Jean-Luc Pickguard

I like the look of that, but on the video it sounds like someone twanging a ruler on the edge of a table.

Paul bought a couple of pickguards from me, it was an easy and pleasant transaction. Top bloke!

Do my eyes deceive me or is the tailpiece doubling as the bridge saddle? Also it looks like the neck plonked directly on the top of the body without a neck pocket and the fingerboard has an 'infinity' radius (flat!). Interesting design decisions no doubt to build it as cheaply as possible.

I have Mooer bass sweeper which is cheap, tiny and can sound absolutely filthy (in a good way) Here's Danny Sapko with one:

My first full-sized amp in about 1982 was a secondhand head made by a company called Ohm. It had a graphic eq and for some reason a built-in flanger which doubled as a pink noise generator. I was surprised to find one a few years ago still working in a rehearsal studio which I had to use and it sounded every bit as bad as I remembered.

I take my basses to the Gallery, but a guitarist I was in a band with was very pleased with some work he had done at Feline Guitars in Croydon. Also David Kennet at Flame guitars in Sutton did some good work for me on my tenor banjo and he's been on 'the Repair Shop' on the BBC a couple of times.

It can depend on the strings & the pickups. In my experience, in addition to sounding louder, a pickup closer to the string should give a tighter and more focussed tone - unless the magnet is strong enough to dampen the movement, but string to string balance and bridge/neck pickup balance should also be a consideration when adjusting the heights.

First I would check the pickup height - in case it needs raising under the B string Then I'd take the B string off & put it back on again - in case it somehow got twisted when it was put on. If there's no change I'd try it with a different string - if you have a bass that has a 'strong' B, I'd suggest borrowing that bass's string.

I wonder how many gigs a band would get if they decided to adhere to all of these rules and billed themselves as a Nazi dance band?

I'm sure it would be fine with Duracells, but I always use the kodak ones as they last as long and are only a quid each. I'll probably have to route two holes to use a pair of single boxes instead.

I like Gotoh hardware - My favourite tuners are the vintage style GB640 reso-lites which I have on two of my Thunderbird vintage pros and the EP-B3 N oversized strap buttons are great for keeping a comfort strapp safely attached thunderbird without needing grolsch washers. I really wanted to like the BB-04W as it would be a neat way to power the EMG PJ-X pickups and BTC system in my Squier SS Jaguar with 18V. This double battery box cost nearly £20 so I expected it to be ideal, however it is too small for the 9V kodak alkaline batteries I use; the batteries go in, but then it is impossible to close the flap or the battery receptacle part. With a heavy heart I have had to sent it back for a refund. I'm glad I found this out cutting a blumming great hole in the bass.

That's not Chinese - its Korean

And theres likely to be a bass-shaped vacancy in the band that Carl was in previously...

Nice! - the seafoam green looks great. I quite fancy getting a sunburst vintera mustang, but as I already have a CIJ mustang and a JMJ - both brilliant basses, I really don't *need* another. I do wonder why Fender sell these (and the JMJ) with long scale gigbags included. Surely they could do a premium version of the short scale urban gigbag that used to be available.

I sold a set of Thomastiks to Paul - a very easy transaction with immediate payment & great comms including letting me know they arrived safely. Perfect!

I have rubbery 'grolsch' style washers on most of my basses which have never let me down. I've also found that oversized mushroom-style' strap buttons such as Gotoh EP-B3 N keep a comfort strapp secure on a thunderbird without needing a grolsch washer. I had a set of schallers on my precision back in the 80s but one worked loose during a rehearsal and the bass hit the deck, The schaller straplocks went straight into the bits box and I've not felt inclined to give them a second chance.

The ovnlab chap seems to have a chip on his shoulder (or at least a bee in his bonnet) about some history between him & TC Electronic, so the Spectracomp isn't represented, although it certainly gives the best bang/buck ratio for a compressor in my opinion. I use one on my board & its great.

Although the swing bass set sounded fantastic on this bass, I couldn't get used to the feel of them so I've gone back to flatwounds. I used to be loyal to Thomastic JF-344s and still use them on my Precision, but I'm enjoying the brighter tone of Ernie Ball Cobalt flats on my thunderbirds after a brief flirtation with LaBella White Nylon Tapewounds.

I have a pair of TC Electronic Polytune clips - a black one and a white one. I never use the polyphonic mode and would have bought a unitune clip if it was available when I bought the white one or if the unitune was available in black. They are excellent tuners, very fast and accurate and I use them on everything from my ukuleles to my NS CR5M upright.

My first reaction on seeing the video above was that grabbing a random homeless man off the street and thrusting a bass into his hands is no way to get a decent demo.

It could be just my experience with my old 1986 EMG P where it sounded terribly compressed (but not in a good way) when powered with 9v. Using 18v brought it to life. I'm not using 24v with the expectation of achieving an improvement over 18v, its purely down to the convenient size of the batteries. This is my Squier SS Jaguar with EMG PJ-X & BTC System - I soldered a battery holder to a 9v clip - cost pennies to make The batteries fitted under the control plate when using the controls that came with the pickups, but the BTC takes up more room so the batteries are taped to the surface until I can get the body routed. Batteries tend to last ages with EMGs - I changed the batteries in this bass this week as it started sounding farty during rehearsal. I can't remember the last time I changed them but it was probably at least a couple of years ago.

Yes, but they were originally double bass tuners & turned the opposite way to guitar tuners.

What are the minor annoyances you have with gear? I'll start: 1 - Hipshot only selling nickel plated extenders which look out of place on a headstock with chrome plated tuners. Also the nickel plated stuff used to be described as chrome plated, but the website has since been updated. 2 - Hipshot again - the lever on detuners look like they're probably unplated stainless steel, so it doesn't match the rest of the thing. 3 - Epiphone - fitting generic wilkinson tuners to the thunderbird vintage pro - I've upgraded both of mine to gotoh GB640s which have match the vintage aesthetic much better. 4 - Reverse tuners - why not fit tuners which look like the period correct vintage ones but turn the same way as all other tuners? Only Gotoh GB640s get this right. 5 - crappy output jacks - I always fit switchcraft jacks when I find one of the flimsy lookalikes in one of my basses which will eventually fail at the least convenient time. I can forgive a Squier for this but not a japanese fender. Cheapo jacks are often accompanied by cheapo mini pots also which need to be replaced with CTS or similar. 6 - Cheapo Jazz bass knobs - the proper US spec jazz bass knobs look great. The cheapo push-on ones that came on my CIJ Mustang looked nasty until I upgraded them to US vintage ones (after upgrading the loom to include solid shaft CTS pots) 7 - Silks on strings. Surely there must be a way to colour code the silks to make the strings immediately identifiable. eg: EB Cobalt flats come in different coloured packaging depending on the guage - why not make the silks the same colour as the packaging? Maybe a combination of colours to give a striped effect could be used to make each set unique? 8 - Straps. Most straps don't have enough adjustment to go long enough which limits the choice of suitable straps. You can't rock out with a thunderbird at nipple level. 9 - Not much can be done about this one, but its always struck me as odd that pedalboards have to be set up with the pedals right to left instead of the more logical left to right due top the placement of the input & output sockets on pedals. 10 - EMG don't make much noise about how their active bass pickups really need at least 18v to sound great. I'm sure people are put off using them when they don't sound particularly special with a single 9v battery. I use 24v from a pair of 12v A23 car plipper batteries in mine - which take up less room than a standard 9v.