Jean-Luc Pickguard

The Tech 21 VT Bass pedal works for me

I saw one of these in the Sutton (Surrey) Trash Converters for £100 today - looks pretty good for a beginner's bass

I used to have a couple of ashborys which are lined fretless and tiny - you get used to playing them. Also violin players seem to manage without frets.

The only real lemon I bought was a Harley Benton uke bass which I really wanted to like and tried to get on with, but compared to the ubass I have now it was a piece of junk. Thomann exchanged it twice due to manufacturing defects but the third one wasn't much better than the others; it was difficult to get a decent tone and it was not much fun to play so I sold it on and upgraded to a Kala.

Here's mine - recorded using my epiphone thunderbird vintage pro bass, Eastwood Warren Ellis tenor guitar & logic pro.

Ikea do a set for £8 https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/tools-fittings/tool-sets-accessories/rill-castor-grey-art-96671300/

The fifth hole is for ajusting the micro-tilt thingy with an allen key instead of using card to shim the neck.

ok - Well the zoom h2n is used for every rehearsal & gig while I’m playing bass & practicing to the recordings seems to improve my playing. If I have to pick one ‘best’ purchase It’d have to be my wonderful JMJ mustang bass which is pretty much my ideal instrument. The hipshot lollypop tuners & the Seymour duncan pickup are particularly good. You can tell that when JMJ was designing it with Fender everything about the bass was considered in great detail.

best - in no specific order: Zoom H2n recorder - a great upgrade from my trusty old H1, TC spectracomp, Epiphone vintage pro thunderbird, JMJ mustang, My new favourite strings: La Bella white nylon flatwounds - a short scale set on my '72 musicmaster & a long scale set on the thunderbird which sound & feel amazing. most disappointing - EHX B9 organ pedal - bought out of curiosity & sold on very quickly & a medium scale set of the La Bella white nylon flatwounds which didn't seem to work as well on the mustang as the stock Fender flats.

30" short scale strings should fit - it looks like a similar layout to a squier jaguar SS or Fender musicmaster. 32" medium scale might also work, but theres a chance that the wound part of the E might end up going around the tuner a little and the silks will start a short way up from the nut.

It just needs a good old sideways twack from a mallet on the headstock.

before breaking out the soldering iron I'd try a squirt of contact cleaner in the pots. I've successfully cured scratchy crackling pots in my CIJ tele thinline with this stuff: https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD40-Drying-Contact-Cleaner-250ml/dp/B00KPUBO2S

Not quite twins - my 1972 Musicmaster & brand new JMJ mustang

I might get away with it as long as I keep my daphne blue musicmaster in a gigbag.

Mine has just been delivered. The colour is very close to my Daphne Blue musicmaster bass and the roadworn job is natural looking & not too severe. It doesn't look grimey like some of the pics I have seen of this model, and the back of the neck has a smooth even matt finish. I was surprised that it came with a gigbag suitable for a precision or jazz which is several inches longer than the 'Fender urban shortscale' gigbag I use for my CIJ mustang & squier jag SS. The neck is a little chunkier than the CIJ mustang and the hipshot lollypop tuners are lovely. Straight out of the box it really doesn't feel like a spanking new bass - the set up is almost perfect and it feels like the bass equivalent of a comfy worn-in jumper. I've had a quick blast though my Roland Microcube bass RX amp and it seems that the pickup is louder than the one in my CIJ. Not sure how I'm going to break the news to the missus.

I couldn't resist - I've just ordered one. I'm going to be in so much trouble when the missus notices it.

I want one of these so bad - it'd match my '72 Daphne blue musicmaster bass, but apart from me being skint, the missus also seems to think seventeen basses constitutes a complete collection - & I'm still in trouble for buying an epiphone vintage pro T-bird this year. I put a set of the standard Fender 9050L flats on my CIJ mustang & they're pretty good - only the E has an unsilked bit going around the tuning post and it doesn't seem to suffer any ill effects for it.

I have a nice goldtone cripple creek Irish tenor. I chose a 4 string banjo as I already play ukulele so the plan was to string it like a tenor uke (using Newtone loop-end unwound single strings: 0.008, 0.011, 0.014 & 0.018). The Irish tenor has a shorter neck than other 4 string tenors. I use it mainly for strumming chords rather than picking. Whether to go for 4 or 5 string will depend on the type of music you want to play on it. If I wasn't already a uke player I would have probably gone for a 6 string banjo tuned like a guitar.

The used Spark mini I had my eye on went for a fiver more than a new one costs from several shops. Weird.

Cheers - sounds like a TC Spark will be my best bet.

Cheers for the replies everyone. I have a bid on a TC Spark mini at the moment, but if I don't get that it looks like there are plenty of other options to check out.

I use a TC Spectracomp into a Tech 21 VT Bass to achieve a nice saturated tone without fizzy distortion, but there are some times in the set (eg the bass solo in 'substitute') when I could do with increasing the volume a few db but without changing the tone or adding more distortion. I'm thinking that a TC spark mini after the VT might do the job, but there are a few other pedals that might be suitable like the Electro harmonix LPB-1 nano and various cheap & cheerful mini pedals in the £15-£25 range. Can anyone offer any experience/recommendations for a clean boost pedal?

I don't have a yellow bass, but I would like one to match my car

Here's a bass being offered as an alder-bodied Squier Mustang bass with a BIN of £245. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fender-Squier-Mustang-Relic-Bass-short-scale-30-Included-Vox-mini-Amp/123469702860 Even my missus would be able to tell you its an agathis-bodied bronco bass worth about £80-£100 on a good day with the wind behind it.

I normally love mustangs, but this one is minging