Leaderboard

Hey gang! I'm a P guy, but one of my bands needs a J really, so I've been on the lookout for something for a while. Was hoping for something LPB or Charcoal Frost, but this popped up, and I couldn't resist. It's a Custom Shop Journeyman relic, so think closet classic with slightly less shine and the occasional ding. I know relics are polarising, but I think they nailed it with this one - it glows. Medium-weight alder body (guessing 9lbs or thereabouts), quartersawn neck, slab board.. and stacked knobs which will take a little getting used to in the heat of the moment. Haven't gigged it yet, but it sounds gorgeous so far. Really rich and resonant. Roll on next weekend! ]]

A good turnout last night for our first 'public' gig of the year. Easy load in and set-up, PA was hired in and already there waiting. Forgot to take pics of my rig, but had my two LP DC custom basses and orange rig (Terror 500 and twin isobaric cabs), untethered thanks to my Boss wireless. Two sets of British '76-'82 punk covers with the crowd joining in from the word go, singing and dancing as though they were 16 again! As it was our 10th anniversary, I caught the night on my Zoom H4n, so will be going through the results next week, once my hearing has settled down again (no IEMs unfortunately).

Reasonable night that ended up as a pretty good one by the end of the night. Sound was good for the soundcheck but for some reason went off as the first set progressed. Second set felt much better and the punters were up for a good time and in good voice by the end of the night. Sets mixed up and vocalist spent the night linking songs with a fictional tale of progress of a relationship 😁 Haven’t managed to get my IEM’s fixed yet but went with one in and the failed one out rather than the KZ10’s as I didn’t really get on with them last week, and that worked fine. Stood at the urinals in the break waiting for my prostate to wake up and and a chap walked in and started enthusing on the set and memories of driving round in his youth playing songs from the set LOUD 🙂 Don’t think he recognised I was in the band as I was tucked round a corner not visible from the bar, so nice when he piped up with “this lot are a cut above your normal pub band…” “We try” says I 🤣

Had a brilliant gig last Friday with my ABBA tribute. Brought my Belgrado bass (buy one of those, they're terrific), the backstage area and organisation where absolutely brilliant, the audience was great... Loved that gig.

Setting up for tonight's corporate acoustic gig in Milwaukee. 8-10. Nice room. Daryl

Did the first of a run of 4 gigs this week (tiring). Very cool little pub and was a fantastic gig. Got out of there at 12:30.

First set had my head spinning and thinking "why didn't they hire a DJ". Second set after the booze kicked in for the guests everyone was on the dance floor. Very long day. I was picked up in the van at 4:00. We arrived at 5:00, started the first set at 8:00. We didn't leave until midnight. That's an 8 hour day. The 3rd and last set was more of an encore, only 15 minutes. I was a bit wiped out by then and played from a sitting position. I hate when I have to do that. Daryl

The bridge "problem" was solved. Before I did the staining, I sanded a little curved at the end of the fretboard Then stained the whole bass black. It really made the quilted pattern pop. Drilled the potentiometer holes Built up quite a few laters of clear. And sanded in between. Then applied the decals to the headstock. When everything was perfectly flat and well sanded I spayed the back of the body, the sides and the neck a matte black. And the some layers of transparent matte. Applied the serial number And then mounted all the hardware. Put some old strings on for a little test drive. Took care of Intonation, Action, tweaked the Hipshot Bass extender. And then put the new set of d'Addario Chrome flatwounds on (per request of my customer) I'll make a demo video after the weekend

Just went to see the Little Giants, a sort of 'juke box band'. Lots of guests in the second half and I did a stint on bass, from memory Dakota, Superstition, Gene Genie and Mess of Blues plus one or two others? Shirani guested on sax and asks me "what suits sax?" Optimistically I say 21st Century Schizoid Man and they launch into 20th Century Boy... 🤣

