GarethFlatlands

Wish I still had a fretless, there's been a few recording situations where I think one would have really worked. I had a nice Letts 6 string but it was far too fancy for me and I felt like a fraud playing such a nice bass so I sold it on.

[quote name='bazztard' timestamp='1489718441' post='3259220'] Space Oddity, tho it's really Herbie Flowers' bassline that kills it, one of the most complex basslines to learn note for note as it travels over every inch of the fretboard. [/quote] No-one else in my Bowie covers band seems to believe me when I tell them what hard work that line is! I've tried and given up learning it a few times now and they still insist I could do it standing on my head. Lots of highs for me, anything with Carmine Rojas playing on it is a joy to play, adore Blackstar. Too many to mention really. We always start our set off with Station to Station which I'm not a fan of but that's a personal low. I find some of his later output a little MOR but none of it's bad as such. Never heard Tin Machine so maybe I should just to have a definitive answer here!

Looks very nice! The J Mascis Jazzers are supposed to be excellent but nice to see a similar model in another colour.

OK, so routers are terrifying! I shaved a little out of one of the corners and the pickup just about fits now. Installed the bridge pickup at the weekend and wired it up today. The height was pretty much spot on, a shade over 2mm from the string with the last fret pressed. The neck pickup is a little low so I'll hack up an old mouse mat for an extra layer of foam to raise it a little, then I can concentrate on putting on a new set of strings and giving the whole thing a good setup. A quick check of neck relief revealed it was pretty much spot on compared to the online guides I checked which was a massive bonus, as that just leaves string height from the bridge and intonation to set up. I also noticed a fairly strong buzz which disappeared when the control plate was touched. Eventually figured out the bridge ground wire was hooked up to the controls but not to the bridge! Rather than solder it in place, I stuck it to the body with some aluminium tape underneath the bridge which made contact when everything was installed. Still not 100% sure if I'm keeping the current bridge or installing the one I got off Facebook, hence the "it'll do" solution for now. Anyway, another check running the bass through Reaper and everything seems to be working fine. The low E has been lowered closer to the pickups compared to the other strings so the output wasn't even but it sounded pretty damn good otherwise.

No problems. Here's the video so you can have a listen for yourself. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUpgHLoE2ho"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUpgHLoE2ho[/url]

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1489154841' post='3254797'] Did anyone buy one of these? I'd be interested in your opinions if so. [/quote] I came very close but ended up going for a Zoom B3 instead. I watched a YT video which was pretty comprehensive and while there were a couple of good sounds in there, I didn't really rate any of the distortion sounds so it wasn't the one box solution I was hoping for.

Bought a Zoom B3 off Adrian, posted it out very quickly in enough packing to survive the apocalypse (or at least UPS) and was generally a very nice guy to deal with.

Have a look at [url="http://websynths.com/"]http://websynths.com/[/url] Bass preset 004: Far Bass without the reverb sounds like a similar sound, maybe you could use those settings as a jumping off point?

Really like the look of this, the comp sounds pretty nice from the videos and the headphone out would be a massive bonus if getting an amp to the venue is too much of a hassle. I don't know why more bass DI boxes don't have one built in! I doubt I'd use the octave or filter but the chorus is a nice addition. Price seems reasonable, very tempted by one of these.

Thanks for the tips! I was considering ordering a template but can only find perspex ones on Stewmac which have bad reviews as they apparently melt pretty easily. I'll keep looking and check for a top bearing bit too as I think the ones my friend has don't have bearings. Fortunately, he lives within 5 minutes of a B&Q and a Screwfix so I should be sorted for one. Any advice on what size bit I'll need?

Supply and demand I guess, it's why people with Japanese built Jazzmasters from the 90's are charging 150% of their as new value for 2nd hand instruments these days, although I don't know if they're actually getting that. They're very niche instruments with a bunch of quirks but they don't come up too often so sellers can ask a high price. I have to stay out of Rich Tone, it's not good for my wallet!

