Steve Browning

A friend of mine is Robben Ford's guitar tech and he recounts an incident when Robben was playing at a theatre in New York (his home town) and my friend was driving him there. Robben wanted to pop into his apartment to pick something up. He had put his luggage on top so his gear didn't need to be disturbed. He dropped him off and arranged to pick him up after having unloaded at the venue. He drove there and began to unload. He had been due to have some help but there was no-one there to assist so he decided to unload onto the pavement and rush everything into the venue. As he finished unloading he realised Robben's guitar wasn't in the back and figured (with alarm) that it must have been taken out of the car and left on the pavement by the apartment building. He immediately dashed into the car and set off for the building, only to remember that the Dumble amp was sitting on the pavement at the venue. Quite an interesting dilemma. As it happens nothing was missing, luckily!! And if anyone knows Robben. I'm making that up!!

He doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone on here.

Mine have sort of ended up with names. My 66 is called #1 because it is my favourite and it differentiated it from the 4 other sunburst/rosewood Precisions I had. The 71 isn't named. The 72 is called the Wreck because it looks as though Rory Gallagher must have owned it. The fretless has no name and the two incoming SVLs will be Hannah and Emily. The names will be on the neck plates and that's mainly so that my daughters know which is theirs when they are inherited.

You're right. No complaints over the strength of them at all. They're not flimsy but a heavy amp on top of a lightweight rig has a higher centre of gravity than on top of an old school 'heavy' rig.

Rage Before Beauty, although my parts were redone by Wally I believe. I did the recording with DG (and have my version of it). He's rather more recognisable than I am! The story about the J200 was what I was told at the time. He also loaned a Steinberg with a transposing trem (that he played on the track).

It was a real issue. A very heavy amp on top of two very light cabs that would fall under their own steam. The cabs were very shallow and so it wouldn't have taken much to topple the whole lot over. Obviously you don't set out to do that but things happen and I prefer to try and account for the unexpected if I can. I was using two of the 15" version Compacts.

He is quite shy with people he doesn't know (certainly was when we first met) and so I wouldn't think any the less of him for it. I've probably told this on here before but it's the coolest guitar story I know. When we were recording Pretty Things album, DG loaned Richard Taylor a lovely Gibson J200. The story went that Gibson had made 90 for their top players and dealers. For some reason DG didn't get one and so Phil Taylor (his tech) made contact with Gibson, who made a 91st. That's when you know you've arrived!!

This very question delayed me buying a BF cab. I had a notion that my Bass 400 would just fall right through the cab. IN actual fact the cab held ther weight without a problem. The fact that the centre of gravity was not quite high up did rather trouble me. I did feel a bit nervous with my amp oin the top of two cabs that would fall over when the van went round a corner!!

He is giving the money to charity, as he did when he sold a house in London a few years ago. He is a man to be admired.

Seymour Duncan did sell it to Phil but it was made in 1954 (when SD was 3). It is not known for whom it was built but the general notion is that was a gift for an employee.

I understand Strat #0001 was built in 1954, probably as a gift. It was bought by David's tech (Phil Taylor) and David acquired it from Phil in exchange for a mortgage on a house.

No problem. I was just wallowing in a wave of nostalgia and remember ordering the Bells catalogue and drooling over the (b&w) pictures and dreaming of owning a Precision one day. I guess the pictures were just generic promo shots and remember the Epiphone basses.

Bells Catalogue, Health and Efficiency for early 70's bass players.

There is certainly footage of JD throwing his bass at his amps as he headed off stage. Mind you (in case that gives the impression of rage) I also remember vividly their first headlining tour at the Southampton Gaumont when he took off his bass at the end and launched it off stage so it bounce neck first as it went.

Do the Alex Harvey version!!

Number two wears in ears at a rehearsal/audition? Why? He records it and sends you the files? Why? Sounds to me like he would cause you to lose any dynamic you have in the band.

I have to be!!! 🙂

All 3 basses are plugged in and the output goes to the amp on the passive input. That way, if I pick up the active without selecting the right channel (the switcher has LED indicators) there is no noise. As I said, I needed something absolutely foolproof! The 3rd input is my spare passive bass (I only use the active (which is a fretless) on 3 songs of which we usually only do 2) so the spare is a fretted and is there because I have an obsession with having a spare. The pedalboard sits in front of my basses so I can change basses and do the switch without having to go near the amp too. Makes the change quicker, in case the guitarist doesn't introduce the song!!

That's exactly what I used to do until I forgot once and the active drowned everyone else out!! I thought I'd better find a foolproof remedy!!

That's a fair point. There was little continuity in that respect. Each programme seemed to have a different focus.

To be fair, the bass one was about bass, as in the frequency, and its use in post classical music. That made the parts about the upright, doo wop and synth relevant. As for the rest, hard to cram everything into a single hour. I actually liked (what I perceived as) TMs enthusiasm. Pretty cool to think 'I must buy a bass' and go out and buy a '63 Precision (albeit the equivalent of a 2007 one now). As for her moves, during the intro Glenn Hughes does the same thing!! Not for long but a good excuse to post this!

I should add that the Lehle routes to two outputs. Hit button once and it goes to o/p 1, twice to o/p 2 (the tuner pedal) in my set up.

This is my solution. A Lehle switcher that has level controls on 2 of the channels. The silent jacks are in view for the purposes of the picture, it's not how it's used normally.

What will you be running it through? Hopefully your speaker set up will do it justice.