Just finished the build of a new bass. It is a hybrid of a Gibson EB-0 (Les Paul Junior Double Cut) and a MusicMan Stingray. The shape of the body and headstock are the Gibson ingredient. The scale (34"), the pickup and the bridge are the MusicMan ingredient. Hence the name [B]Brooks EB-MM-Q [/B] (The Q is for Quilt) - Mahogany body - Bookmatched quilted maple top - Mahogany set neck. Glued in - Transparent black stain on top - High gloss finish on top and headstock face - Solid matte black on back of body and neck - Pearloid binding - Ebony fretboard with m.o.p. dots - Aluminium circle 12th position marker - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - Guyker MM style bridge - Spokewheel double action trussrod - Lace MM style man o war humbucker - Hipshot Ultralite tuners plus Bass-extender - CTS pot Volume Push Pull - CTS pot Tone - PureTone jack output - Dunlop StrapLocks - D'Addario Chrome Flatwound strings 50-105 - 3.75 kg I'll post pics of the build process in separate posts below.

No, man, dig up!

This was a contributing factor to why i packed the band in a few months ago. We had a LWB van full of PA, lights, drums and random bits of guitar gear which travelled to every gig with the drummer. I would always be at the gig to meet him and we had a 7pm target for everyone to arrive to help unload. Everything was in wheeled cases and we had a ramp but it was still heavy work. The guitarist was incapable of turning up much before 7.45 wherever the gig was - not for any personal reasons, he just didn't do on time (unless his kids needed a lift or he had a work appointment of course) The problem wasn't helped by the singer deciding to travel to every gig with said guitarist as he only lived a mile away "and it saved taking 2 cars". Consequently it was almost always myself and the drummer unloading the whole lot and it was really getting up my nose. They arrived one evening at 8pm (for a 9pm start) to find me and the drummer sat on the wall outside the venue - Whats up? Are you both ok they said. Yep, abs fine thank you we said - just waiting for you two to unload the van. Icy silence......

Hello.. More of a bass tech and engineer in effect than a player - my wife's been the bassist in our musical malarkings. I just get the gear, fettle it, fix it, re-fix-it etc.. /H

Bottom line is: 1) If you want to play for free, do so. 2) If you don't, don't. 3) Whichever you choose, don't attempt to shame others if they make a different choice.

New addition

Reporting in between sets: - people have clothing that looks like stolen from tablecloths with round prints (70's party) - quite a lot of noise (hard walls) - too many are sitting in their chairs (too many cars outside) - those having fun are really having fun (Yes, tonight it is ABBA, Chic, Boney M, The Bee Gees, The Trammps...)

Stray have bee asked to go on tour with British Lion this December. We'll be doing all 15 dates in December but not the November ones. Apparently the five London nights have sold out already. We supported them in Nottingham and Manchester last year and had a blast. To say we're excited is an understatement!

