Leaderboard

I bought my eldest lad a Squier Strat and a Blackstar practice amp for Christmas, but gave it to him a few days early for a local community gig we both did. I didn’t/don’t have any money at the moment to treat myself to anything very exciting after that! I think my biggest festive music-themed indulgence was blowing £5 on a bottle of alcohol free lager at a gig. Yikes.

Waiting on a rather unglamorous hip shot extender in black for my recent bass purchase

I treated myself to some double bass lessons, booked for January.

I wonder if any of this will be useful in my parole hearing

I've posted this before. Back during the lockdown era our band rehearsed with a guy they know on bass for a gig I wouldn't do. I got this text message from our guitarist. The 3 of us (singer, guitarist and myself) have been together for 20 years next year along with 4 different drummers, so replacing any of us would feel odd. Our son was drummer #3 and rejoined the band after 6 years of drummer #4 (Dave in the text). That was difficult enough for us until our son rejoined earlier this year and the band really felt it was back together. When you have a great line up it's not easy to to replace anyone.

We played at The Palm Court Hotel in Scarborough last night - Milestone duo. It’s a lovely hotel with great staff, and load in is very easy. We set up in the lounge whilst the customers were having their dinner in the restaurant, which made things easy. Used two JBL powered PA speakers which run on batteries! Sounded good too, although I took my Rumble 100 combo so I could monitor my Ibanez acoustic/ electric without overpowering the system and it worked fine. Did our requests thing, and had plenty of the usual tunes asked for, along with some rock stuff - did ‘Stairway…’ ‘Layla’ and ‘Dakota’!! Despite being a more mature audience, they wanted a wide range of songs, including the inevitable ‘Driving home for Christmas’. All in all an easy and relaxed evening. Played 3x40 min sets, and done by 10.30pm. We took our ladies with us, and they got free bubbly, whilst I availed myself of the excellent ‘Neck Oil’ IPA on draught as my buddy was driving. Some nice comments from the punters ( including cricket umpire Dickie Bird ), so hopefully will get the gig next year. Home by midnight which was fine by me as still fighting the tail end of manflu. We’re back there for NYE which is my next gig, so a week to rest up Seasons greetings to everyone on here, and all the best for 2025. Pete. ( Clip on tuner / music stand haters look away now….😆 )

I agree, however I'm starting to think what we call groove, feel and vibe is more important to bass players than the other guys. Daryl

No one is irreplaceable and I know that there are better bass players than me from a technical point of view out there. In the Hulla band there is one person who I've been working with so she can dep for me if the need arises. If I were to leave the band tomorrow, they would not be without a competent bass player. While I've never actually been 'replaced' without my consent in any band, I have moved on from bands who have continued with new bassists with little disruption. However, I'd like to think that bassists who have stepped into my shoes do not bring the same overall package - I'm thinking about style, creativity, experience, ideas and social skills in addition to playing skills. I remain friends in some form with most of the musicians I've played with in the past.

In the blues band I play in then I’m easily replaceable. In fact when I joined I did say to them that my acoustic duo needs to be my first priority, and in the event of dates clashing would they mind me putting a dep in. They were happy with this, and I have a couple of friends who have each depped once with them in the past 6 months so all good. Should I decide to leave then either of them would be a good replacement for me. With the duo then I’m not so easily replaced. We’ve been doing it for nearly 30 years, and although my playing is nothing special, it’s the singing aspect that makes me more difficult to cover - mainly harmonies with the occasional lead vocal. I doubt my guitarist mate would continue without me for this reason, despite him regularly working with some of the best bassists in the region. Singing confident BV’s has been my main USP for most of my pro career, often getting me gigs over far better players along with being a ‘band’ player and the ability to get along with people. ( My replacement in my last band was a far better player AND singer than me though, so I know I’m not unique! )

Mrs FB has preordered me one of these! I suspect she's hoping it'll make me as cool as JT himself.

And it didn't quite make it in time for Christmas, but there's a Spectracomp on its way to me also...

