Happy Jack

Thanks Rev, and the sound clips will indeed follow as soon as I've had a bit of work done. Dave Gartland is not actually a luthier, he's a specialist aluminium-welding artificer who has gradually morphed into luthiery. I'm genuinely impressed with the state that the bass has reached me in, but it has a pure rockabilly setup with a very high action (and an extra piezo under the end of the fingerboard) which doesn't really suit my totally pizza playing style. It also has twin soundposts to stop the aluminium flexing too much, and I think these should be directly under the feet of the bridge. The treble side pretty much is in the right place, maybe 1cm adrift, but the bass side is at least 3cm too close to the treble side for my liking. A brief verbal description would be that, played acoustically, it is reminiscent of a tuned steel drum. It's definitely a DB, and it's definitely musical, but you can absolutely hear that this bass is NOT made of wood! Put it through any form of amplification of course (as I have done, though briefly) and the great majority of the metallic sound just disappears. In a band situation it will sound like a DB but look like the DB From Another Planet. Since most audiences listen with their eyes, I expect them to be fooled into thinking that I can play like you guys!

The fingerboard is really quite red, rather than purple. It reminds me strongly of Cedar of Lebanon though I doubt that is what it is. The invoice & spec states that it is Rosewood, but I don't believe that for a minute. Apart from anything else, that would have fallen foul of CITES, Shirley. As to "brushed aluminium", I say to you "Pah!", and again "Pah!", and thricely "Pah!". This is hologrammatically etched 3D aluminium I'll have you know, My Good Man.

I can do shiny and new. You want old school? I can do old school. You want etched & engraved? I can do etched & engraved. You want figured maple? I can do figured maple. You want 3D finish? I can do 3D finish. You want customised rarity? I can do customised rarity. You want barking mad silliness? I can do barking mad silliness. You want more photos? http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/h4ppyjack/library/Basses CURRENT/AliKat Double Bass 2018

Has Ped taken Basschat merchandise to a whole new level? I think we should be told.

Intentionally?

It really doesn't help that each time I hear the opening bars I find myself singing "Half a pound of tuppeny rice ...".

I'm sorry, I just can't resist any longer. Every time, EVERY time I see this topic title, I get the same result ...

That is truly outstanding. Great rustic looks suit anyone who loves knotty pine. ... Instead of a truss rod, this bass features a hollow steel tube 1" in diameter under the fretboard for stability. This makes the neck quite "beefy" I particularly like the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach to drilling holes for thru-body stringing, and the way the strings run parallel along the length of the neck yet still manage to be different distances apart.

When I'm not playing bass I'm chiefly playing with bees.

It goes: Football's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming ...

My first was an uber-cheap uber-heavy thing, branded Jackson or Johnson or something. As first baby steps in the world of fretless, it was fine. There really don't seem to be any genuinely bad basses these days. Even the ones you think are dodgy usually just need a set-up. CNC and QC will have that effect. Be warned though. I finally discovered what fretless could really be like when I bought a £2000 Wal. You may be starting a long and expensive journey ..

That shirt with those trousers ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44493585 It's like the plot of a bad episode of Morse or something.

Love Bill Withers, love that track (Use Me), but am I alone in being amused by the contrast between Bill's agricultural guitar strumming and the funkiness of the uber-cool band surrounding him? It's not like he couldn't play guitar:

This is indeed the case.

You never posted that 40 years ago, Mike ...

I always wanted that guy's hairstyle ...

On the subject of U-bass strings, be aware that the metal-wound Kala strings make any U-bass much more easily playable BUT they also make it sound far more like an electric bass. The fat rubber strings (of which there is quite a wide range available these days) can be a bit of a bugger to play but the U-bass will then sound surprisingly close to a full-sized DB. The solution is talc / baby powder / cocaine on your fingers, which counteracts the stickiness of the rubber strings. It also allows you to experiment with a variety of fragrances ...

Absolutely mental, very funny, and a great player.

Ah, now that's interesting. The one at the front is the (still completely unavailable despite being promised back in January to be shipping in April) Rickenbacker 4003/S5 which I reviewed for Bass Guitar Magazine. Well, maybe not THE instrument I played but certainly a close relative. It would never occur to me to buy a 5-string version of the old-school Ric basses, but that 4003/S5 was an absolute delight to play.

If it's going cheep, the tweeter is probably still there ...