BrunoBass

My number 1:

Thank you all. I went for a Gotoh in the end.

Is it Will Lee? Pretty sure he was with them around then. I think he played on their 1988 album ‘Remote’.

We don’t do weddings often as we’re not that kind of band, but if asked we will consider it. Two occasions spring to mind. We played a wedding in west Wales, near Aberystwyth in 2015. That’s a five hour drive for us - no matter, we were promised hotel accommodation for 4 x band members plus 1 x driver/roadie. It was all in the contract, and we were paid upfront in full. On arrival we were told our accommodation wouldn’t be ready until later. Turned out the accommodation was in a pub, not a hotel, but that’s ok. Anyway we finish the gig, hit the free bar and eventually retire to our accommodation in the small hours. Turns out our accommodation is a twin room. For five men. We had been given a key to gain entry to the pub earlier in the night, by the time we got back there was no one to take it up with so we had no choice but to squeeze in. The prospect of sharing a single bed with our sweaty lead singer was too much to bear and I finally passed out, Norwegian Wood style, in the bath. Last summer we played a wedding in rural Lancashire. Again, a long drive from home. By now we’re a trio and we head up the M6 to the gig to play, again paid in full up front with the promise of a yurt each to sleep in after the gig. We play the gig (in a marquee, we were on fire incidentally, one of the best gigs we’ve ever played). We then hit the free bar again, and await the meals we’d stipulated in the contract. But no food, they’d forgotten to provide anything. Now this gig is in the middle of nowhere, with not even a phone signal, let alone a McDonalds within reach. In the end one of the guests managed to get one of her friends at a local farm to make us some sandwiches and bring them over, in the dark, on a bicycle. By the time we’d finished those we were suitably well oiled and taking it all in our stride. Eventually we started to run out of steam and decided to head off to our yurts. Or not, as the yurts we’d been shown earlier were now seemingly occupied by several guests who decided crashing the band’s accommodation was preferable to getting an Uber home. They refused to move, and our drummer, who isn't the most diplomatic person in the world (especially after inbibing several gallons of Peroni) flipped his lid. I distanced myself at this point as things were getting out of hand, and ended up sleeping in the hire van. In the morning I located our drummer asleep in the marquee, and no sign of our singer. He eventually resurfaced with a sheepish grin and we loaded the van for the long, jaded drive home. Next time we play such an event we’ll be more stringently enforcing the agreed accommodation, food etc. To paraphrase Terrorvision’s legendary rider: ‘No Moet, no show-et. No Chandon, no band on.’

There are a few hi-mass bridges with five screw holes which should just drop straight in. I’m considering, Gotoh, Hipshot, Omega etc. who all do bridges in black finish. Fender hi-mass are very solid, good price too, and I’ve installed them before, but they only come in chrome sadly.

I’m looking to get a black hi-mass bridge to retro fit to a Fender bass; four string, five screw holes. Recently I bought and installed a Fender hi-mass bridge on one of my basses - all good, decent price, solid product, and I’d happily get another for this project but it seems they only come in chrome, and I need black to match existing hardware... So, I’m looking at Hipshot, Gotoh, Omega. What’s good, most stable, best playing, worth considering? Babicz are slightly out of budget.

First band practise with the Duff tonight. Very happy!

Interesting reading back through this thread. I’ve always used 100s, going back to when I started playing, and have been happy with them. I recently bought a new bass that came factory strung with 105s and is set up accordingly. My intention was to get it set up for 100s, but I’m going to stick with 105s as I’m enjoying the higher tension, especially on the Drop D songs my band plays. Nice to discover something new.

I managed to get some time to sit down with the Duff and get to know it a bit better. Overall, I’m very impressed. One thing that does disappoint me however is the bridge, which looks and feels thin and flimsy. No big deal, as I was kind of planning to put a black high mass on anyway, but disappointing none of the less. You feel the same @PlasmaZombies?

When I joined the band I’m in now they were using a rehearsal space exactly one mile from my house. I was very lucky. When that studio closed we moved to the nearest alternative studio which is 15 miles away. I average 150-200 miles on the road a day in my job, so another 30 mile round trip after work when I’m knackered is often a chore. Driving 200 miles for a rehearsal... well, if you’re not feeling it I can’t blame you at all. In the joy vs hassle stakes joy would not be the winner for me. Good luck, whichever you decide.

Black or white. I’m a sucker for Capri Orange too. I’m not over keen on sunburst, or natural finishes. I much prefer solid colours.

Thanks, I’ll check out the video. Yeah I’m looking forward to the convenience of tuning down instantly. We’ve shoved all the Drop D songs in our set together, so we’re not constantly tuning up and down; it’d be good for the flow of the set to be able to spread them out a bit. I can now.

I’m a songwriter. I keep notebooks of phrases I’ve read, snippets of overheard conversations, ideas I can draw on. I find writing music comes easily, but writing good lyrics is difficult, however if I have a clear idea of what I want to say the lyrics often just flow out in to the page. That might sound obvious but it’s true, and more likely to get a result than staring at a piece of paper wondering what to write. Occasionally I write a lyric that says everything I set out to say, that’s a great feeling. Sometimes it feels like I’m not even writing it, it’s like it’s coming from somewhere else... By the way, one of my songs was played on BBC Introducing last week - very chuffed!

