bassbiscuits

I did one of these last year in a pub in Leicester city centre. I narrowed dodged being caught in a scuffle which erupted behind me as I was getting a pint, but got a drink thrown across my back while getting away from it. The group of people involved got bundled out of the door, where they carried on battering each other and one guy got knocked out cold on the pavement. Yeah, Merry Christmas indeed. I'm not gigging on Black Friday this year as far as I'm aware, and I can't say i'm shedding a tear.

Cool - i've played the equivalent Jazz version of one of these and it sounded great - full of good usable sounds. I imagine the P would be even more to my tastes tho as I'm not really a J player. Glad it sounded so good and did the job nicely!

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1508456368' post='3392395'] Just back from a mid week gig in Oxford. Fourth time at this venue this year, and by far the biggest audience. Lots of people dancing, very uplifting gig. I played my new Fender Classic 50s Precision, through an Ashdown Rootmaster 800 and Super Compact - and it sounded epic! Also tried finger style for the first time in nearly two years, after a motorcycle accident left my right hand damaged. I tried using the knuckle joints with the hand flat on the bass rather than having my hand at almost right angles to the string and using the finger/hand joint. Amazingly, it works and I got through the entire gig without a pick! So much easier to control my sound. So, a significant step for me tonight. [/quote] Well done on both respects there FinnDave. Glad the new P did the job nicely, and good news about the fingerstyle. Sounds like real progress!

I struggled with the Mike Lull PJ4 I had. I loved the look, the amazing feel of the neck, the light weight and perfect balance. It sounded brilliant by itself, but in a gig, with a band, I could never get it to sound like i wanted. I swapped pickups, swapped strings from rounds to flats and back, but it just didn't do the sound in my head. It came to a head when i bought a £200 secondhand Yamaha which got closer to the sound I wanted than the Lull, for less than 10% of the cost of the Lull, so I sold it. It was a great bass, but just not for me.

I had a Tokai Thunderbird copy once which i couldn't get on with. It looked great, and I'd always lusted after a T-bird alike of some sort. But it felt like wearing a dinner table round my neck. Weighed a tonne, it was huge and I couldn't get it to hang comfortably. And it gouged my right forearm every time i used a pick. Lasted about two months before being sold on.

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1508246331' post='3390797'] I'm certainly very happy with mine, but I've only had it one day so the newness hasn't worn off yet! I haven't played it with a band yet either, that's the real test. [/quote] Do let us know how it performs live - be interested to hear how you get on.

I've had a couple of both over the years. I originally found that the USA P I had was much fuller and meatier sounding than the MIJ Jazz i had - exactly what I needed for a rock/pop band. But as band diversified and i needed to play some slap/more intricate stuff, I ended up with a USA jazz fitted with Aguilar hot pickups - it was the best sounding bass i've ever owned. It had the fatness of the P, but with greater note separation and clarity, instead of the slightly blurry thud that the P had. I sold the J in the end tho as it was too heavy for me - my main bass remains a Precision. I think I'd miss the full fat boom of a Precision more than I miss the high end articulation of a Jazz.

Nice one - I love the look of these maple/sunburst/gold 50s basses. My favourite colour combination of all P basses. I've been resisting getting one of these for a long time.

Looks great - I've got a standard goldtop one and it looks awesome. Annoyingly it seems its taken me to play a big gold bass on stage for punters to actually notice I'm in the band.... But yeah it works for me. Looks mean in black too. Very cool.

I also wish I'd realised that there's a whole world of musicians gigging, teaching and performing to make a decent living. They aren't famous, or household names, but they are proper, genuine, working musicians. When I began, I had the impression that unless you were on Top of the Pops or on some huge world tour, you weren't a real musician. There are a tiny percentage who achieve that, and at the other end are the people who never get past being a bedroom player. But the rest of us are people whose lives involving making music at varying levels of professionalism, maybe as a lucrative hobby, maybe as our main job. I wish I'd known they existed back when I started. Would have helped make it all seem a bit more achievable and reasonable, rather than just a wild dream of wanting to be a rockstar.

