Grassie

[quote name='Stuart Clayton' post='1031731' date='Nov 21 2010, 07:32 PM']Hey Grant, Not sure if it's of any use, but it's in The Mark King Bass Book - which I wrote last year. You can check the book out here: [url="http://www.basslinepublishing.com/the-mark-king-bass-book.html"]http://www.basslinepublishing.com/the-mark...-bass-book.html[/url] Hope that helps, Stuart[/quote] Hey, nice selling technique Stuart! I'll be sure to ask for a copy for Xmas! Thanks mate!

Hey everyone, Would appreciate the tab of a section of this tune by Mark King if anyone has it. It's the section from 11: 45 on The Essential from his Influences solo album. Only lasts a minute, but I adore this little piece. Can anyone help...? Cheers Grant

I don't clean it as often as I should - and I suffer from sweaty hands when playing. This has meant I've had to replace the bridge because of rusty grub screws and intonation screws, rusty pick-up screws, rusty pickguard screws and rusty pole pieces, which have become so bad that I've given up cleaning them and replaced the exposed pole piece pick-up covers with blank ones. All that rust is ok if you like the "relic'd" look, but my jazz bass just ended up looking like i left it out in the rain. Still not as hot as I should be as the frets have started to go a funny brown colour, especially up at the dusty end, which is strange, as I rarely venture that far east (or west if you happen to be watching me play). Maybe a re-fret will change my habits and force me into looking after it a bit more...

Mark has just played on Dominic Miller's new album - and he's unrecognizable. And so he should be, as it's Dominic's album and not Mark's. Mark is also the house bassist for the upcoming Prince's Trust gig (which he's been doing since the 80's) so to regard him as a one-trick-slap-pony is just plain wrong. Mark [i]is[/i] the King, and has done more for British bass playing than anyone else...nuff said.

[quote name='RhysP' post='939945' date='Aug 30 2010, 01:15 PM']Wow! A post from one of the Flowerpot Men. [/quote] It's pre-preg material. Many thanks to all who have posted advice on this thread, I wanted as many opinions as possible and looks like I got them! Back to work tomorrow, so I shall start asking around to see if anyone has any, ahem, "offcuts" they would like me to take off their hands! Of course, if I can get everything together material -wise, and sort myself out with some practical tips on avoiding the aforementioned unwanted resonance problems, then you'll certainly get to read a build diary. I'm actually quite excited by this. I've managed to bugger up my back over the years lugging around cabs and combos which should've come with health warnings. So the main objective [i]is[/i] weight saving, but certainly not at the expense of sound quality. Like i mentioned before, if it goes breasts skyward then I'll do a wooden cab anyway. Stay tuned...

[quote name='velvetkevorkian' post='939636' date='Aug 29 2010, 10:09 PM']There's a couple of people on TalkBass who DIY'ed composite cabs- not carbon fibre but some kind of fibreglass IIRC. By all accounts it worked very well, but as BFM says the time and effort compared to a traditional wooden build is much greater.[/quote] I'm in no rush! It's only something I thought about for the first time yesterday. I'm definitely going to look into it further though. If it's going to be too much hassle, then I'll go the wooden route anyway. Carbon graphite is sexy stuff though...

[quote name='lee650' post='939625' date='Aug 29 2010, 09:44 PM']I believe accugroove brought out limited editions of some of their cabs with the 6" driver being made of carbon fibre, the other speakers were just the same though, not sure how they would sound compared to the normal ones, just something i stumbled across whilst gear surfing, it is a very interesting idea.[/quote] I'm only interested in making the enclosures, not the actual speakers. Been looking at Eminence Neodymium drivers for around £80 each, so will buy everything else I need elsewhere. Can you imagine how light the cab will be if I pull it off...?

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='939609' date='Aug 29 2010, 09:19 PM']It's been done with PA, the cost verges on astronomical. Bass players being the cheapskates...excuse me, 'thrifty blokes' that they are, I doubt you'll see carbon fiber bass cabs successfully marketed.[/quote] The reason I ask is that I work for a composites company, and was contemplating building my own 2 x 10 cab out of the stuff. Just wondered if it would sound any good. Might have to pick some engineering brains at work...

Hi everyone, We all know about the fantastic gear that Rob Green builds at Status-Graphite, and the very clear and resonant properties of woven carbon graphite when used in bass guitar manufacture. But has anyone tried making bass cab enclosures with this stuff? Light weight and resonant? Perfect for cabs, no? What do you all think...? Cheers Grant

Thanks for the info guys. Checked the blurb on Ashdown's website, definitely says 100w output.

Hi Everyone, Just been reading about the need for more (or less) than 300w for general pub or club gigs. I'm soon to start rehearsing with a new band (two guitars, drums and myself) but would really like to downsize my rig. I'm currently playing through a Hartke HA3500 head and VX 4x10 set up which has basically buggered my back up with all the lugging about. I like the look of the Five Fifteen stack (not the combo), but was wondering if 100w is going to be enough? We're going to play a good mixture of acoustic stuff and some other tunes that are a little bit more full on. Has anyone out there played this stack in a similar situation? Will it cut through? Regards Grant

This guy sounds like comedy gold to me. I particularly enjoyed the "potted" history of Lemmy's career, including "He made it into Hawkwind, and then on his own. His Mother stayed here, and he visited, as and when. Birthday's Christmas, Et cetera. (Probably when hungry too, that's when I see my Mother ha ha!)" But the best bit is the answer to the question about how much it would be to ship it to France - "Bonjour, I'm unsure because the Post Office is closed."!!!!! Ha ha!!!! Proper Del Boy! Listen, if he gets £200 for it then good on him. That's free enterprise. The idiots are the people who've already bid on it.....

