Doctor J

I bought a bass out of the money made from selling my old ('88 to '92ish) heavy metal t-shirts a few years ago. I frequently used to pick up a t-shirt a gigs and others were bought in HMV, Virgin or the likes. Some were in a condition which was, as a mate commented, "not fit to wash my car". All sold. An Iron Maiden Powerslave shirt went for €125, Acid Reign Moshkinstein €60, a manky Slayer Reign in Blood shirt with the sleeves cut off, around €50, it was crazy. Funnily enough, the one really rare one (an Ozzy t-shirt from the Moscow Music Peace Festival given to me by a TV cameraman who lived across the road and happened to work at the event) only went for €25. I made over €700 out of them all. Different times.

Bonus: The drumming either side of that bit is insanely good 🙂 Edit -> Actually, here's a link straight into it, just watch the faces of the other guys in the band 😉

I believe the Godlykes were made by Deviser, the Bass Collections by SGC. The two part bridge is the give-away as it's a Deviser design - I was trying to get one for a butchered Bacchus I'm restoring, I thought it was Gotoh but it's actually exclusive to Deviser and I could only get it directly from them.

It sounds like you know what you have to do.

Very tasty. Pancho is one hell of a player too. Do the necks feel similar?

1 correct, but pure guesswork overall. I went with the idea that the HB would sound the thinnest. What I thought would be the Fender turned out to be the HB. I'm calling shenanigans however as they, of course, should have sounded identical because the same fingers and tonewoods were used. By forum law, it should not be possible for them to sound different.

Strings off, then screws 😂 Use a screwdriver which fits correctly so you don't damage the screw head and don't overtighten when you put it back on. There may be a shim in there, just make sure you put it back. It's easy peasy.

€20 over here, you're definitely on a site which overcharges. Lots of them around, sadly.

Oh no, what dreadful news.

100% agree.

I bought some straplocks from Martyn, with items securely packaged and swiftly despatched. A gent to deal with.

I like them too. The control cavity is big enough to put any electronics package you wanted in there, should you desire it. It’s like a blank template of a bass which you could make as complex or as simple as you wish. Even a push/pull pot to switch between serial and parallel would be sweet but still stealthy.

Amazing playing from all involved. This one does it for me, though... those horns!

I haven't bought anything this year but this waiting business is a killer and driving me towards the classifieds more frequently than is healthy. Surely this doesn't count as a 2020 item?

I like the paintwork but, after that, like gets on the train and leaves this monstrosity behind.

Nice. White Thunderbirds are very cool indeed.

Anyone digging Vulfpeck should give Mr. Wong's solo material a listen. This is incredibly funky in an early-Prince kind of way. Petar Janjic and Kevin MacIntire are one hell of a rhythm section and Cory's a very funny fella as well as nailing that fourth-position funk guitar. He's touring in a few weeks and I have nabbed a ticket for the Cork show. Expectations are high after seeing this.

Once I learned to set up instruments for myself, going to shops became a frustrating and fruitless task as they are never, ever set up to my tastes and usually put me off whatever it was I was looking at. I haven’t tried a bass in a shop in over ten years, I would guess. The last one was the early 50’s P bass reissue with action you fly a pigeon through.

But... but... Leo... first time?

Deliciously funky but the first few seconds of that video are like a Crimewatch recreation effort. How times have changed.

Bob Babbitt on line two for you...

Can the speakers can handle the energy being sent to them? The greenbacks are, what, 25W 8 ohm? It takes a lot of energy to amplify low frequencies, a lot of speaker travel too. I would be very careful what kind of head I would connect to a speaker like that. Where guitar amps tend like running low wattage at high ohms, bass amps tend to be the opposite.

You just haven’t found your sweet spot with the Flea. Give it time. Live with it a while and get to know it. Having different sounding basses is a benefit, not a burden.

I find a happy place on a 4 string with a P (reversed) and J combo, 38mm nut, 24 frets, 2 band active preamp (ideally with optional passive circuit and passive tone), good forearm contour on a slightly downsized body and some form of de-tuner on the E string. Woods and colour are irrelevant. That being said, I love a spicy curry but that doesn’t mean I’d want to eat one every day. I love the variety too and being able to play variations of bass design is one of the great joys in life.