Merton

Alan has an excellent supply of ash for necks - this will be my third! I find it gives a deeper and more rounded tone than maple, then combined with the ebony you get a beautiful rich harmonic content across the octaves. Will try to do a demo soon 🤓

That is super lush

This has been on the cards pretty much since I first discovered ACG 11 odd years ago. It was @eude’s Finn 4 which first drew me to @skelf’s basses and very soon after that I saw a Holly-topped Finn. I’ve been hooked since the first bass I bought, and for a long time had a Holly-topped Finn in my wishlist. It almost became a reality about 5 years ago but I never got beyond the “annoying Alan” phase. Fast forward to last year, an ebony Finn which Alan shared on socials made me hatch a cunning plan for a yin/yang pair of basses - one holly, one ebony. Specs were developed, plans were hatched, then I had to be sensible and drop one of the two. Naturally I kept the holly plan as it has been on the list since day one, and the shape changed from Finn to RetroB. Thus this spec was born and a deposit was paid last July. Today the 5 string bass of my dreams was delivered. She sounds as good as she looks, and I’m over the moon 😎 So, the specs: Limba body, bloodwood accent, holly top 3pc Ash neck with ultra slim profile, ebony fingerboard with bloodwood blocks, 30” radius 3+2 headstock with holly facing and limba rear veneer 50mm RFB in bridge, 50mm OPB in neck Passive vol/tone/blend with coil select switch for RFB Black hardware 17mm bridge spacing (Hipshot A) Gotoh resolute tuners Honestly couldn’t be happier at this point, I am looking forward to getting her out in the wild with Katy Hurt next month 🤠 First 3 pics are from my “unboxing”, the rest are Alan’s:

Dan Giles is on here - @d_g I believe! Is Nick Richards still on Sax with Nubiyan Twist? Did a couple of gigs with him probably 15 years ago, ace player

Aw man, that’s ace, thank you 😊

This makes me so sad. May you RIP @SamIAm

Thank you kind sir! I will claim all of the credit for it, even though all I did was plonk the bass on the recording 😄

Just back from gig #2 of the weekend. Quite sleepy. Gig #1 was Wednesday’s Child - pub rock covers - in Dorking last night. We were under-rehearsed and the guitarist was far too loud onstage, so I came away feeling quite underwhelmed with it. I think I played ok, was fun switching between a standard tuned bass, a C-tuned bass and a fretless 5 - kept me on my toes! Need to go through all my patches and sort them out though as I noticed some hideous volume differences between some of them 😳 Gig #2 was Youths - original pop/punk - in Canterbury this evening. We opened the proceedings and played a blinder I think. Bass sounded ace - my first ever bass came out (a Vester Jazz with replacement Schaller pickups), through an HX Effects using the SansAmp clone, into my Elf and the headliner’s Markbass 6x10. First time I’ve played a long scale bass in anger in public since about 2015, was fun but I remember why I made the switch to shorter scales 😄 We were celebrating the release of our first single from our debut album - feel free to go check it out 😎 https://music.apple.com/gb/album/bumpy-single/1807891026 https://music.amazon.co.uk/artists/B002H5YZCU/the-youths

That’s both good to hear and then a shame! Hopefully we’ll be doing more dates Oct/Nov time in other places!

Sweeet! I’m trying to get @MacDaddy’s band on as support but I’m not in charge, I just plonk the low notes 😄