rushbo

Here's mine - The Peoples Republic of Mercia - Hot rockin', old school R&B from the Midlands. http://www.promercia.com/ I put it together on Wix, which i can thoroughly recommend - not the cheapest, but the templates are easily customised and their mobile optimisation is really good. The merch is listed on the page on a cool widget from Ecwid which is free for less than ten items. We've got some gigs through the site, along with the FB page, so it's paid for itself a few times over. I like curating it, too - I can make sure no "unflattering" shots of the debonair bassist ever get uploaded (cough...)

I've got a Hotcovers padded cover for my Genz Benz Contour combo. It's ace. It gets regular use and it's holding up really well. Highly recommended.

"Munro smashed up a flat and said he was run over by a guest on an electric wheelchair and hit twice on the head with a bottle of Jack Daniels during Mr McLennan’s 18th birthday party." I've read that sentence about 50 times now and every time I read, I laugh.

Maybe it's the angle of the camera, but the "G" string is barely on the fretboard...

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1501621246' post='3346053'] This probably won't go down too well with the recent resurgence in TE popularity, but having owned an SMX rig for several years I found it to be gutless and under powered and almost impossible to get a good sound out of. I bought a new 250 watt SMX combo and extension cab in the early 90's and used it for several years and in that time I pretty much grew to hate everything about it. There's been a lot of talk on here recently about how Trace watts are so much louder than everyone else's. But with 250 watts and two 15" speakers, I always felt like the rig was struggling to keep up with other people I was playing with. The SMX amps had loads of different controls but I just couldn't get a sound that I really liked from it. The pre-amp tube didn't seem to introduce any tonal colour and no matter what I did with the graphic, it still sounded toppy and was unable to deliver the mids and low end with any conviction. On the plus side, it looked great and the dual band compression circuit was really good. I'm not out to rattle any cages here as I know there's plenty of Trace fans still about, but my own experience is very much at odds with the highly regarded reputation that Trace gear has. Maybe mine was just a duff one? Who knows. [/quote] That was pretty much my experience too.

I had a GP7 Combo for a short while. It was incredibly heavy and I was never happy with the sound. Quite distressing really as I'd wanted one for years, but my lovely old Peavey combo just refused to die - when it finally did, I grabbed the TE. Be careful what you wish for, said a wise man. After a brief flirtation with a Peavey Nitrobass head and 4x10 cab and then a revolting Ashdown combo, I settled on a Genz Benz contour combo. Lightweight and gorgeous, unlike me.

That is flippin' gorgeous.

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1499068533' post='3328856'] I have a mate who is known to all and sundry as Queasy. For a long time, I never actually knew his real name, it was always Queasy. Real name? Phil Pawley. [/quote] Genius. I had a uncle called Thomas Thomas and I went to school with a kid called Christopher Christopher. You have to blame the parents...

For a 54 year old, I'm pretty mobile and mine doesn't budge from the strap and works brilliantly. Never had a construction issue with it. There was one occasion where on landing from a particularly athletic jump, as I hit the stage there was a momentary cut out, but it was a hefty landing. I do all my own stunts. Just buy one. They're ace.

I had one of these in candy apple red. Lovely basses, but a really wide neck. It sounded great, but after three attempts at mastering the five string (a lovely Yammy attitude, a gorgeous Spector and finally this) I decided to stick to four. Or maybe three.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1493040856' post='3285089'] Levitation Dark Star King L The Thorns [/quote] Levitation were superb. I saw them supporting All About Eve and they were probably the better band on the night.

Another happy tort guard recipient here - nicely packaged and swift delivery - thanks Simon.

I've just received a care package of pickups, tuners, bridges and all manner of useful things from Gerry. Swiftly delivered and beautifully packaged - cheers, chum! Buy and sell with confidence.

A lot of the "rebadging" is to do with association. Squiers are (generally) associated with beginners or novice players. Fenders are big boys toys. Therefore, the easy way to jump up a rung on the ladder is to change the decal to be "associated" with the next tier of player. This thinking runs pretty deep - we do a lot of listening with our eyes. I saw one of my favourite bands a few years ago (The Posies, if you're taking notes). Their bassist was rocking a lovely Squier, which made me think "Why is he playing one of those?" The simple reason was, it sounded ace. I have a lot of love for Squiers (and cheapie basses in general), but that thought still popped into my head. Most of my main gigging basses are bitsas, cobbled together from whatever parts I have handy. I love them. All the bits are good quality and I set them up to suit my playing style. I have had the occasional tyrekicker comment favourably on my sound and complimenting me on my "Fender" - it's only when I point out, it's a mongrel instrument and that logo actually says "Fedner Prescription Bass" (yeah, I'm one of THOSE people...) that they start to add caveats to their previous praise. People rebadge for many reasons - some do it to make their project as accurate as possible, others do it as they feel they won't be taken seriously if they don't have a "name" brand. I do it because when I put my Frankenstein instruments together, I think the headstock looks better with something on it - even if it is a cringey dadjoke. The issue is when chancers whack on a dodgy decal to turn a perfectly lovely £200 quid Squier into a £1000 pretend Fender to catch out a punter who's not that clued up.

