NancyJohnson

OK, quiz time. What wood is this:

What scale length is it? The 32" or 34"? It looks sweet, I have to say.

This doesn't compute. I see a mash up of a skinny Bongo, Gibson Ripper and a Spector headstock Strangely alluring.

Explains a lot of things. Oh, tee hee!

I suppose there's wood in there somewhere, probably cedar.

My point (many times over) is that in general we (viz. bassists) are neither carpenters nor arborists (although I do accept that there will be bassists who are carpenters and arborists) and in general the bulk of us here, who have this desire for 'tonewoods' maple, rosewood, mahogany probably wouldn't recognise maple, rosewood, mahongany from hickory, cherry or walnut. Over many moons, we are just fed this nonsense (there, I've said it again) that we need basses built from these 'tonewoods' because we are somehow of the belief that it's both better and it's going to transform our tone from rubber bands over a cardboard box to the rich tone of a grand piano. It's not. How many times have you watched a video of someone on Premier Guitar and see them turn to the camera and say, 'I'm not sure what this body is made from, it could be <insert wood type here>.' You can built from anything and if you did a blind test, I doubt you'd be able to say with any certaintly that what you were playing was built from a laminate of maple, walnut and alder or pencils and resin.

Tonewood. Just this work gets my heckles up. I'll again (try) be the voice of reason. Tone is subjective; it's the end result of many factors; pickups, amps, your hands, technique age of strings etc. etc. Plys, blockwork, laminates. It makes little or no difference. Basswood, Koa, Mahogany, Korina, maple, various spalts and burls etc. Little or no difference (almost probably the latter). I'd bet that most people here wouldn't be able to tell the difference from a piece of ash from a piece of pine if they were holding a plank of each at the same time. Cover any (ANY) wood with layers of poly and/or nitro and the evidence is gone. You wouldn't have a clue what the instrument was made from. I'll cite evidence from the SE Bass Bash a couple of years ago that 30 bassists couldn't tell the difference between 20-odd different basses in a blind shootout; some of these guys couldn't recognise their own bass, let alone a Jazz from a Precision AND it was deemed that one of the best sounding (*all tone is subjective) was off a scratch build bass from one of the attendees. We really just need to take our heads out of our bottoms and stop being suckered in with this tonewood nonsense; as demonstrated by many builders posting stuff up on You Tube, you can built guitars out of pretty much anything and get wonderful results, the only caveat being that the thing will hold together under string tension.

I didn't put these on the Spector...they just sat in my cable box until about a month ago. Stuck them on my newly acquired Hamer and have to report they're bloody lovely. They feel a bit coarser than Elixirs, tonally a bit fuller. Nice tension. I shall be using elsewhere.

I did one gig where I went FoH. Confusion, headliner arrived, asked, 'Where's your amp?' Bassist replied he used IEMs and straight into the PA, so the sound guy took a feed from a Sansamp. We had no monitors, I couldn't hear anything, but the people out front heard everything and said it was fine. I just feel we all seem to be so worried about stuff that we really shouldn't be worrying about. How big the nut is. What the neck radius is. Neck-bloody-dive. How we really need to take out those Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounders and install some EMG active pickups etc. We're the only people in the band or room that's really concerned. Nobody there is interested in what gauge strings you have or whether you have an Aguilar tone circuit installed. Sigh.

Bit of an odd come back. Look, I gigged for years with a variety of amps (generally heads, rarely combos) but only one at a time. While I may have been fortunate, I never suffered amp loss either through breakdown or theft. Considering reliability, I'm an advocate of you get what you pay for, buy carp, expect carp. The OP didn't allude to what loss actually referred to. Home insurance is never going to weigh in where breakdowns are concerned and the likelihood of Hastings et al paying out quickly (ie in a week) to cover loss by theft and replacement thereof is unlikely. Thing is, a lot of small venues adopt gear sharing, so in that instance it's reasonable that another band will let you use their kit. A lot of small venues also have backline available as well (although it might not be fit for purpose). If you're in a wedding band (or something where you're the only band playing), you could feasibly go through FoH and hey let's face it, we live in networked times, there will always be someone who can loan you an amp until you're sorted. To be honest, it's nothing I'd be getting my panties in a twist about. If the OP is concerned, a secondhand TC Electronic BH550 will suffice. Tone print, loudish. It's just whether the desire for a backup outweighs the desire to spend £400 on some small/portable. Personally, after years of doing this, I wouldn't worry. There's always a solution.

I think this sums things up succinctly enough.

