TrevorR

Does this count?

Of course my very first thought when I saw this thread was... the mighty Adam of the Ants... Full disclosure: No it wasn't... it really, really wasn't! 🤣

Never played a Sandberg that I didn't really, really like... not played yours (of course) but I doubt it would be the exception to that rule. Lovely looking bass - love that idea of the JMM format - I can only imagine how lovely it sounds and feels. I quite fancy the idea of a PMM format. I know that if I was buying another bass tomorrow 99.5% sure it would be a Sandberg, Enjoy!

Or in fact... II > III III > IV IV > Houses of the Holy Presence > In Through The Out Door

ELO did it on a couple of successive albums. A New World Record and then Out of the Blue were very successful and epitomise the violins and cello orchestral pop ELO sound everyone thinks about when you think ELO... ...then they released "Discovery" - or "Disco-Very", their first No 1 album which had a very different sound but was also very successful with many hit singles. AND THEN they released their last big hit album "Time", also a No 1 album, which largely ditched the strings-based/disco-tinged sound for a much more synth/electro tinged flavour.

Funny, I've also been a huge Rush fan since about 81 and I absolutely get why CoS was so poorly received. I'm not sure it made 2112 "possible" but it certainly made it "necessary"! Really like both FBN and 2112 but the only songs I actually like on CoS are Bastille Day and Lakeside Park (one of my all time faves). In fact it's probably my least liked studio album after Vapor Trains (for the over-compression rather than the songs themselves). For me both The Fountain of Lambeth (sic) and Necrodude have always hinted at their their abilities but felt like they were put together in a pretty shoddy way with a lot of filler in-between the few and far between inspired bits. Comparing with with other bands' multi-section, long form pieces which were being produced around the same time or earlier (Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Echoes, Supper's Ready, Close To the Edge, And You and I, The Snow Goose, Starship Trooper, Tarkus etc etc) neither The Necro nor Lamneth cohere and hang together the way they do. And then there's "Didacts And Narpets" which is awful musically, poor in its delivery of an otherwise interesting concept and owner of a horribly smug lower-sixth humour anagramatised title. If I didn't know better and you told me that CoS was their second album and they improved with FBN I'd find that completely plausible. Huge disappointment for me. And don't get me started on the sub-Tolkein Hobbit-bothering nonsense... and I LIKE Hobbit-bothering nonsense!

The red Pro II? Photos never do it justice... it’s a deep transparent raspberry red. Lovely. And the red Aria’s cool too (my very first bass back in 1982).

That’s by far the most common way of doing active basses... PICKUPS which are active themselves are actually pretty unusual. Lots of decent quality passive pickups out there at different price points. Active circuits to check out include John East, Aguilar, Audere (my personal fave), Darkglass, Seymour Duncan... and many others.

Just realised I never posted yo this weeks song... this one took me a load of takes before I got one without a major fluff... came out OK but the bass is a bit low in the mix (I would say that!).

As would it be useful to have " Brought a spare and used both because I could" - which is really my answer. That said never had either of the two fail at a gig... When I was playing in a function/wedding band this was my standard setup... We'd to three 45 min sets and I'd either do alternate sets or maybe do one (or two at most) change in course of a set (which took less than 5 seconds because of the Lehle switcher pedal) depending on the songs in the set. Could play the whole set with either bass fine, of course, but hey! Like they say, you never buy an insurance policy hoping that you'll use it but, if you ever DO have to use it you'll be glad you had it...

Presume everyone knows that Aimee Mann is pretty tasty on the bass as well as being a top singer and guitar player. When we saw her live she and the "other bass player" in the band swapped between bass and guitar all evening. No one's mentioned Canoe Reeves but I guess that's well known. Less well known is maybe Ryan Gosling... Geeky actor Michael Cera... And didn't film critic Mark Kermode play bass for Danny Baker's short lived late night chat show?

Nah, Yacht Rock is GREAT! Long live Yacht Rock! Did you see the BBC4 documentary that Katie Puckrick did on it? Well worth a listen- though ironically it barely gives a mention to the fabulous YouTube comedy skits that cemented the term itself.

