NancyJohnson

Remember that they had Hamer as well; a team of luthiers that were brimming over with invention, creative ideas and innovation. And we all know what they did there. In truth, Hamer are better off where they are now (cough, dead, cough) rather than Fender nicking all their ideas and diluting them.

I thank you for recognising my knowledge and experience. I used a Precision bass in a studio session at the weekend. Sadly the Sansamp BDDI I had to my disposal - not mine, I should hasten to add - wouldn't fire up (I think it was something more to do with the XLR cable than the unit), so I had to resort to plugging straight into the desk. I mean, it played beautifully (well it would, I set it up), but man alive it did one thing and one thing only. Ponk. Actually it did two things, ponk and woolly ponk. A bit of a first for me; I complained mid-session and said I just couldn't do the second half of the session until tone was resolved. I just think a single pickup bass just lacks something. It's probably just me, but a twin pickup instrument is a country mile better. A twin pickup instrument into a BDDI is better still.

Where are you at?

Julien was my go-to guy for a while...fixed smallish issues on my first couple of Thunderbirds, a pickup swap on my Lull and a sizeable amount of investigation on a muddy NR Thunderbird about ten years ago. Top bloke. I remember when he was the tech guy at (whatever that guitar shop was) in Market Place, Reading.

Disappointingly, Tourtech have rebranded as Ordo and Andertons aren't carrying them anymore.

On first view at the link, I did a little gasp thinking that Fender had ceased production of the post-50s Precision bass, only to see it relegated to the 'other models in this range' status. Oh, tee-hee. Silly me. I've always had a soft spot for the early Precision bass, but not enough to pull the trigger and lose £2.4K from my bank account for that one trick pony.

Can you imagine the backlash if Ford were still making these:

It's an old Aria...a 1978. Got it in a Gumtree job lot, £50. It needed new everything aside from the Schaller machine heads. I adore it. It's really battered and gnarly. I vowed to put a new ding in it every time it left the house. I'll continue this tradition on Sunday!

I've only ever had one washer go and it seemed nigh on impossible to get a replacement. I eventually fashioned something out of one of those things that bread makers used to close the packaging. Drilled a suitably sized hole, nipped off the excess and popped it on the shaft. Worked fine.

How's the what? 🤣

Lovely!

Well, that's very pretty.

Oooh! Pictures in a moment or two. First impressions, lovely chunky neck. Finish is lovely. Everything works, although I've swapped out the strap buttons to Dunlop Straploks. Set up is wonderful; very low action straight out of the box. Happy to say it fits the Tourtech ABS cases I have, so I'll pull the trigger on another one of these on payday. Output is superhot; on Gary's guidance I've reduced the Tonepump output to 35-40%. I'm just trying to limit what I'm taking to rehearsals/gigs, so am determined to get a decent tone out of the AO900. Belter!

The last couple of years, bit of transition; gone are the racks and 4x10s; I've moved over to Darkglass 100%. Harboured a desire to run a pair of 1x12s for some time, even going so far as to buying a pair of Aguilar's (and then selling them); bought a DG112 about 18 months ago and landed a second one about 90 minutes ago. Originally, I'd had little intention of using the AO900 head for anything other than to utilise the effects return, but having spent about 45 minutes twiddling I've achieved a reasonably aggressive Geddy-esque tone with a passive bass, so perhaps it's time to travel lighter and leave the Sansamps at home. I'll try the active basses tomorrow.

Anyone notice the bridge on the DWoFS video is a hi-mass one, the retail models seem to BBoT version.

Courtesy of @Lozz196 - Motley Crue, Too Fast For Love (the Leathur mixes). Aah the memories! Backstage at Donington. Being bitten by Tommy Lee. Having a pee next to Mick. Happy days.

Edward Lloyd-Barnes, AKA Eddie Roxy. He was keyboardist, then frontman of Department S, so perhaps from there. I may need to buy a suit. I got asked to play bass for The Adjacent Kings in November - I've known the guitarist (in the pin-stripes) for about 15 years - we rehearsed early December, great fun then didn't do anything until said guitarist returned from a trip to Australia in mid-January. We're leaning heavily (about 60%) on old updated Department S material. It's good fun, that's the main thing!

Well, here we are then.

