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Hi folks Just wanted to share the joy of this exceptional ACG bass handmade by Alan Cringean. I picked this up from Alan yesterday and it’s absolutely stunning. This particular model is a prototype and I’m sure Alan would be more than happy to build another if this is ur thing. From top to bottom the quality of the build is fantastic. The way Alan shapes his necks are always super comfortable to play and this is no exception. It balances perfectly either seated or on a strap. I’m really into filter preamps now and this one is fitted with the ACG EQ 01 by John East. Fine tuning your tone is excellent with the EQ01. Like every ACG I have played ( I have nine!) the quality, the workmanship and the versatility is in abundance. If you’re looking for a custom build at the highest level then speak to Alan. He’s an amazing luthier as well as a thoroughly nice chap. Specs down below. Cheers Stuart Body Olive Top Wood Purpleheart Accent Veneer Alder Body Neck Acrylic Impregnated Birdseye Maple Fingerboard 5 Piece Ash/Purpleheart Neck Luminlay Side Dots Details Set-neck Construction 33″ Scale Length 24 Frets 5 String 45mm Nut Width Satin Lacquer Finish Electronics ACG RFB bridge pickup and ACG FB neck pickup East Uni-Pre 4K Preamp Hardware Hipshot B Type Bridge Gotoh GB350 Resolite Tuners Black Hardware Dunlop Dual Design Straplocks ACG/Newtone Custom Strings

This has been on the cards pretty much since I first discovered ACG 11 odd years ago. It was @eude’s Finn 4 which first drew me to @skelf’s basses and very soon after that I saw a Holly-topped Finn. I’ve been hooked since the first bass I bought, and for a long time had a Holly-topped Finn in my wishlist. It almost became a reality about 5 years ago but I never got beyond the “annoying Alan” phase. Fast forward to last year, an ebony Finn which Alan shared on socials made me hatch a cunning plan for a yin/yang pair of basses - one holly, one ebony. Specs were developed, plans were hatched, then I had to be sensible and drop one of the two. Naturally I kept the holly plan as it has been on the list since day one, and the shape changed from Finn to RetroB. Thus this spec was born and a deposit was paid last July. Today the 5 string bass of my dreams was delivered. She sounds as good as she looks, and I’m over the moon 😎 So, the specs: Limba body, bloodwood accent, holly top 3pc Ash neck with ultra slim profile, ebony fingerboard with bloodwood blocks, 30” radius 3+2 headstock with holly facing and limba rear veneer 50mm RFB in bridge, 50mm OPB in neck Passive vol/tone/blend with coil select switch for RFB Black hardware 17mm bridge spacing (Hipshot A) Gotoh resolute tuners Honestly couldn’t be happier at this point, I am looking forward to getting her out in the wild with Katy Hurt next month 🤠 First 3 pics are from my “unboxing”, the rest are Alan’s:

No changes to my board for a while now (OK I turned the tuner around), except I occasionally 'guest' a pedal in the Meatball loop. Do you all like my massive Tubescreamer pillow? 😆

I never got my name in lights but more than happy with chalk! We had our headline at The Vic in Swindon. We’d been weeks in rehearsal and our soundcheck had us struck by the curse of backing tracks. For some reason we had a virtually non-existent kick drum and barely audible count ins, coupled with ear bleedingly loud keyboard washes! Rather than try and dissect the problem, we hastily rewrote the set to come up with a stripped back set. The Rickenbacker sounded immense through my Blackstar U700 head and 4x10. That head continues to excel in all situations. The crowd walked a line between modest but respectable (original goth music in Swindon on a school night perhaps isn’t the easiest of sells). Despite the initial woes of soundcheck, a fantastic night. I was even complimented on my singing voice - something I have been working hard on for the last couple of years 🎉

Thought I’d lower the tone of all these super nice NBDs with a lowly Toby! Played the perfect Toby Pro in 1996 or so, but couldn’t afford it. Bought a lovely example from @AndyTravis a while ago, but didn’t gel with it like that one back in the 90’s. Sort of forgot about this Deluxe I bought off fleabay about 15 years ago. Leant it to my wife’s cousin years ago, but as he wasn’t using it he returned it to me. A little bit dusty and unloved, but a quick polish and a tweak of the truss rod has it sorted. Will need to investigate the electronics as battery that expired 11 years ago had leaked! Might pull out the preamp and wire it passive, too. I don’t know loads about actives, so any comment on the at plan are welcome.