I beg to differ. My Sei is gorgeous. That hairy bloke playing it in the pic, maybe a bit less so.

They remind me of these characters:

Right, so as long as Basschat doesn't wait in a box junction or get driven in the ULEZ we should be OK with this Online Safety Act, yeah?

In the last 20 years I've been fired because the band leader wanted his mate in, because the drummer wanted his mate in and because I wanted to put a dep in and the band leader had a childish strop!! You can be the best player/person in the world, there is no guarantee you're in the band from one week to the next. But in my experience, in the majority of bands, things are not that cut throat. All the 18 bands and projects I played with in 2024 are happy bands and the players who leave do so of their own free will, rather than being fired. In my world many players are in multiple bands, most bands are cool with that and most players seem to be in long term relationships with their bands. All positive things.

Norrisson the elder bought me a new Comfort Strapp. I bought him a new 5-string set of D'Addario Pro Steels

UA Volt 2 interface: Not a pedal, but as a decent interface it has allowed me to use virtual pedals with low enough latency to play live - that has opened a whole new world of possibilities, including this lot:

Hi, thanks for asking. Pretty much everything I was told on here was correct and useful. I made more playing mistakes in the first hour than I had in the previous year, but settled into it and ended up not having to redo any of my parts (guitar and vocals can't say that). Will need to get the six songs we recorded and mixed over the three days on to Bandcamp.

My last minute year end purchase. I’ve been on the hunt for this thing! I’m surprised that even though these are hard to come by, they are not overpriced in the 2nd hand market. Got it for $180 from talkbass. Planning on pairing this with my Neptunium for a 2 pedal micro board project. Going for a simple board that gives me access to a clean Noble tone and a B15 amp sound Happy Christmas bass friends!

In my case, easily as long as the replacement has a van and PA. 🙂

If we're talking good looking singlecuts, my Franz Sirius is a tasty bass.

No probs at all! If it's any further use to you (or anyone else) I just found the spoils bag that's got all the removed stuff in it - tuners, string tree, bridge, neck plate, knobs, strap buttons, all related screws and bushings, as well as the wiring loom and pickup. Everything that's not the wood or the pickguard comes to 950g, so you can maybe get a feel for how much weight you might be able to shave off if you were fitting your own bits and pieces. Only other thing of note; I found the pickup to be... the thing that most reflects the price point, let's say, and I couldn't find anything commercially available that was the same size to avoid replacing the guard as well.

Not the Kevin Rowland of Dexy's Midnight Runners, surely? Back to the OP - for me; nothing unless you count a vintage Technics turntable so I can now once again listen to much bass goodness on my old vinyl, plus a bottle of single malt to enhance the experience.......John Rebus style.

Yup, never seen a bad Sei. I have a Flamboyant 5 and it's totally awesome!

That's a good observation and i agree up to a certain point, however i've left bands and when i was persuaded to return the comments were that i was providing a drive that other bassists weren't. What i took from that was down to confidence in what i bring to a band. I learn my parts well enough i can drive a rock song with a bit of aggressive attack. I think other bassists were what i call more "club" bass players. Other things that may affect why i am asked to join bands is that i learn my bass parts note for note or as near as possible. Our guitarist has regularly commented on the fact he has never needed to show me any bass part and that's a first for him. When i turn up to a rehearsal i make sure i know my part of a new song inside out that i'm confident playing it. To sum it up i guess i'm quite a confident player but that comes with a lot of time and effort learning things. Dave

Those little Digbeth preamps are a brilliant bit of kit!

I think just drummers and bass players care

Look, can we just agree to organise a royal rumble style fight where everyone on basschat piles into a ring and swings punches until one person emerges victorious? Most threads end up being a virtual version of this anyway! It'd be more fun to see it happen in the real world! Fight, fight, fight!!!!!

Apologies to @cbd and @Mediocre Polymath One person getting different results from mine in Winisd is unfortunate two looks like carelessness. In this case mine. I've just checked the current Fane 6-100 on Fane's website and the specs are entirely different from mine. Fane have clearly changed the cone and suspension and I think the voice coil since I built my cab. It is effectively a different speaker. I'm going to have to have another look at this design and maybe find another driver to recommend.

