Dom in Dorset

A few years ago I moved house and got this BT tv box thing. I spent two evenings plugging cables into things , following on screen instructions etc . At the end of which I could get a shopping channel with no sound and nothing else. I put the tv, box and cables in the loft and cancelled my licence the next day.

The claim that it comes with everything you need and that you'll be recording in minutes. Basically I just can't get my head around digital recording. I can't even start . It's like trying to read a book in Chinese I can even work out how to start.

Did the device come with this software and what was your previous experience?

What actual recording software did you use?

A couple of years ago I bought a thing called Focusrite Scarlet. It's a box with a couple of cables, a mic , stand and headphones. According to the blurb "Easy Start gets you set up in minutes. All the software you need is in the box. There’s no faster way to make studio quality recordings than Scarlett." Utter sh1te , I spent hours registering things, downloading things, no software came with it. In frustration I downloaded a couple of different recording software packages, couldn't get my head around it, achieved nothing, put it away and gave up. Two years later I've dug it all out again and watched the tutorial video provided by audacity ....utter gibberish. So two more of my life that I won't get back and I've achieved slightly less than nothing. Theyshould have waited until all of the old people had died before introducing new things.

The solder is to increase surface area contact between the iron and the fret thus speeding the process up.

In an attempt to save my spine I've gutted my Ashdown five fifteen combo so I can rebuild it as a separate amp and cab. The Ashdown casing and speaker cloth is free to collect , I'm near Dorchester.

It's beginning to look a lot like shiny There's a few imperfections to deal with but nothing serious.

Fix complete a spray of super glue accelerator to give you an idea ofcthe eventual finish I even found time to get this up and running. An old project that ground to a halt due to a run of bad luck and silly mistakes.

Two steps forward and one step back.. Control cavity routed without incident But the ball race that guides the router bit came loose while doing the pickup routes and made a mess of the top top right corner and bottom left lug are out of shape. I cut some bits of wood to plug the holes ,covered them in denim and glued them in place, a further hut of resin and hopefully I can re cut them in the morning.

Before after ironically it flattened the garden of a neighbour who complains if I make the slightest noise.

I should really try to get back to a bass bash, where? When?

As the weather is totally nasty today and a tree narrowly missed the workshop last night I had to take this photo in the spare room . Dolly the cat refused to move. once fully sanded and polished the colour will be much more blue and the denim more visible.

I've done the final bit of epoxy, sanded it flat and put the neck pocket in. A few more experiments with puckup positions and I'll rout for them.

Remember me? I'm back and I've made some progress. I was planning on using a set of Entwistle JBXN pickups but not in the usual Jazz bass positions. I found this picture which shows how Rickenbacker do it so: I've put the neck onto this mock up to test the idea. The result is just what I wanted, fat but focused and great throughout the whole range. I haven't begun to experiment with control settings much , it's vvtt so should be versatile too. I was holding off on the body until I'd had a chance to test to theory but I'm giving it the green light now. Shouldn't be too long now.

Back in 2021 before I'd finished the workshop.

How do I share my band's Spotify page? It just comes up as a link rather than the full profile when I do it. https://open.spotify.com/artist/047Xu1TKM30TCSlcU0VV96?si=0G1P3nZuRR6xgdrGC0DL4w

A note book. If you hear or think of an interesting phrase write it down. Any odd bits of lyrics that come to you , write them down. Sometimes more structured ideas will come to you, write them down. When you come to actually finalise your song's lyrics those notes can be a useful resource for filling in gaps when you just need a line to finish a verse etc. I've kept many such note books over the years and it's not uncommon for me to use a phrase I jotted down ten years ago in a song I'm writing now . I Sometimes make notes just brainstorming ideas for months on a theme before moulding them into lyrics. The current A4 book showing the notes, rough work and out takes from a recently finished song. I had the original idea about ten years ago and finally got it done a few months back after a few false starts. It's a silly country and western song. The book is filling up with pages of similar gibberish that may or may not find it's way into a song. A thesaurus and rhyming dictionary are useful too.

First coat of lacquer on the travel guitar, it will take a few more coats and two weeks to cure. I'll be back on the denim bass soon.

Remember my post on April fools day about making a guitar out of wood ash? A few people fell for it I suspect because it sounds vaguely plausible. I even started to think that there might be something in it myself. So to prove it one way or another I'm giving it a try on a small scale. I'm using ash from the fire pit that we used last night. After removing any large lumps or unburnt bits I added wood glue and water. Stir and leave to settle, not sure how long it will take to dry..... I'll get back to you.

I found time to finish the carving (I'll sort the heal and out when the neck pocket is ready) Side dots in I wasn't sure if I had enough abs rod for the side dots but I did... just

I've spent the morning finishing applying the binding on the travel guitar and made a start on carving the bass neck. As it's finally stopped raining and the sun is predicted to come out shortly I'm off out to enjoy it.

Shiny shiny, shiny frets of nickel....

Masking the fretboard ahead of level/crown/polish of the frets Masked and coloured with a Sharpie then a couple of passes with the levelling beam to get an idea of how much work I will have to do. Once I'm happy that the frets are level the tops are re blacked before recrowning. The idea is to leave a thin line of black down the middle of the fret. Levelled, crowned and sanded up to 800 grit ready for polishing It's one of the more tedious parts of the process. I'll polish them next week.

The cats woke me up before five this morning to let me know that they wouldn't survive until a more reasonable hour without food. I used the opportunity to get the frets in. I covered the tangs in wood glue to fill any voids left in the fret slots. I also added binding to the headstock, I'm trying a partially bound style. Dolly and Tammy on the brink of starvation