Stub Mandrel

Well I have both and I know which I prefer. 🙂

Works best with ginger nuts.

Not if you are playing darts 🙂

While I feel that the headstock is not pretty, it is far from the only ugly one. And remember the hideous G&L headstock is one of Leo's so he didn't get it right every time... Although the Bite design might put some people off, there are a few things stopping a change: Inertia. The impact of 'validating' the criticisms, especially when there are clearly some customers who are happy with it. The sort of people who spend hours picking apart their design and business model probably aren't their target audience. Dare I say they might be seeking younger and more adventurous musicians who want a cost-effective route to a 'custom' bass (and I would argue they are more 'custom' that Fender CS basses which are really 'limited editions' not (potentially) unique to the customer ones). Cost of a new design. Existing stock. It's quite brave - compare Ashdown being equally bashed about for their similarly priced basses being even closer copies, is it possible to win? Upsetting early adopters who may in future show brand loyalty. Emotional investment, especially if one of the owners of the brand invented it. It has achieved it's main functions - being recognisable, memorable and (unlike most) actually relevant by the link to the brand name (in twenty years, if I'm still around) we will still be saying 'do you remember Bite headstocks!) With all that lined up, assuming that they are achieving the sort of sales levels their business plan projected it could be quite brave to change horses midstream. That said in time, a revised or alternative design (perhaps one that makes a 'fender-like' shape by taking the bite out of the bottom) may be used to extend sales. All in all, although that headstock isn't to my taste, I wish them luck because any diversity in the market is a good thing.

So it's a compensation for badly cut nuts 🤩

Blimey, you have darts in the USA? I would never have thought!

Are you going to go for a D or Eb neck? 🤣

In my mid thirties I was in a band whose BL wrote really good songs, the sort that really could have done something. When I joined he'd written many of the bass lines and they were the sort of thing I enjoyed learning and playing, interesting but not overwrought. I was secretly convinced we were all too old to make it in a world of 'bright young things'. I left when I took on a new job with a lot of responsibilities; I offered to help a new bass player into the role but they never got in touch. I fear my leaving may have kyboshed the band, and I still wonder what we could have done if I'd stayed.

Never quite figured this angst about break angles. Why do we need a greater angle at the nut than we get when we fret strings? I think those who worry about this should be force to play bass lutes.

I may be able to be in South Wales that weekend; is anyone playing a gig nearby on the 4th or 5th to make a mini-break of it?

I couldn't resist a foot up on the monitor last Saturday 🙂

Dang, I'm all TRLT'd out so take this s a like 👍

From Saturday Night:

On drywall, there are various different fixings which you can use. I've actually found that the ones which are like little cast spirals with teeth on the end are remarkably secure and plenty to support a bass*. Just follow instructions. Google 'drywall fixings' for inspiration. Any decent supplier's versions will have a weight rating. I have kitchen wall cabinets that have been hanging for ~15 years on the spring toggle type. They are suitable for suspending bassists, let along basses... *Your mileage my vary, but remember typical bass hangers suffer a lot less leverage than the brackets in the video

Ah, we have a difference in perspective. Your wording " this is because they're wired in parallel to one output jack. " implied to me that you meant they are wired so that even with one pickup wound right off they both affect the other pickup (i.e. side by side directly across the output jack - which would clearly make two tone controls redundant). Even if that's not what you meant others could easily read it as meaning that.

Fascinating build, and I can see the Geiger connection! On magnets for pickups, I'd be tempted to try a plain mild steel bar with a 5mm neodymium magnet on top. Why? I've fitted magnets like that to three Squier jazz pickups and it makes them ridiculously hot, you even have to move them away from the strings as otherwise they make them intermodulate (one string drives the others and they beat!)

Yes, but you only need to do this with ONE volume control. By having both vols on max, you do then have the 'each tone is effectively a master' situation, but with one rolled right off it's then an analogue of a standard Jazz. The important bit that's being missed is that when one pup is on and the other off the two tones controls are independent. You stated: I suspect you meant to add 'when both pickups are at max volume' to the end of that bit, but I thought it was important to set the record straight.