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but over the past 3-4 months I've acquired 4 little amps and I'm keeping and using all of them Well, actually, I do know how it happened, of course! I only have one neighbour, downstairs. They've just had a baby and although they've never complained I thought it would be good to have a way to play without headphones in the house (I was diagnosed with a vestibular Schwannoma on my right side, that affects my hearing and sense of balance, and the symptoms are best managed if I don't use headphones) I tend to use them with a Joyo JW-06 wireless unit, nice and cable-free. I thought I'd write a few lines with my impressions, now that I've used them for a while, as they do have different strengths and weaknesses. I've got a tasty coffee on the desk, so let's go, in increasing price order. 1) Joyo MA-10B This thing is just around £30. Made of plastic, very light. There are versions for acoustic guitar and electric guitar too. It says it's 10W, with a single 5" speaker. It can be used plugged in using the included power adaptor, or with 6x AA batteries. I use rechargeables. The batteries are not rechargeable while in the unit, you need to charge them elsewhere. Operation time on batteries is stated as 3h. I haven't measured it but I have the impression they last quite a bit more, but then again I was not playing super loud. It's not the best sounding bass amp, unsurprisingly, but it's not bad at all. It gets loud enough for home use, just don't expect very deep lows. The controls are basic: gain, tone and master volume. And a switch for overdrive, which is... nothing amazing. For the price I'm positively impressed. It does a good job when you want to play at reasonable volumes that won't bother others but still sound nice enough. It can get loud, but you need to tame the low end once the volume goes up, or the speaker farts out, but at the sort of volumes most people would want to use it it behaves well. It's not an amp for busking, however it would do a good job if you're playing with an unamplified acoustic guitar/singer and did I mention it's super light? This unit does not have bluetooth. It has a 3.5mm AUX input. When I play music from my phone through the AUX input, the sound is better than I anticipated. It lacks a bit of low end on the AUX, but that can be easily improved using an EQ app on the phone (I use PowerAmp Equalizer). I was actually going to get the Harley Benton Jamster Bass, which is similar in specs, built and size, but it has bluetooth and it costs about the same. The Joyo is prettier 'though It looks kind of 'retro'. It has a headphones output, but I have not used that. Overall, I could have been satisfied with this. £33 I think it cost me. Crazy. 2) Caline Scuru S8B This one is around 3x as expensive as the Joyo, I think I paid £80-90. Plastic and metal, reassuring weight despite being much smaller than the Joyo, although this is probably because of the built-in battery. It feels reasonably well made. It says it's 20W with two ~3" speakers. There's guitar and acoustic guitar versions. This one has a built-in rechargeable battery, which together with the small size and the handle makes it a great noise-maker while on the move. The manual says 4h battery life. Again, I feel it lasts quite a bit longer than that, but the volume you use it at will have an impact. I used it the other day as a bluetooth speaker and it lasted about 9h before I was done. The speaker was still going strong and I hadn't even started with a full charge. Initially I was a bit disappointed and I nearly returned it. The controls are a bit unusual, none of the usual master, gain and EQ. I read it's based on the Wine Cellar preamp pedal, which I used to have and found a bit unintuitive at the time, but many people love it. There are 2 switchable sections and a master volume. The 'comp' section allows you to engage some basic compression, with an EQ knob that provides basic tonal control. The 'driver' section allows you to mess with the higher harmonics and also some EQ. I use it with the compressor always on, and use the driver to alternate between a clean brightish sound and a dark deeper one. The sound is decent. It is not noticeably louder than the Joyo before the little speaker start to fart out, so I'd say the same as the Joyo: absolutely plenty of volume at home, and it'll probably be ok if you busk with an unamplifier acoustic guitarist. The bass sound is more tweakable than on the Joyo and it sounds more like a traditional bass amp, although you need to watch the low end a bit. This unit has bluetooth, but no 3.5mm AUX input, so if what you want to play through this speaker does not have bluetooth, you're stuck. To engage the bluetooth there's a button on the back. Playing music through the S8B was very disappointing. Sure, I can hear the music, but the sound quality was not great. The Joyo sounded MUCH better than this. This was sort of... boxy, muffled. Sure, it allows me to hear the backing track or whatever, but it's not a nice sound. You can improve matters a lot by using EQ carefully. When playing back from my phone, I use the PowerAmp Equalizer app to boost low end a tiny bit, to introduce a severe dip on the mids, and increase the top end a bit. Then it's a different animal, and it can do a very reasonable job as a portable bluetooth speaker. I prefer the S8B to the Joyo because it's small and versatile. I have the S8B on the shelf above the computer desk and I often use it to play music through it from my phone, rather than using the monitors attached to my PC (I work from home a lot and get lots of online meetings, it's easier to have the S8B playing music in the background than fiddling with relative levels on the PC). However, you do NEED to spend sometime with the EQ before it sounds good to play music. The controls for the bass aren't the most intuitive or effective, in my opinion, despite having 6 controls on the face of the amp. Onboard EQ on the bass comes really handy because of this, but I happily play a Precision through this too. It has a headphones out, but I haven't experimented with it. So, after the initial disappointment I am actually liking this. It sounds better than the Joyo, but not by much, however the bluetooth, small size, and built-in rechargeable battery are very welcome features, so overall I prefer the S8B. Just watch the low end if you're cranking up the volume, just like with the Joyo. As a bluetooth speaker for music, it seems to have a more than decent battery life, but you need to use some EQ on whatever device you use for playback because the default sound is rather meh. However, once EQ'd I'm pretty happy with it. 3) Headrush FRFR-GO This was about £135 if I recall correctly, so about the same as the Joyo and the Caline together. This