EliasMooseblaster

Signed - trying to simultaneously balance my Musician Hat and CAMRA Hat on my head as I do so.

^ this is important to remember: you're not obliged to use every feature on the bass. The unfortunate drawback to a greater range of tones is that there will invariably be a greater number of combinations that don't sit well in your band's mix, or that you just plain don't like. I have a number of twin-pickup basses on which, for years, I used the neck pickup exclusively. Then I upgraded my amp and cab, and blending in a bit of bridge became more palatable - but it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Even one of my all-time favourites is a PJ, and if I'm playing in a band, I almost never touch the J. (It is, however, quite handy for adding a bit more definition when I'm practising at home and have to keep the volume down!)

A well-deserved accolade for a beautiful piece of luthiery! It also linked me to an article about the Telebird you built previously. I hadn't seen that one before; it's a lovely idea, and it looks like something straight out of a '50s Rockabilly band.

Hmm...has it always done that, or has the problem started more recently? I have a little Danelectro flanger which had a tendency to do something similar when the battery was going - might be worth checking the power source first!

Having ping-ponged from one to t'other in the last few years, I've always felt a little conscious that in a band setting, my old fretless Jazz never quite had the low-mid grunt that I was accustomed to from years of playing Precision-type basses. When I finally part-ex'ed it for a fretless Precision (well, a P/J), straight away, I felt more comfortable with the tone it was giving me. Did anyone else notice? Almost certainly not. As Senor Mandrel has suggested above, both basses had that distinctive swell on the notes, along with - crucially - doing that thing where they sound like a bass guitar, so no comment was passed. I have, however, found that the fretless Precision could be make to sound like a fretted one. I don't know whether this is unique to the Tony Franklin model, but with rounds, and the tone control wide open, the "clank" one can get from isn't far off even my brightest-sounding fretted P. Your old bandmate might notice a difference if you take that approach!

Not come across those before, but it certainly sounds the business! It was the chrome cover that made me think it might not be a Gibson pickup - they seem to be an increasingly rare sight on modern T-birds.

Looks amazing and sounds glorious! What a great idea. Is that humbucker an original Gibson pickup, or did you use somebody else's?

I notice that Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers corroborated this version of events in yesterday's Grauniad: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/02/the-stranglers-how-we-made-european-female

Funnily enough, I've had no issues with my Thunderbird diving. (My long-scale SG, on the other hand...)

I can second this: for a bass which looks so big, it's always a surprise when I go back to my Gibson, and remember how little it weighs! Haven't owned one of the Epiphones, but I don't recall any of the ones I tried being notably heavy.

The other possible culprit is getting around the copyright: YouTube is generally sympathetic to anybody who complains that somebody has pinched their music for an unlicensed video, and a lot of bigger plaintiffs (Auntie Beeb included) have automated scripts in place which will trawl t'interweb for any material which they own, but which some other cheeky blighter has uploaded. There's all manner of visual trickery which some people have taken to when it comes to video footage. But the most common way to get around the music algorithm is to speed up or slow down the audio just enough that the computer thinks it's a different piece of music.

Wow. This neatly proves my point above about missing those subtleties - and this is one of my favourite jazz tracks, which I must have put on innumerable times... +1!

Lovely. I would likely have missed the subtleties of that exchange if you hadn't pointed it out - my biggest mistake is that I tend to focus on the soloists in isolation, and forget that actually, the best ones feed off the band around them. Also, I couldn't help but notice: lovely bass playing. Who is it on that LP?

I shared a stage with one at a gig near Paris, maybe four or five years ago. It wasn't a huge venue, though there was plenty of room to move around on stage (not a luxury I was used to from my time gigging principally in London!) It definitely seemed a bit strange to put the drummer in a big plastic cage. I also wondered whether it was on the stage less for preventing mic bleed, and more for the sound guy's convenience. The fact was, we had amps on stage, and one or two vocal mics. If mic bleed was a genuine problem, then why wasn't he putting screens in front of our amps as well? I think it just gave him a justification for mic'ing the kit in a small venue, when quite frankly it would have been easier to just take the screen out and let the drums be heard naturally, maybe with a mic on the kick drum if the music warranted it. It makes a lot more sense in a recording studio, and perhaps in larger venues where the drums need PA support. Perhaps that sound guy was just fed up with most of the local drummers being tone-deaf shed builders...but that would in turn raise the question of whether a lot of drummers just need to learn to play more quietly...

What a beauty! Must admit, despite normally being a Cherry Red purist when it comes to SGs, that shade of yellow does suit it very nicely.

