Delberthot

I thought I'd let out the details to my next bass. So far only my wife knows the details (she doesn't really care though) Based on the delivery schedule the guys at Warmoth have given me - it is due around Christmas. I love my '51 reissue precision but hate the fact that it is so jaggy - as in the lack of contouring so I have gone with a '54 style mahogany body which will be finished in Gold Flake. I loved the neck on my Warwick Thumb NT5 so I have gone with a Wenge neck and Ebony fretboard with no dots on the fretboard. All of the hardware is gold and I have also ordered the neck with the copper alloy fretwire which looks like gold. I have gone with the standard Fender single coil pickup as I think that this is the best one for me. the pots are CTS 500k and I have a .047 Sprague cap for the tone. the only 2 things I need to get are the nut and strings. I had ordered an ABM JAN bridge from Bass Parts Resource but they don't have any so I may get it from Warwick or may go for a JAN III. I am toying over the idea of getting TI flats for it or staying with my regular EB Hybrid Slinkies or going for something completely different. As soon as I have the parts, I will be posting lots of pictures The other thing I want to do is get a decal for the headstock. I don't want one that says it is a Fender because it will obviously not be one. I have seen one that says "Fender Telebastard" and would like something along the same vain but can't tink of anything witty like that

i reherse at a place in Bonnybridge, near me, called The Bunker. I usually play through an Ashdown 15" combo with Peavey 4x10" underneath it and am really impressed with it. I have been taking my own gear to practices for years so it is really good to be able to just fire my bass, a strap and a cable into the boot. £8 an hour so its not bad. No more mucking around with gear and cables - enough of that at the gigs

I've never actually owned an American fender as i have never felt them to be worth the extra dough. I have had one Mexican Precision; a Geddy Jazz (CIJ); SQ Squier Precision (MIJ); JV Squier Precision (MIJ); 2 '51 reissue Precisons (CIJ) the first time I bought one of the '51s I thought that it had such an amazing sound but at the time I couldn't live without a low B as I had been playing 5ers for the best part of 10 years. Many basses later I bought another one after making the transition back to 4 strings and I absolutely love it. I've never been able to get a good sound from the split P pickup but the straight single coil is 'my sound'. It is the absolute best bass I have ever played. I've had some corkers of basses over the years - around 10-12 Stingrays including 3 5ers a 20th and a 30th anniversary 4 string; 3 Ricks; Warwick thumb NT5; Yamaha TRB 6 fretless; Thunderbird; Modulus Flea. this is the kind of comparison that I am making - to me this bass is much much better than any of these. Some basses have got close but never delivered as much as my current one. Its dead simple to get a great sound from it. the 2 saddle bridge is limiting to get the intonation right but I love it. Can you tell that i like this bass?

I've been using one of the Fender rack ones for the last year and am very impressed. Tunes very quickly and have used it with 4, 5, 6 & 8 string basses with no problems. Its also cool as the leds do a Knight Rider sweep from left to right when you are not playing and a big blue Fender 'F' lights up when you are in tune.

A box for a 46" TV is perfect

Playing tonight but then again its a wedding and I am in Scotland so it won't affect me

When I was learning I found "Sweet Home Alabama" from the Blue Brothers really helped me a lot to work this out. When you think about it, it is just a minor scale - the main notes, if you were in E are: E Ab B C# E C# B Ab and E Ab B C# D C# B Ab Once you learn this shape you can't go wrong

I have always used my index more than my middle finger but I am more comfortable this way. I used to get lessons when I was 15 from James Finnegan (Hue & Cry and Stiltskin) and he used to get me to play alternate fingers. Whenever I am playing a gig I half expect him to come up to me and tell me to play it properly. One kind of unfunny thing happened to me last week - I was playing a long gig. I have a skin thingy that means that my skin sometimes gets thin in areas (no you can't catch it). I went to adjust my tie under my bass and made contact with my right middle finger and left pinky. this resulted in me cutting open my right middle finger. Luckily it was half an hour before the end of the gig and I was able to play with thumb and index finger until the singer decided to do "Let Me Entertain You" by Robbie Williams. Carp as Robbie is, this song is very fast so i had no choice but to play it with both fingers. Pain city but I was able to play it spot on. Back on topic - if you want to practice alternating fingers try "hit Me with your Rhythm stick" by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. I believe its the ultimate tune for practicing this

Timing. If I don't have a beat to follow I still get lost. I've been playing for 20 years and still struggle with this. I can play a million notes an hour but can't keep a steady tempo unless someone is marking it for me. I'm about to begin drumming lessons so hopefully this will remedy this.

