thebrig

Does anyone know of any flats that don't have silk wrapping?

I'm sure I will be told that the tone is more important than cosmetics, but I hate brightly coloured wrapping on strings with a passion! 😧

4 hours ago, Happy Jack said:

Mill Hill Complex is basically a bunch of WW2 Nissen Huts which were used as an industrial estate in the 50s and 60s. It's a total throwback to the days when rehearsal rooms stank of teenage sweat, stale cigarettes and rancid lager. And the parking is utterly appalling. 

I rather like it. 

In their defence, if I was running that place myself I cannot begin to imagine how I could do any sort of 'deep clean' without gutting every single room and starting over. The dispersed layout would also make further cleaning between sessions even more challenging.

Realistically, they shouldn't be open for business during a health crisis.

 

Don't know when you used it last, but they have a new purpose built building with new studios that are really nice and clean.

Admittedly, ten year's ago it was a dump, but not now.

Mill Hill Music Complex, Unit 1, Bunns Lane, London, NW7 2AJ

Tel: 020 8906 9991

https://millhillmusiccomplex.co.uk

I used to rehearse there quite a bit before I moved up to Bridgnorth, Shropshire, and it's not far from Barnet.

12 hours ago, LukeFRC said:

The thing I can never work out, and it would be expensive to find out, is how good are some of these different aftermarket necks... as good a Harley Benton, as good as a Squier, or a mex fender, or USA or Sadowsky or where...

reason is that I’ve built a few bitsas before, and it’s always a good way to sink a lot of dosh into a project, only to find the neck feels ok ish, and not as nice as other basses I might have ... so the bitsa doesn’t get played and the whole thing gets sold ...

Over the past ten years or so, I've owned a couple of 70's Fenders, three American Standards, an American 60th Anniversary precision, and a couple of Fender Roadworns, they all had great necks but the only two basses I use now are my two self-builds where one has a Mighty Mite neck installed, and the other has a Squier VM neck installed, they both feel nice and play great for me. 🙂

But you could be right with my latest build, I've not tried a Hosco neck before so its a bit of a gamble, and if it doesn't feel right to me, then it could end up getting sold. 😐

14 minutes ago, Slappindabass said:

Hosco necks are.superb, I have 2.

Thanks for the heads up, I ordered one about an hour ago 👍

34 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

I’d do some measurements first. 
 

I fitted a Tele neck to a P body a few years ago.

I can’t remember how I did it now. Thing I squared the heel pocket.

I've just compared the templates of a 51/tele neck and a jazz neck and it can be done, but I much prefer the 38mm nut on a jazz which is the reason for I chose a body with a rounded neck pocket, nearly all square heeled necks have a nut width that varies between 42mm and 44mm which I find to wide for me. 

17 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Well. Yes. But someone with the skills and tools to reshape a headstock wouldn’t struggle to adjust

The neck pocket is a round heel as per standard Fender dimensions, I could certainly round off the heel of the neck but I was wondering whether the rest of the neck heel would fit, width, depth, etc?

6 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

The Fender neck comes with fitted nut and satin finish. I don't know about any difference in postage costs, but would need checking, too. Other than that, I doubt that there's much in it, really.

Thanks for the reply Dad, its for a self-build and I'm going to reshape the headstock to a 51/tele shape, so I'm not too bothered about how its finished, I'm really wondering about build quality and playability. 🙂

The main concern I've got with the Fender neck is that the tuner holes are pre-drilled and might not match the tuners I have already purchased. 🤔

Has anyone had any experience of Hosco replacement necks?

I'm looking for a Jazz bass maple neck and the Hosco's are available for £219 and are supposed to be a very accurate copy of a Fender neck, but I could also buy a Genuine Fender MIM neck for not a lot more, so I was wondering how the Hosco compares to a Fender MIM neck?

13 hours ago, deadline said:

Awesome suggestion, thank you so much! And, btw - I love Quo! ❤️

You are welcome 🙂

3 hours ago, 41Hz said:

That looks ideal!

Does your drummer fancy renting out to other bands? Think there would be a decent demand!

I'll ask the question tomorrow 

Not sure whether this counts as rehearing outside, but this is where we rehearse, and we are having our third rehearsal tomorrow morning because we are all retired.

The marquee is in the garden of our drummer who inherited 12 acres of land, the nearest neighbour is miles away so no complaints about noise, and there is plenty of space to keep well away from each other.