I'm bloody fortunate to play in a band that rehearses an album for 3-months, gigs it once, and then moves on to the next. It's great fun, it's challenging, and for someone who's really easily bored, it's a great way to be constantly engaged with a band. So, we're doing Odelay by Beck at the moment, gig in June. It's an interesting departure for me coming from a mostly rock/funk/blues background to be playing such an eclectic and informal album. Odelay's often cited as his best album but I felt that musically it wasn't quite where I'd always placed Beck - although I realised that as an artist he'd pretty much passed me by for 30 or so years - so having a day to myself set out to do some wider listening. f*** me! I'm honestly quite blown away by the sheer creativity, diversity, and musicality of his work. As a bass player (I use the term loosely), I'm drawn not only to some extremely well crafted bass lines but also to some wonderful bass tone, the below being a great example... ...but over and above the well known tracks (Devil's Haircut, Where It's At etc), there's also a whole load of crazy in there, although also including great bass playing and tone (alongside some lovely impersonation/plagiarism, Prince and Kravitz get on down), the fretless and and upright in this is sublime.... I'm gonna be spending quite a lot of time working on some of his basslines, once I've mastered the Odelay tracks

Don't usually get to post in this thread as I don't rehearse in my regular bands. However we lost yet another member in my Trigger's broom of a Glam band so arranged a night to audition drummers. Four applicants all agreed to learn some tunes so we hired a room, a kit and scheduled them in over a four hour rehearsal. Three dropped out at the last minute for a number of exciting and creative reasons leaving us stuck with the bill and only one guy to see. I didn't feel particularly positive. But mark the sequel! The guy was great. Established a rapport with him almost immediately. He had his eyes on me for cues, played really well, and even busked Hell Raiser having not learned it. Anyone who has played any Sweet song knows the structures are never straightforward but he was spot on.

Ok so first thoughts, much easier to get really good sounds for bass than the HX or QC… not suggesting you couldn’t get things to sound as good if you really dialled it in. The typical sticking points such as filters and octaves are honestly great… I’m taking my octave off the board for the first time. I’m not a heavy/typical DG user (last DG thing I had was a vintage microbes) and very much like the sound of the Noble, fender and Ampeg sounds in here. I will concede putting a vintage microtubes as a light drive and using the A/O or X as a ridiculous OOT drive is very fun. The crunch factory preset where they have used a pedal from the NAM loader is very promising and need to look into these more. Ive just scratched the surface here but this is the best first impression I’ve had of a modeller…. I’ll report bag after a few gigs this week.

It doesn’t have that thing where you load up a block and wonder what on earth they were thinking… if that makes sense.

I'd suggest it due to them being in series, I am planning on changing to parallel when I have the time and patience. And on that - my other one came this morning. Same tweaks made as the blue, but it was very much playable out the box.

Mine arrived at 8am today. Haven't had a chance to de-tag or set up/plug in yet. Will report back later...

All going ahead though a 2 year wait, counting down the days already.

She'll be sadly missed. BC member O'BrienP (Pat) gave her a bass after the fire which I helped get down to her in Brighton as she'd lost everything. She was a lovely and genuine person. Brother bought her sax too so we had quite a bit of contact but always seemed so happy to chat despite the traumas she was going through. Very sad indeed. RIP Sam. X

The cushion looks awesome Ped, but does it have the traditional mid bump?

A bitter / sweet gig this one (Chateauroux in France) 18 original compositions from a good friend who's now sadly very limited with regards to time left. 10 pce band and I only know one of them, two days of rehearsal, live recording third day and public concert on the last night. Quite an honour to be asked to provide the low end. Fingers crossed I don't mess up🤣

Gosh! Felis Leo gigs are suddenly like buses...full of people and moving? ...no, turning up every two weeks 😄 We're playing again in the 'burbs of smallsbury, this time both our supports are the drummer's other bands!

Make sure your kids haven’t dropped/inserted a small plastic toy that came in a McDs Happy Meal through the F-Hole. Obvs not speaking from experience 🤔

We have a gig tomorrow for the very first time in the town where I actually live!

… who says there’s no fun in music anymore?!