one is different in that it's not marketed as an instrument amp, but as a bluetooth speaker with flat response designed to take guitar amp modellers . It says it's 30W, with two 3" speakers. This one is heavier (again, built-in battery will be largely responsible), very noticeably louder, with really good bass response (this unit has a port at the back, the others were closed-cab designs). The built-in rechargeable battery is stated to last up to 13h. I haven't systematically tested it, but it sounds about right. The feature set is simple but versatile: inputs - 1x instrument input, 1x AUX input (3.5mm), bluetooth output - 1x headphones master volume instrument input volume 2-band EQ The first thing to notice is that plugging a guitar/bass directly into this doesn't result in the best sound. It's a bit quiet and flat. It works, but it sounds MUCH MUCH BETTER if you use some kind of modeller. I used a Valeton GP200 for guitar and a Zoom B6 for bass, and I'm pleased to say that both worked very well. This unit is LOUD, and no farting out. The sound of the Headrush is on a different league to the Joyo and the Caline... the drawback is to get the best sound you need an external FX unit of some sort. I have a NUX Mighty Plug that I presume will do a good job too, and that will keep the bulk small. As a bluetooth speaker, this one is a lot better than the others. Good sound quality, great low end, top end clarity. The 2-band EQ works on the whole unit, not just the input, so it can be used to tweak the sound of the music you play through it. All inputs can be used at the same time, so you could easily have guitar and bass plus a bluetooth source of some sort. This came quite handy when I had to do some guitar overdubs on some band demo recordings: I used two Zoom R16 units for recording, which can be sync'd to record on up to 16 tracks at once but the audio has to come from each unit separately. So I plugged the guitar into one R16, the the output of R16 #1 into the main input, and the output of the R16 #2 into the aux input, and used the Headrush as the monitor (could use headphones if I had wanted to). Tiny and powerful mobile recording setup, just like that. I love the Headrush FRFR-GO. I'd have it even as a simple bluetooth speaker, the fact I can input other sources is a bonus but you do need some multiFX to get the best sounds. Rechargeable built-in battery with very decent life, very nice sound, loud and deep. Winner. However I tend to use the Joyo and the S8B for practice, and this has become my take-anywhere bluetooth speaker. 4) Boss Dual Cube Bass LX This was a lot more expensive. I think it was about £260, plus nearly £50 more if you want the bluetooth adapter (which I did). I removed the bulky corner protectors, because it was a bit too wide to fit on the shelf I wanted to put it on. This was overkill for my needs, but I thought it had the best chance at giving me good volume and it had lots of additional features. It's the biggest and heaviest. Rated at 10W with two 5" speakers. This gets loud, no question. However, the sound was a bit disappointing. It's hard to describe, but it almost feels as if there's some heavy signal processing even when all the FX are switched off. EQ can help, but it's not straightforward. As a bluetooth speaker it's also not amazing. It's a better version of the Caline S8B, tweaking EQ at source will make this sound decent 'though, much more easily than on the Caline S8B, and it does get loud without farting out. Despite being rated at 10W compared to the 20W of the Caline (really?) the Boss is a louder and more solid sounding amp. As long as your expectations are reasonable (you won't compete against a horns section!) this could be a nice busking amp (at least over here we aren't allowed to get too loud). When I was a student and all my belongings fitted in a small dorm room, I would have been super happy with one of these! But I find it way overpriced. The feature list is impressive, which is what made me buy it anyway, but if the basic sound can be improved. It can run on batteries, 8x AA. Battery life is nothing to complain about. I don't recall how long they're supposed to last, and I haven't performed a proper test, but again at my usual volume the batteries last several hours. I use rechargeables but they cannot be recharged in the unit, so you need to charge them elsewhere. The feature list is impressive: EQ, FX (chorus, flanger, phaser, delay, reverb), compression, amp modellers (with user memories), footswitchable looper, drum machine, stereo XLR line outs, USB interface and analog rec outputs, various routing options, and an app that allows you to tweak in depth many parameters from the FX as well as a global parametric EQ. So on paper I should be able to tweak it so that it sounds more to my liking. I did improve it a bit, but to be honest, this is the unit I use the least so I need to spend more time with it. Check it out: https://www.boss.info/global/products/dual_cube_bass_lx/ It's nice, it sounds good as a bluetooth speaker (but nowhere as good as the Headrush), and it does get loud without feeling the speakers are struggling, the drum machine is really nice to have and the app really opens up the sound. I need to experiment more with it. So there you have it. In my opinion, the Boss unit is a decent compromise between sound, volume and features and will do everything well enough. But at around £300 for the whole package including bluetooth adaptor), I'm not sure it's the best option out there, although it's really loaded with useful features. Soundwise, the Headrush wins hands down. However you really need a modeller of some sort in order to get the bass/guitar sounding the way it deserves. It's worth having even as a multipurpose bluetooth speaker. If you don't need the additional (many) features of the Boss, the Headrush might be the better option. Only the Boss and the Headrush have deep lows at any volume. Havind said that, I find myself using the Caline S8B the most. Not the best sounding, but it sounds pretty nice and the bluetooth can sound also quite decent once EQ'd properly. Small, built-in rechargeable battery... hard to beat for less than £100. The Joyo MA-10B is ranked lowest... but it's not a surprise, given the low low price and basic features, it doesn't even have bluetooth. However there's something very appealing about this, it's easy to get good sounds without extensive EQ tweaking and it's so light and cheap, you could get a bunch of them and build a stack if you wanted louder/deeper I really like the Joyo, I have to say. It does very well what I originally wanted it to do: allow me to practice our band's set anywhere, at low-to-moderate volume with a sound that doesn't make me want to rip my ears off. I hope this is useful to somebody.