Rich, health issues aside, have you never had a moment where you just make a decision in an instant? I recall being in WH Smith in Reading a few years back, I picked up a copy of the US Bass Player magazine and saw an article about Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament. He was pictured with his Lull Signature model. At that point I was up to about nine or ten Thunderbirds and it was like someone just threw a switch, I knew instantly that my foray into Gibson basses was pretty much over there and then. In an instant it was like, 'I really need to sell my Gibsons and get one of those.' Thing is, nothing is forever. I've had to sell stuff to cover building work, years ago a really nice Warwick that I'd desired for a really long time facilitated part of my kitchen...now that hurt a lot at the time, but I know now that ultimately I would never have kept that bass, otherwise I'd have tried to buy it back. Onwards and upwards. Never go back. I do understand the importance of possession on the human psyche; if you did needed the swag, I'd happily let you pawn the Wal to me and I'd just store it unplayed until you could settle the funds back.

<tongue in cheek> Colour reminds me of a Fender Precision bass I owned that was finished in Mocha. </tongue in cheek> It's really that easy!

Just an observation and thought for the day. I find it quite amusing how, irrespective of the intial subject-matter, so many of the threads here just descend into the opportunity for people to post photos of their gear. My wife asks me frequently whether I like looking at gear on here and my response is generally that I honestly do, but feel that you could be reading a thread with a title like, 'I lost my arm in a freak sawmill accident' and within a few posts people would be posting beautifully lit photos of their Shukers reclining on a sofa. Right. That's the today's message. You can start posting bass photos now. Go! Go! Go!

Buwaahahaaaaar!

Oh, listen to you lot! 'I'd never sell this, my trusty Archangel Splattenberger seven string, my late grandmother (15 times removed), bequeathed it to me on her deathbed in 1902, which says something as I wasn't even born then. I played it at the Queen's coronation. Well, I was thinking about it while I was watching a documentary about the Queen.' Every one of your basses has a price, much as I love my kit, they're all expendable. I said I'd never get rid of my white Thunderbird but as soon as I got GAS elsewhere, boom, up for sale. We are a fickle bunch, so attached to some wood and wires.

My producer wanted to see how low I could go and still have a usable tone. I got down to low G/G# on my five string; things got a bit rattly, but interestingly the notes had pretty much zero clarity, it just sounded like background hum, could have been playing anything.

Pictures or it didn't happen!

I have two. Scroll down folks! While 'decent musically' isn't actually isn't strictly quantifyable here (as both cases they can play well) but first up, the lovely Pippa Evans has a musical alter-ego Loretta Maine. It was odd, she did a slot at the Comedy Cellar in Bracknell as Loretta Maine (five star/brilliant) and then she came back a year later as Pippa Evans. Her opening line as Pippa Evans? 'Hello Bracknell! This is my second time playing here, but last time I was somebody else.' Next up, Ben Norris...fellow bass player. If his voice sounds familiar, he's Martin Freeman's cousin.

This is my point. Because of the units shortcomings, an octave pedal will force you into playing stuff in (an unnatural?) higher register and/or having you switch it off when you hit a lower register.

Not a fan of octave pedals, I owned an EBS unit a while back and while it was OK with higher notes, but once you dug into the E string it was quite underwhelming; problematic tracking and you'd get this odd double note thing. If you can live with this then fine, otherwise you'll be spending more time concentrating on when it needs to be on and off. So you have other options. D-tuner. I've got these fitted to my Spector and Aria Primary. They work fine, but the E-String does go a bit sloppy. Use sparingly. Buy a five string. I'd say it's always useful to have one; while I'm predominantly a four-string guy, nearly all my recording work is on a five-string. Better than a D-Tuner. Going BEAD. Decent option if you're not busy slapping/pulling the G-string, otherwise you're going to have to be very busy up the dusty end. Remember you'll possibly need to adjust the nut slots to accommodate the wider strings and you may need to tweak the truss rod to keep the neck straight. Buy a Kubicki Ex-Factor bass (which resolves all the issues beautifully; All these cost ££. Weigh up how much you need those extra notes and decide what suits. It's all a personal choice; you could even try a heavier string gauge and tune down to DGCF and capo across the second fret to play off a standard EADG tuning. Too many options.

I remember that 12-string. Magnificent.

If not done already, get a syringe, full it with Gorilla Glue and squirt in down into the split/join, then clamp it up, wiping away the excess that might have come out. Onece it's set up, fill the surface with Gorilla and some sanding dust, allow to dry and rub back. To be honest, I think the stripping you've done looks brilliant as is and I'd just leave it at that. Each to their own, I suppose. Maybe just fill the scratchplate holes with the aforementioned Gorilla/dust.and put some faux-aged/rusted hardware on it. Nice/manky rosewood Tele-bass neck, sorted.

Sorry, this thread has come up a few times and I've been meaning to post the cans I got. Eventually went with a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M40X. £78.00. Obligatory stock photo below. Happy Christmas to me. Flat repsonse, comfy (especially over glasses, once in a while). While I wouldn't describe myself as having a Tefal-Man sized head, fully extended they are on the cusp of fitting, so unless you're John Merrick's long lost sibling, you should be fine. I love the fact that these are highlighting (otherwise unheard elements of) clipping on some of our recordings (much to the irritation of our producer who isn't picking this up on his studio monitors).