Jean-Luc Pickguard

in the wee wee hours - chuck berry

25 O'clock – Dukes of Stratosphear

Interesting video. Duck was always a big influence and inspiration for me. Its interesting that the Lakland is kept shut away unplayed & unpolished as it has his DNA on it. Is the US government planning to clone Duck Dunn after seeing my If you could bring back one famous musician from the dead... thread?

The BT10 will have a smaller capstan diameter than standard tuners. I think the BT7 might be a better fit, but will most likely require new holes for the retaining screws.

to be fair, the chair does look comfy

Although I have had favourite bass string sets ever since I started playing flats around 2000, I have never had a 'favourite' guitar string until recently. After trying various brands and gauges recently I have standardised on Fender 'super 250' .009–.042 on my (electric) guitars. This was based on feel as much as the sound. The super 250's come in a handy pack of three sets for £10.80 from amazon. The vintera mustang I bought recently has unknown strings on it which I think are 10s, so I'm looking forward to hearing how it will sound when I put on a set of the fender 9s. It is interesting that to my ears the 9s sounded best in the video with the 10s and the 11s having a slightly more 'muffled' quality. I have tried 8s previously but for me the high E breaks far too often.

These look pretty good on the website. I'm looking forward to hearing how it turns out for you.

The processing has almost made it sound like it’s played on a wishbass

Post a pic of the underside of the pickups—that might help identification

Daft idea, but its just a bit of fun. If I had one I'd want a swappable headstock though as the standard one looks a bit pedestrian with the flying vee body. But I'd still play my thunderbirds in any gig situation I find myself in.

Are you keeping the stock pots/jack, buying a pre-made loom, or making your own loom from new components? If you’re making a loom use cloth covered ‘push-up’ cable. Also don’t worry about spending money on an expensive capacitor—a ceramic disc or other cheap type will give the same tone as an expensive fancy-pants boutique capacitor of the same capacitance. If you’re a novice at soldering you’ll got better joints if you can find some lead/tin solder rather than the more ubiquitous lead-free stuff that requires a much higher temperature to flow. It is a good time to take the opportunity to shield the control cavity & pickup cavity with anti-slug copper tape when you’re changing the pickup.

Oh, I actually have an EMG killswitch fitted to a bass which I put in to fill a hole where the original preamp used one more pot than the EMG system with stacked pots that replaced it. I've not really experimented with it so I'll have to have a play.

Fender don't make short or medium scale flats so the JMJ mustang comes with long scale Fender flats fitted which sound & feel great to me—in fact I also put a set on my CIJ mustang. If they ever start sounding crappy I have a set of medium scale D'addario Chromes lying in wait—which I believe are Mr Justin MJ's strings of choice, but even after a few years they're still sealed in their packaging. I'd like to try the LaBellas, but I'll probably never get around to it.

A bit of tastefully applied autotune on the vocals wouldn't have gone amiss. I did like the funny stuttery effect in the guitar solo though.

From the ad: Yeah right—sounds like it!

I’d bet if someone at gibson seriously put their mind to it they’d be able to make a bass that looks feels and sounds as good as the epiphone vintage pro thunderbirds

I have used masking tape for this before, but would probably use aluminium tape if I had to do this again—but only as I have a roll of it sitting here unused.

I'm happy with my Italy-built LMII which I have owned from new, but if it does go toes up in the future I am unlikely to replace it wth another MarkBass product and will probably to go back to using Ashdown.

I have a couple of Fender curly cables and a couple of straight ones. I have had a ancient ones fail in the past and fixed them myself by soldering on new neutrik jacks. I'll try to remember to contact Fender if any of my current crop ever fail.

My Tastes are rooted in basses that were designed in the years I was a toddler for some reason, so my favourites are: There's something particularly majestic about the headstock on my Guild Starfire II, and the mustang shape just looks right with the lollipop tuners on the JMJ. My Epiphone vintage pro thunderbirds really needed the Gotoh res-o-lite GB640 tuners to look right though.

Drop it like its hot - Snoop Dogg

tight pants - Iggy & the stooges

Cactus party - the Melvins