We've been preparing for a jazz gig in the centre of Oxford at the beginning of June. The set is pretty much sorted out now, and other than a few wrong notes (this is jazz, though) and a flying drumstick everything was sounding good. Some effort has been spent trying to find varied arrangements, with different structure and number/order of solos, which is something we usually do for gigs - see https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/324449-jam-nights-cliquey/page/8/#comment-5458986 for why I mention that...

I've just noticed they've added the list since yesterday 😁 The link is here. Block List (v1.1) Amps & Cabs Preamps Harmonic Booster Leo Bass Jim Bass Gentle Amps Peggy Bass Super California Kallinen Kruukkeri Neural Amp loader Bass Cabinets All cabinets have 6 microphone options with 6 position options each Microphones: Condenser 103, 414, 67 + Dynamic 112, 421, 52, 7 Black and Yellow 4×10 California Bass 4×10 Darkglass Neo 2×12 Darkglass Neo 4×10 Fruity Bass 1×15 Fruity Bass 4×10 Fruity Bass 8×10 Garden of 1×18 Garden of 4×10 Modern Bass 1×15 Modern Bass 2×10 Modern Bass 4×10 Modern Bass 8×10 Mountainino 6×10 Peggy 1×15 Peggy 4×10 Peggy 8×10 SWIRL 1×15 SWIRL 4×10 SWIRL 8×10 Vintage Peggy 8×1 Guitar cabinets All cabinets have 6 microphone options with 3 position options each Microphones: Condenser 184 + Dynamic 421, 57, 906 + Ribbon 121, 160 California combo 2×12 Fashionista 4×12 Modern 4×12 Panzer 4×12 Topper 2×12 combo Vintage London 4×12 Artist cabinets Dave – Beta52A Dave – D12e Dave – MD421 Dave – MD441 Forrester – Bitey Forrester – Clear Forrester – Monster Forrester – Punch Forrester – Thick Jon – 2×12 Jon – 4×10 Jon – 8×10 Nolly – Blend Nolly – AllTheMids Nolly – ScoopyDoo Nolly – RolledOff Nolly – VintageStack Nolly – Mega-Meld-IR User cabinet IR loader Overdrive & Distortion Microtubes B3K Vintage Microtubes Alpha Omicron Duality Fuzz Chinchilla Microtubes X Neural Pedal Loader EQs, Filters & Dynamics Amp EQ Darkglass 6-Band EQ Generic 6-Band EQ Hi-Pass Filter Lo-Pass Filter Gravitron (Envelope filter) mo**erf***r (Envelope filter) Noise Suppressor FET Compressor BUS Compressor Compressor / Limiter Modulation & Pitch Mint Chocolate Chorus (Mono/Stereo) Flamingo Flanger (Mono/Stereo) Sublime Octaver (Monophonic) Sublemon Octaver (Monophonic) Subcitri Octaver (Polyphonic) Pitch Shifter (Polyphonic) Delay & Reverbs Digital Delay Analog Delay Modulation Delay Room Reverb (Mono/Stereo) Plate Reverb (Mono/Stereo) Hall Reverb (Mono/Stereo) Shimmer Reverb (Mono/Stereo)

"Not me - I already got one."

The last blue one's sold... I wonder who bought it? 😎

Gosh, you have a far more interesting life than I do. The female drummer and I, (the whole band) spent a few hours last night tiding up our very first song that we have written. We're dead chuffed (thats a gross understatement) as neither of us have written anything musical before, and if you heard us play, you'd know why We have the basics but the middle 8 is actually a middle 12 and I have no idea how to get it down to a middle 8. The joys of learning. Anyway, I can now say I have written an original song and have recorded it with another musician. Will it make me a fortune, doubt it, but I've broken my duck here. Rob

A little follow up. I got a fairly cheap acoustic bass a couple of weeks ago. It was a second hand item, so it was €45. For that price it needed som attention, so it spent a few days with a luthier I know. After a complete setup it was a pleasure to play unplugged. People who say that acoustic basses are useless must be doing something wrong. I like sitting at home doodling on my cheap acoustic bass unplugged - I play that thing more that I plug in one of my electric basses. Plugged in at practice with the band is another world. Feedback is a thing to take into consideration - there are ways around it, but you should know it takes some adjustment. The sound (plugged in) isn’t as smooth as it is unplugged - but I would suggest everyone to try an acoustic at home - it’s pretty fun