I received the same as last year, sweet FA, bass related. My only gift was from my daughter, a coffee mug. I should point out that by mutual consent, Lady Ez and I stopped giving each other Christmas pressies years ago - don’t feel sorry for me. As I will not be signing up for the 2025 abstinence challenge (this year has been hard enough), I may buy myself a birthday pressie in a few weeks’ time.

Not that I also want to get into this, I am sure someone with your afore mentioned skills can work out the ULEZ has nothing to do with global emissions and everything to do with the environment of people living in the area covered.

Get it right, as long as basschat doesn't enter a box junction that it can't exit due to stationary vehicles then yes, it will be fine!

Puts me in mind of the old saying: "irreplaceable people? The cemetery is full of them".

I'm a massive fanboy obviously and have owned over the years: 2 GWB35s, GWB1 (twice), 3 different EHBs (6, 5 and shortscale 5), a heavily modded TMB35 (which I still have). Aside from the GWB which is fretless, never had a Prestige/Japanese fretted and always wanted one. I recently had a bit of a purge to get 2 basses I have wanted since I first saw them. Finally got an Ibanez Grooveline G105 I found being sold in Eire after repeated googling over the months/years. Even with family in Northern Ireland there was no way I could get it. After a few talks the owned agreed to have his son bring over to England so I could pick it up. An immaculate bass even with all the original case goodies and labels. Now I've set it up really low as I like I can tell it will get a lot of playing time. Which is saying something when you think what NBD 2 of 2 is... I know the look isn't for everyone but has best balance of any bass I've ever played and has a great super jazz bass sound. I really want a G106 but after a few messages from Benjamin Shepherd who informed me only 50 were made I'm not holding my hopes up. That said I'm extremely happy with the G105. Anyone else got one?

Girl from IPA nema Andy Williams

Exactly my situation! But what I add is a good attitude, I help lug everyone's gear - the heavier the better, I store a load of the bulky equipment at my place, I make sure I am saying thank you on behalf of the band to photographers, sound engineers, people who turn up to see us at different venues, etc. and I really care about what we do as a band. But if I were unavailable for an important gig a dep could play my bass parts "better" but the feel would be different.

A nice hotel in Scarborough, same venue I did with our duo on Christmas Eve. NYE we will be supplemented by a keyboard player and some programmed percussion, to enable us do a wider variety of stuff to cater for all the resident’s likes. Hopefully we will be finished soon after midnight so not too late home - weather report looking good. 🤞

I didn’t want to be the one to say it 😆

With over 8 billion other people on the planet and ever improving technology I expect we're all replaceable in some way or another. ....whether other band mates (or employers etc) would want to go to the effort is probably the deciding factor.

Craftsmaship notwithstanding, those are some shockingly ugly basses.

Not strictly bass related per se, but as it features some great bass playing, hopefully it qualifies 😀

New look on my 424. I recently bought a pickguard and a controle plate for my other 424 and made an "X" version out of it. This one was black too like it's brother. A new string tree is the only thing I wanted to improve.

A Zoom recorder, all the better to record my bass with and best of all, my sister bought me a "folk singers almanac" with songs for each month and for each festival in the year - this is bass related as I'll end up recording them with multi-tracked bass guitar.

The band would never find someone with my dazzling array of trousers...

Apparently I was irreplaceable when I handed in my notice back in July - the other guys decided to fold the band rather than find a replacement. Devasting good looks and unbridled talent would be hard to replace I thought. Or maybe it was because I got all the gigs, did all the social media, sorted all the lighting out and stopped the drummer killing the singer and guitarist... 🙂

I picked this up yesterday after having discussed the build with the luthier around 10 weeks ago. Walnut / maple / shedua body Maple / mahogany / cherry neck and board Herrick multicoil pickups Lusithand Double NFP Sandberg bridge. look close and you’ll see many differences compared to the bass it was inspired by.