When I was 14, I was learning to play the double bass and reading at the same time. I was really terrible at reading. 3 years later I was given the chance to join a big band playing big band tunes of the 20s, 30s, 40s etc. When asked "can you read music?" I of course said "yes". When I went to my first audition, there were another 2 people going for the position and the person leaving was my old double bass tutor! I must have bluffed it enough because I got the part. I used to get old DB players coming up to me saying how much they enjoyed my playing but being absolutely honest I was making 75% of it up (I was playing the first note and making the rest up) Even today when I get asked to fill in with jazz bands and stuff I still bluff it completely. I can read the notes but have no idea how to read the individual notes properly with semi quavers and rests etc. I still regularly get lost half way through tunes. I've played in a weding/function/dinner dance band for the past 11 years so have developed a knack for making stuff up as we regularly have to play songs that we don't normally do. there is a big secret and I may divulge it someday but there are only a few patterns that you can actually play when covering other peoples tunes (except Frank Sinatra & Nat King Cole) which means that i can very rarely make a mistake when playing an unfamiliar tune. I'm not being a show off, I just discovered the pattern. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The first tune I played on a five string was "Righteous and the Wicked" by the Chilis. Although you'll very rarely see Flea with anything more than 4 strings he used a 5 string for this song as well as "Funky Monks" but then again he was out of his tits on drugs for most of the recording of BSSM

I slap on my '51 reissue precision every gig at some point. I love the sound I get with it.

Being absolutely honest - material and pickups are going to have a big influence over the sound. If you don't know what you want then I would suggest that you try different basses. I have been compiling an ultimate composite of bass properties over the last couple of years to find my perfect bass which comprises of Mahogany body for growl, Wenge neck for quickness, Ebony fretboard for solidity and brightness and Single coil Precision pickup for my perfect tone. I am having this bass made just now. There are many different woods you can use for bodies, necks and fretboards from Afzelia to Zebrano as well as ebonol and carbon-fibre that affect the tone If you pick the wrong components and you don't like the sound at the end of it then you will get tuppence and a button if you sell the bass again.

I'm playing in a rock covers band and there's a couple of Paul Rodgers songs that we do - one requires a low D and the other a low B - both using fretless so i put together a parts bass for this. Its a cheap jazz knockoff with a mighty-mite neck with ebonol fretboard - I have it tuned B E A D and used a set of DR Marcus Miller Badmofo strings. i had to adjust the action (string height, intonation, truss rod) but other than that it was a walk in the park. really straightforward if you are used to setting up basses - if not then get someone else to do it or at least show you how to do it

£32 from strings direct - £16 from Thomann

I haven't been able to find any other tranny amp anywhere near as good as the GK stuff. I used an 800RB for years and then went off on an amp expedition only to come back to the 700RB II. the dogs danglies

I had an EVO II 500 RC discombobulator as part of a stack that I bought, complete with 2 ABM 115s. I absolutely hated the sound. very indistinct, no definition, managed to blow a speaker in one of the cabs. I'm back with GK which are IMO the king of tranny amps (transistor - not the other type of tranny) and a Schroeder 1212L cab. Couldn't be happier. Well I could be if I won the lottery, was chosen by the Chilis as their replacement for Flea, I could go on but you get the idea.

Yes, very Trace T-Bass

Chris Squiers bass was one of the original export 1999 ricks(4001S exports). Apparently he had the 4th one into the country. the first 3 went to the Ox, Pete Quaife (Kinks) and Donovan (?) Chris' 1999 went through a lot of different guises involving putting wallpaper amongst other things on the face of the bass that had to be sanded off resulting in the bass ending up around 3/4 the weight it originally was. Indeed, the horseshoe is missing - you can't just take the horseshoe section off as it is an integral part of the pickup. this guy has replaced it with a standard high gain pickup. If he doesn't have it then you are in the mire as shoes are as rare as rocking horses' doo daa. One interesting fact is that when RIC serviced Chris' original 1999 bass last year, they discovered that one of the pickups was completely disconnected and had been for several years

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been on a crusade over the last couple of years to find my ultimate bass. I have had around 50 basses in the last couple of years just trying out different stuff - active; passive; 4, 5, 6, 8 string; fretted; fretless; Aria to Yamaha and so on. My ultimate bass is a '54 precision body shape with a mahogany body (Gibson & Stingray 30th Anniversary), Wenge Neck (Warwick) and Ebony Fretboard (various) I love the sound of the single coil precisions so I have just ordered a gold flake body with this neck to be built by Warmoth at a total cost (including gold bridge, gold lightweight Schaller machines, gold frets and delivery) of £450 I just need to find the perfect pickup but I expect the total cost to be around £600 including import taxes unless I find a totally extortionate single coil pickup that I just can't live without. Worth tuppence and a button if I ever sold it but I have thought very carefully about what I wanted so that i get the right thing

Dang, now I want a Fusion 550. must...........resist.

Yeah, they say the headstock is a "Lodestone Breakthrough" - isn't this just the same design that was on the original T-Bass?

I know what you mean about the tight strings. My Japanese '51 reissue came with strings that felt the same way but I changed them immediately to my regular brand. The code begins 013 which I believe makes it a Mexican made model. It does look really mean, I've been tempted a few times but I have heard quite a few bad reviews about them so wouldn't want to try one without having a shot first.

I used to play in a band with John who runs MIJ Fenders. He's a nice guy to deal with and mainly has the 57 & 62 P reissues and the occasional Marcus Miller. He does get other stuff from time to time. I've not seen him in ages though