Loving my Sandberg SL’s, my back and overall gigging stamina has vastly improved since going ultra lightweight. Despite some initial tonal reservations with the lighter bodies I have to say I am actually really digging the tone lots, especially in the live mix, great presence. Sadly the Custom Classic Booster on the far right will eventually be up for sale when I bring myself to it, its a real cracker yet despite only being 8lbs in weight, its just a little on the heavier side for me now...Guess this makes me a Sandberg SL convert!

I see the same question everywhere. The big problem is that all we are advertised are watts, and impedances. But not: - sensitivity (dB / 1 W @ 1 m distance) - loudness (dB) - f response (say ±9 dB) Yes, I know, this way cabs would be comparable. I suppose marketing departments hate that.

I always have a laugh depping for the Punk Pirates down here. Fast and loud being the order of the day and ignore any flubs, just go with it 🤘🤣 Trying to get some time we can all make for another noise making session with my first band from 40 years ago. Started in WMC’s with and older bandleader and then morphed into a spiky originals new wave band when he left. We get together every so often to blast through the songs and reminisce 🥰🙂

Meris Enzo X Sold a fair few pedals and a pedal board to get here, somehow managed to buy a couple more pedals in the pre order to delivery time . Not new to Meris, owned and sold an M7 and still have Ottobit Jr. I'm liking this pedal alot, some presets are meh, some YEAH and some are F**king awesome. Every aspect of a preset sound can be edited. Display shows in realtime what is changing (there's the main page as shown above, turning Pitch, Filter, Volume or MOD dials brings up a sperate page, then there is the editing page). Display is crystal clear and a little aluring (even with sticker still on). Very easy / intuitive to edit / work around the pedal. I play an EUB (NS Design WAV 4) and the majority of presets have no problem with open E or high notes on the G string. I've a few pedals and so far only tried the Enzo X into Chase Bliss's Onwards and MOOD MK2 and it sounded immense. Not gone near the MIDI side yet. My olny gripe and this is being picky, is there is a one second delay when changing between presets.

