Stub Mandrel

Hmm. Triumphs of bad taste over great skill and fine timber. Designing and building great instruments are not necessarily skills that go together.

When someone is selling their own Custom Shop Signature basses you have to ask why?

Clarence Leonides Fender, actually 🙂

I recognise those bloody pillars!

I think it's simpler that that - people who bought Fenders back then wanted them to look like Fenders. Even these days look at the flack the Starcaster gets...

OK. I have a squier Jazz Bass that has, three times, been adjusted only to have a bow return to the neck. I had to add a spacer to the adjuster nut. It appears the anchor at the fat end of the neck was shifting. As it's otherwise gorgeous, I wanted to save it, so a hideous bodge formed in my mind, but it meant finding the anchor point. I thought I might be able to do this with magnets? Anyway loosened truss rod and removed strings. Took of neck and - LO! the anchor is covered by a round plug and there's a gap between the end of the skunk stripe and the plug so I can see the truss rod! No need for magnets, divining or probing with a small drill, straight to the bodge! I fed the anchor point with about 1cc of quality Loctite superglue through the hole, as much as I could get in and allowed it to soak in and hopefully strengthen the wood around the anchor point. This was two weeks ago, the bass has held its adjustment through at least four rehearsals and I even gigged it last Saturday!

I know I keep saying his, but the Fender Performer really needs a reissue. No-one's ever copied it. But look at that gorgeous shape and what a neck! It's 53mm at fret 20 compared to 63mm for a Jazz bass. (Jag SS is 60mm).

Featuring the Windows XP tellytubbie hill!

That point's right...

Watching the Wales V. SA semi-final (in a Scottish pub) with a bunch of my compatriots there were actually several South Africans in their too. One guy pulled out a bag of biltong he'd sneaked into the UK. While I was forgiven for being a veggie, the meat eaters who struggled got soundly mocked. I don't remember the result of the match...

🤪

I'd show you my 10", but I might get banned...

Used the Joyo XVI on a dropped D today (we were just jamming the Dr Who theme and playing with different sounds) made the modern Fender Bassman through a 4x10 struggle a bit! Sounded better an octave up with +/-the octave on. Increasingly finding the Joyo useful for 'real world' sounds especially as an overdrive with with the Bassman in the reharsal space as it makes it break up a bit (which my TE doesn't). It sounded ace last night on Feeling Good (Nina Simone song).

Interesting evening! Fun setting up the small PA, it was very quiet and took while to realise it was because I had plugged a monitor into the line out, the main PA was off... Plenty of room but not huge numbers due to weather, but landlord happy as new people came because of posters and bad weather kept people in all night (you know you are good when people prefer you to a weather bomb...) As for the actual gig, as expected it was fairly chaotic in terms of strong structure (the other two are more used to busking) so lots of thinking on my feet. For my moment of glory Wherever I lay My Hat where the singer swapped the bridge and verse 🤪 and a few songs had unexpected reprises... some of the 12-bar-ish soul songs did suffer from me struggling to remember which one was which, but at least I was in the right key if not the right song... Encouraged by some friends of guitarist and family of singer (her mum joined in on a couple of songs too!) we actually had a fair bit of dancing and a good reception. Must have done about 2 1/4 hours or more in the end although it flew past. Finished with an unrehearsed One Love which most of the pub joined in so it was actually really good, if terrifying.

I've got my third gig since taking the cudgel up again tonight. I think it's going to be mostly made up on the spot and I'm convinced we will end up doing some songs I've never rehearsed, played or even heard before. At least it's making me look forward to next saturday with the main band, when we do a battle of the bands and and we are rehearsed to the point where I could play the set blindfolded. Hopefully I will be able to report back. Otherwise: Morituri te salutant...

Why are gigs so long in the US? In the UK, two 45-minue sets plus few encores is normal.

Thanks to @Si600 I can't take it seriously very time you mention Panga Panga...

That one above is a baritone, but in standard Uke tuning. Not obvious from the pick is it has a lovely convex back, which is what made me like it.

It's quicker if you choose an original name. My business was page on in a month, and it's tiny... 🙂

Don't want to put a downer, but you do realise it's impossible to find either your website or YT channel? Try putting 'bass guitar review' into Google...

Easy to be too clever. Case in point - Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson, as I have discovered.

Progfest or what? And Bob Fripp on violin!

Good luck Burke. My brother knows his son.