That's not strictly true... They behave as if the tones are wired across the inputs to each volume control, not the outputs, so their effects only blend noticeably when both pickups are above about 75 - 80% volume. As you can see from that diagram, when either volume control is rolled right back, its tone is grounded and effectively out of the circuit. I often keep the neck tone off or near off and the bridge tone bright, and switching pups using the volume controls shows the settings to be independent when used like that. Turning both pickups right up and if one tone control is rolled off it will have the dominant effect. This takes some getting used to but does actually open up a very wide range of tones, something I've only really been exploring in the last month having had the bass for about four months. So, for example I can go from a reggae style neck pup, tone rolled off, to bright bridge pup with two knob twirls, where my other Jazz requires three. Effectively you can 'preset' the tone for each pickup at the expense of having to learn to understand how it behaves when using both pickups. My 'main sound' now is neck pickup tone rolled back and volume at about a quarter with both bridge pickup controls maxed. I find this adds just enough 'fatness'. Interestingly the Seymour Duncan website where I got the diagram above seems to share my findings: https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/the-1962-fender-jazz-control (Note the first reply on that page is wrong because the clever bit is that the pickups are wired to the WIPERS of the volume controls a point most commentators seem to have missed.) Here's a pic off 'the other website' and you can see its consistent with the above diagram.

Polite way of saying 'the Band leader had a hissy fit. He got the name and we got the band...'

The song is no longer the same now I've been infected by the 'Fuel for your oven' earworm...

First time out for us as a proper band last night. A 'Battle of the Bands'. A biggish venue with a very powerful pa (it belonged to Slipknot when they were starting out...) first time I've ever had a separate sound engineer for monitors. We sound checked first and had the benefit of it with the bassist of another band saying our soundcheck sound was 'outstanding' 🙂 Unfortunately for some other bands it was a bit hit and miss - I think it was those who brought their own guitar amps instead of using the backline. I was lucky, for the last few weeks I've been practising with the huge Fender rig they used - it was still on my settings when I plugged in and no-one changed it all night which made my life very easy! Numbers were modest, about 200 including the bands, but it was a very enthusiastic crowd who got into all the bands. Last year's winners 'Dark Matter' put on a great show, their singer told me he had decided to pretend it was a 10,000 crowd however many people turned up. We were on last, and started with Song 2; another band had done this earlier so we decided to just really go for it... it certainly got nearly everyone dancing 🙂 The rest of the song choices went down well, we couldn't have picked a better day to play what ended up as a pop-punk version of I'll Be There! We thought In Bloom might be a bit of a gamble with a largely student audience, but in the end it was probably our standout track because all the Nirvana fans went crazy 🙂 I absolutely drenched the bass with chorus for this one and it sounded absolutely gorgeous where it's just bass and drums (IMHO!) Then two songs from the end I stood on my power cable and all the lights on my pedal board went out. Quick check it wasn't a pulled out wire so I just swapped the wireless to the amp and turned up the gain bit. After weeks practicing Ace of Spades and learning to play chords with a plectrum my moment of glory and no overdrive... fortunately the adrenaline got me through it and my dread of starting too slow was unrealised! We finished with Club Foot, which always sounded poor whenever we rehearsed it without fuzz on my bass, luckily we'd decided to double the solo on guitar which paid off as I could barely hear myself playing fingerstyle with no compression and no distortion. Somehow we started and finished together although I'm not 100% sure what happened in between! We didn't finish in the top 3, I'll probably use the age of three of us as an excuse (we were introduced as three old men and their carer 🙂 ) but as far as I'm concerned that was a fantastic night because I know we were tight, several people complemented how good we sounded (including the sound engineer) and that was probably the most enthusiastic audience reaction I've ever got. My fourth gig since taking up arms again, but I think I can now say; "I'm back!"

With the 'Robot Tuner' innovation, Gibson made the first step towards the self-destructing guitar. My brother sent them a video of his removing it's own strings in response to being played...

Still gigging with Band of Friends http://www.bandoffriends.eu/