have purchased gear from me and to all my BC buddies on here

Thanks for being a supporting member 👍 Do stick around and help others with your experience

A different gig today - Monday! Government evening party. We weren't in the best shape, although we had lots of rehearsals, and the setlist was ready two or three weeks ago. It wasn't the easiest place, somewhat reverbing, but the worst was that I couldn't hear others on the other side of the stage. Two long sets, quite some people. There was too much light, and people were a bit shy to get to the floor. But our singers were in very good mood, and made the evening.

Sadly I can't now make the SOLD OUT 'Young Gun Silver Fox' gig at Islington Assembly Hall on Saturday night. https://islingtonassemblyhall.co.uk/events/young-gun-silver-fox-30th-nov-islington-assembly-hall-london-tickets/ If you like classic 'West Coast/Rock n Soul' you will love them. Think Hall & Oates meets Doobie Brothers..... If anyone would like to buy my ticket from me I will donate the money to @AndyTravis daughter Iris' fund (as discussed extensively elsewhere). The ticket is just £20 and I can transfer in the Ticketmaster App.

Hello friends! There hasn’t been anything new in this thread for a long time, so I remember to post to you recordings of my pickups and preamp on a fretless jazz bass. Happy listening! Fretless JB + MultiTone pickups_preamp - example 1.mp3 Fretless JB + MultiTone pickups_preamp - example 2.mp3 Fretless JB + MultiTone pickups_preamp - RAV VAST.mp3 Fretless JB + MultiTone pickups_preamp - ethno1.mp3

So, finally got around to dropping a little sound demo of the Tone Mallet, & IMO? It sounds pretty damn great! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCzoKvSR1cb/?igsh=N203dW12dWlwY3Qw

Saw this on Coda Musics website, favoured maple neck whereas the majority of Mustang basses are rosewood, and pretty much spot on 7lbs, two major factors for my choices nowadays. Plus I can add some Hipshot Ultralite tuners and shave off a bit more so a 6lb-something bass, result. Out of the box the set up is nice, good even, and though I don’t usually like Fender strings it both plays and sounds good. I’ll have no use for the Jazz pickup on its own but the Precision pickup and both pickups together are difficult to choose between, each being really nice. Just have to make sure my arthritic thumb is ok with the neck, at first try it feels slightly thicker than my Japanese Mustangs so next few days I’ll be putting in the hours to make sure. Am sure I’ll keep it, intention is to swap the pickguard to black, and replace the string tree with a Hipshot triple retainer to encourage a better break angle for the A string. I was thinking about the bridge as well but it’s perfectly solid enough and given that I now play with a much gentler touch I’m not fussed about it not having any guiding grooves so it’s staying.

Wow, quite a while since this thread was active. Just thought I would post a pic of the guts of my Nordstrand, which may be of interest to owners who haven’t opened their bass up yet. I decided to change the strings on mine after over two years! The original D’Addarios were still going strong but I had a set of Labella flats lying around, which I wanted to try. I decided to augment the shielding with some copper tape, as there was a bit of hum (not that bad). There was a small piece of copper tape already, which was bridging the graphite paint shielding to the foil on the pickguard. My efforts haven’t really made it perceptibly quieter TBH. I probably should have covered the whole cavity but I was about to run out of tape. A few points to note: the wheel to adjust the truss rod at the bottom of the neck is retained by a cross head screw. I didn’t know it at the time I had the guard off but there was no movement left to tighten the neck, which became necessary with the extra tension of the flats. When I reassembled everything and put the flats on, I thought the rod had jammed. This led me to take it to my local luthier who discovered that by loosening the retaining screw, you can get loads more adjustment in the rod (phew, relief) but you have to remove the pickguard to do it, which is a pain. There isn’t enough room to get a cross head driver in there without damaging the pickguard and the front pickup cover. Unfortunately, the StewMac Tele neck adjustment wrench won’t work because it’s for straight slot screws. Point two: the luthier told me he has had a number of Acinonyx in because the pickup height adjustment would no longer work. If you look at the picture you can clearly see the underside of the pickups. The screws go directly into the metal base of the pickups. This quickly loses its thread apparently and in the worst cases, the pickups just drop down under pressure from the springs. It hasn’t happened to mine but I have hardly touched them. Larger screws could work as a fix for a while, before the fault repeats itself. A permanent fix involves attaching captive nuts to the base plate, which is very fiddly, or rebuilding the pickup with a new base plate. The luthier makes his own pickups and he was not very complimentary about the build quality of the Acinonyx examples. That said, I like the way they sound and touch wood, I haven’t had any issues with mine. BTW, said luthier has also had one case of the switches failing. Again I’ve been lucky so far but I think, if it did happen, I would be inclined to replace the pickup selector with a 4 position Strat/Tele style switch (I don’t need a mute) and the tone with a rotary Varitone switch but of course, I would need a custom pickguard to be made.

Yeah, hopefully you’ll stick around, good luck

👆 what Ped said.