[quote name='bassbiscuits' timestamp='1507462013' post='3385554'] I wish I'd known how much of my life was going to be spent playing music. I'd have actually bothered learning to read and write music properly and taking GCSE and A Level music at school perhaps. [/quote] In fairness this might be a blessing in disguise tho. Pre Internet era, I worked out stuff by ear, from records, tapes, and live videos. This formed my approach to playing, and has given me a good ear for dissecting the different parts of songs and instrumentation which I wouldn't have ever developed if I'd just googled everything or read it from a chart. Still I think a better command of music theory somewhere along the way wouldn't have hurt at all. Though in the 30+ years since I started playing I've kind of worked out pretty much what I'm doing, even if it's taken me a bit longer to get there!

I wish I'd known how much of my life was going to be spent playing music. I'd have actually bothered learning to read and write music properly and taking GCSE and A Level music at school perhaps.

Oh dear! Guilty as charged re the hat. Never worn at same time as a waistcoat tho.

Mine was December 1988, for the Christmas party at the sixth form room of the school i was at in Swansea (I was only in fourth form, tho my brother and rest of band were sixth formers) I was 14. My bass was a white Westone Spectrum ST. The amp was a borrowed Carlsbro combo, as i only had a tiny practice amp of my own. Set list was about eight songs of 60s/70s/80s rock, including stuff by Poison (Every Rose has its Thorn), Cinderella (Falling Apart at the Seams), Wild Thing etc - can't remember the rest. Someone videoed it, and the set is interrupted by some halfway through announcing there's still some sponge cake available for sale... very rock and roll. I had a mullet, a bright yellow shirt and puffy white trainers. Oh dear. First gig at a proper venue was in 1989 at the Biko Bar at Coventry Polytechnic, when i was 15, with a four-piece band called Wile Air (again it was my older brother and some uni mates, with me on bass). I used the same Westone bass, and a Thunder 1A too, this time with my Peavey TNT 130 combo. We did covers from Marillion, Bon Jovi, Georgia Satellites etc. It was a really busy battle of the bands type thing and i felt like a god for the rest of the evening (we didn't win tho!)

Croeso y Basschat Amy, Another Swansea native here, tho I've lived in Leicestershire for the last 13 years, so it's all changed a bit since then. In terms of basses, Epiphone do some medium-scale (or even short scale?) SG-shaped EB basses i think. I'm no expert on short scale basses, but as the others here have mentioned, there are some very informative threads and more knowledgeable people on here who can help. We're a nice bunch generally!

I had a Tokai TB48 Thunderbird copy that weighed something like 5kg. Way too heavy to play a whole gig, so it didn't last long. Mine are all under 4kg now thankfully.

Most of my gear is secondhand, so it's all got a range of scratches and knocks anyway. But they're working instruments, not museum pieces. I'm quite careful with them, and I get a bit annoyed with myself if i notice I've put a major ding in something (especially if I'm doing something stupid at the time) but i play them hard and gig them all regularly so it's to be expected. As long as the playing surfaces, electronics and moving parts etc are all sound and working well, then I'm happy.

Did a support slot on Saturday night for a cool local blues/r'n'b band, which went down well. Spoke to quite a lot of people who'd specifically come to see us, which was nice. Then did a solo guitar gig on Sunday but was so knackered i struggled, and the place was pretty empty anyway, so turned out to be quite a gentle night out.

That Taylor looks great and £380 sounds like a super price for it. Well done! I was going to throw my hat in and suggest Crafter but I seem to have missed the boat on this particular thread. I've had my Crafter DE-7 for about 15 years now and it's broken in nicely. Warm cedar top, mahogany back, neck and sides. Plenty of Crafters out there for under £500 I'd say. Tho I expect your purchase wipes the floor with mine so well done on such a bargain!

It's a tricky one. I used to gig in a band that kept getting offered possible gigs, half of which came to nothing, but i still had the dates pencilled in my diary. If availability for a gig was checked a few months ago, but not mentioned at all since then, i can understand why someone might think that the gig wasn't confirmed. Not saying that's right, just that its quite an easy mistake for your drummer to make. A communication problem more than anything else by the sound of it.

Great looking bass - dead ringer for my '70 sunburst P. Sunburst is almost identical too. Interesting what you're saying about it sounding quite different to your 71 P. Nice.

Well done on your first gig! Whatever happens from now on, you'll have got that one out of the way and can hopefully relax into it and enjoy the future ones. Gigging is great fun once you get in the swing of it - its quite addictive too.... Have fun.

The BeeGees. Ok it's a guilty pleasure but it's taken me to be a bit of an older bloke (early 40s) to realise what great songwriters and singers they were.