A friend has offered to loan me a router to try and square off the bridge pickup cavity at the corners, a thought that terrifies me as someone whose woodworking skills could charitably be described as "non-existent". Hopefully the worst that will happen is some untidy corners. Today I took the old output jack from the original control plate, installed it and wired up the neck pickup and the bridge ground. I also added a couple of strips of aluminium tape for shielding purposes but it's so hard to work with (separating the tape from it's backing was taking a long time) and the cavity itself had a very rough, unfinished interior so I only did half of it. Basically, where the wood was thinnest (bottom edge and back) where I thought noise was most likely to have an effect. Once everything was wired up, I plugged the bass in to my PC, fired up Reaper and.... it worked! It wasn't too noisy, at least no more than I'd expect with a non wax potted single coil so I think I'll leave the shielding for now. The low end was miles better than it was and everything was just clearer. There was a small amount of crackle at the very bottom of the volume taper but not so much that I think it'll cause problems.

Not much of it but there's a couple of Tool tracks with fretless on it. Intension from 10,000 days is the main one but the 2nd verse of Lateralus has it dropped in too. Both Wals. Joe Lester from Intronaut is also well worth a listen/watch. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMcj7x-J96o[/media]

My guess is that every guitarist and their dog has owns or has owned a strat so there's more of them around on the 2nd hand market. I've always felt like a strat was the sensible choice and a tele would be great but less versatile, which is why I walked out of Rich Tone with a strat a few years ago when looking for a new workhorse guitar. Nice Community avatar btw!

Busy week so slow progress on the bass. Finally got round to removing the pickups and control plate and doing a test fit. The new bridge pickup is too big for the hole by a tiny amount so I'm considering my options. Buy a router and widen the cavity, try the same with a file or file the pickup surround down at the corners so it fits in the old cover. Got a replacement bridge but only one of the holes lines up with the ones already there so I can't use that without drilling out 6 new holes. I was also in Maplin looking at SSD drives and forgot to pick up a jack socket so I'm not having a great week. On the plus side, the chrome control knobs look great so that's a plus point!

Thanks for this! Grabbed the Mark One, my piano skills wouldn't do the Studio Grand justice and the Mark One seemed to have some interesting sounds.

[quote name='Mister RLP' timestamp='1487705133' post='3242055'] 'Dollar Days'. Great choice. I wonder if anyone has tackled 'Blackstar' yet? [/quote] I learned it, then we decided we weren't playing it! There's only really 3 sections but the structure is a little weird so it's doable for sure.

Trumpet. Never managed to make it as effortless as you're supposed to. I actually got OK (grade 3 on a good day) and had a decent range on it until years of overcompensating for my less than ideal technique caught up with me. Over the course of a week I lost about 70% of my playing range and never recovered. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

[quote] Will look into this too. Cheers. [/quote] No problems. I tried to find a clip of us on YT but it's all recorded on mobiles from the crowd and the bass isn't really prominent enough to show you the results. I know what you feel about avoiding the obvious stuff. We played a Bowie convention in Derby last year and racked our brains for a setlist that covered popular stuff people would want to hear and less obvious tracks as I'm not sure how many times people would get excited to hear "Ziggy Stardust" for the 20th time in a weekend. The best reception we got was for "Dollar Days", although our sax player didn't thank us for that one as it's a tough one for him.

That's a beauty, I hope it plays even half as good as it looks.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1487611383' post='3241207'] I think it also depends on the genres you were into at the time. For me the 80s was all, Aria Pro II, Ibanez, Wal and Overwater. [/quote] What did Kylie and Rick Astley play?

I'm in a Bowie cover band too! Using an Ibanez SR300 on the neck pickup, treble dialled up for a bit of extra clank on the attack. Going into a Behringer BDI-21 for some Ampeg colouration and a COG custom bass OD for the dirt and mid range boost. Can't say I nail the tone necessarily but it works for me.

I'm a child of the 80's, I just missed out! It was all pointy headstocks and Steinbergers when I were a lad.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. There's a few exceptions but when was the last time you saw a player you looked up to with a Gibson bass? Especially compared to their 6 strings, I'm struggling to think of many players with even the T-Bird which I'd guess is the most abundant model. Caleb Shcofield (Cave In) and his Grabber and John Curley (Afghan Whigs) and his T-Bird are the 2 main ones for me but even Caleb switches between that and a P. If the classic models were more widely used and maybe just easier to get hold of then more people would use them.

That looks really nice, let us know how it performs in a gig situation.