Similar to others on here, including the OP, the truss rod setting was excellent with just a small amount of relief from the factory. The bridge saddles needed about three [plus] turns each to get a nice low action. There are no real dead spots on the neck, or buzzes that I can find. In single coil mode with the three-position switch in the middle, you have a nice bright 70's Jazz bass sound with a fair scoop. The neck pickup solo'd in single coil mode is very P-alike - you can take about 40% of the tone off before it gets muddy. The bridge pickup with 50% tone produces a fair to middling Jaco sound. The humbucker setting can be overpowering. Not in terms of physical output, but due to how the pickups are wound/wired. The front pickup in humbucker mode solo'd gives you something like an EB-0 with lots of gain style gritty tone. Run the instrument as a single coil at the neck and a humbucker at the bridge and it does a very reasonable HS impression. Build quality is great. No blemishes or chips in the finish, fretwork is good overall and the neck profile (fingers to thumb) is again very Jazz-like. Hugely playable and comfortable. Okay, so what's not to like for £150? Thanks Andertons

Here's my entry. Just in time for the deadline. This is about Quantum mechanics, specifically that quarks are never found alone — they are always stuck together in particles like mesons, which are made of a quark and an antiquark, or baryons — like protons and neutrons. When you try to pull a quark and antiquark apart, the force between them gets stronger, like stretching a really tight rubber band. If you keep pulling, you give it so much energy that instead of breaking apart, new quarks appear from that energy thanks to E=mc². Instead of ending up with a single quark and antiquark, you now get two new pairs each comprised of a single quark and antiquark stuck together. The song is divided into four verses, with each one focusing on a specific topic: 1. Quark Confinement Basics 2. The Rise of Confinement Energy 3. Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) 4. The Hadronization process All instruments apart from the bass were programmed in Logic using logic's built-in instruments and all processing was performed by logic's built-in FX. Alchemy was used for the 303ish Acid loop that repeats throughout. There's also an analog sounding pad plus transistor organ and electric piano. I used a text to speech app to make the lead vocal and fed this into the EVOC 20 vocoder on the chorus sections. The bass part was recorded using my Rickenbacker 4003, with each pickup routed to a separate track via the Rick-O-Sound output. This allowed me to use the bass pickup throughout the song, with alternate eight bar sections having the fuzzed treble pickup added in. My new 'band' name came from the bandname.uk web app I made.

Just got home from rehearsal with my instrumental classic rock band. Used my Fender JMJ Mustang strung with Elixir nickel rounds into the rehearsal rooms Ampeg SVT350 & 810, sounded great. I was very pleased to be using the JMJ again, over the last couple of years I’ve developed arthritis in my left thumb and my playing style was always thumb hooked over the neck, true punk style, so I’ve been working on my playing technique to the classic thumb on the back of the neck, and am pleased that after a 4hr rehearsal no issues with my thumb. I had been using my Fender Japan Mustangs and although they’re great I prefer the sound of the JMJ, more Precisiony. Band wise we’ve now got about 90 mins of material and all sounded really good, overall a great rehearsal.

We have a 5-8 acoustic gig tomorrow night at The Ziegler Winery. 1 hour commute. Classy place. Daryl

I’ve just snagged a 120W valve guitar amp head from eBay and all being well I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. My plan is to use the iron and valves (and possibly some of the hardware) for my build, harvest any other usable parts, and move on the headshell. I have a slightly more compact headshell that I obtained in a trade. The new amp should deliver 100W+ from four 6L6GC valves but I haven’t yet decided what to base it on.

**PUT YOUR SHADES ON** This might be the brightest thread you have ever seen on BC !! A most excellent winning tune from @Leonard Smalls brought out his choice of image for our April shenanigans . He suggested that " Looks like folks voted for The Funk! So piccy here:" Did it draw the Funk out of our compositioners , well, you will have to have a listen and judge for yourselves... having judged , please then vote for you favourite 3 1 @Chiliwailer I really liked the photo, it made me think of the intensity of chaos caused by GICs and how that'd be spot on for a new pedal I'd got recently - so in this tune the GIC attack starts at around 35 seconds! 2 @Leonard Smalls I've now rolled it in 3 coats of glitter and 2 coats of oak-stain varnish, so here's some ambient grooves in both 6:8 and 4:4 time. Possibly. 3 @Baloney Balderdash Here I take you on a timeless, time dissolving, musical folk drone journey slowly flowing down a fluctuating colorful stream of consciousness, with the help of my brand new EHX Pico Deep Freeze sample sustainer. 4 @upside downer Jah UD sits at his laptop staring at the swirling, whirling, wobbling colours draining downwards into his keyboard and decides it's probably time to kick the hallucinogenics into touch, but not before laying down this pop reggae curiosity. 5 @Jean-Luc Pickguard This is about Quantum mechanics, specifically that quarks are never found alone — they are always stuck together in particles like mesons, which are made of a quark and an antiquark, or baryons — like protons and neutrons. 6 Lurksalot every time I tried to do a bit something got in the way , so I thought the picture could be ...Interference There are only 6 but we will stick to the 3 votes and see what happens voting will close at midnight on 30th April I told you to put your shades on

