chriswareham

Another set of strings I've found in a clear out. These were part of a special order I made from Kalium in the US, and I think the lowest string is 0.142 gauge. They're 34" scale (I used these kind of strings on a Musicman Stringray with some filing to the nut). Free to a new home for the cost of shipping.

Having a clear out, and found a set of spare strings for a Hagstrom HB-8 bass I no longer own. These are 30.75" scale strings, and fit the current H8-II bass as well as the now discontinued HB-8 model. Free to a new home for the cost of shipping.

Wow, that's a crazy elevation on the bridge saddles! I like the "checkerboard" binding on the body - my Greco RB700 faker had that.

Oh, and a word on the finish to the body, rear of neck and headstock. The Chickenbacker has a far glossier and thicker finish. The finish on the Rickenbacker is incredibly thin and brittle, which surprised me as I was under the impression they were known for thick finishes that took a lot of coats and buffing to produce.

Rickenbacker : 4.2Kg Chickenbacker : 4.3Kg Both basses are well balanced with no neck dive. There is certainly a lot more material to the Chickenbacker's body, so it must be a far less dense wood than on the Rickenbacker.

So I have these two bad boys to compare: On the left is what was a typical AliExpress "Chickenbacker", and on the right is a Rickenbacker 4003 from 2018. The Chickenbacker has been upgraded with Retrovibe pickups, treble mount and knobs. The cheeky Rickenbacker logo printed onto the truss rod cover has also been sanded off. I thought it interesting to compare the two basses, so here's some stats: Rickenbacker Chickenbacker Scale Length 33 1/4" 34" Nut Width 42mm 40mm String Width (nut) 34mm 33mm String Width (bridge) 52mm 55mm Frets 20 22 Body Depth 32mm 43mm Truss Rod Dual Single Ric O Sound Yes No The neck on the Chickenbacker feels chunkier, but not in an unpleasant way. It's just more like a Fender Precision or Musicman Stringray than the Rickenbacker. The bridges on both basses are terrible designs, and I notice that Rickenbacker have recently introduced a more practical design as well as a single truss rod on current production 4003 basses. The worst aspect of the Chickenbacker bridge is that there's no height adjustment for individual strings, and the bar that the saddles sit on is flat so it doesn't allow for the radius of the fretboard. I solved this by having the little metal pieces that sit under the E and G strings ground down. In terms of build quality, the Chickenbacker's only production flaw is a sightly uneven binding at one point on the neck. Meanwhile, the Rickenbacker suffers a common issue - the treble pickup is not straight. This is a common problem, which I assume is left unaddressed because as the bass leaves the factory it has the plastic cover over it, but it becomes an issue if you want to fit a plastic "treble bezel". Sound wise, they are very similar despite the difference in scale length and the treble pickup being closer to the bridge on the Chickenbacker. As for price - the Rickenbacker is around £3,200 to £3,800 if you can find one and this particular Chickenbacker was £320 shipped from China (plus £150 for the Retrovibe upgrades).

A very belated update on this thread. I raised a complaint with the vendor and they offered to send new packaging for a return at a cost to me of £15. No complaints there, since I recycled the original packaging before checking the instrument out. Meanwhile, I checked it out a little more thoroughly. As I suspected, the first two frets were high on the bass side, hence the buzzing. A few days after the return packaging was delivered, a replacement instrument arrived with the same courier that then took the original one away. The setup on the replacement was fine, no buzzing and for a ham fisted player like me it needed no additional adjustment. So, I'll name the vendor - Andertons. I'd still prefer that they perform a decent pre-shipping check on all instruments they sell, but fair play to them as they replaced the bass at what would have been no additional cost to me if I hadn't chucked the original packaging away.

I can tweak a set up that's already in the ball park, but removing the nut on this bass looks a bit of an effort as they clearly applied a final finish once the nut was installed. Removing it would likely need considerable care, and I've never had to prepare a new nut before - I assume they either come unslotted or need a fair bit of work.

I've played in two tribute bands - one tour with a Cure tribute, and for several years in a Joy Division one. Do you have to be a fan of the original artist, or maybe you become one? I'm a big fan of the Cure, and a bit of a Joy Division obsessive. I couldn't see myself playing in a tribute to an act I'm not pretty passionate about. How important is it to be visually/musically identical? How much latitude are you allowed? With the Joy Division tribute, we went out of our way to use the same equipment they did (including the plywood Rickenbacker copy and Yamaha BB in my case). We also dressed like them, and I would grow stubble for a few days before shows to get the authentic, scruffy Peter Hook look. The other two JD tributes that are doing the rounds don't use equipment remotely like the original band, and in one case have a completely different line up with a female keyboard player - which was more like New Order! Do you ‘get into character’ or is it just a gig? Beyond dressing like the original bad, no I don't. However, in the Cure tribute the singer would talk to the audience in a voice like Robert Smith's, which I found a bit cringe inducing, but not as weird as the people in one audience who would call me "Simon" when asking for particular songs. Does it feel musically limiting, or is it fulfilling your needs? (Maybe you have a side band?) Playing songs I love is actually quite fulfilling, bit I do also play in bands playing original music. Do you have any qualms about tributes ‘stifling original music’? My experience of speaking with typical tribute act audiences is that they are big gig goers generally and see a lot of original acts as well. Have you ever met or been seen by a member of the ‘originals’? What did they say? The singer in the JD tribute has met Peter Hook and was actually encouraged by him to form a tribute since he looks uncannily like Ian Curtis. He has also sung for the show that plays orchestral versions of JD songs, which I think has had some participation from Peter Hook. What is the overriding thing being in a tribute act has taught you? Other tribute acts can be just as bitchy, back stabbing b*stards as they are in the world of bands playing original music. That's why I prefer playing shows with no support, since I can avoid the egos and general nastiness of other people in other bands. Having done it once, would you do it again? If so, would the musical angle be very different? I'd still be happy playing in the JD tribute - sadly the singer moved away during the lockdown and now has a new line up. If the original line up was still going, I don't think I'd really change anything since it was a nice bunch of people and we got some very nice compliments from people, including those who had seen the real JD and had sometimes been a little sceptical about the experience before seeing us play.