I also write the following blog... http://walbasshistory.blogspot.com

Yes, I’ve got a Mk 1 Custom and an older Pro Series Bass.

Actually, the knobs are hand turned solid aluminium, hand stamped with the numerals and then sent for powder coating... but why let facts get in the way of a bit of facetiousness... 😉👍

Facepalm! 🤦‍♂️ You know you’re right... they don’t have a drop forge in their woodworking shop... I’ve had a moment of epiphany... the fact that their bridge carcass is specifically manufactured for them and powder coated by a specialist metal shop, exclusively, and to their own specifications clearly means they are just the same as a BBOT* bridge shipped in by the container load from Indonesia and available by mail order from the Allparts catalogue... how could I not have realised this before... 🙄 * before you ask “bent bit of tin”

...I would struggle to see either of those as an inherently negative factor... a well done bolt on neck is no worse or better than a set neck or through neck... just different. And an angled headstock often demands a scarf joint at the end of the neck (unless you’re going to be very wasteful with wood..). The stepped approach used by Wal allows the same laminates to run through to the end of the headstock with no jointing across the axis of the neck. Again, not worse or better just a different and perfectly valid approach. A thought on the Warwick comparison... all the hardware on a Wal is proprietary and made by Wal from string guides to knobs to bridges... let alone the pickups and electrics. The Warwick (like most luthier built basses, even) will mostly feature off the shelf hardware. And there will be significantly more man hours and hand carving from just two luthiers going into a Wal, which costs. Even the best Warwicks will probably start their lives on a series of CNC routers before being hand finished by any one of a few dozen workers in the factory. Not better or worse, just a different approach. It’s like wondering why a chair from an artisanal craftsman builder costs more than a top of the range chair from a high street store. You can sit on both of them but they are different animals built to a different philosophy. And admittedly, very expensive...

And that’s my LESS GRUMPY looking face! 😱

Here's one of those record it on your phone and stitch it all together later on videos which we did for our Sunday morning service the other week which gives you an idea of a typical tone from the Pro bass... a bit stunned how well it came out in the lockdown circumstances...

Paul does a really good fettle and check up on his basses. Had him do some work on my Pro a few years ago. He's not cheap though... but he IS good! The one thing to watch out for on the Pro basses which I'd actually put down as a rare bit of bad (well, less than excellent, non-future proofed) design by Wal is the knobs/pots on these basses. The pots are unusual in that the shaft isn't integral. Rather there are small locating holes in the hub of the pot into which a shaft locates with two locating prongs... I suppose it was done to make th eshafts easy to replace in the case of damage. Or something... Over time (as happens with plastics) the two fork/prongs can get brittle/break off. This happened on a few of my pots. AAAAARRRGGHH!!!!! However, I sent it back to Paul and he swapped them over for "normal" posts with the shafts integrated in the pot itself. Rejuvenated the bass and it's still singing like a bird today!

On the Wal, that's a late 70s/early 80s "Pro Series" bass - if active it's a Pro IIE, if passive a Pro II. From the serial number I'd estimate the bass dates from early/mid 1981 - so quite late in the run of manufacture. They don't go for the same money as the "Custom Series" basses (the ones with no scratchplate and exotic wood tops) but you're still talking £2-3k+ these days. More info here... http://walbasshistory.blogspot.com/p/production-line-basses.html http://walbasshistory.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_9226.html If your chum is on Facebook point them in the direction of the Wal group there. Lots of knowledgeable folks (and potential customers) who hang around there... https://www.facebook.com/groups/2413094311/

Recorded a bass track for our church to use in our streaming service this Sunday. It’ll be stitched together into one of those mosaic style videos for Sunday. Doing Sinach’s tune “Way Maker” a d decided that this week it was the turn of my Aria Pro II SB700 to step into the spotlight. It was my first ever bass way back in 1982 and I still love it. Hopefully “bass neck cam” might also feature on the video...

Babylon Zoo... Jas Mann was the self proclaimed saviour of pop music if I recall... and then sank without trace like the remainder of his awful song. As I recall he had Carrie Melbourne on bass and Chapman Stick...

I think this is probably my fave mash up...