mcnach

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1339867424' post='1695668'] Be interesting to see how the finish stands up without any sanding prep! If you chicken out then 1200 grit followed by a good clean will gently rough it up without creating a ton of work after the nitro's on. If the shoreline gold is nitro already then it should just burn straight on and adhere well as the solvent eats into the current finish. Good luck! [/quote] No, the original finish is not nitro. I have just decided it WILL need some prep. I sprayed last night a tiny bit on the cap of the can, to check colour. And it flakes off extremely easily. Really, just gently scratched with my nail and the orange paint flaked off. It would be a relic finish before I have time to finish it!!! So... some fine sanding will be done initially. But that's as far as I'm willing to go with this!!! If it lasts two days, at least I'll have proof of it for future generations!!!

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1339201357' post='1685413'] no surgery required. Jazz bass fretless rules, soundwise. Although the "thump" of the Precision is really very nice too. Surgery not totally averted And this has brought another problem for me. I want the Jazz to be orange. Very orange (it is shoreline gold right now). Oh, first world problems indeed [/quote] The ghost of surgery is still there... but meanwhile, the VM Jazz is distracting me enough. and, about the body colour... well, see a new thread here: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/179199-refinishing-amateurishly-a-jazz-bass-body/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/179199-refinishing-amateurishly-a-jazz-bass-body/[/url]

So, a couple of weeks ago I tried a Squier VM Jazz fretless from a local BC member, which happened to be for sale too. Just to find out how they felt. And I fell in love with it. So it's now mine. Now, this BC member (Hi haimesy ) dislikes sunbursts. So in addition to changing the pickups to some Basslines of some description (sound great!) he sourced a shoreline gold body and swapped it. I don't like shoreline gold. So I thought of changing the body etc... but, nah, I always wondered how horrible a job I could do at re-spraying a body. I would not like to try with something precious. So this seems like a good canvas to try. The worst that can happen is I have to plug in my orbital sander and remove all finish and just oil it. From reading other threads, I know there's other people that sometime think about this. Like me, most seem put off by the amount of work required to get a truly good finish. Yes, to do what a pro shop would do, you will have to spend a LOT of time, and even then, being inexperienced, nothing guarantees you will have a good enough result. But what about "half-arsed finishes"? well, that's me. That's what I'm going to try, and I will tell you all about it, how it all works horribly bad. Or not. Like I said, I don't need a £300 quality finish on this one. So I just went and bought a nitrocellulose laquer in a rattle can. Capri Orange. Subtle... not. It arrived yesterday. My plan is to make it really easy on me. The existing finish is in good shape. Nothing but the tiniest of imperfections. I can live with that. I was going to light sand the body with very very very fine sandpaper to create a slightly rougher base. However I have decided to try and see what happens if I don't. It's bound to become a "relic" finish rather soon... but how soon? I'll find out. It can look cool. Or not. The only way to know is to try. It's only £20 delivered for one can... how wrong can it all go? So, I'm just going to clean the body very well, remove all traces of finger grease etc... and spray over it. Watch this space. [color=#ff0000][b]Edit: pictures on page three![/b][/color]

[quote name='phil.i.stein' timestamp='1339846111' post='1695271'] this thread is useless without picks. [/quote] give this man a round of applause, please!!!

The only disappointment was when I removed the pickguard. Big big big routing hole for the neck pickup. Ah, I was hoping I could use it without a pickguard. BUt anyway, it looks good that way too.

