NancyJohnson

Just starting to assemble parts. The thrill of the chase. @neepheid knows what it is. Shhh!

I'm a huge Bongo fan, I owned a 5HH and loved everything about it aside from the ridiculousness of the preamp output level; I did post here years ago enquiring whether there was a route to make it passive. You'd start a gig with a beautiful balanced tone, but inevitably you'd just keep nudging the controls up and an hour later [it] would be mush. It was hard to keep under control. Loved the quirky design, the neck carve, the string spacing, the colour and if I had £3-4k down the back of the sofa I'd consider another. These, though? I'm not saying no, more nah. At present, I'm fairly uninterested. I'm not saying Sterling kit is awful, far from it, but having witnessed a few bands supporting us where the bassists were using Sterling Stingrays, these instruments were some way off what they were copying.

Your line of questioning was a bit odd and if you read any of my posts elsewhere you'll see I frequently use the word 'subjective' when making comparisons, simply because I know what may appeal to me would be abhorrent to others. Simply because I say the Bongo was fantastic (it ticked so many boxes), I shouldn't need to have to justify that to you by providing a list of instruments by way of validation.

Mr Potato, If you're after a list of my top 5 of everything I've owned; MusicMan Bongo 5HH (gone) Mike Lull JAXT4 (still here) Hamer Cruisebass (still here) Spector Euro-X (still here) Gibson Thunderbird (Ivory) (gone) I could likely list you another 20 basses that I'm either still in ownership of OR have sold on to fund purchases, if that lights your candle. Just because they're gone doesn't mean they weren't - for me at least - sterling instruments. Search hard enough on this site and you'll find documented proof of most of my kit, past and present.

Like many in these parts, it might be quicker to list the stuff I didn't have at one point.

You're going to be on the receiving end of dozens of recommendations, so start saving £££. I'll play along. Elixir Nanowebs. They're coated, either coated stainless steel or coated nickel plated steel; I'd say out of the box their steels have a slightly more zingy tone over the nickel-plated ones, but they just settle and then sets become indistinguishable from each other. Oh, and they last for ages.

"Eee, when all this was fields, I was early in my teens with a pocket full of money from my paper round..." There was a little music shop called Adam Music on Station Path, Staines. The limited stock was all cheap/copies, but to us, kids whose exposure to electric instruments was either TOTP, Beat Instrumental or the Bell catalogue, Adam Music was heaven. Beyond this, we kind of progressed on to ABC in Addlestone.

To clarify, it's a bridge jazz pickup. No custom scratch plates, ashtrays etc. Remove, fill, forget. End of.

I've been using Ultimate and Hercules stands for a while. My current squeeze is this one (GS402BB). Assuming you have a regular shaped instrument, it works a treat:

I will!

I have a little project upcoming and need to plug a Jazz bass pickup rout; I'm thinking about either filling it with resin (which is preferred) or a combination of a rough sawn plug glued in and then panel filler, then painting. The rout isn't going to be used for a replacement pickup, so long as it's smooth after painting, it'll be fine. Concerning a resin pour, no idea what resin I need. Guess I only need about 125ml and am loathed to buy a huge amount I'll end up throwing away. Suggestions?

I'm sorry, but your not drilling into end-grain argument is nonsense. A dowel is going to be made from hardwood like beech, oak or maple and from a strength perspective is likely stronger than the wood you're going to be glueing it in to. It's not going to crack or split if you drill out the proper sized hole for the screw you're installing.

Personally, I'd re-drill the holes and plug them with glue/dowels, level these (sharp chisel to rough, then sandpaper), and then redrill new holes.

I'm quite fascinated by these things. Do I, as robust gentleman of 6'4" with gorillaesque hands, need one? No.

Or just order one from Sweetwater and get your brother in law to bring it home from a business trip in Texas. The XB is a definite step up from the dUg pedal, but ultimately once you dial in your desired tone, you're not going to stray far from that. [Edit] My main issue tonally with the Waterstone was that when plugging into any singular amp/stomp, this was shaping everything that the bass was outputting. The lows might be nice, but the octaves were nearly always quite nasty (and vice versa). The XB seemingly resolves this, in wrestling some tonal control out of the instrument, albeit out of one stomp.

The beauty of getting as much out of a 12-string as possible is allowing the instrument to push the signal through a pair of amps. I owned a Waterstone Tom Petersson a few years back, simply pushing things through a single amp/processing wasn't the way to go. For me, I was always chasing a TP/dUg kind of tone, so a crossover was essential at the time (I used a Rolls unit) and pushed two feeds into a stereo poweramp and two cabs. The lows were pushed through something that could deliver a fairly robust phat tone (Sansamp BDDI) and the highs went through something that would deliver dirt (I went with a Sansamp GT2 which is effectively a guitar pedal and way more suited to the octave strings). Moving forward, the XB Driver pretty much emulates the above (and more). It's got a quite beautiful phat-sounding clean stage and a VERY gnarly drive stage; there's low/high filters on each of the channels (which are more suited than a regular crossover) which are engaged when the Crossover button (just below the red 'BASS' knob), which really brings the unit alive. It's a fantastic unit.

Just by way of advice, when you land the 12-string, buy yourself a Sansamp XB driver. It's a bi-amp system in a single unit.

I was considering at one point about asking Rob to manufacture a 12-string neck for my Lull 5-string. Pretty certain the neck pocket would be wide enough to go from 5 to 12 and the two part bridge could be swapped out to accommodate the extra strings. Obviously it would just be something that could be changed back to stock if necessary. I am think the oversized NR Thunderbird body would work brilliantly.

Joe Perry Project

There's always been a sale table - no reason why this can't be the case here.

On the off chance, is there anyone locally who can put @neepheid up on the Saturday and Sunday night?

I honestly have no idea. I saw a video a few days back where a chap was manufacturing nuts out of wooly mammoth bones/tusks, which (apparently) you can buy in Alaska - I thought this was pretty cool (no pun intended). Arguably the nicest nut I've had was on a Warwick Streamer...it was one of those brass adjustable ones that made tweaking a dream: