Leaderboard

I switched on eBay on Sunday night to check my saved searches...... and I couldn't believe my luck..... A mint condition, 2024 Epiphone Grabber, with it's soft case, had just been listed at £499 Buy It Now with free shipping! An 'excellent feedback' seller too! I really wanted one of these when they were released, but there was no way I was gonna spend £900+ on an Epiphone so, when I saw this, it was a no-brainer! It arrived today, exactly as described..... and I'm thrilled 😎

Well, I guess that I’m the society’s newest member… or at least I will be when I pick up my new VM4 from the shop on Friday. I tried this hardcore aged Marley Blue bass before Christmas, having been wondering about the P/H pickup layout and was very very taken with it. I’m not a relic fan but this seemed to be a bit more restrained than some of their hardcore jobs. And really quite good looking and authentically done. Having tried it out and reconfirmed all my Sandberg prejudices (I’ve never played one I didn’t love the look, feel and sound of) I thought I’d work up my ideal config (not that different - different blue, no relic, dots rather than blocks, pearl scratch plate) and look into ordering one. Then I discovered just how long the lead times are… yikes! Not quite Wal levels but 18-24 months is a long time. Anyway, having loved this bass when I tried it out before, I checked whether it was still available. It was and the price was no different from the configuration that I’d worked out. So that sealed the deal. Can’t wait to get my mitts on it and give it a proper, in depth going over at home and at our next jam night on Monday. Very happy bunny!!!

In order to try and find a bass that doesn't set off my on-setting arthritis I have joined the club having just done a part ex and received this bass as part of the deal. I know the brand (Fenix by Young Chang) but have never come across this particular bass. Does anyone know anything about them?

Can we please get back to discussing how people's gigs where they were playing at went? This thread has gone a bit off the rails recently with discussions about upcoming gigs (there's a different thread for that) and other extraneous stuff about gigs people have attended.

Saw Norman Watt-Roy with JOB at the 100 Club last year. Felt like a time capsule.

Here are my two SEI's. Original Fretted 5 Custom made for me in 2007. 34" scale 5-string. Zebrano wood body with through neck and book-matched flame maple front and back. Macasa ebony fretboard. Retro-fitted with luminous side dots (Luminlay) & John East preamp (18v) Uni-Pre 5 with Kent Armstrong pick-ups. Flamboyant Fretless 5 Purchased secondhand via BC. 35" scale 5-string. The wood is madrone burl front and back facings, matching headstock, ash wings. The neck is a 7 piece flamed maple / wenge through-neck topped with an ebony board, with subtle lines in mahogany. Fitted with side LED's & Schack preamp along with Bartolini MM pickups and ABM piezo bridge with piezo preamp.

very pairy…

There was a website with some info only available on wayback machine now. https://web.archive.org/web/20190115110144/http://fenix-sh.info/ Also if you do FB there is a Fenix group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/128212226340/?locale=en_GB

I'm sure they do if you type "wooden bass guitar table" into an AI generator 😆

I have similar, with the larger Precision style body.

Jacob's Bladder - Rush

Ooooh, that really appeals to my liking for the short, weird and wonderful. Can't help you with info though, as it's a completely new one on me. As my friend Pea Turgh has already observed, no chance of neck-dive there, and interesting placement of the single pick-up. I'd love to know how it feels and sounds. Looking at the condition of the headstock and IMO inappropriately conservative choice of colour, I wonder if the body has been re-finished. Well done. I'm just a tiny bit jealous 👏

Managed to get to see NWR with Dylan Howe and Wilko Johnson at Yardbirds in Grimsby quite a few years ago now. He was absolutely on it the whole gig - tight as anything all of them.....🤘🤘Happy days......

Euphemism? 🤔

Exactly that. At first glance I thought it was a luthier build, but those old MIJ Gotoh tuners give it away. Reshaped headstock, & look closely enough & you can see where the original 3-point bridge mount holes have been filled.

Yeah, I'd say it was a Vantage that has seen enthusiastic sanding. The hexagonal-ish tuners line up, as do the controls on the bloaty body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8XFw90ns-Y

Six weeks later... ...so despite saying I was happy with the preamp in my Excess (and I was, there was nothing wrong with it!), that 'but it's not original' devil kept whispering in my ear. So I wrote to Vigier to ask if they might have a spare preamp lying around. They didn't, but they did say they were thinking of making some more in the next couple of months. And a week or so ago I got a message to say they were back in stock. I'm almost positive this isn't the unit that would have been in the bass when it was created in 2002 (the hole for the hum cancelling trim pot doesn't line up), but it is the modern equivalent and dropped straight in. Is it better than what was in there before? Of course - it's a Vigier! As an added bonus, having unpacked the thing and looked at the instructions I saw they were expecting it to be powered by two batteries - and I only have one battery box. So I wrote them a quick email and within the hour had a reply from M. Vigier himself confirming that it would also work on 9v. So he might not be making instruments any more, but he's still out there supporting them - merci!