This paid vs. free venue vs. bands stuff misses the point. It's AUDIENCES wanting to experience live music in good numbers and willing to PAY through either tickets, a tip bucket, club memberships or over the bar in return. If more people went to see grassroots music and were willing to accept the cost, then there wouldn't be an issue. The venues that succeed are those that are customer focused and have good promotions.

The 2 MK1’s that are now forever connected!

Haha, that’s mine…(and I didn’t do this!) Long time ago I traded my MK3 fretless 5er for an MK1 fretless plus an extra fretless neck with British bassist Ian. the MK1 had a rosewood fretless fretboard and the extra neck was ebony. I swapped the necks because I prefer ebony for fretless. After the swap I contacted Ian again to ask where this neck came from. He also had the rest of this bass, the demolished body, electronics, pickups and bridge. He got this bass from some punk bassplayer who found it to heavy… so that guy cut it up..😬😳. I finally bought the parts together with the body and in 2011 I send all the parts plus the rosewood neck to Wal and had Paul build me a new body for it and had the rosewoodneck fretted. So now I have 2 MK1 basses. All this time this poor body is lying in my room and i can’t look at it. So i thought I’d give it a try and see if there’s someone brave and crazy enough to buy it and make something out of it… I have no idea if there’s someone who wants to pay for it anyway so I just started high … why not?

Great to see you are getting busy gigs there Mike. I miss the punk band a lot and a lot more than i would ever have thought coming from a Classic rock and Prog. So much energy and power in the songs i just loved playing them especially SLF. Shame it fell thru. Dave

Yes. The Boston PB 415 TI.

Pure random chance The real point of this little experiment is the four little pogo connectors at the bottom with two small (but rather powerful) magnets on the sides. Just seeing if it's feasible to change pickups easily and quickly. Using a guitar pickup as slightly easier to play with. There's the other side of the pogo pickup fixed to a body of a guitar. The three black socket caps raise the pickup up and down. There's nothing too clever there. What this experiment has shown me is that these pickups are so sodding thin, it's really difficult to get them high enough, so this design needs adaptation to be able to handle thin pickups. Humbuckers are not an issue. The grey one in the middle is an a\ctual 3d scan of a humbucker. You can see the tape around the body. Rob

Lovely return to the Exchange Theatre at Sturminster Newton down in deepest Dorset. Drove past Stonehenge. 200 mile trip back home and in bed for 4am. Awesome three tribute act gig and audience was a full house. Played as house bass player today at a local Nottingham Jam while practically dead on my feet. Currently eating Cherry Pie and Custard before I predictably fall asleep in an armchair.

Great songs, SLF one of my all time fave bands.

"You'll never push fit me alive, copper".

Drilled the holes for the machine heads in the headstock Routed the neck pocket Shaped the heel Checked the alignment of the neck, before I glued it in Drilled the holes for the bridge Made a template for the pickup cavity. And routed it.

Its a nice place to do a outdoor gig in the little building they have out the back there.

Holy Smokes! That's " Big Time " I'm so jealous. Daryl

Posh!

be careful who you choose to endorse…

Still this... Going strong.

Tortishead

Massive rework of my board, from a DIY thing based on reclaimed 19" rack plates to this, utilising Rob's 3D printer and his patience! And the lights are on, I'm not convinced anyone is home though!

Reality check....is it really going to save the venue? If it's genuinely due to increasing costs and declining numbers it's not going to save it. One single gig where they've saved a few hundred quid by getting a freebie is not going to turn a venue around. Morally it's nice to be able to pay something back if it's to help a genuine venue but it's unlikely to stave off the inevitable