You all have it all wrong. THIS is how a jam night should be…

It's lovely, it took close to 10-years of talking to make it happen, but it is a great way to play music. I'm very lucky to be by some distance the least talented person in the band, which is highly motivating 👍

I’m a big fan of Beck, and agree, his creative talent is off the chart at times. I once saw him doing an acoustic set at Cambridge Corn Exchange. I wasn’t really looking forward to it, in the way I would have been had it been a band gig, but it was a fabulous night. Just him and acoustic laid bare just how wonderful the songs were - gorgeous melodies, interesting lyrics, showcasing a genuine songwriting talent. Debra is cool as, but the bass line is actually taken from My Love For You, by Ramsey Lewis. Doesn’t make it any less brilliant, but always good to know where certain parts originate from!

Luxury, I couldn’t make it past the first bar.

A good two hours in a hired room. Five new original tunes to be worked into the set for an upcoming gig on the 2nd. Punk/pop originals. Many rehearsal rooms in NYC are pretty run down but this place is plush; top-shelf gear, really good sounding rooms with good PA and a crew that actually knows their stuff. The bass rig was a Bergantino head and 3x10 cabinet. Very uptown stuff. It’s a pleasure to play there. Our bandleader/songwriter’s songs aren’t overly complex so the new songs came together quickly and we’ll clean them up further at one more rehearsal before the show. One of the guitarists had to miss our last rehearsal so it was good to have the whole band at this one. I took out the Rickenbacker again after a long stint of playing Fenders and I always need a little time to get used to the Ric and its quirks so I had to really pay attention to what I was doing. I mostly pulled it off…. Tonight I’ll be rehearsing with a different band in Brooklyn for a show on the 3rd. Their studio is a dump and a nuisance to get to so it will be a very different experience than last night’s. They’re nice folks, though, so it’s all good. I’ll stick with the Rickenbacker until both shows are over so my brain doesn’t break.

Pretty good rehearsal on Sunday (yes, I'm a bit late), and I think we have our two new tunes almost nailed. We had a bit of a chat about more new tunes but I don't think certain members of the band have much ambition in terms of what we should add to our set list. A number of absolute bangers (e.g. Go Your Own Way, or anything by Oasis) have been dismissed out of hand because the singer is vehemently opposed, so we're reduced to now learning a couple of plodders by Tears For Fears and Somewhere In My Heart by Aztec Camera, none of which I think will exactly get people in a party mood. Ah well, I'll have to put more effort in, because the last song I proposed (Two Tribes) is now a well-established crowd and band favourite. The seeming tradition of arranging rehearsals on holidays continues, as after having one on Easter Sunday the next date we can all do before our next gig in August is on Fathers Day.

People complained the 4003 had sharp corners, an obtuse bridge, noisy pickups, and a selection of other gripes. Rickenbacker produced the 4004 with rounded edges, a Schaller 3D bridge, humbuckers. People complained it wasn't a 4003 and didn't buy it.

Maybe it's an attention-span deficit in the audience's young'uns - jazz is about exploring a melody, chord sequence, harmonies, over a reasonable number of choruses, but usually a lot fewer than guitarists belabour in a 'Red House' rock/blues jam and a lot prettier...

Below - the donor amp, minus front panel. The seller was proudly demonstrating its clean, crunch and filth sounds when I admitted it was going to be reincarnated as a bass amp. I think that made him a tiny bit sad... All the 6L6GCs test good and are perfectly matched so need to drop a ton on buying a matched quad. Two of the 12AX7s are good, two test as 'worn'. Result.

My Fretless Safran has a hidden PU underneath the end of the fretboard. The pole pieced go through the fretboard so you can adjust them. There's also a piezo under the bridge saddle, mixed with a John East MPM preamp, this combination is great!