How did you get on fine tuning the Hipshot? I’ve got to do mine, on my new Duff. I gather adjusting them is a bit of a ball ache? Thanks!

Today I welcomed into my fold a brand new Fender Duff McKagan Signature Deluxe bass guitar. I’ve been thinking about getting a PJ configuration bass for a while. I had one a while back and it filled the gaps very nicely in my rock covers trio. I saw the Duff in a store last week and thought it looked awesome. Lots of online research, followed by a return visit to try it out and the deal was done. It’s a beauty, finished in a lovely pearlescent champagne colour. It’s not quite white, but it’s close enough to tick my Paul Simonon fanboy boxes. I’m not usually a fan of black hardware but it looks great on this bass. You can find all the specs online if you’re interested. The neck is substantial but not overly chunky. Nut width is 41mm I’d guess, it feels similar to my EBMM Stingray. Despite the Jazz Bass Special name on the headstock it’s definitely got more Precision DNA in it than Jazz. Despite being a Signature instrument there is no trace of Duff’s name anywhere on it, only a ‘skull’ motif pressed into the neck plate. It’s slightly neck heavy, more noticeable when playing seated but strapped on it balances well. I love the fact that I have master volume and master tone (that’s how I’ve always had my J basses re-wired) and a pickup selector. All three positions give very individual, useable tones. The secret weapon is the TBX tone control which I’m looking forward to experimenting with. Very useful to me is the factory fitted Hipshot D-tuner. It’s not properly set up though so it will need fine tuning, which I hear is a bit of a faff... The set up was ok: intonation and action all good, although the relaxed tension on the E when the Hipshot is engaged results in a lot of buzz, so that will need tweaking too. General fit and finish is excellent, as you’d expect from a £1000+ bass. It comes with a Fender gig bag which they describe as ‘deluxe’: it’s anything but - thin and fairly useless, so I’ll be using one of the excellent Mayones gig bags I own, which are very heavy duty. It’s definitely a ‘rock’ bass, and as the man himself plays almost exclusively with a pick it’s easy to get a punchy rock tone by doing likewise, with both pickups on. But I think the Duff is more versatile than that. The Seymour Duncan J pickup in isolation is honky and funky but not thin and weedy, and the P pickup in isolation is warm and full, especially played finger style. I like it very much. I’m looking forward to giving it a proper high volume workout tomorrow at rehearsal. Nice!

Just picked mine up! That’s my evening done then... (Mine’s the white one by the way).

Looks great!

I put together a P bass last year, not from a kit but from parts I sourced, mainly from eBay. It was the first time I’d done it and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I did the whole thing for around £200; around £60 of that was the body and neck - there’s a thread over in Build Diaries. It’s not the greatest bass in the world of course, but it plays surprisingly well and sounds pretty good too. Go for it!

Don’t get me wrong, I look after my stuff too. My thread was more that my basses are, in my opinion, merely functional objects.

...to your basses? Just tools to do a job? Objects to be treasured, collected? Or somewhere in the middle? I get the p taken out of me by my band mates for the amount of bass guitars I get through. I’ll hanker after something, get one, play it for a while and then after a while I’ll see something else I fancy and sell the first bass to fund the next. I have a couple of ‘keepers’ but really I’m just not that sentimental about my basses. If I’m not playing it, I’ll move it on. Perhaps I’m chasing the perfect bass, maybe I get bored easily. I’m the same with cars. The guitarist in my band on the other hand has kept, and displays at home, every guitar he’s ever owned, even if he hasn’t played them in years. I love my basses; the way they sound, the way they look, playing them, but at the end of the day they’re just tools to do a job.

I’m bumping this up again in case anyone can shed any light on RMI basses and might’ve missed the original post? I fired a few questions about the bass to RMI’s Facebook page but got no response. I’m interested in when this model was made, original RRP etc

My first bass was a Squier Silver Series Precision, bought new in 1991. My first amp was a Badger keyboard amp that I bought from a synth player. He played big fat Moog Rogue bass lines through it so I figured a bass guitar should sound good through it too. The amp is long gone, can’t remember where. The bass too, sold to fund some other musical purchase in the mid nineties. I wish I’d kept it. It was very similar to this one.

Purely my opinion / experience, but I had an Ashdown EVO300 4 x10 combo for a short while and I hated everything about it. Sounded terrible, bland, lacked any sort of tonal character and weighed a ton. I’ve got a dodgy back anyway and I could hardly lift it into my car. I gigged it twice and got rid of it.

Me, I very rarely change strings. My band rehearse weekly and gig roughly twice a month. My main gig bass is a Jazz bass that wears the same set of Slinky 100s I put on it when I got it three years ago. We play hot sweaty bars and pubs (especially this time of year) but I don’t have a problem with sweat killing my strings. I think it depends on how acidic your sweat is and how much you sweat. My hands don’t get sweaty even in hot venues, whereas our guitarist is absolutely dripping at the end of a gig.

Yes, in answer to the question in the title. I regularly gig my J&D Jazz, which cost me the princely sum of £102 new. I’ve used it for pub gigs, function gigs and festivals. In fact I’ve gigged it more often than my MIM Jazz Deluxe which I got around the same time and cost eight times as much. 21st century cheap basses are great!