We have all the sides open when we are rehearsing, so I would say that technically, we are rehearsing outside with just a roof over our heads to keep everything dry 😉

Karaoke Version, I've downloaded loads of tracks without the bass and then play along with them, they cost £1.99 per track which you can pay using PayPal.

Once you have purchased a track, you can download it as many times as you like and you can change the key, choose which instruments to leave out, for example, when my mate who is a guitarist comes round for a practise, I will leave out his guitar part as well, sometimes I just download the drums of a song to improve my timing.

To give you an idea of what you get, I've added a track without the bass ,and added the same track with me playing along to it.

Here's the link:

https://www.karaoke-version.co.uk

21 minutes ago, gjones said:

I envy you. I'd love a rehearsal and I wouldn't care if it was $hite. 😄

Yes it was good to have a session again and I'm not too bothered about us being a bit shoddy because I'm sure the next time will be a lot better.

I was just wondering how others faired in their first knocks after such a long time. 🙂

19 hours ago, Slappindabass said:

We had a a rehearsal Thursday, it was ok. But didnt realise we were breaking the rules by doing so. So I will not be going to another.

I'm not sure if we were breaking the rules, there were just three of us and the marquee is massive, its much larger than it looks in the photo, the side was open and we were all standing at least five metres apart.

To be honest, I felt safer in the marquee rehearsing than I do when doing essential shopping in Sainsbury's or Tesco's where a lot of people don't practise social distancing 🙁

We met up for a rehearsal at our drummer's place where he has a massive marquee set up in his garden, so no problems with social distancing, but it was the first time that I had played for longer than about 15/20 minutes since I severed two tendons above my forefinger nine week's ago, and I have to admit that it was not only quite painful, but it felt really strange because the scar tissue is still very tight and my movement is restricted, so my fingers weren't going where they used to go automatically, but I was told by the surgeon that it would be at least six months before things return to normal so I'm not too down about that.

What was more worrying though was the fact that we were all really rusty and our timing was all over the place, I'm sure it will be much better next time, but I'm wondering if this is normal after such a long lay off, and how have your first sessions back gone?

Providing the file is not too large, just drag and drop it into the box with the paperclip

Thanks Andy, that was the method I was thinking of using but wasn't sure if it was do-able or not.

I might just have a go at it now 👍

Me too, please find that thread Andy 👍

11 minutes ago, machinehead said:

Isn't there a Precision with a narrowed neck for sale here at the moment?  I'm sure I read it this week.  Worth a look in the for sale forum and ask the seller?

Frank.

I'm looking to do another P bass self-build with a maple neck and I always prefer the jazz size necks, I usually use Squier VM or Mighty Mite necks on them but Mighty Mites are virtually impossible to find in the UK nowadays, and most maple necks on jazz basses usually have blocks which I don't like, so I was thinking of finding a Squier VM P bass with a maple neck and possibly narrowing it.

Has anyone ever narrowed a neck? ie, turning a precision size neck into a jazz size neck.

I know I could do it without the frets on, but could it be done with the frets on, would I need to file the frets first with a metal file or is there a way of taking off the wood and frets at the same time?

I have to agree that SX's are towards the top end of the bargain/budget basses, certainly the older models, can't comment of the newer ones though as I've not tried any, but I had a short-scale SX Precision a few year's ago, I think I paid about £90 for it and it was a really great sounding bass that played well, I sold it on here for around the same money and now wish I still had it, you can't do much with £90 these days but that bass was real fun to play

Thanks for the interesting replies guys, I never bought one at the time which is why I'm curious about how they have stood the test of time.

If they were still available now I think would would take a punt on one because I just love messing around with basses, and at around £60 one of these would have been ideal 😉

A few year's ago there seemed to be a big scramble to get hold of a Sue Ryder bass, lots of glowing reports etc.

So I'm now wondering how many still have one, and your overall views on them?

2 minutes ago, inthedoghouse said:

Thank you. 

So that's two votes for NWG.  As you do when you've got a build on your mind, I've been thinking about this a lot and I can't really think of a good reason not to buy NWG either.  The Strat body I got from NWG was just as good as my Mex Strats.

I've got a guitar (not bass) on eBay at the moment so I'll see how much that brings in.  I'm trying to work on the principal of selling stuff to pay for a build so that it doesn't cost me much.

Thanks again 🙂

That's the approach that I take, sell one to pay for another new build, it keeps the missus happy too! 😉

Unfortunately, Northwest are out of stock at the moment but they usually get new stock in pretty quickly, give them a call, I always find them very helpful.