Hi Gabriel I don't really have many more photos of it; somewhere in the loft I have the photos the guy took when he did the fingerboard, but they're not scanned. I'll have a look and see whether I can find them. Paul

That's my old bass. A bit of backstory. I bought it in Lewisham 1980/81...£375.00, so about a month's salary. It had a bit of an issue with the fingerboard and the wood was lifting a bit between the nut and the third/fourth fret on the E-string side. I took it to a luthier in Kingston who built baroque instruments and had formulated a method of adhering wood to metal, but there seemed to be an issue with the aluminium not being machined 100% (there was a shallow dip...a fraction of a millimetre) so the wood was never going to adhere properly, if that makes sense. He put a fretless ebony board on it. I didn't like the bridge at all so he installed a Badass and glued in two small strips of ebony to fill in the gap in the body (these are visible in the photo below). New brass nut. I used it as a fretless for a while and then took it to (the late) Richard Knight in Addlestone and had it refretted. I kept it for a few more years...it didn't get much use and traded it in at ABC music in Addlestone for something else (I'm too ashamed to say what). I often wondered what came of it and saw that it appeared on the Travis Bean database a few years back. I seem to recall that the owner posted up somewhere seeking a replacement original bridge. The bass appeared on eBay in 2015/16 so I assume your dad bought it. I know it was in Oxford at one point; I was playing the Bullingdon in Oxford one night and I had a few email exchanges with the owner who offered to bring it along to the gig so I could use it for our 30 minute set. Didn't show up, sadly. Anyhow, here's two photos. You can make out the figuring on the body, but it looks a lot redder in your photo. The other shot is of me and my best mate when we were doing early live sessions for Virgin at The Townhouse in Shepherds Bush. I forget who we were playing with...it was a signed duo of guitarists, a white guy and a black guy who had inked a deal with Virgin, Hugh Padgham was supposed to have been producing. No idea what happened! [Edit]. I mentioned to Gabriel by PM that I have photos the luthier took when the original fretboard was off. I'll try and find them and get them scanned in.

London could certainly be split differently...along these lines or by postcode prefix (W/NW/N/E/SE/SW/WC/EC). Obviously users/contributors/mods would need to apply a bit of common sense and do a cursory Google search. There should be little need to breakdown the SE area into 30-odd different sections.

Feeling is that if you had my home patch (Berkshire), you're limited to 15 towns (Ascot, Bracknell, Crowthorne etc.); if everything is sorted alphabetically by town, then venue (for instance) 'The Acoustic Couch' or 'The Cellar Bar' it should be fairly simple to navigate. There's no need to drill down into civil parishes. If it's well modded, it could be a decent utility.

My mum was into old big band stuff, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin etc. and loved The Beatles, Kinks, Rolling Stones, Small Faces. My dad wasn't really into music as such, but he did like Hall & Oates. The Carpenters and a bit of Philly soul. [Edit]. My brother is ten years older than me. Never connected with what he listened to other than it was rock (ELP, Yes, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin etc.); he did buy me singles...see next paragraph. So, my first musical loves were off a diet of big-brother purchased 7" singles; Sweet, Sparks, Mott The Hoople, early Queen. Oddly, we had an LP of the King & I soundtrack that I still adore to this day. Latched onto punk, primarily The Clash, Television and The Heartbreakers. While there was always music in my life, there were bands that really took precedence. Rich Kids, early Van Halen (pre-Hagar), early Japan (first three albums), The Alarm, Big Country, Living Colour, Jellyfish, Shudder To Think, NIN, The Wildhearts, 3 Colours Red, Sugar, Veruca Salt, Counting Crows, Fountains Of Wayne. The only regret is not appreciating XTC until some time after they'd called it quits. They have to be one of the greatest bands this country have produced. Yeah, I know people will go, 'What about the Beatles?' If you're interested, go and dip into the XTC catalogue and see how they grew from the angular angsty punk/powerpop of White Music (1978) through to their final album, 2000's Wasp Star (by which point they were essentially a duo comprised of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding). It's astounding.

I do remember the Lemon Rock page from years ago, there was so much out of date information on there ten years ago...it doesn't look much different now!

I've had a brief message exchange with kiwi and ped about (perhaps) setting up a sub-forum here to ease the inevitable questions when you're playing a new venue. I'm playing a few new venues in the next two or three months; there's just no information about where to park, loading in etc. My suggestion would be simply to have an area with subdivisions (England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland/Isle of Man/Channel Islands) and within this Counties (Avon/Bedfordshire etc.) and then towns therein. I know we're never going to be able to hit every venue in every town, but there's certainly going to be venues where several of us will have played previously. The idea being to provide a definitive listing of venues, primary contacts, ease of load-in, local parking, venue type (club/theatre/toilet), capacity, music style etc. In my head, it should heavily moderated...this wouldn't be a place for long discussions about your gigging experience or slagging off the venue, just the fundamentals. It might help getting you gigs at these places too. Any interest? Paul