I think the absolute worst would have to be Roy Harper in about 1991. He played for about two and a half hours and my god it was the most boring thing I've ever witnessed. And the venue was all seated and sold out, and I was fifty miles from home and relying on friends for a lift back - friends who appeared to be captivated. So I felt trapped and unable to leave...

Axle Rose in past 15 plus years Vince Taylor, wtf

I've really paired back my board to: Canvas Tuner > Cali76 v2 > EAE Dagger > DCX Bass > EAE Model FeT > DG Element. Really enjoying it. Super versatile but all the pedals do one sound that I really love and rarely touch unless there's a really minor correction due to the bass I’m using etc. I've shifted my Quad Cortex on to a separate board that I use for Guitar so always have the option there if i want. I don't think I get pedal option paralysis but I do like playing with stuff a little more than I probably should. This makes it much easier to avoid!

Thanks @scrumpymike As I understand it the Bone White (I know, get a different hobby) is original. There are a few nudges in it but this is experimental for me and it's more about the practicality of the bass for me in terms of size, neck profile etc. I think the nut and the p/up are not original and the electronics have been upgraded. One tuner is different too but the whole bass is really very engaging and works really nicely together.

It was in Wunjo’s in Denmark Street. Fluke really. I had a work meeting near Holborn and arrived very early. So, of course, got off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and had a quick browse in Denmark Street. Saw it hanging up in their bass basement and couldn’t resist having a tinkle, especially as it had the Precision plus Music Man pickup arrangement that I’d been mulling over… Page has gone now but…

Yep. They've never really got the hang of email there! You do need to chase him up by phone.

Hmm. So I just noticed that the V2 no longer advertises "Class A" circuity. The CB version had it written both on the pedal and in the manual. V2 version has it neither on the pedal or in the manual. Any thoughts? Edit: and I actually got a very quick reply from Origin Effects (Jacob, thanks!), so sharing it here: "The design of the pedal changed a hair, the signal path of the compressor is still Class A. But there is an OP Amp in the bypass path, so it's not Class A in bypass. Though with where it is placed, you're unlikely to tell the difference between it being Class A and not."

That's what it's all about. I actually went the other way round. The 105Q was one of my first pedals but I wan't able to get the fast decay with it until I bought a Qtron on a whim and realised I needed control of the envelope with my right hand.

Never say never. Basses (especially higher value ones) are the first things to go if you get yourself in a financial pickle. There are basses I never intended or wanted to sell, but had to. It sucks, but so does being homeless. I'm not sure that's what the OP was getting at anyway, because I thought about listing some basses I currently have and hope never to have to sell. But I was thinking it was more along the lines of "stuff you've had for ages that you keep because it works well enough that you've never thought about replacing, even though it has been superceded at least once by a shinier model with go-faster stripes".

I've got a little time off from gigging so I'm planning on getting my QC up on the bench to have a look at the live presets I use. I need to tweak a few things, namely the compressors. Theyt all nearly do what I want. They are good though! For general use I like the 1176. I like chaining the 1176 and the Opto together for the 1176/LA-2a trick as well and, at the very end of my chain I have a very fast comp for brickwall limiting. I'm pretty sure that's the 1176 set to 20:1. I am thinking about adding an always-on external comp as I have the rather amazing Becos Stellar pedal at my disposal which has a transformer coupled DI out that sounds FAT. It seems a shame not to use it.

My Ripper, bought in '77 and part of my life ever since.

Cool Lozz, for me it would be Milwaukee's Shank Hall ( it's not a hall it's a club )..I finally got to play there twice opening for signed headliners. Daryl

This Orange Yamaha…

100 Club on Sunday night supporting Ferocious Dog again. It's a very shallow stage but I managed to get my drums set up to the side of theirs. I do love playing here despite the challenging sound. The room is so thin, you get loads of FOH bouncing back off the wall. I am still seriously injured but the others moved all of my gear for me, which was most appreciated. The set went OK but I'm known to our fans as "the smiley drummer" and I was apparently smiling a lot less than usual. Our frontman embarrassed me by demanding sympathy from the crowd... but at least that meant they all knew not to squeeze my ribs right? Nope, two different fans asked for selfies and when I agreed they put their arm around me, grabbing me by the ribs and causing my to cry out in agony. Oh well!!! Here's my bright red kit looking cool AF next to Ferocious Dog's boring effort!

