Stub Mandrel

Serious question. Why use 124 on an electric bass. You don't need two finger strength , and even people with smaller hands should have no trouble covering three frets with 123?

My brother and his partner invited me along to a planned meet up of some Budgie fans in Cardiff. Only one other turned up, but we all had a great chat, and she turned out to be the artist who designed this. Pretty impressive to fill Roger Dean's shoes:

I like translucent blue.

Just experimented with my new Embassy, which is a set-neck bass. I can even get an insanely high harmonic at the 11th fret, I can't even find it on any harmonic maps.

Usually transparent laquer over the colour, or sometimes just a colour coat. Use very, very fine grade wet and dry or wire wool, and you should be able to matt it without taking the colour off. I did this once and it worked.

Doesn't that immobilise your hand? my fingers would be too short to manage it, especially on the 5-string's wide neck I'd never reach the b string. Owning a fiver made me switch to floating thumb right hand damping .. bit of a revelation that as I'd never understood the need for right hand damping when I only played a four string. Edited 19 hours ago by NickA I'd be unlikely to use do it on my fiver, but for plodding away at a riffs that just use three frets...

What a great way to present tabI had fun 'sight reading' it. No mishtakes, honest 😉

When I switch from 1fpf to just using the first three fingers, I rest the neck in my palm and use my thumb to mute the E string.

My Kay guitar has a stained fingerboard. Looking at the thumb rest, it's the original tug bar but has been moved (screw holes in pickguard) I can move it back. Perhaps fill the old holes with amber beeswax. Neck doesn't look laminated like the one in the video.

Wow I think recognise several iof those places, is that near the canal behind the Custard factory at the start?

I paid my dues!

I must be insane... I saw this on eBay, it didn't sell at £150 + £25p&p, but I offered the seller £100 all in and he accepted. Probably over the odds but hey... My understanding is it's actually Teisco not Kay. Unfortunately the pickguard has lost a few chips and that thumb rest looks odd, but it seems to be generally original and complete. Hope it survives the post...

My brother has an original Jim Dandy it's great. I love the look of the newc pickup version. Retro-tastic.

I can't see why his wrist and elbow go all over the place. I can't bear the idea of using anything other than my index and ring fingers when playing octaves.

Update. Nut slighty adjusted, truss rod tweaked up a little, bridge raised a touch. Action now lovely and about 2/3 of the 'recommended' 5/64" 7/64". Really getting into it now. The sound is lovely 😍.

Back in the innocent 80s, they sounded pretty good for single driver speakers with plenty of bottom end although I was only feeding them 10 - 15 watts each.

After extensive testing I am firmly of the opinion that every bass player needs at least one instrument with humbuckers on.

Bass display unit:

Just got back from jamming with my brother, I was using the Embassy through my Elf/PJB C2 and he had a 50W orange valve amp and his new Coronet. Epiphoine love-in 🙂 The word 'girth' was used a lot.

It's here! Lighter than I expected. Had to drop the action a bit (the 'specified action' in the manual is a joke!) Needs the nut cutting and slight truss rod tightening but I'll let it settle for a week first. No buzzes and the intonation was set spot on. No scaggy fret ends. Finish is flawless but i will have to take the pots off to remove the last of the sratchplate film - it's caught under the lovely little knob pointers. These are a great detail along with the lovely chunky strap buttons. Body is contoured and very rounded, just like the Coronet. Very bright stainless roundwounds. The blend control works backwards (IMHO). Tone control effective, apparently Epiphone use a custom potentiometer contour. Ridiculously loud output from the 'probuckers'. Real solid growly tone, just like the Thunderbird with probuckers, which is exactly what I was looking for. Neck is a bit of a baseball bat, again like the Thunderbird, but I like my basses to have different feels, that's how I justify having them all. Can't wait to add lemon oil and make the frets fall out. Main reaction - this is very, very different from my Fenders/Squiers.

Bearing in mind I didn't give a toss what they looked like, they were two bits of bare chipboard with white contiboard sides top and bottom. A mate scribbled 'HELLO' on them so I painted over it in white.

Hawkwind Live Chronicles - Extended Edition with all the extras 🙂