scrumpymike

Hi fellow bass bumpkin! We get 40+ at the bash held just outside Taunton but there must be a fair few more.

Welcome, and hope to see you at our next Big Fat South-West Bass Bash - see events forum.

Got one of these for a while back from AndyJr with the first bass he built for me. Works a treat!

Just swapped a bass with David and everything went like clockwork. Great comm's, fast turn-round, lovely bass. Thoroughly recommended!

For people like me who appreciate objects that show-case the natural beauty of wood, this is a real delight!

Without mentioning the 'C' words, many of us are struggling a bit to find stuff to fill our excessive down-time and may welcome some suggestions. To set the ball rolling, I just happened upon this really neat video of a Joan Armatrading concert at the Rockpalast in '79. IMHO well worth an hour and a half of anybody's time. Even if you're not a big fan, this is a great performance by JA at her peak supported by an amazing band (even if she and excellent lead guitarist Ricky Hirsch did need 3 goes at starting one of the numbers!!). Bassist Bill Bodine puts in a great performance on a bass with the single letter 'R' on the headstock - anybody know what this is? Apologies in advance in case there's already a similar topic running. Joan Armatrading '79 Rockpalast gig

Mine was a modest 3.3kg so unless they've changed from mahogany to something heavier (or lighter), should all be about that.

What a lovely bass!

Have you got one? It's one of the few s-s basses I've not owned or tried.

That's absolutely the right place to start. AFAIK Bill always played short-scale basses (as I do) and the shorter strings produce a distinctively different sound. This is further reinforced by using flat-wound strings (less bright than round-wounds) and the electro-acoustic construction of many of his earlier basses (e.g. Framus). Fyi, The Bass Centre in London made a Bill Wyman signature bass some time ago designed in consultation with the man himself. This was a lightweight, compact bass made to fit a lightweight, compact player. The lovely bass you http://www.basscentre.com/british-bass-masters/BBM-Wyman.html

😊

These are mega value for money! Had a perfect black one then sold it to get the ivory finish. Unfortunately when it arrived it was very poor quality finish-wise and got exchanged for a Squier Jag s-s - now also moved on. The cheap Ibanez basses are great unless you happen to get a Friday afternoon one!

To quote a well-known song: "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." I ended up buying back the GK MB800 Fusion I mistakenly sold.

It's very, errr, relic'd-organic, which obviously makes it highly sought-after.

I gig classic rock covers and from my experience the 3 amps that have the right core tone so you can just set everything at 12 o'clock and plug and play (as I do) are: Eden WT550 Traveler (valve pre); GK MB800 Fusion (also valve pre); Mesa Subway D800+. The first of those has the edge tone-wise and is only up for sale on here as it's bigger and heavier than the other 2. I'm sure that other heads I haven't tried will work for you too. Eden WT550 Traveler

Re Banshee headstock, the more I look at it the more I like it!! I can see one of these joining my collection (don't tell Mrs. Scrumpy 😉). It's the name I can't forgive as it's so inappropriate. Mind you, at least they didn't choose some belittling, trivialising name like 'Half-pint' or 'Wimp' or 'Shrimp' or 'Flyweight' or 'Bantam' or 'Short-a*se' (Spector please note).

Agreed, I was just going to post the same.

My fave is the Mesa Subway D800+ very closely followed by my GK 800 Fusion - not much in it.

Yes, I'll be interested to hear what the Ray owners think of it.

OK, so my Olympic White SBMM short-scale Ray arrived in the week from Bass Direct. It was ordered by e-mail just after lunch on day 1 and delivered by DPD at 8.30am on day 2 with packaging and contents all intact. Pretty amazing under the current circumstances. As for the bass itself, it really is incredibly good. US owners have been giving these glowing reports on Talkbass, including one guy who reckons there's very little difference between the one he's just bought and the $2k+ US-made EB he already has. Even so, I didn't want to raise my expectations too high but as soon as I got mine out of its gig-bag the quality was obvious. The build, finish and fittings are excellent, the only exception being a small flaw in the wire wrap of the G-string. No obvious reason though (like being crushed against a fret) and I will report it to BD tomorrow. All that needed changing was the set-up: no relief in the neck, action way too high (for me anyway), and nut-slots not cut deep enough - par for the course with low/mid-cost, mass-produced basses in my experience. Having just finished fettling it to my liking, I'm really impressed! All the adjustable stuff worked as it should and this is one sweet player. It's my first Ray experience outside a music shop but, to my ears, this one sounds really nice and I would expect it to sit well in the mix of our classic-rock covers band (assuming we ever get to gig again). I'll give it a run thru my Mesa Subway 800+ and BF SC3s at home tomorrow. Top marks to SBMM! I can definitely recommend this to any short-scale players looking for that distinctive Ray sound with maybe a bit of the edge taken off by the passive electronics on this bass. I'll try and grab a few pic's tomorrow and see if I can do a decent recording.

+1

… or even when I am in earshot 😁