Jean-Luc Pickguard

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/funky "Offbeat, unconventional or eccentric"

Noticed a funky looking Wishbass on ebay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-Fretless-4-String-Curly-Ambrosia-Maple-J-B-Wishbass-Kent-Armstrong-J-PU/143531217204?hash=item216b209134:g:ks0AAOSw7UheGOpm and this fugly one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lefty-Bass-Fretless-4-String-Red-Cedar-Fiddle-Shape-Short-Scale-28-Wishbass/133325147860?_trkparms=aid%3D555021%26algo%3DPL.SIMRVI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20190711100440%26meid%3Daf81145a6a9f4ca6b4d1f88154fb85a7%26pid%3D100752%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D18%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D143531217204%26itm%3D133325147860%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100752.m1982 Also noticed the verbiage near the bottom of the page: Unfortunately this video exists with Mr Wishnevsky himself demoing one of his basses by using it to make a noise like a dying cow

Yes, I have the mooer bass sweeper now & its fantastic for such an inexpensive pedal. My bassballs was the original 70s USA one. I can't remember when I last saw it, but it would have been many years before basschat existed.

I'm so used to babying my basses that I catch myself taking great care not to put a dink in my JMJ mustang.

There's a 'tribute' series version of the fallout guitar, so I wouldn't be surprised if a more affordable version of the fallout bass is available sometime in the future - maybe even with some nice colours.

I must go & see this before it ends in April. Its good to see that Paul's bass is resting on a nice padded cushion to prevent it from getting damaged.

I quite fancy an ebony one, but I should probably unload one of the sunburst ones before looking as having four could be seen as excessive.

You'd probably need to open it up and mess about with the trimpots to get it sounding this filthy, and of course David J was playing his usual Fretless precsion. The bass sweeper is a pretty good clone of the bass balls and brings the extra controls to the top for a wider variation in sound. I used to own an original 70s bass balls so I recognised the sound on this track as soon as I heard it. I still have the record but I have no idea what happened to the bass balls.

Nice! The fingerboard looks great. Any reason you went for this set rather than the 760FLMUS mustang-specific LaBellas?

Knocking the headstock off a gibson isn't the end of the world - chap I know had his invisibly repaired for £65, and its almost expected for an old one to have a repair in its history. If fitting four pedals is such a pain in the ar$e for the manufacturer, he should probably try fitting them using his hands instead.

Cool story

Love a bit of bass balls (or mooer bass sweeper these days)

Thomastik jazz rounds JR344? https://www.thomastik-infeld.com/en/products/guitar-strings/bass-guitar/jazz-round-wound

I've become adicted to the vintage pro thunderbird basses and currently have three, two sunburst and one white. All have *customised* truss rod covers and two have Gotoh GB640 res-o-lite tuners which are fantastic. I have found that EB colbalt flats 40 - 095 work really well on these basses. I don't find the necks at all chunky, they are pretty much the perfect shape for me - like a skinny jazz neck but needing fewer truss rod tweaks due to temperature and humidity changes.

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?