Jean-Luc Pickguard

They might get a 'Cease & desist' letter from FMIC for describing it as a 'relic' as that is a fender trademark: https://www.fender.com/pages/terms-of-use

I ordered it from Chandlers in the US at http://pickguards.us I also got a 3 ply black pickguard cut for my CIJ 72 tele thinline reissue. The pair came to £60 in total but I expect the cost would a bit more these days as it was ten years ago, so it would probably be more cost effective now to look at UK suppliers.

I put a double ball set of picato flats on my '86 hohner B2A as they were the only double ball ones I could find at the time - probably about 15 years ago & they're still going strong. They sound pretty much like you'd expect flats to sound, and the surface is very smooth.

yep - mine looks just like that. When I put on some low tension strings (La Bella white nylon flats) I was getting a bit of buzz at most the frets on the D string, and would have liked to be able to raise just the D, but after tweaking the relief and the height of both sides of the bridge a little I seem to have managed to get the optimum setup with no buzz.

nice! I have the same bass, but I changed the tort pg for an aged white pearloid one & upgraded the pots & socket with CTS & switchcraft bits. Its a great little bass and the tone with flatwounds is fantastic.

I played a note at the 9th fret once & the low end dropped out of the song - I certainly won't be doing that again.

I use a polytune clip, which I have used for a few years and is the easiest and fastest clip tuner I've used. I'll probably get a unitune also if TC ever make a black version as I never use the polyphonic feature on the polytune. The tuner in the Zoom B3 pedal is pretty good so I use that if I forget to take my polytune to rehearsal and when I'm feeling old-school I dig out my old A440 tuning fork & tune by harmonics - just to be sure that I can still manage without an electronic tuner.

Maybe someone turned one of the tuners but didn't tell him which one, so he's bought a new bass which is in tune and selling this one which isn't.

Look like its gone now, but I love how the original listing says 'will need tuning'

once had a punter go up to the frontman to ask for a request during a song expecting his undivided attention whilst playing guitar & singing. The stock answer when getting daft requests was that we don’t do that song, but the next one contains some of the same notes.

I think there was only one vendor selling these - I expect the mobile number is requested in case of courier problems and is more relevant for bulkier items. I don’t tend to give out mine without a struggle so if that was a required field i probably filled it with a bunch of zeros.

The hole at the pointy end is a bit off so it needed one new hole, but that hole will be hidden if I do want to put the original TRC back on at some point. I intitally wasn't keen to drill that hole but as I'd already drilled a bunch of holes for the Gotoh tuners on the back I decided to just go for it. It didn't take long to arrive, I think it was about a week, which was surprising.

The TRC was from aliexpress - £5.23 delivered. I agree with you about how it feels, plays and sounds.

OK, I've refitted my Gotoh res-o-lites, and I think this is an improvement. I also made another small change to the bass. 😎

They originally wanted Spike Milligan for the narration but he turned them down.

theres something a bit 'Nigel Tufnel' about that bloke

If anyone asks about the finish when you're playing it you could tell them its an x-ray bass and is currently displaying your stomach contents

'Lick my love pump' in D minor, the saddest of all keys?

It looks like something Barney Rubble might play

I agree, they look great on the bass. I was pleased about how much smoother they are than the stock Wilkinsons. A nice touch is that there's an allen screw at the bottom end of each tuner's shaft to adjust the tension. I'm sure you'll do a better job of lining them up than I did with mine - I carefully aligned the top row of screws which resulted in the lower row being slightly stepped. I guess the trick is to make a pen mark on masking tape between each pair of holes on the left & right sides of each tuner & keep those marks in a straight line. I'll fill & redrill to fix this sometime, but I'm not in a hurry as its not too bad. I'd never heard of Duralumin Alloy before, but I have found out one of its uses was for the frame of Zeppelins including the LZ 129 Hindenberg.

I'd be worried about dislocating my thumb if I played like that, but if he had done that at least he would have been able to listen to this track in the hospital's elevator.

I bought a set of Gotoh GB640 res-o-lite twiddlers for my thunderbird and got around to fitting them today. In my haste I think I could have fitted them a little straighter so I'll probably refit them at some point but I'm very happy with the classic vintage-cool 'long stem' look. The stock Wilkinsons were OK but in addition of look much better these are lighter and smoother. This GB640 set tunes the standard way, but there's also a GBR640 set which have reverse gearing like vintage Klusons and other modern versions that look like Klusons. Another difference common to the GB640 & GBR640 is that the baseplate fits flat without needing to drill dimples like you would for original vintage & vintage replica versions. They are made from something called duralumin alloy and weigh just 67g each.

I have owned a Zoom H1 for many years and it has never let me down. I am still frequently surprised by the high quality gig recordings I can capture with it, however in the rehearsal studio it is difficult to get a balanced recording as the vocal PA speakers are positioned as monitors pointing into the room - ie in the opposite direction to how they'd point for a gig, so the vocals aren't picked up as well as everything else if the H1 is at the front of the room. I can compensate for this by setting up the H1 to one side of the room rather than the front, which picks up more of the vocals but results in the stereo field being less balanced. A workaround might be to set up a additional monitor for the PA and set it up to point towards the H1, however it is not my rehearsal room so I'd prefer not to rearrange the gear, and there would probably need to be some trial & error in setting levels and/or distance for best results. I've been looking into the spec of the Zoom H2n as a possible replacement for the H1. It has five mics which can be set for four different recording modes and has inbuilt fx including compression, limiting & low cut filtering which sounds handy. I'm wondering whether using one of the recording modes with the H2n in the centre of the room would enable me to capture a more balanced stereo recording of rehearsals. Does anyone have any experience of the H2n or a similar 'surround-capable' recorder for recording like this? if so any insights would be useful.

It was a pleasure to buy Tom's EHX B9 Organ Machine Pedal. Fast friendly communication and the pedal arrived the next day, well packed and in mint condition.

I can vouch for your Aguilar amp & barefaced cabs - they sounded fantastic at Robin's jam night a couple of weeks ago. I've just thought of another piece of kit which exceeded my expectations - I bought a secondhand Roland MicroCube bass RX to have something battery powered which is loud enough for quiet acoustic jams with my Kala U-bass, but It is not only a lot more powerful than the specs would suggest, but the amp sims, particularly the fliptop & SVT are excellent and very inspiring so I now use it as my everyday practice amp and keep it set up next to my desk.