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='866089' date='Jun 13 2010, 04:03 PM']You've probably guessed that getting the old stuff off is the tricky bit. I'd just use a scraper and some judicious heat as the adhesive will just clog up sandpaper. I use white PVA adhesive to stick the vinyl on. Sticking it on the flat surfaces is easy and you can use a seam roller to remove air bubbles if you have to. Getting it to fold round the edges is much trickier; I use the adhesive on both surfaces and let it almost dry. then I heat the vinyl/tolex with a hot air stripper (take care) which makes it quite floppy and then I smooth it over whatever the problem bit is. If the PVA dries on both surfaces it can be melted with an iron and your tolex becomes iron on but be careful as a hot as opposed to warm iron will melt your covering. Where did you get the coloured tolex from? It is hard to track down.[/quote] Where did I get the coloured tolex from? www.ampcomponents.co.uk - not a massive variety of colours to choose from, but something a little different than standard black...

Hi guys, I'm planning on re-covering my Hartke 4x10 cabinet, as the carpet covering that is on there at the moment is looking a little worse for wear, and I'm also sick and tired of trying to remove dog hairs from it. The cabinet seems to have magnetic properties when it comes to my German Shepherd! First of all, I need some tips on how to remove the existing covering as cleanly and as hassle free as possible. Secondly, I have managed to find a supplier of coloured Tolex, but would appreciate any advice / handy hints on how to apply the new covering. Many thanks Grant

Don't know about slapping the bass on a Saturday afternoon, more like spank the monkey...

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='745132' date='Feb 14 2010, 08:11 PM']Apparently it's Level 42's 30th anniversary tour.[/quote] Yeah, apparently the word was that Gary Husband was "double booked" and Phil Gould was in the frame as it's the 30th Anniversary n all that. Got my tix so I will reserve judgement until after the 15th Oct...

[quote name='Bay Splayer' post='745091' date='Feb 14 2010, 07:34 PM']have been offered a BOSS ME-50B for a good price, am not much into effects but occasionally use a bit of overdrive. have heard that with some overdrive pedals you can lose some bottom end and with others you dont would be grateful for any opinions on this pedal and any suggestions on overdrive pedals that do or do not lose bottom end cheers mark[/quote] Electro Harmonix Bass Blogger - got mine for £55 last year, does the trick for me.

Incognito's drummer has just signed on for Level 42's tour this year...

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='604109' date='Sep 20 2009, 11:01 PM']Bottle your sweat and sell it as 'pole-piece relicing fluid' at a tenner a time. This time next year, we'll be millionaires.[/quote] LMFAO! Made my day!

Sir, you are a gentleman and a genius. Many thanks!

Hey everyone, Whenever I play, whether at rehearsal or gigging, my hands sweat quite a bit, so much so that the pole pieces on my pick-ups have gone a lovely reddish/brown colour with rust. Anyone got any tips on how to restore the pole pieces and prevent future rusting?

We've filtered out most of the cheese these days, due to a change of singers about two and a half years ago, but "Valerie" still gets a look in now and again. But the band I was in 10 years ago, we had two female singers, and one of the tunes we used to do was (I'm really struggling even typing this...) "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. Yes, that's right, the Spice Girls. Doesn't matter how many times I say it, it doesn't get any easier... Do I win...?

As someone who lives on the Isle of Wight, this subject is right up my alley (steady on...). We have one decent music shop here, and I have bought my last three basses from this particular place, with no problems whatsoever. However, this shop is very small, with a very limited stock in terms of the "big" names (Fender, Gibson, Ernie Ball, Lakland, G&L, blah blah blah...). Most of their stock is budget to mid-range, which includes some Squires, Cort, some of those Rickenbacker copies, but also some excellent used gear. Each time I've gone to this place with the intention of buying a bass, I've come out with pretty much what I went in for, but this is down to great timing on my part. I'm now looking to change my main gigging bass again, but the internet is looking like a good bet for what I want because if I want a Spector or a Warwick or a USA Fender, I'm going to have to get in my car, pay one of the ferry operators a small fortune to get myself and my car off the island (and back again), in which case I can kiss goodbye to around £50 for the pleasure, just because my local shop can't shift big budget basses quickly enough to make a decent profit. It's not their fault, but if I've got to fork out before I've even tried a bass out (and there is no guarantee I'll want to buy it, even if I have tried it) then it's money wasted. Internet shopping is killing local shops off for sure, but for someone like me, then this route is a bit of a godsend, because I can research the instrument to my heart's content on places like Harmony Central, hear what it sounds like on Youtube or Myspace, then look at sellers profiles on ebay or wherever. Then, if I get an instrument that is a dog, I'll just send it back, which is what I would do if I went down to Manson's or up to the Bass Centre and bought a bass which seemed fine in the shop, but sounded crap through my rig. Stick with established dealers, or someone with 100% feedback and you can't really go wrong. If they can't spell guitar (the amount of times I've seen "gitar"...) or have poor quality pictures, or even bad spelling and grammar, steer clear...

Thanks guys, may well get myself one then. Gonna cost me just to try one out though, as I'll have to pay the extortionate ferry fare to get off the Isle of Wight, to get to a dealer. Ho hum....