ezbass

Purple, blue and green work well with cream (not at the same time).

I'd go with a medium stain to bring out the grain and highlight the cream adornments. Perhaps something like this... See, I can be sensible.

Geddy!

Eee, who's that young shaver?

With that black hardware on, the light maple looks pukka. I know you want to go dark, but…

Using an octave pedal and/or a chorus pedal can help. But don’t just take it on yourself to fill out the sound, your guitar player can also use a chorus or, perhaps even better, a loop pedal to double the rhythm parts or keep it going during solos. Conversely, embrace the space and make it part of your band’s sound.

Just watched it and really enjoyed it. I only wish I’d see this timestamp beforehand as I missed you.

It seems there is a vampiric twist to my short scale of choice - Met under fangs.

Nordy NP4 or NP4A for a more scooped eq? I’m currently thinking of buying a nice playing Squier CV P and upgrading the crap out of it, so I’m on YT comparing pickups - a lot. Current winner is the DiMarzio DP122, which turns out to be ceramic, to my surprise.

So named for the design influence coming from the Alhambra Palace.

I tried them to lessen the marking of the board on my fretless. I tried LaBellas and wasn’t keen. Then EB brought out cobalt flatwounds so I gave them ago and I really liked them to the point where I have them on 3 of my 4 basses. I like the feel, I like the tone (more like a nicely broken in set of nickel roundwounds then the thuddy tone you get with some flatwounds) and, of course, they’re kinder to my fretless.

How about a double J instead of an MM?

My basses are 33” scale and are normally fitted with 45-100, I use a drop D tuner. No issues. I recently had to replace an E string due to breakage and could only replace with a 105, can’t say I can tell any difference. This is with EB cobalt flatwounds.

Loving that mock up. I had an off the shelf Jake, it was nice enough, but didn’t have the ‘personality’ of my 2 custom builds. This may have been down to the more than adequate Bass Culture pickup not exciting me but, whatever it was, when I needed to offload a bass to finance my JMJ Mustang GAS, it was an easy choice which bass was to go. As you’re looking to order a custom build, rather than off the shelf, I think it’s a safe call providing you get your pickup choice right.

Nah, that’s facing the enemy and going in at the deep end, make it so!

Good to see you back, I was wondering just the other day how you were getting on, as I hadn’t seen you post for a while (you may have and I just missed them). Either way, glad you’re on the mend.

Nope, a really nasty skin eruption: "A carbuncle is a cluster of boils caused by bacterial infection..." I had one on my knee as a kid, it was revolting and I still carry the scar today.

Oh yes, it's a carbuncle visually (although I think the P/MM isn't much better) but it sounds sooo good. Had the World's most awful neck dive and made my shoulder ache, which is why it was moved along.

OK, it's one man's opinion, but having read Andy Summers' book, he's been a self absorbed knob since day one. Perhaps all very successful stars are (and some folk who are regardless of success ) , but they just keep it hidden away? Perhaps Mr Sumner is more honest and genuine in that he lets his knobness shine through? I'd rather he just played his bass, sang and wrote more great songs. For the record, The Police are one of my all time, favourite bands and at least 2/3 of that band were tools.

Great songs. I love his work and it galls me that he's quite the tool, always has been though.

P/P, always P/P.

Your idea of going to some open mic nights and singing with a guitar or mandolin is sound, as this will build up your confidence. However, as @ubit mentions above, singing and playing bass at the same time is often a very different ball game, due to syncopation. I used to sing lead vocals on China Girl and the second half of that was a nightmare, but repeated practising at home finally nailed it (sorry, it’s the same old ‘keep doing it’ advice, but it’s true). Another potential pitfall is not committing to the performance. I found that if I was tentative at all with my vocal delivery, my pitch would suffer, but this is just a confidence thing that improves with more and more performances, both at home and live.

Trip hazard.