Norris

When drilling your pilot holes put a piece of masking tape on the drill bit to mark your depth. Rather than wrapping it tightly just fold it in half to stick to itself. Then it will also clear the swarf from around the hole as it rotates. Keep backing the bit out as you drill - you want to keep the grooves clear for a nice clean hole. Yes, drill bit the size of the screw shank excluding the thread, and a bit of normal candle wax. Also make sure you use a screwdriver that fits the screw head properly. Some of those screws seem to be made out of cheese and mash/shear easily (I'm looking at your machine head screws Kluson!)

First of all just play it for a few weeks and maybe refine the setup how you like it. Then later on if you think something is not quite up to scratch, upgrade it I played a Squier for several years. The main upgrade I made was to fit a set of Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder pickups. I also swapped out the loom, mainly because the volume and tone controls were not reliable The Squier bridge and tuners are perfectly serviceable imho

Yes, original members

Haircut 100 tomorrow night. Mrs Norris' favourite band from the 80s. I'm hoping for some nice funky bass lines

Excluding school band gigs, my first paid gig was around March 1985 and I'd have been 19. After a couple of months with that band we went off and did a summer season at Butlin's playing 6 nights a week. A right baptism of fire! Edit to say I'm still playing with the same guitarist now!

I'd be tempted to flat it all back down and give it some more of the colour coat. Get the colour nice and flat before going on with the clear However you'll be surprised how much the lacquer will thin out over an extended curing time. Even if you get it looking flat you're likely to see some grain eventually. I did a guitar with dyed flamed maple (very tight grain) with a lot of clear lacquer and flatting back, and it was like a mirror when I finished. Several years later I can now see the grain in the right light. It still looks fantastic imho, but that's the nature of a nitro finish. I was just a bit surprised given the amount of clear lacquer I piled on. If you don't want any grain then use a 2k poly

I found the same. Older strap locks fit both old and new buttons. Newer strap locks only fit the new buttons. The newer lock pin doesn't engage properly on older buttons That's not so much of a problem if you use the same strap fitted with older strap locks for all your basses. It's a right pain though if you want to use the newer locks as you'll have to change all the buttons. The newer locks do seem to fit more snuggly, but I never had a problem with the old ones

I lent my bass out a few weeks ago. It was to Martin Turner though (ex-Wishbone Ash), who had travelled 100 miles or so to a gig without his bass. Luckily I have a Thunderbird and was not too far away... Oh, and I hung around to make sure he took care of it... and buy me dinner too

I'm going to suggest a Hofner violin bass. Cheap, light, short scale and fun to play. You don't even need an amp to have a noodle

We are not really a wedding band but occasionally people insist... We were booked to play at a reception so arrived in good time, set up and waited for the guests to arrive. ...And waited. ...And waited. For several hours it was just the bride and groom and the maid of honour. We didn't know where to put ourselves. After a bit of phoning round they rustled up a handful of people and we played a set. Obviously there were a few tensions between the families. I felt so sorry for them. Another wedding reception. This time the disco arrived before us and set up a couple of tons of equipment on the stage. Great - we ended up setting up on the floor next to the stage. That wasn't what made it a memorably bad gig though. No, that was near the end of the night when the groom's brother had a major altercation with his dad and kicked him unconscious. The police kept all of the guests in the room for two hours while they investigated the crime scene. It took us 3 months to get paid for that one too. We don't usually do weddings

A decent set list takes a bit of curation. Stuff that's in your genre/niche/usp that people have heard of but no other bands do. We centre around 70s rock and absolutely refuse to play Mr Brightside, etc. because nearly every other band does that. We venture into funk, pop and prog too - the proggy stuff especially helps us to stand out

My Boss OC-2 tracks pretty well. Make sure it's first in the chain, as the more "pure" the signal the better

'78 Rickenbacker 4002 in Azure blue I traded it in '85/'86 and have only one or two "analogue" photos of it to remember it by. I do still have the '80 Aria Pro II SB-1000 that I chopped it in for though. Ah, those good old days when you could only afford one bass at a time, eh?

Comfort Strapp. I've used them for several decades and wouldn't use anything else

Cough... https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/473690-nbd-sire-marcus-miller-p7-5-version-2/

A wipe with a damp cloth with a little detergent (washing-up liquid) will fetch most muck off - that is going to come off. Anything more than that is probably permanently stained

Having played pretty regularly for nearly 40 years now, I have a finely honed list of essential spares to carry, which has got me through hundreds of gigs... Strings Guitar lead Battery (if active bass) A tool kit with screwdrivers and a pair of pliers I've never had a bass "break" I've had an amp die maybe twice, that involved plugging into the PA I've had a few strings break, but not in the last 10 years at least More likely something comes loose that needs nipping up with the pliers

I wanted a 5-string Fender Precision So I bought a Sire

This. For more info search for "gain staging"

If a spring washer doesn't work, then the tiniest drop of clear nail varnish on the thread will act as thread lock

The luthier that taught me had a pair of pincers that he ground down to make the tips quite sharp for getting under the frets to remove them. Some heat will help too e.g. from a soldering iron For nut files, don't buy cheap. I'll say it again - don't buy cheap. Hosco are a decent brand, but are not cheap

The film will not make any difference. It's just there to protect things from scratches until it gets in the grubby hands of the customer The screw will be going through the base plate of the pickup. It certainly wouldn't be unusual for a pickup to make a noise when tapped with a screwdriver, and this could also be affected by the screw too. Don't worry, it's all perfectly normal Underneath the scratch plate will be a spring that the screw passes through the middle of, and then into the pickup base plate. Be careful if you loosen the screw too much while taking off the film, or it may unscrew completely and you'll need to take off the scratch plate to get it all back together. That's still not a problem though - people fiddle like this for fun

Oh, you'd be surprised how much "heft" you get out of a pair of 10's in the Rumble 500 combo!

I've no experience of the Ampeg, but absolutely love my Rumble 500. Sounds great, fills any rooms I play in, looks classy imho and a one-hand lift out at the end of the night.

There are three types of necks: fat ones, slim ones, and those that need winding in