lonestar

Great stuff Thanks

I recently went to spend a sunny afternoon in a pub garden watching a bass playing mate of mine’s band. Bunch of 60+ Essex geezers all pleasant enough, helped them set up etc( all fine so far. One of them was wearing white shirt, white slacks and white shoes. There was some banter about him being in Miami Vice, and whether he was Crockett or Tubbs. He replied “so long as I ain’t that black C***t!” Being half Mauritian, so of mixed race and little bit brown I answered in a dead-pan humourless tone “No, I expect that’d be me.” I think that it went straight over their numb-skulled heads. I couldn’t leave as Steve was driving. Suffice to say I won’t be offering my services if they ever require a dep.

I'd recommend low-tack masking tape, having once peeled off some varnish on the edge of an old maple board. If you only have regular tape run it across your t-shirt first, it may work! I normally use 0000 wire wool followed, by Duraglit or Brasso

At a huge outdoor gig in bright sunlight I couldn’t see the leds on my pedal tuner. No problem, I have a backup Korg lcd screen tuner. Tuned my 5 string and started playing. Horrible; I must have been about a third of a tone out. I had to stop playing, grab my backup bass and carry on with some very odd looks from my bandmates. At the interval I just couldn’t work out what was going on. The sound guy sussed it. I’d knocked the calibration switch on the tuner in my haste from 440hz to something else. Doh!

I’ve been playing this for a few weeks now and loving it even more! I’ve adjusted the pickup heights slightly, resulting in an improved tone and even volume across the strings and tweaked the relief/action a little. Played a large outdoor festival the other week, through an Ampeg SVT and 4x10 on a big stage with a proper festival PA. My bass sounded great and lots of nice comments about my sound at this gig from the crew, and from my band mates at rehearsals. I couldn’t be more pleased with it. IMG_0668.mov

I was photographing it for the late David Redfern. I photographed so many festivals and gigs back that I was a bit blase about the whole thing. After I'd got what I needed I left, jumped on the tube , went went home, moved the telly into the French doors and watched the rest in the garden with a few cold beers.

"when drums stop,very bad....."

HaHa What are all these switches for then? Does it go up to 11? What if I turn all these knobs up to full?

It was my ideal gig, living the dream! Shame we weren’t playing for a bit longer. We’re back playing a full set indoors at Venue 16 in January

Had a great afternoon at Summer Soul Vibe Festival in Ipswich. We played a 40 min set mid-afternoon. Exellent stage, crew and pa playing my first gig with my new Sadowsky ME. The back line the same SVT I played with a year ago at another festival, same hire company! Proper green room in Venue 16, with lasagne, soft drinks tea and coffee and staff looking after you. Really nicely done. Good to get great comments from the sound guys and I could see the foldback engineers having a good time stage left of us. Which is always nice.and reassuring. IMG_0666.mov

NBD Quick string change and setup. First impressions it’s very nice, apart from the placky battery cavity cover. I’ll fit the VTC preamp when I get a chance.

Thanks for the heads up. I think I’ve just ordered the last set in stock

Not sure if they’re still around but I have a Mighty Mite fender licenced neck on my bitsa P bass. Lovely

I added the VTC to mine and it was worth every penny. Mine is a 2020 model and although there were none of the common noise issues from that time, the vintage tone control, better pots, and versatility of tones has made a big improvement to my bass. I’ve felt no need to change the pickups, since swapping the VTC preamp and controls, but I did swap the string retainer for a Hipshot one, as inspired by Andy Irvine. That in itself seemed to improve the tone somehow and “tighten” up the sound is the only way I can think how to describe it. Roger Sadowsky has posted a very useful how to video on Youtube. Get your soldering iron out and go for it!

https://shop.warwick.de/en/instruments/electric-basses/sadowsky-metroexpress/24-fret-modern-bass/38977/sadowsky-metroexpress-24-fret-modern-bass-roasted-maple-fingerboard-5-string?number=D0444556001717328263A1-D0890850001700158009A5506 Anyone tried one of these? I’m intrigued to know how it compares with the JJ 5string