lownote

Can’t find anything definitive. So I’m just going to go with a cautious dry wire wool to get the worst crud off. If that doesn’t look right I’ll simply go for a little lemon oil. Life’s too short to faff.

Haven’t found anything yet

Great spot. Spect that won't be there long

About to clean and restring my Ibanez Portamento 5 for the first time. The panga panga fingerboard's got nice light grain and I'm worried Lemon Oil will darken it down too much. Never had a bass (other than those with maple boards) that hasn't been oiled so not sure of the way forward. Any first hand experience?

Portamento, or way down the price list but very very playable, the Revelation P bass as sold by Bass Gallery. Under £200 new and a cracking bass IMHO. I do wonder whether it's worth keeping the Portamento as the Rev keeps being my go-to bass.

Now answered. Having seen the pix Strings Defect say they're defo Dunlops. YMMV but for me they're perfect, not too floppy, not too stiff.

I need help ID-ing the flatwounds on my secondhand Revelation. I like them so much I want to buy a set for my Portamento. Feel like .45-.105 gauge, brass ball ends (no multicolour here), short black silks both ends. The silks seem quite tight and resist going fluffy. It's a cheap bass so can't imagine the previous owner spent a fortune on the strings but who knows. Gotta vague feeling they may be Dunlop 45-105... ?

There's your problem, someone's stolen all your wiring. Your bass can't possibly work properly without a tangled rats nest of wiring far too big for the cavity. And all that dead space in there means that by basic physics lots of electrons packed together in the battery must migrate to a space where's there's less electrons. Without the usual mess of wire to prevent them escaping, they just will.

I always wanted to be an astronomer. Then I met some astronomers and realised if I went ahead I would never get off with a woman. By the time I read up on Richard Feynman and found out you could do both it was too late.

My personal fave EQ which worked best on my MarkBass but has translated OK to other heads goes like this in o'clock positions: Bass 12, Low mids 11, Mid mids 10, Hi mids 9, Treble 8 Awesome for me but YMMV

Sorry to be late on parade, but I agree +100 with helping him find basslines for music that's cool to him and his peer group. At his age my guitar tutors featured songs that were severely uncool ('Skip to My Lou'?). Also - ensure he knows the role of the bassist in the mix. My first teachers never bothered explaining this, with the result that it actually took me a year or more to understand what I was supposed to be doing, during which time I lost two band offers because I had not the faintest idea that a solid root and and fifth would suffice.

Friend of ours in the late sixties age group has been told by her Lancashire GP to expect the needle in 'late Feb to mid March'. Even if that happens she'll be in Mid April before the jab's fully effective. And there's a couple of younger priority groups to jab after her. So I doubt May for a free for all very much.

Kinda half way between need and want, IMHO.

Well, from what everyone says I think if I keep the gain down to under 12 oc and the volume very little more I should be alrighty. Phil Jones speakers are pretty top quality, so if Alex's BF 10" can take 500w, even though rated at 250w, I'm sure Mr Jones' finest 7 incher (ooer missis) can cope with 300w.

For looks I think it would take a lot to beat Bass Gallery's offering. I have had a BF One10, and seperately, an Elf, which I sold. Both of which moves I regret. Although I don't regret replacing them with an Ashdown 300 head and Phil Jones 6x7.

Phil Jones themselves have had the last word on this. Just got an email to say they've run the Cab27 with an 800w head. So clearly, that's all right then! It's amazing what 7 inches will do.

Many thanks.

Amp is 300, not 325 as I said earlier.soz. 300@4ohms. Cabs are both 8 ohm. I am running them daisy chained: amp -> cab1->cab2

I am running an Ashdown MAG 300 Evo II through two Phil Jones cabs, a 47 and 27. The head is rated at 325w RMS. The bigger cab is rated at 300w, but its baby sibling only 200w. Are there out there any cab experts who can tell me if I'm risking the health of the 27 by running the amp at full power? I see from the Barefaced site that their One10 is 250w but can take 500w, which surprises me. It's not yet proved necessary to go beyond mid way wick on the amp with my current band, but I just wondered where the 'do not exceed limit' might be on the 200w cab.

My history is Ashdown and Markbass. I love the MB sound (it is distinctive if you play with the EQ enough), and entirely reliable and robust. Or was until I dropped my Little Mark 2 from table height to a concrete floor. Then you discover that no one will fix a class D head except for a sum equal to the national debt. OTOH, Ashdown are bigger and heavier (but entirely manageable), can be dirt cheap for older ones, have great sound, are reliable and robust, and if you do drop it on a concrete floor Ashdown elves will fix it for you for an old sock and a tin of biscuits. For cabs I use Phil Jones, 4x7 + 2x7, but they're bit niche and perhaps not everyone's cup of tea. And I live in Suffolk too.

Star, dad

This is more a plea for help to players of lead instruments but hopefully experienced musos of any ilk have thoughts too. You see, I play sax as my (fairly newbie) second instrument. My problem is I’m having real difficulty matching my playing to backing tracks. Obv the back track doesn't have a melody line, that's what I'm supposed to be giving. So if the backing track doesn’t have an obvious pedestrian sense of the song (simple chord changes, simple beat) I am totally at sea. Worse, I think I’m OK until the back track ends and I find I’m whole bars out and still in the middle of the song! Some back trax and songs are worse than others: fancy ones with cool drum and complex backing instrument lines without clear echoes of the melody mean I end up having no sense at all of where I am. And I can’t reference the pace written on the music because a back track from another source might have a totally different beat/ cadence/pace. Any steer?

All Parts? Ebay? I found 30mm 3mm domeheads in 5 secs flat on Amazon.. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-bass-guitar-pickup-screws/dp/B01LFKQ4QC

How about that, my Portamento looks just like your Portamento. Flawless booty, except I'd have sacrificed a couple of totally unnecessary high frets to achieve some aesthetic gap between the fingerboard and the neck pup.

Sire fivers are good, but they're neither the lightest nor smallest basses around.