Ibanez sr premium pair

Played Daltons in Brighton on Saturday at an all day doom fest. Weather was suitably rainy, windy and the sea well rough, but great crowd and vibe. First time out with our new drummer which was cool and got some great compliments on delivery as a band afterwards which was cool. I was a Muppet though and left the back up preamp on on my board, which meant I couldn't quite dial in the tone I wanted....until I finished the set. Anyway, good fun all the same. That's it for the year for me.

Last nights gig with punk covers band Emergency Exit in The Cave went pretty well. Few mistakes as we have been winding the band down with this possibly being the last gig altho there was some discussion amongst the longer serving members last night about possibly continuing provided there are some new songs added to the set list and some other/more gigs added. Who knows where it will end up. I'm the new guy and being the bassist just go wherever the flow takes me. Decent wee crowd, very appreciative with several calls for encores at the end. (Please note the audience are not aware the band might be folding.) Anyhow it was a good night. First set i decided to dust off my Geddy Jazz which was great to play but i forgot the Markbass strings i fitted a few yrs back always seemed to get lost in the mix no matter what bass i had them on. 2nd set i went back to the Godin PJ mostly just using it in P position and it was a lot deeper but just lacked that mid boost to cut thru altho my wife did say it was deeper but she could hear the notes quite clearly and much preferred that tone. Ideally a P bass with a narrow neck would suit me better but the Godin does sound pretty close. It does have quite a nice neck on it too. Wondering if getting a pan pot added might work better with the 4 way switch for parallel and serios positions if that is even possible. Usual Mesa TT800 in Boogie channel into Mesa SW210/115 cabs. Dave

@Shockwave Personally, I'd source a super cheap audio interface (ie a used Focusrite Scarlet 2i2 or anything that's listed on the for sale ads here), then jack that into your laptop by USB. It's the easiest way (and you'll be able to use it for recording/tracking in future, should the need arise); headphones into the interface or laptop. Sorted! While all these matchbox sized things will probably work, they'll struggle and frankly it's wasted £££.

Yep, they were designed to intimidate as much as to operate. It works. When we saw the final flight, the image that came to mind as I watched it bank towards the shoreline was of the battle dragons in the Lord of the Rings movies, it really is a very ominous shape in flight, and provokes some fairly primeval emotions 🦅

At least none of us have been driven to anjer.

^^^^ This.

It's on my list. Now I know I can play that sort of speed having gotten the first half of Footloose down (damn you, Nathan East!) I'm game to give it a go.

Rhymes with ganja. This may or may not be a coincidence.

Behringer 502 analogue mixer… £32. Plug in your bass, auxiliary ins and headphones, job done.

I would consider the Lfsys Monaco 112 600w cab It’s 8ohms but a very capable single light weight cab

Nux Mighty Plug or the Pro version are fantastic - plug straight into your bass, headphones plug into the Nux. You can then steam tunes/backing tracks to it via Bluetooth and play along to them. There's loads of amp/cab and effects models built in too.

Just stick two finjers up at him.

Amazon : SONICAKE US Madness Plug-In USB Chargable Portable Pocket Guitar Bass Headphone Amp Carry-On Bedroom Effects ...

Crikey: tell him he’s a wanger…

Back in the saddle after a weekend off, and I almost needn't have bothered; a refurbished pub in the arse-end of Bolton, we'd had a worrying 'Can you bring some people? It's been very quiet recently' from the landlord/manager; I had to inform the BL that it was 25 miles for me, and I can count the number of people I either know in the area or who would travel that far to see us on the fingers of one foot. It transpired that the landlord was thinking about one of his other pubs, and Satdy was to be a party night for the new landlady. Jolly good. Anyhoo, actual band space for a change (and a sort-of house PA which we didn't use), and luxuriously four (count em, four) double plug sockets right in the band area...unheard-of, I know. Turns out they were the best thing about the place; oh, and they'd put food on, a big buffet and a chilli, which was right next us, and putting me off a bit. As was the slightly random balloon arch in the corner. We started later ('Just hang on, it'll get busy in a minute') at tennish on request, with 100% of the pub in the other side. I can proudly say we'd attracted 60% of them over to our side by mid-first-set. Sadly, though these percentages start to look less impressive when I say the actual numbers were 12 and 7. And it stayed that way all night (same people, at least they were consistent). We were firmly back in Paid Rehearsal land. The buffet remained untouched until I thought I'd show willing and have some, at that point one of the audience thought the same thing which, if anything, made it all look a bit sadder; you'd have thought Free Food in Bolton might've started some sort of stampede, but no. We won't be hanging by the phone for a rebooking, I suspect with that sort of business on a Satdy night they'd struggle to justify paying for any entertainment more lavish than one of the bar staff putting on a funny hat. We still got paid, and trio/#1 Drummer meant we were packed down super-quick. Cheapo-P, Stomp, inears, chilli and a very dubious pie from the buffet.

Could you just pinch the saddles of one of the vintage styled bridges, like this? https://northwestguitars.co.uk/collections/bass-bridges/products/hosco-vintage-style-4-string-bass-bridge-with-threaded-saddles