It's quite an interesting challenge, to limit it to three - I've been forced to whittle down some of my usual "favourite artist" choices, and triangulate them with the furthest reaches of what I like to listen to and/or play. Here goes: The Who The easy choice, for me. They've been a firm favourite since I was about 14/15. I didn't know a huge range of bands at the time, but there was something very visceral about their music which clicked with me. Quite crucial for not only expanding my preconceptions about what one could do with a bass guitar, but also serving as a gateway drug to a lot of the "classic", psychedelic, prog, and other types of "rock" which I explored in my teenage years. Hooverphonic After a steady diet of The Who, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Deep Purple, etc, etc, I reached a point where, like so many greasy, long-haired teenagers, I'd convinced myself that I didn't like anything which didn't fit within the umbrella of rock/blues/jazz, and so was deeply sceptical of anything which sounded electronic or "too poppy." However, at the same time, XFm (which was still worth tuning into back then) was slipping the odd bit of trip-hop or ambient music in amongst their regular menu of indie, punk and grunge. Groups like Goldfrapp, Ladytron and Zero7 found chinks in my self-imposed armour, but I think it was Hooverphonic that helped me to get over myself, and accept that a well-written song can be good even without elaborate displays of musical virtuosity. Tom Waits I was an undergrad, living in halls. I had a friend there with whom I'd occasionally swap CDs - we had rather different tastes and enjoyed challenging each other. One day he passed me a copy of Rain Dogs and said, "I can't really get on with this one...but I think you might enjoy it." By the time I'd fully explored that album, any remaining prejudices I might have had about music not being guitarry enough, or whatever, had been marched out back and shot.

My first fretless was a Warwick/Rockbass Corvette, and that only set me back about £300 second-hand. Only a four, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a used fiver variant of the same model knocking around. (I do still find myself missing that bass now and again; I part-ex'ed it in my quest for a Tony Franklin fretless, but if I hadn't since bought the Shuker, I'd probably be on the lookout to get that Corvette back...)

Just keep buying more expensive bits of kit; you'll become numb to the guilt eventually.

I do envy you - there are probably close to 14 songs on there that I wish I'd never heard of...

Maybe that's why the Gain and Master knobs are so big - does each one have to house a pair of 9V batteries?

First concert - Peter Green Splinter Group & John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at the Albert Hall, around 2000 Last concert - The Who, Wembley Stadium, 2019 Best concert - Can't decide between The Who (above), Brian Wilson at the Festival Hall (2002) or Soundgarden in Hyde Park (2014) Worst concert - Elbow, at the London Astoria, probably 2000/1. My sister persuaded me to go on the strength of a song which I thought was rather good. They opened with that song, and it went downhill from there. Holy Mary, mother of Christ, were they ever dull. About 45 minutes in, just when I thought they couldn't put any less energy into their performance, they pulled out the chairs and acoustic guitars and decided it was time to do a few low-key acoustic numbers. I thought I might fossilise just standing there watching them. Loudest concert - Dream Theater at the first Ramblin' Man festival (2015?). I wasn't even bloody watching them - I was trying to enjoy someone else on the Blues stage, but they were so loud they were encroaching on every corner of the festival. Seen the most - The Hamsters. They used to play the Half Moon once a month back when I lived in West London; it was a regular outing for some of my friends. Most surprising - Hooverphonic at Aula Magna (2008). For a band who come across as quite low-key and mysterious on record, they knew how to translate it to an atmospheric live show. One of the last shows they did before Geike Arnaert left, so I'm glad I saw them when I did. Next concert - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, at the O2. Wish I could have seen - Original lineup of The Who. Any time from about 1967-1973 would do, but one of the well-known shows like Leeds Refectory or the 1970 IoW festival, ideally.

High Mids at 2.2 KHz? What do they think we are, lead guitarists?

I'll also stick up for Wilkinson pickups, having stuck one in the bridge position of a bitsa bass, and a pair of their humbuckers in a skinny-string. That said, if you're really not sold on the sound of them, there are options at a similar price point. Tonerider spring to mind: similarly underrated for the money, and allegedly good enough that Squier were putting them into their "Classic Vibe" guitars and basses at one point.

Time to put the proverbial cat among the punk pigeons... Jerry Only.

This is a good point - I take a Fast Fret to gigs as more practical/less of a liability than the little Dunlop spray bottles. I don't think I've had to buy a new bottle of Dunlop in about four or five years. That said, the big bottle might go a bit further than the little Dunlop if I also want to buff up some of the wooden furniture at home...