After buying the Squier VMJ fretless from another member of this forum I was not supposed to indulge again anytime soon. However, it's been a busier period than usual with gigs, and I had a bit of extra "toy cash" in hand when I found one of those basses. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a sucker for natural/maple... and I did not resist much when I saw a GB74 for sale, after hearing great things about them. Do I need another bass? Of course not. Agh. Shut up now. My bass looks like this one, only with slightly less pronounced grain: It's very much some kind of "superJazz" attempt. The neck is similar to a Jazz bass, but the body is much smaller. It's an extremely light bass, but no neck dive thanks to a reasonable body design that puts the top horn in a good position. It has a couple of nice hardware touches. Hipshot light tuners. Cool. Neutrick locking jack socket. Cool. Wait, is it cool? I mean... if my bass is plugged in and somebody yanks the cable... I'd rather it becomes unplugged than having the whole bass go with it! I am not a fan of locking sockets, but it's a good tight one, so that is good. And I never leave my bass plugged in anyway. The alnico pickups are adequate. Hard to tell right now as the strings have seen better days, so I'll wait to make a full statement after I change the strings, right now I am not certain. The sound is very much Jazz-inspired. The neck sounds... like a Jazz neck. The bridge sounds... well, it depends. You see, there is a 3-way switch. You can use it to select one coil only, the other coil only, or full humbucker (which sounds like it's wired in series to me). I like the sound of the single coil closest to the neck. Nice and growly. Makes a reasonably Jazz bass type of noise. Not a big difference between the coils, but you hear it. However, I think it's a bit pointless for live work,, those small nuances will not get heard. Still, nice to have the single coil option, whichever you may prefer. The full humbucker is meaty, and not at all Stingray like. Which is not surprising since it seems to be mounted not where it would go in a Stingray, but more where a bridge Jazz bass pickup would. So this is not Stingray + Jazz neck, this is definitely Jazz territory, with the option to make that bridge pickup solo sound a bit more meaty if you like. Promising, but I'll wait till I put some new strings. The other toggle switch is some kind of "slap switch", it changes the mids, it's either a mids boost or a bass/treble boost, depending how you want to look at it. Personally, I'd rather leave it neutral. And yes, I know what neutral sounds like as the volume knob can be pulled engaging a bypass switch. And I prefer the passive sounds on this bass. The 2-band EQ is... uninspiring. Again, I'll wait to have new strings on, but it's not sounding good to me. I had briefly another Cort with a 3-band preamp and felt the same way about it. Sweet bass to play, utterly uninspiring. It was an Artisan A4 or B4 or something like that. The GB74 seems nicer to me 'though, but the preamp is not a great one. This bass was a good deal. I see that new went for £400-500, but they are not made anymore. I think that for that price they have many rivals. But second hand are much more attractive, if you want a Jazz with that little extra, and don't mind that it doesn't sound exactly like a Jazz -but close enough. I tend to use the bridge pickup alone most of the time on Jazz basses, so this is nice for me. It also looks great The electronics in mine are a bit noisy... need some contact cleaner sprayed, not a big deal. And new strings. The action is a bit higher than I prefer. Just a bit. No buzz, plays well all over the fretboard... but I'll try to make it a bit lower later. Looking at the neck curvature and seeing the saddles quite low on the bridge, I think adding the tiniest of shims in the neck pocket might just be what makes the difference. I'll give it a try later today... I had a beach gig but it's been cancelled because of the rain. I'm not brokenhearted. This is the coldest June in my life, it's ridiculous!!! I'm happy not to play outdoors today And I have some time for myself as the gf is away. Perfect timing. I have a Seymour Duncan SMB4A pickup in my drawer. I was going to sell it... but let's see, after I change the strings I may decide to replace the pickup. The SMB4A is a great pickup. I'm not that impressed by the preamp, like I said. Tempting to put something nicer in there if I decide to keep it long enough. But it's also tempting to remove the preamp entirely and put some passive tone control. We will see. If this one stays, my red Squier Jazz might be on its way soon. It's funny how different instruments make you play different things. Like they have a life of their own. I got up this morning and grabbed it... and if I didn't come up with 6 different cool funky basslines, I don't know what happened. Maybe I'll call it "funk machine". Oh, what? You say somebody else already named their bass that? Nah, I don't believe it, it's so original! I recorded them all. Let's see if I still think they are good when I listen to them tomorrow Apart from that, I'm really impressed with how the bass was put together. Really well built. Then again, if it was selling for £400-500, it'd better be well made. Very light too, I must weigh it. Light yet balanced.

Nurse!! Grandpa is going on again!! (who cares about pick/fingers/ears? if it sounds good, it is good)

[quote name='Chris2112' timestamp='1339461747' post='1688911'] This is the worst advice ever. [/quote] No it could have been worse, he could have said buy a Vauxhall Corsa!

