rushbo

Ah memories....here's my Jaydee story. About 1988, I found myself in a band with two of John Diggins' sons - a very useful guitarist and drummer. We used to rehearse at his workshop in Brum after hours - a bench got moved to the side and a PA flung up and off we went. This meant we practically had the run of the place and I had a number of delicious Jaydees to twang on. My favourite was a Supernatural which apparently was a "second" - the bridge was slightly askew if I remember correctly. I saw some amazing stuff - instruments belonging to Tony Iommi, Dave Hill and of course, Mark King. One of Mr Level 42s basses was in for a post tour service and I was very impressed that thanks to his powerful slappage, he had managed to wear grooves in the pick up covers. That and the fact that they weighed A TON raises Mr King in my estimation. I got to have a good ol' prowl around the facility and see some beautiful instruments being made, including the legendary Jaco Jaydee. I even had a chat with the Bassie from Cutting Crew (remember them...?) when he picked up his instrument after a service. What a nice man. I only managed one gig with the Diggins boys - I was sacked because the singer didn't like me. Hey ho. Ironically, I used the Supernatural at the show with my custard yellow BC Rich as the back-up. The BC Rich had a case. The Supernatural didn't. I remember having a post gig curry with the Jaydee leaning against the table, caseless, with numerous waiters nearly falling over it. Then, slightly tipsy, I wandered through Brum with it over my shoulder as if it was a hobos backpack. Even though I'm a Fender man nowerdays, if I had the cash, I'd grab one of these beauties in a hot minute. I wonder what happened to that shop soiled Supernatural?

I saw a cheaper one on Gumtree.

Bought a dropdeadgorgeous Precision off the equally lovely Pete. He put up with numerous shenanigans and was as easy to deal with as an incredibly easy to deal with person. Buy and sell with confidence.

Lovely performance all round. Great to see a Drummer rocking the incredibly stylish "Dungarees and Tie" look....

The Bass line to "This Charming man" always makes me think of Bach. No, seriously.... (and no, not Sebastian.....)

Not an instrument shop, but Cambridge boasts an excellent branch of Fopp records. Bargains abound.

What's the best crate for metal?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1360010582' post='1963589'] Ah yes, that's the bit of foam isn't it..? I don't know about laboratory conditions. I just turned over the crate and stuck my amp and cab on top. No change since that happened at 10:49 this morning. I may need to try a more practical experiment in the field. That is, at a gig - with a load of arseholes milling around like drunken skittles and bumping into things. [/quote] ...it's a glamorous life we lead, isn't it?

I come for the Bass related information. I stay for the cut and thrust of intellectual discourse. ...but seriously, those things are well useful. I hope the experiment is taking place under laboratory conditions...?

[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1359991620' post='1963088'] The singer/guitarist then proceeded to turn up with his new pedal board in a bin bag? [/quote] I wouldn't have minded him bringing the thing in a My Little Pony lunchbox as long as it cut his faffaround time to single figures....

[quote name='lettsguitars' timestamp='1359987525' post='1962980'] My old bassist always carried his leads, fx etc around in a plastic carrier bag. Used to make the drummer soooo mad 'I see you've got your little carrier bag with you. Get yourself a f***in rucksack. Loser!' is what he would say from time to time. [/quote] My old singer/guitarist used to do that. He would then go through all the mathematically possible permutations of assembling his three pedals in a working order. This could take 30 minutes. It got so bad, at the end of one rehearsal, I grabbed his plastic bag (or "the flightcase" as we dubbed it) told him I was making him a board for him and he could have them back nect week. One piece of MDF, a few cable clips, half an hours work and three cable ties later -problem sorted. I have a Hiscox case which houses my lovely Mexi Jazz bass, old spare strings, a crappy 'emergency' lead and pen and paper. My strap stays on. In my effects flight case (slightly bigger than one of those Maplins photograpy cases) are my FX , 'decent' leads and my power cable. Always be ready to boogie, that's my motto.

ermmm... Oh, I know: [attachment=126733:Be-Bop-Deluxe-Live-In-The-Air-A-518569.jpg][attachment=126734:murmur.png]

[quote name='lee4' timestamp='1359390090' post='1954017'] I think you've built my dream bass [/quote] Me too... Seriously, it wasn't too bad thanks to the swapability of the Squier bits and some bargainous hardware from BassChat and Fleabay. The paint job will never win any awards, but it does look very Rock and Roll. The BassDoc did a great job with the plate too. Even my rather conservative bandmates in my 'Classic Rock' band gave it some begrudging praise. This was the first time I had ever done anything more than just swapping a bridge or scratchplate and once I'd got beyond the horror of scraping the nuclear shielded metallic purple paint off the body, the rest was pretty straightforward. Go on...tart up that nasty Encore Jazz Bass you bought at that car boot sale for a tenner. All you need is some decent grades of sandpaper, some auto paint (lacquer optional), some imagination and a bit of free time. As much as I love, black or sunburst basses, there are approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 currently in circulation. I hear Custard Yellow and Atomic Lime Green are next seasons 'must have' colours... Oh and thanks to everyone for the kudos...

