Stub Mandrel

>cough<

I'll have you know there's only ONE Big Stubby 'round here.

That's the way all mine went back in the days when I 'played' guitar.

No bass, no Bootsy, in sight but still epic!

They will come together when we have to resort to Izal Medicated, it's rough as a badger's.

Its a Squier Standard, but I just realised I measured without taking the bridge cover off so it probably is 19mm... Sorry! No I mean the Fender Performer from 1987. I haven't got it handy to measure, but I do know it's 53mm at the 20th fret compared to 63mm for a jazz, so 10mm less neck(!) there could mean it's even less than 3x3mm less at the bridge (scaling from a photo suggests 15mm but I'm not 100% sure). Possibly the skinniest-necked bass ever made by a major manufacturer?

You should try my Fender performer IIRC it's about 16mm. A standard Jazz is 18mm.

I hope he's not wearing inauthentic rip-offs of Converse trainers there...

Yep! Just cut and paste it - and put your name in at number 5! That gap is winding me up like no business!

NO! I can't believe you sold a sparkly one!

I like a bit of formica 🙂

Clearly it's an embarrassment for you and upsets you every time you look at it. This is a normal reaction. Luckily there's a simple solution, just pop it in a decent hard case and send it to 'Luthier's Anonymous' c/o mythe address I will send you in a pm...

They really should have thought twice about the nappies though...

You look on the verge of collapse! 😧

There was a tiny (probably free) festival, somewhere in Mid-Wales, near Tregaron in either 1984 or more likely 1985. All I can remember (that I'm willing to out on the record) is that it was well attended by persons of an 'alternative lifestyle' nature and we all got searched by Mister and Mrs Plod on the way out. Can anyone suggest what it might have been? Google suggests it might have been the Cantlin Stone Free Festival. http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/cantlin-stone-free-fest80.html

I remember being 'local crew' for a few gigs in Aberystwyth, the biggest being Slade, promoted by a mate. Too in awe of them to say hello! Also Sky, their road manager said he'd put us all on the guest list for the following evening in Swansea. When we got there the door wouldn't let us in but my mate found the road manager who kicked off and we all got in. For some weird reason the Brangwyn Hall gig was dead posh - there were people in penguin suits and ball gowns, I kid you not! Of course we we all smelly afghans, denim and leather etc. 🙂 One fun moment was watching Nik Turner's All Stars at a club on Barry Island. End of the set everyone (including the band) shot off to the bar, leaving me standing alone, face to face with a very sweaty Nik. We had a great chat, lovely bloke! Then there was the time I was in Brighton and the friends I was staying with suggested we head to a pub that had a folk duo on who were supposed to be quite good. The room was tiny, so small they decided not to bother with their amps and spent the performance keeping out of the way of the fiddler's elbow. Dave Swarbrick and Martin Carthy.

I was at Reading '83 too, you can get a DVD of the Twelfh Night perfromance and because the BBC recorded the whole festival it spawned an amazing collection of live LPs. Some listed here: http://www.stubmandrel.co.uk/14-music/105-i-was-there For me the highlight of the festival was a 'new' blues guitarist who was supposed to be a dab hand at playing Hendrix covers on his first tour of the UK... on Stevie Ray Vaughan. Mid you I even enjoyed Black Sabbath with Ian Gillan 🙂

If it's that good, why hasn't he used it in 18 years?

It's very nice and for me the family connection would make up for it being refinished as it's part of your story. That serial number suggest 1963 (which is close enough). https://www.guitarinsite.nl/serienummers-fender_eng.php An original scratchplate would have a lot more screws, you could ask someone to add these. If the neck is original and has the correct marks on it (when removed) it would be OK to get them to put on the Fender decals that were probably removed during the refin. It's rare for a bass to really need a full refret, a good luthier can probably sort it with a fret dress.

If only everyone was like you there wouldn't be this panic buying problem. 🤣

Even with simple ports the rear wave and front wave only meet 'completely in phase' at one frequency. With porting with such a big difference in path lengths my guess is that rather than 'completely in phase' what you get is rather than a relatively sharp resonance is one less strong but spread over a larger range of frequencies, possibly approaching a whole octave. It seems the classic cabs are given a frequency range of 50Hz-17Khz which isn't particularly low so I am fairly confident in my guess this gives them a characteristic sound rather than some miraculous low-frequency response -not that this is a bad thing! I would be interested in @Bill Fitzmaurice's comments on this design, especially the comments at your link!

That's fascinating; I wonder if the very varied path-lengths for the porting give it a distinctive frequency response/sound?

Forgot that, been replaced by a Fender 'Head Louse' signature model.