Maude

I do actually agree with everything in your post. I spent a summer gigging an Aria P bass I picked up for £40 because it played so nicely. I'd happily spend the rest of my days gigging cheap, well set up instruments but the luxury of disposable income means I can gig higher cost ones as well, if wanted. I'm at both ends of the spectrum, by that I mean I see no reason to not gig an expensive bass, but at the same time I see no reason not to gig a budget bass. Just make sure that whatever you gig it's well set up to your needs. There's good budget and expensive basses, but there's also budget and expensive basses that play like dogs.

Although I championship the budget bass I'll just as happily play an expensive one. My main gigging bass would be well into four figures to replace, for me that's expensive. But it sounds, plays and looks right for the band so why wouldn't I play it?

Boring old fart alert! Make sure you can get the neck straightened enough to cope with the (generally) extra tension of flats before spending out on strings. I've got Fender tapewounds on my fretless and fretted acoustics. They seem quite different to 'normal' tapewounds as they're relatively zingy. They feel like a roundwound with a slippery tape wrap rather than flat feeling like most tapes. I really like them.

Rightly or wrongly, brand name aspirations.

Love Potion Number 9 - Tygers of Pan Tang Edit: What the hell, this needs sharing! 😎

I bought an Epiphone Embassy as it's an VP T'bird in all but shape. Can't remember exact price but I was considering one and then a black Friday deal came up last year, well under £300, absolutely cracking bass. T'birds do look exceptionally cool though.

It's sometimes just trial and error to find what works best. Slow and steady wins the race. 🙂👍

I have heard that the Epiphone Vintage Pro Thunderbird is better than any of Gibsons current offerings. I know I've banged on about it lately but my super cheap 90s Encore that I spent a leisurely afternoon rolling the fretboard edges, bevelling, levelling, crowning and polishing the frets, sorted the nut and smoothed the edges/corners, in fact just rounded and smoothed any edge. It now feels as nice to play, if not nicer, as any high end bass I've played. A lot of what makes a high end bass expensive is the man hours put in to lift it above the machine finished budget models. Does it matter if your bass was made in Mexico by Mexicans or made in America by Mexicans? (that was tongue in cheek) And let's not forget in the late 70s/early 80s Japan were churning out stuff that embarrassed the likes of Gibson and Fender who'd sat on their laurels and let quality slide.

Mmm, nice wood! 😉 For the recessed knob holes (pack it in), do you have access to a pillar drill? Just thinking out loud here, but if you had just the right size flat wood drill bit you could run it in a the recess to take the paint off the sides and bottom, although they do tend to have a slight arc to the cutting face so would cut the circumference of the hole slightly deeper, but it wouldn't notice once the knob was fitted. They don't tend to cut cleanly though so it might not work. The better woodworkers here will hopefully advise. Possibly, if removing the blue cleanly proves difficult, just paint the recessed holes black, then sand across the top to get a clean edge. It all depends how much is visible with the knob fitted.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening. Some very poignant moment, especially Taylor Hawkins' 16 year old son playing drums on 'My Hero'. I can only imagine the mixed emotions going on in that young lads head leading up to the gig but he did his dad proud.

At first glance he looks like Taylor, but then you realise he looks just like his dad when he was younger.

Have we just seen Foos new drummer? 😁 She's pretty damn good... and enjoying every second.

Happy Birthday - Altered Images

I too much prefer the older stuff but they won me over in London this year. The tickets were a present and I was prepared to be a little disappointed by them. Live they can be a bit shaky, especially Anthony. I've not seen them since the One Hot Minute tour with Dave Navarro, so a long time. They were fantastic. Yes it was a big stadium with all the bad bits that go along with that but they were on top form for a bunch of old fellas. Full of energy and Anthony's voice was sounding great. They had huge screens with some really good effects going on while they were playing which added to the whole stadium performance. The whole stage was a screen that started above them, curved in and down behind them, then flowed out and down over the front, with screens either side. Favorite moment was Nobody Wierd Like Me, and they performed it with all the energy and vigor that they ever did. I'd love them to be more like their 80's selves, but would we then be moaning how they churn out the same old high energy punk funk album every couple of years? They've evolved, grown up, grown old. Lots of folks like their older stuff (pre 2000),but I reckon many more like their newer stuff (post 2000). I didn't watch the gig through a phone lens but I did snatch a little bit just to show my bandmates the screens. Yes it's echoey, it's a stadium, but they've still got it!

Suicide Solution - Ozzy

It's going to have to be a pretty special cover version to beat that. ✊

Iron (pyrite) Man - Sabbath

Sick of Drugs - The Wildhearts

Woodpecker From Mars - Faith No More

The best pop song ever written. Perfection from start to finish. John Peel had Teenage Kicks, this is mine. As you were 😁.

Log - Ren & Stimpy

One got away a couple of weeks ago. It's a long story though. There was a thread on here earlier in the year titled 'Impossible desires', or something like that. I posted on there about a Peavey T40 I'd seen in The Bass Gallery, and how I'd absolutely fallen for it, but the price was crazy. The seller saw my post and contacted me and offered to sell it privately at a very discounted price, but at the time it was still more than I wanted to spend. Fast forward a couple of months and I couldn't get that bass out of my mind. I decided to sell a bit of gear so the money didn't have to come out of the bank, just to justify it to myself. If I raised enough I'd contact the seller. The first item up for sale was a Yamaha BB1024X. A buyer contacted me and asked if I was interest in trades. I explained that I was raising funds for a T40, so no. He replied, "Yeah I've got that bug." and sent a picture of four T40s lined up. We chatted back and fourth and he reckoned the one I was after was priced right and said he'd snap it up if it was an '82, he was trying to collect every finish from his birth year! Well if you believe in fate then that must've been a sign. I'd been keeping an eye on The Bass Gallery and it was still there. I sold the BB a couple of days later so half the funds were there and decided to contact the seller. "Yeah I've decided to keep it, I've asked the Gallery to take it down." Well you could've heard the air coming out of me I deflated so rapidly. All that build up. Oh well, you snooze you lose! As they say.

Dunno, I'll let you know next year. 😋

The only thing that's tripped me up a couple of times is that the fretboard feels very flat. But I'll soon get used to that. One thing I'll ask you as it strikes me as odd. The control switch is held on with a nut and the washer between the nut and control plate looks more like it should be below the plate, between the actual switch and the plate, if you see what I mean. It has a little tab which is usually there to dig into the reverse of the plate to grip on other basses. Is yours like this or is it a mistake on mine.

I'll be be completely honest, the looks aren't doing it for me at all. It's in the style of the Hacienda club but the mish-mash of patterns doesn't appeal to me. The blue is nice enough, but the mix of yellow & black hazard tape, aluminium checker plate, odd knobs and the red/black striped TRC look like a child has been let loose with the crayons. I'll probably make a new scratchplate, control plate and TRC which will serve two purposes. 1, make it look better (in my eyes) and 2, save the originals from getting scratched in case I sell it, as it is a collectors bass really. Any light plectrum scratches around the playing area can be polished if and when the time comes. The fly is under the lacquer so will have to stay. Also some new knobs.