We’ve all had horror stories with online customer service…’It’s more than my Jobsworth”, “ It’s not my department” “your issue will be dealt with in 3-5 working months,” yadda yadda. So it’s nice to see a good example for a change… I purchased a set of Fender flatwounds online (for a very competitive price…) from Sounds Live a week or two ago. They arrived promptly and I set about putting them on my lovely Mexi Jazz Bass. That’s when the fun starts. The ‘D’ snapped at the peg end while I was stringing up, leaving me just enough for one wind around the peg. I’ve never snapped a string whilst tuning (and only three or four during my 27 year “career” as a Bassist…) so I thought there may be an issue with the string. I still hadn’t ruled out ‘pilot error’ at this stage. So, I dropped a line to Sounds Live asking if I could buy a single D. Within the day, I received a very apologetic letter from Tom Cleugh at Sounds Live who told me he’d got in touch with Fender to sort out a replacement. I then received a number of emails tracking the process of the order. Yesterday, I received another, equally courteous and apologetic email, this time from Tom Gardner (a very safe pair of hands as it turns out he’s a Bassist…) at Fender saying that the strings (a full set, not just the dodgy one) were in the post and to make up for any inconvenience, he’d included a couple of custom shop patch leads. The strings arrived this morning. I reckon that’s customer service above and beyond the call of duty.

I'll be there on Saturday...earplugs at the ready.

My twopence worth... I went from using Maplins cheapos to Planet Waves patch leads after I had one or two fail on me. I'm also using a couple of George L's on the board which are excellent. But expensive. They do crop up second hand from time to time, so they're worth looking out for. being able to trim them to whatever length you need is a real advantage. Moral of the story...if it ain't broke (etc).

I’m putting this up on this esteemed forum as both a cautionary tale and proof that with a bit of patience and ‘this much talent’ you can bolt something together from bits, which is greater than the sum of the parts… I started off with the best of intentions – inspired by all the amazing work I’d seen here, I thought I’d have a go at my own humble project. I’ve always loved Precision ‘specials’ – there’s something about the look and the sound of them that really appeals. And for some reason, I’ve always loved inverted headstocks…I blame Jimi Hendrix for that. Anyhoo, I found a Squier PJ on Gumtree for £80 (with a Hiscox case and spare strings too), so I was halfway there. The only drawback was it was pretty heavily dinged and a rather nasty metallic purple to boot. The only solution was to strip it and paint it. That’s when the fun started. I read a bazillion instructions from a bazillion websites about what to do. The Reranch site had some incredibly detailed information, but it looked pretty intimidating. The Manchester Guitar Tech site had some more great advice, but it was all a bit scary. Eventually, I bit the bullet, ordered some primer, some Olympic white nitro and a can of vintage tint lacquer and off I went. Stripping the Bass was a bloody nightmare. When they finally drop the bomb, the only things left on Planet Earth will be Keith Richards, Cockroaches and whatever is coated in the godless substance that was layered all over this Bass. Nitromors, my industrial sander and all the swearing in the West Midlands couldn’t shift it, so I flattened it, filled the dinks with woodstopper, smoothed it off and primed it. The spraying was done in my kids’ old playhouse which meant I had to kneel down in a tiny wooden hut to work - not the kind of place a Lakland is finished… The primer went on nicely, as did the Oly white. So far so good. I’d followed the instructions to the letter and it seemed to be paying off. Only the lacquer left to go… The lacquer made my lovely, off white Bass look like someone had thrown teabags at it. Blotchy and horrible. I don’t know what I did, but it was pretty profoundly terrible. To make matters worse, I’d gone out and bought a lefty Squier PJ (from Preloved this time, but for £80, I got a Bass in great condition, a Marshall practice amp, a tuner, a stand, a decent lead and a ‘beginners guide to Bass’ book – bargain!) and I was beginning to think I’d wasted time and money on a bass which at very best was going to look like a smokers lung. So, I did what any self-respecting grown up would do. I sulked. Then, in a fit of pique, I sanded the thing down to flat(ish), jumped in the car, found the nearest Auto supply shop and grabbed two tins of red spray paint and some clear coat. Without even considering the shade, I blitzed the Bass with three or four coats of red and I was amazed when it started to look really rather good…maybe there was hope after all. I decided not to clear coat it in the end as I really liked the matt satin effect that just the rattlecans gave it. I sanded the logo off the southpaw headstock – not because I have no love for Squiers (quite the opposite in fact) but because it looked odd. Then I bolted it together, which was surprisingly easy – thank you Squier (Indonesia) manufacturing! Then the hardware went on (black – I love black hardware). Most of it came from BC including a loverlee Schaller bridge and a smart, bespoke scratchplate from the legendary BassDoc and voila! A pretty groovy and very distinctive, useable Bass. I’ve had a great night tonight setting it up and with a tweak of the truss rod and two goes at soldering the pups back in (I suck BIG TIME at soldering…) it lives! The Squier pups sound really ballsy, so I’m in no hurry to swap ‘em for something ‘better’ right now. The nobrand machine heads are a wee bit stiff, but seem to be working well. I LOVE the colour (a sort of pinky Fiesta Red) and the neck is a dream. Very similar to my Mexican Jazz. I’m still playing about with it, but it’s just minor cosmetic stuff. I think it’s great and the colour neatly symbolises my mid-life crisis. (If you’re paying attention, you may be wondering about the fate of the other bits of Bass –I bolted them together and flogged them to one of the Music teachers at the school I work at, who just happens to be a lefty. Now that’s synchronicity…) I’m braced for the brickbats, ladies and gents, so feel free to tell me where I’ve gone wrong. I know a year or two down the line I may regret not lacquering my ‘masterpiece’ but I think my previous experience made me a bit too wary. It seems pretty resilient, but I may change my tune… Oh yeah, when I’d gone down the rattlecan route, I found T[url="http://www.bradsucks.net/archives/2006/05/29/guitar-painting-part-1/"]HIS [/url]on the Interweb. Informative, easy to follow and funny as hell. The guys a star. The moral of the story…have a go. Maybe not on that 1969 Rickenbacker 4001, but most of us have a ‘beater’ don’t we? Get down to Auto World, buy something garish and frivolous, fire up the sander (after first praying that your bass isn’t slathered with Fullerplast or whatever the hell mine was covered in) and get busy. What’s the worst that can happen…? 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