LITTLEWING

I love them too. I began to hate standing on cables when I moved around so bought a Vox curly in black. Utterly brilliant and no tone or volume loss. So good I bought another in white for my white Jazz. I remember early ones that rattled as you turned but they’ve come a long way. Pardon the pun.

For me I raise the bridge pup slightly higher and take the neck pup slightly lower than Fender spec and play with both pups and tone full on. Drop the mids slightly and lose the treble on your amp and adjust the bass and volume to suit. There she is.

Ever thought of a Stingray plate? I imagine it will have the same curve.

I can do SOF on guitar bang on time because in my head I hear the opening and I’m starting it off. If I’m on bass, for some reason I hear BA-dumdumdum, BA-dumdumdum and not ba-DUMdumdumdum etc. I know we all hear things differently, I had a drummer once who if his life depended on it could never come in correctly on T Rex’s Get It On. Hilarious.

We just come in on the NINE which makes sense. The above Don Felder still comes in on the EIGHT 23456! I can’t get my head round it..... I’m sitting here tapping it out and loudly accenting the ONE etc and NINE comes and the band haven’t started yet. So bizarre...

Another toon I needed to run through for this new band. Is it my ears getting old or does this timing do an extra skip as the drums come in? I’m counting the ‘one’ on the very first chord and where I expect the next eight to start as the drums come in it skips an extra beat or two. I’ve played it over and over doing ONE 234 TWO 234 etc and the band comes in on EIGHT 23456..... Is it me?? FWIW I can’t get Sex On Fire either unless the guitarist counts it. My head counts ONE as soon the first note starts. I can’t hear beat ONE as the second note. Bizarre I know.

This will probably start a fight in the playground, but I’ve fallen into a fourth band where the elderly bass guy had to give up for health reasons and one of the tracks is Free’s ARN. I went on YouTube just to remind myself of the structure on the single and album versions and out of curiosity looked at a few ‘covers’. Now, I know Mr Fraser played the riff down the bottom end but a lot of guys on these so called covers are playing it on the D string on the 7th fret. The original recordings are clearly lower and even on a couple of live versions he is absolutely seen playing down the bottom end. Over to you.

I know this has been asked a hundred times but I don’t see a search function any more. I’ve just acquired a 2021 Fender MIM burst P bass with a white pickguard and burst always screams out for a tort guard. Which UK seller supplies a damn near perfect one that just slips on with no problems whatsoever regarding pup sizing and screw holes lining up?

Great band. Had Darren on drums in a band back in 1977 called The Jugglers. Amazing drummer even then, funny as feck. Good times.

I used to be in a Cure tribute band. We were called Prevention. Some say we were better......

Why would I want to? I’d just be playing someone else’s tune note for note with no individual expression. It’s like painting the colours you’re told to inside the lined shapes that someone has drawn on a piece of art paper. It makes me sometimes wonder if you took away the music sheets from in front of a violinist and asked them to play something from the heart, could they actually do it with actual feeling from inside?

The E string going dull and muddy so much quicker than the others. Plus the extortionate price of a new one to keep things sounding sweet. 😤

Just bought a Mex Player P bass. Incredible flawless neck worthy of double the money but it came with the pups so steeply angled from E to G (which we know Fender says to do so that the volume on each string is equal) that they seemed to be too punchy to my ears, so I’ve backed the E down to nearly 3.5mm and flattened that sharp apex a load to bring that sweet P sound into play. I know we’re all different but holy moley, that nasally honk was way too much for me. Anyone else find that out of the box or did a certain music shop it apparently went to first set it up to his taste?

For all of us who’ve been playing it forever but not quite right in places….

Just acquired a very clean and fault free A100 and although familiar with Hartke as I have a 3500 head, the treble on this baby doesn’t seem to have a great range in that it actually sounds more like a tone control on a guitar. I’m not too fussed especially as I only paid 70 vouchers for it, it sounds incredible, the EQ does exactly what it says on the tin and it’s a comfy weight to put in the car. Just wondered if this a normal treble thing on this combo?

Toneriders all day long. Back them off a little to 3mm bass side as they’re wound very slightly hotter. Awesome for the money.

Is the E open string or fretted when it occurs?

I’m not being funny by any means, but why do people automatically swap to more expensive tuners? if they’re cheap and nasty or if one has broken, fair enough, but in forty years of owning and playing a fair few basses I have never felt the need to change them. They’ve always held their tune and only need a tiny tweak when the strings obviously stretch after two hours of vigorous gigging or the neck has gone out a little either way in the heat or cold. I can also see the possibility of a lighter set to alleviate head dive. Serious questions - does a more expensive set add more tone etc. to a bass like a decent bridge does? Are they actually easier to turn than a set on a sub £500 bass? Does a decent set help to eliminate ‘dead’ spot notes? Honestly curious, not taking the mick anywhere at all, just wondering what the benefits could possibly be.

I always do this 3rd fret and tap thing. Dead easy, quick and absolutely bang on accurate.

Yep. I can’t get my ears to like that blended sound no matter how high or low I set the pups let alone the horrid bridge on it’s own. Recently loaded up with a Tonerider P bass pup, disco’d the bridge pup and wound it right down out of the way and wired her up the generic P bass way and it sounds fab. It’s probably all in the mind, who knows. Love my Jazz bass sound either configuration though. Strange but the sound sits well in my ears. A PJ just should never have been born.

I can’t quite see this. I always do the witness point thing in tune and as this will slightly stretch the string it will need retuning a smidge where it went flat. If you relax the tension and do ‘the thing’ surely as you retune it will move the witness point bend away from the saddle? I could well be wrong. Open to learning, every day’s a school day etc.

This. ALWAYS.

I don’t even know where mine is, let alone if it still works. I was so disgusted with it the way it ‘rattled’ every time I moved around being microphonic I lobbed it in a drawer ages ago. Bought a curly Vox cable and it was everything the Fender wasn’t. Superb upgrade.

It is a strange thing and I can’t get in to any other bass than a Fender or a Squier either. I’ve had Yamaha, Ibanez, Westone, LTD, Epiphone, OLP and a Danelectro since the ‘70s but for some reason just can’t ‘become one’ with any of them. They all (mostly) sounded good and played just fine but Leo’s stuff always feels and sounds just right. I have a theory it’s a lot to do with subconsciously hearing a P or J on nearly every track on the radio for years and it’s such a comfortable tone that simply ‘sits right’ our heads and nothing else will do. Believe it or not, right now I’m gigging with a 2000 Squier Standard PJ with all original pups (turns out the split jobbies are actually Alnico which they fitted at one time) and it’s honestly like and extension of me and feels so damn right in my hands and ears. The mind is a weird thing but once you can get around brand snobbery life’s a sunny day.

First thing to check is the nut isn’t cut or worn out too low allowing the first frets to foul each string. Second, you’re going the wrong way with the rod nut. Turning towards the G is tightening it making the neck flatter. (Righty tighty, lefty loosy). Check out one of a few hundred vids on YouTube about nut height, neck relief and string height and go from there.