I had a G30 that did exactly the same thing. I ended up sending it back to Thomann who tested it and declared it was working A1. After a week, it started to drop out again. If you have a quick trawl of the web, you'll find lots of people with the same experience. If you get a good one, they're golden-on a good day, mine worked brilliantly with a huge range. Unfortunately, it became really unreliable. I've since bought a SmoothHound which has been rock solid reliable.

Well, I finally came close to one of those "Car Boot sale '59 Precision" moments. Whilst idly browsing on Shpock, I came across an interesting ad - a guy about a mile away from me, selling a worse for wear OLP bass and an equally tired and emotional Washburn BT9. I shot round and £60 later, they were both mine. The Washburn polished up nicely (after I replaced a pot and scraped off a layer of rattlecan white paint, that is...) It now resides in Seattle, with a very happy new owner. I had plans for the OLP... [attachment=242334:Electric-Guitar-and-Bass.jpg] [attachment=242335:Electric-Guitar-and-Bass-64cc3416.jpg] I've used Tru Oil before on some bass necks and always got great results. My plan was to strip off the glutenous yellow gloopy lacquer on the OLP and use the oil to get a satin finish. I had a lovely afternoon of sanding merrily away until all the noxious stuff was off, revealing a nice piece of wood (well, two actually) After about 9 coats of Tru Oil and a bit of light sanding between coats, I got a really tasty satin finish. Lovely and smooth and natural. Similarly, the neck got treated and finished with some 00000 grade wire wool which has left a superfast, frictionless finish. I put on my trademark "comedy" headstock decal - not a bad job. [attachment=242337:headstock.png] I'd got some new/old hardware for it - a set of tuners from a Mexi Fender, a new pup and an Ebay scratchplate. Tuners were great - it turns out that they were reversible, so I could switch the "G" tuner round. Ace. The plate needed a bit of modification to get it to fit, but nothing my Maplins "Dremel" couldn't cope with. The pup was an issue. Wiring is not my forté. Even after getting advice from the Tech-heads here, I still couldn't get it to behave. I got close, but one pot ran in the opposite direction to the others. That's not right, is it? I gave up and took it my local fixer-upper, who did a bang up job and put in proper pots and wired it in series. As a diehard P Bass man, I mistrust anything with more than two knobs, so the redundant volume knob has been converted to a DFA. Does it sound like a Musicman? Well, sort of. A lovely aggressive twangy noise. I splashed out on a set of those £6 Ashdown 40-100 Roundwounds which are doing a decent job, too. I love it. It looks and sounds ace and I've saved it from the bonfire. Job done. [attachment=242338:real whole.png] [attachment=242339:whole.png]

[quote name='T-Bay' timestamp='1490215773' post='3263389'] Does anyone know what the solution on this is? Just updated my pedal board and ended up using a 2m cable as the noise was horrendous, never had a problem before. The smooth hound is presently next to the zoom on the board so I could shift things around a bit but would probably only get a 15-20cm separation maximum. [/quote] Get in touch with Chris at SH. He sent me out a new receiver which works flawlessly.

[quote name='KiOgon' timestamp='1489938602' post='3260939'] How's about:- https://www.dropbox.com/s/pnvefqapt7qhf91/MM%204%20wire.jpg?dl=0 Leave your red/white soldered together & use the black/yellow as black/red should be good John [/quote] You're a gentleman...thank you so much.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1489933331' post='3260898'] If it's the same as the OLP 5-string MM3 that I used to have, it will have two volume controls, one apparently for each side of the humbucker, and one tone control. [/quote] Yup, that's it, as far as I remember. I got as far as plugging the instrument in, checking that the three pots all did something and then started taking it apart.

Hi Basschat Hivemind, I recently rescued a poorly OLP MusicMan bass (passive) and very lovely it is too. It's the three knob version. My plan was to upgrade it with a Wilkinson Pickup. That's where the fun started. The pup I've removed has just two wires leading from it - the Wilkinson Pup has one, divided into four: Black Yellow Red/White soldered together. Some (rather limited) instructions were included, but no diagram. I can't seem to find anything on the web that is exactly what I'm after - there are some posts on here, but they seem to be written by people with a decent knowledge of the tech. I've wired up many a P bass and even a six string or two, but this one is eluding me. Can anyone hold my little hand or point me in the direction of a passive, four wire, three knob wiring diagram, please?

I had a chat with him at the London Bass bash a few years ago and he's a lovely, humble, unassuming guy. I'm not a fan of his flavour of Metal, but there is no denying that he's a monster player. Plectrum technique to die for.