I know there will be many on here who have done this a hundred times and more, but as it's my first go I wanted to share - please pass on if not of interest! My motivation for this was sparked by @Jean-Luc Pickguard's NBD about his Rick 4003, and the subsequent discussion about shielding it. So I acquired some copper tape and rather than jumping straight into disassembling my Rick, as a first experiment I set about my 1987 Thunder 1A. This is still 100% original, including the 18v preamp, but my goodness was it noisy! It probably took me about an hour to complete the job. It was surprisingly straightforward to cut out strips of tape and manipulate them into place. I had the odd piece tear when I was smoothing it down, but it was easy enough to patch. I'd read some warnings about the sharp edges of the tape being a bit hazardous, but I was either sufficiently careful or lucky and survived without injury. I did the inside of the pickup rout (discovering that a younger me had almost pulled one of the mounting studs out of the body in a ham-fisted attempt to lower the pickup), the inside of the cavity and the inside of the rear cover (which has the preamp mounted to it). I put everything back together and, not really expecting very much, plugged in. The difference was night and day - the bass has gone from a handy receiver for local taxis to almost completely silent, even with the active circuit at the extremes of its settings. Previously the active circuit was so noisy I just avoided using it, but no longer! I was so flushed with success I decided to do my Vigier Excess at the same time as fitting the new preamp (see other thread). I'm not sure the difference with the Vigier was quite as noticeable - it already had shielding paint and it's still a bit buzzy sitting in front of the computer (despite having a hum cancelling circuit). Equally I believe the pickups in these are perhaps more prone to noise than some, the sacrifice being reasonable for the excellent tones they produce. Anyway. there you are - a simple job with a satisfying result (and no slugs harmed). I'm afraid I was so engrossed I forgot to take much in the way of photos, but here are the couple I did take (one each of the Westone and Vigier).

First off I thought it was an aria or maybe vantage but the headstock is different, really not sure ,but a cool looking bass

It's just midweek chit-chat while we are all between gigs.

My Sirius singlecut by Franz bassguitars. It is the perfect fretless for me.

Just been sent pictures of the first pre-production mini-housing units today. Looking nice.

Got a few TC pedals for use on Fretless from my wife (Afterglow Chorus, Nether Octaver, Skysurfer Mini Reverb), ordered myself for Christmas a Crescendo Auto Swell and Bucket Brigade Delay to go with it. Then I had to get a PSU to power it all plus my existing pedals, managed to pick up a Truetone CS12 second hand, so just got to put it all together now..

The wife! She tolerates more basses coming in than going out, and that is a keeper in my book.

Just given it a half hour run out through my rig..... This thing sounds MONSTROUS! Quite a revelation....! I think it just could be my best sounding passive bass 🤯

I have a broadneck Warwick Thumb 5 string and a broadneck Streamer Stage One 5 string that ain't going nowhere. Everything else seems to come and go. Also I factor in their rarity on the used market so that plays a small part. They hardly turn up!

My BC Rich Warlock NT. In 1989, I was asked what my ultimate bass would be, and that bass is exactly what I described. Black, neck through, double P, with a Widow headstock. The thing is that they didn’t start making them until 1999, and they stopped production in 2009. I didn’t even know about them until they’d stopped making them. I found mine on EBay in around 2012. It was a ridiculous gamble (though, with a Warwick coffin case and postage, it only came to £265). The description was basic at best and the single photograph was blurry. After two weeks with no contact, I messaged the fella and he told me he’d forgotten it was even up for sale. It came a couple of days later. Phew! It had a single piece of cardboard stuck to one side and the rest was wrapped in two bin liners... It plays beautifully (once I had ground the bottoms off the bridge saddles to make it playable) and sounds great and my heart still skips a beat every time I look at it.

It has stayed for years, it’s the “leading man” in a rotating cast of thousands 🤣

I have no idea what you're talking about 😇

I've never felt any need to replace my Boss TU-2 tuner. Had it since I started playing. It's accurate enough, and I don't feel the need to get into a piddling contest about plus or minus cents with anyone.

Only just getting around to posting the XMas gigs........bit of a washout to be honest. First time in 10 years that I haven't had the Flu jab and, yup, came down with a dose on XMas eve eve. Scuppered the XMas eve gig (and XMas dinner that I'd pre-paid....) and the betweeny Saturday. Was just about compos mentis for NYE and managed to get through it. To be honest, the gigs I did make weren't the best, not as well populated as usual, not sure if this is a trend but I've noticed the last couple of silly seasons have been hit or miss for gigs. Still we take the rough with the smooth. On the positive side our IPO registration for the new band name came through so an ex-band member who had caused 'difficulties' after leaving the band can no longer cause grief on that front. A bit of a break now as I go in for more surgery but will hopefully be back at it beginning of Feb.