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Rama Llama Ding Dong -- Sha Na Na

I was resisting sticking even low tack tape down the front of the bass to establish a centreline as the finish comes off on masking tape as easily as the finish comes off a Murphy Labs Les paul neck! And that's bloody easily. I could 'Chinagraph' pencil or wax marking crayon a centre line - but there are so many check lines that go all the way to the wood I'd probably be left with a permanent 'ghost line' - unless of course I strip the whole finish - sigh, that's looking more and more likely. But with a wayward floor to the neck pocket I will have to be a bit more proactive in lining stuff up, so I think the tape is the way to go. The plan is for the neck to be bolt on - and I'm already coming up with a jig to drill the neck bolt holes exactly in parallel with each other and with the neck. 130mm x M8 high tensile steel Allen key cap bolts (nickel or chrome plated if I can get them) with captive nuts inside the bass - these nuts have 'prongs' that are dragged into the wood when tightened and will be permanently fixed inside. I plan to mount the nuts on the cap bolts by way of a long rod (and some Blu Tack) through the end pin hole - probably with an auxiliary positioning arm through one of the F holes. Yes it's keyhole surgery (well F hole actually), but the alternative is to cut an access hatch - and I don't do bodges like that! Yes I could glue the neck joint - but I may well be doing some travelling, and a bolt on neck double bass is an attractive proposition. The cap bolts will be sunk into the neck heel so they won't be visible.

Briefly had a 5 string version in black. The preamp had to go so in went a Glockenklang. Really great basses these. Good find 👏

Yeah I think so dmc, could just be different manufacturers, just looked at mine out of curiosity both labella

Envelope follower..?

The Beedster II is on its way. 😉😂

The black silks (top pic) are top loaded, and from memory as I didn’t keep the bass long, the red silks (bottom pic) were thru body strung Maybe GHS Pressurewounds just have a particularly short silk on the E, just done a bit of searching and other photos of them are very similar to mine. Which means I’m most likely overthinking it anyway!

Zombie thread resurrection! I agree that LEDs on a non-latching footswitch would be really useful e.g. for us GT1000Core and Helix users where we're looking to get another couple of stomp switches available, but also to know whether it's been engaged or not when it can sometimes be a little tricky to hear through monitors in a band mix. I've come across a couple that should do the job - Dual Momentary Footswitch with Latching LED - Bright Onion Pedals but getting on for £75 if you select a colour for the pedal (and once you've spent £70 on it, you may as well get something that you like the look of right?) Looking like it should a similar job for less than half the price: Nux-NMP2 I've gone for the budget option!

They do a lovely set specifically for Mustang basses (760F-MUS). Had those on my old JMJ. Am guessing they would fit similar short scale through-body basses. Just checked up on their website and they say “Do not use standard flat wound bass sets on basses that require stringing through the body of the bass (or else they will break). The 760FS-TB fits standard long scale “through body basses” (we only make these in standard long scale)” It is unclear whether this also includes tapewound strings though… https://www.labella.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/La-Bella-Strings-Bass-String-Guide-1.pdf

Thank you! And yes, the two images are at 90 degrees of each other, so that's just the way I made the images. I didn't bother correcting the orientation as I just wanted to see whether the images were visible or not.

£375

So. I had about 45 minutes of noodling before having to pop out. (I'm at my mother-in-law's at the moment.). I used my passive Aria Precision and my active Spector 4X. First impressions (after manscanning to instruction booklet), it seems fairly easy to dial in something useful within a minute or two. By way of a caveat, that due to time restrictions, I haven't really noodled too much with the mid boost/cut or the high/low pass filters at this point (see below). It's very nicely made, robust. The clean side of the unit is just delicious tonally, I would say it's very close to a BDDI in some respects. It's not wholly clean, but it's very phat and burpy. The compressor adds nice fullness to things. It like it shares the BDDI DNA with just a little bit of drive. The drive side is likely to be the thing needing controlling; in isolation it's exceedingly gnarly and you're actually asking yourself what it's contributing. I dialed in something that seemed acceptable, then hit the mix footswitch (so running the clean and dirty together) and frankly it was just so nasty I was asking myself whether I'd made an awful decision buying this! Finally, I hit the bi-amp emulator and the thing just came alive. The sweepable High/Low pass filters become active and it is epic. Each filter just directs lows to the clean, highs to the dirt with a level of crossover betwixt the two. Other stuff? There's a 10db +/- input cut/boost an a 10db +/- output cut/boost. The pre/post button controls the mids and puts the mids before or after the amp emulation. I did dial up one of the sample setting for the dUg and it was great. I'll give it a longer test this evening.

Thank you. Am I right that you're in the "Apple ecosystem"? Can anybody using a Mac/iPhone see them at all?

Was the first bass top-loaded, and the second through-body?

Thank you for trying in all those combinations!

The Scott Whitley basses are short scale. The LaBellas for short scales are usually strung through the body, as most higher spec Mustangs can only be strung that way.

Interesting stuff. Here’s mine right now, following Fender’s advice of 3” for E, and 3.5” for all others. GHS Pressurewounds. This is what I mean when I say it somehow doesn’t seem quite right not having any ‘spare’ silk on the E once tuned up. Here’s a P bass I received with La Bellas on. Nicely lined up and plenty of silk on the E: I wonder when I restring soon (with Fender 9050 flats), whether to just cut an inch longer on them all (that would be 3.5” for E, and 4” for others). I’d love to get it looking like the La Bella pic, but is it just the case that they have longer silks to begin with, so it’d make little difference?

Wouldn't get that 'lil headstock knotty on a F. Nice bit of character.

Rob Allen’s MB2, Mouse and Deep5 basses all come with LaBella, black nylon tapewounds and they are are all through body stringing.

If You Have Goat - Ghost

No pelting when I saw them in Aberystwyth, but I made the mistake of putting my pint next to the PA. Huw Cornwell disposed of it with a deft kick...

So would The Chameleon in Nottingham if it was still going. Almost impossible to get to in motor vehicle that wasn't a bus or taxi, and when you did there was no where close to park unless you wanted to risk putting it on the pavement while you unloaded as fast as possible. Then it was down a narrow alleyway and up two flights of steep, dimly-lit stairs to the venue itself.

Nobody's perfect...

Me too. But today I've been playing my P with a vintage C-profile neck. Although it's wide, it isn't deep and it makes me less likely to wrap my thumb right around it. This is good for my arthritis ... food for thought.