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1339439366' post='1688538'] hi guys sorry to start one of these threads again but i'm not sure how to take this really just had this message from the lead singer from one of the function bands i'm in just a bit of back story i depped out the last gig to a friend of mine because it was the jublee weekend and i had gigs previously booked and then this landed in my inbox today [size=3][color=#333333]hey regarding the band we haven't heard from you at all about rehearsals or gigs etc.. I'm worried about your availability for our band this summer and the rest of the year because we really want to get this moving. How do you feel about it? There will be no hard feelings if you feel you can't manage it.[/color] [color=#333333][b]There a few gigs coming up but it was from the street party and we have been requested specifically so will use (the dep bass player) for them[/b]. Hope you are good.. let me know whats happening Xxx[/color][/size] [left]now am i being unreasonable if i kick up a fuss about this as IME all the gigs that the band get come to me and then i dep them out if i need to surely they don't just start calling the dep for all the gigs booked off the back of a gig i couldn't make because it was a last minute gig and i had something else booked?[/left] [left][size=4][color=#333333][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]also to compound the problem the keyboard player has been kicked out of the band and replaced with the singers brother without so much as a word to me about it [/font][/color][/size][/left] [left][size=4][color=#333333][font=arial, helvetica, sans-serif]feeling slightly out of the loop at the moment any advice? [/font][/color][/size][/left] [/quote] what does your friend (dep) think? If it were me in his shoes, I'd feel very wary of "stealing" your gig and I'd not simply accept the gigs unless you specifically asked for a dep. hmmm.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1338840055' post='1679955'] Not me, but the last gig I played, the headline band had a problem. The singer/guitarist's guitar lead went all crackly. So, making quite a big thing of it, he swiped it for another. Started another song but the same problem happened. So he decided it was his amp and made a big fuss of changing it. Started another song, but the same thing happened. Again, made a big thing of it and decided it was actually his guitar, so played the rest of their set on acoustic. Completely ruined the flow of their set. [/quote] My worst was on Friday. One of the guitarists has had problems with his guitar for ages, it gets sort of fixed, but never properly. The jack socket in is Epiphone Casino. On Friday if crapped out. It produced sound, but it also gave a loud buzz. We went ahead, the sound guy managed to mix him just so that it worked and the buzz was not very obtrussive. People said we sounded great despite the loud noise. Fine. Except his amp was at my ear level right next to me and the stage was cramped so I had nowhere else to go. Earplugs and all, it was deafening me. Torture. IN addition, the buzz sounded not too dissimilar to bass... and I could not hear myself,, it totally masked my bass, so I played not hearing what I was doing... Finally I found if I literally hid in the corner, I heard the buzz less, and could hear *some* of my bass, barely, but no guitars or voice... so I just hid there looking at the drummer. Horrible horrible horrible. I was really pissed off as it was just the fruit of negligence. We had words afterwards and it's going to get done properly... I said I would not let him play that guitar live again until I inspect it. They get a bit scared of me when I am angry, but respect me because I am rarely angry and tend to do it for the right reasons... he even said he'd but a new guitar this weekend. I said he can borrow one of mine for the gigs this week, just get the socket fixed.

[quote name='Chris2112' timestamp='1339186163' post='1685208'] Stingrays have such bad dead spots/weak D and G strings...I think it's a case of "they all do that, sir". No fixing them, if they offered a replacement bass for every 'Ray that suffers these faults they'd probably be replacing 80% of all their basses! [/quote] bit of a generalisation, no? I have to say my Stingray does have a bit of a dead spot, but the SUB has no problem whatsoever... just like at least Fenders... some have some noticeable spots, most you won't even be bothered by them.

[quote name='apa' timestamp='1338970364' post='1681677'] 1001 x A [/quote] no surgery required. Jazz bass fretless rules, soundwise. Although the "thump" of the Precision is really very nice too. Surgery not totally averted And this has brought another problem for me. I want the Jazz to be orange. Very orange (it is shoreline gold right now). Oh, first world problems indeed

Incidentally, that gig at Henry's was our first one with the very new drummer. He had managed to learn just enough songs to play a set. We were going to write a setlist to make sure we only called out songs from the ones he knew... but forgot. So I had my phone on top of an amp, hidden behind that column, and on my phone I'd look at our song list and choose which one to play next. If you saw us play... did you notice?

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1339194264' post='1685352'] I just realised, if you're still with Sea Bass Kid then I think we must have played on the same bill at Henry's cellar bar the other day - in which case you might have already heard it if you stuck around, as I was playing with NUF just after you guys! Though, the bass amp there is knackered as hell (farting so much on the low notes that I had to rewrite a few lines as we went!) [/quote] Ah!!! yes, I am and yes we were... but unfortunately I needed to leave and missed you. However the rest of the band did stay, and out trumpet player bought your CD which has been played a LOT in our lab (we work together), and I'm kicking myself for missing it. Sounds like a band I *must* see play again, and I will Yes, the bass amp there was quite... interesting. I played there another time and they had a different amp, just as knackered, and I was advised not to touch the controls as they sometimes made the amp cut out and we might not be able to make it work again In this kind of situation I just go with the flow and do what I can. The stage layout was interesting too. If you are shy, no problem, just play behind the column and nobody will notice you NUF has a new fan here! Any more gigs coming up in Edinburgh?

[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1339145752' post='1684222'] Sorry, BT1 didn't fit. Which is the one listed for MM basses. [/quote] yes, that's why I was interested. I used a BT1 in my Stingray and SUB (fits), and on my OLP (holes did not align but I could fit it). The poster above says he used a BT7 on the Sterling by MusicMan (fitting ok), not a BT1. I wonder if the BT7 fits the OLPs directly...

which model? BT7? BT1?

[quote name='topo morto' timestamp='1339076420' post='1683281'] The man's a legend. I highly recommend buying his gear if you want some nice gear, OR if you are hungry. Thanks mcnach, also "Thanks Ken" [/quote] Ha ha glad to see everything arrived in good shape

well, there may well be a reprieve. It looks like I'm getting a fretless Jazz. It's nowhere near as pretty, but it feels great and sounds great... I still prefer bigger necks but... well, I've got to give this one a whirl. Soundwise it's pretty much what I want so... who knows, I may even have to let the Precision go (never!!! )