Bass parts on the early Depeche Mode stuff was the responsibility of Andy Fletcher, who owned a Moog Prodigy at that point in their career. Any simple analogue monosynth would get the sound though, so something like an Arturia Minibrute or Microbrute would be a cheap second hand option.

Foolishly I recycled the packaging before actually trying the bass, and I'm not sure if they'll accept a return if it's not in the original packaging. I have raised a support ticket with them, and I'm hoping I can persuade them to refund me the cost of a basic set up. Although if it needs a new nut then that's going to be more than a basic set up...

OK, it's "only" a Squier Precision Classic Vibe, but surely any new bass should arrive with a reasonably playable set up. In this case, it's impossible to play a note at the first fret on the E and A strings - they just buzz. It looks like the nut slots have been cut too low, and the bridge saddles are cranked up so high to compensate that the action at body end of the neck is ridiculous. That string height also means the pickup is way too far from the strings to be optimal. Checking the website of the vendor (not naming names, but they're UK based and big), they state they only do a pre-shipping set up "on request". Surely that should be standard practice without needing someone to dig through support pages to find out. They claim they do "quality control" before shipping, but clearly no one actually tried playing the bass, so I assume that's a quick visual inspection.

And this is the backup rig. Two of Acoustic Control Corporation's finest into an Ampeg fridge. The ACC 140 is simply the loudest amp I've ever heard, it must put out more than it's rated to.

Old and heavy? Well, like the original poster I'm keen on SWR's 18" monster (stop sniggering), but in my case it's a matching pair each with a Simms Watts valve head. The cabs used to belong to some bloke who played in an outfit called Simple Minds.

That's my listing - someone just messaged me about the pickups and mentioned that there was interest here on Basschat! The bass is completely original, including the pickups, and I bought it from Beedster on this very website. I've used it quite a bit in a Joy Division tribute act, but people expect the red Rickenfaker that Hooky used so the Yamaha has sat unused for quite a while.

It used to be the major labels and whoever could afford the top "pluggers" (people who had the connections to get your songs played on mainstream radio or TV) that ultimately decided who made a living out of music. The Intertubes have changed that a lot, but it still helps to come from a very well off background and have connections (see Mumford and Sons or Florence and the Machine for example).

I'm struggling to find a reference online but according to either the engineer or producer on the sessions for All Right Now , Andy Fraser played the lead guitar on the actual recording of that track. Paul Kossoff was too strung out on heroin to put it to tape, so Andy Fraser did instead.

Check out the Sisters' version - they reproduce the intro pretty much as per the original, since I don't think that can be improved on, but give it a sense of menace to reflect the death of hippy culture at Altamont. They also twist the lyrics, so rather than love being a kiss away and war a shot away, it's war that's a kiss away and love that's a shot (of drugs) away.

They used to be called Digital Village, and tried to compete with the likes of Thomann in a price cutting war but they had the additional overheads of a chain of shops. They got into financial bother, so the owners then did a "flat pack administration" where they basically took all the stock into a new business and let the old one go bankrupt. Lots of annoyed suppliers and angry articles in the trade press at the time. The stock disappeared to a warehouse in Germany and only the Romford shop remained as their UK presence. I suspect that their main market is still the UK, so post Brexit the move to Germany may have been unwise.

The Sisters always managed to improve on the original versions of the songs they covered, particularly Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones), Emma (Hot Chocolate) and Jolene (Dolly Parton). Their reinterpretation of Leonard Cohen's Teachers is awesome as well, especially when it segues into the amphetamine psychosis of their own song Adrenochrome: As for songs I knew first from covers: Rosegarden Funeral of Sores - Bauhaus (John Cale) Who Do You Love? - Jesus And Mary Chain (Bo Diddley) I Fought The Law - Dead Kennedys / The Clash (Bobby Fuller Four) In Every Dream Home, A Heartache - The Fields Of The Nephilim (Roxy Music) Beaver Patrol - Pop Will Eat Itself (The Wilde Knights) And, err: I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany (Tommy James and the Shondells)

Thanks guys, I think the key to this tone is boosting the treble through a solid state amp. I'll try a Trace Elliot combo with plenty of that clever compression they built in. As for being a "studio" sound, I've heard this sound on live recordings that Moev did - but then again the band were part of the Vancouver electronic music scene that included some really talented producers who also worked on recordings by Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Severed Heads, etc.

Hi folks! Long time since I posted here, but I can't think of a better place to ask about getting a particular tone. I'm about to go into the studio and have this sound in mind for one of the songs we're recording, it's clearest at the 2:45 mark where the bassist does a couple of little runs during the breakdown. It's the sort of sound I associate with Trace Elliot or SWR amps, but with a kind of edge to it that I can't find. Could be the synth doubling up on the main part of the song, but not on the breakdown I don't think.

I've got a bunch of ply bodied Fender clones (as well as a ply bodied Rick clone). One is a 1970's Japanese Maya jazz bass, which was a rather battered sunburst finish when I got it. It was filled and refinished in flat black by Ian Allerton (The Guitar Works in Hertfordshire) and it came up a treat. The downsides of cheap ply bodies is that they tend to be quite heavy and the screw holes will need dowelling if you remove the hardware or scratch plate too often.

Whoever replaced the original tuners did a quality job ...