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A new band means a new bass. I usually build them myself but that's been on the backburner since my son came along so this will have to do! One of my favourite things about building my own basses is coming up with new body shapes, so I'm perversely intrigued by the fact that Spector have felt no such urge since the 70s! I must say, they did rather nail it, it's very comfortable. Bought as new from Bass Direct, but it's a slightly older one with the Tonepump preamp in it - a curious little thing that is unusably hot until you get in there with a screwdriver and turn it down to half-way. It's still nothing special, but my addiction to tinkering means it'll be getting swapped out anyway. But what a lovely bass it is. Sounds fantastic through my Darkglass pedal (but then I think pretty much any bass would). It's booked in for a pro set-up to see just how lovely I can get it, but in the meantime it'll be put through its paces at band practice on Thursday. Oh and it's my first 5 string - I play metal in B standard so wanted the 35 inch scale. Not a lot of 4 strings out there that fit the bill (with a handful of notable exceptions, of course). Spector do a multiscale 4 that goes down to 36", but I wanted a Euro so here we are. After a few minutes of panic and buyers remorse, I got used to it! Can't fault it really (apart from that preamp). The CST series has an ebony board, which was tempting, but there isn't a finish/hardware combo that I like. The rosewood on this one is nice and dark, so I'm more than happy with it. If I was building it, I would have recessed the control plate, but that really is my only gripe so far!

Yep - I put one on a 2010 4003 and couldn't get it low enough, so I reverted to the original V1.

status electro...

Harpies Bizarre - Elvis Costello

A bit late to this, but fwiw, picked up one of these (in a rather fetching Maui blue) last year for only £700, (barely) used and pristine. Switching from an Am Pro J which weighed way too much and had a p bass shaped hole in my life. One of the narrowest (and for me, most comfortable) p necks I’d tried and light enough to rehearse or gig for several hours and still be able to walk afterward….Regarding tone, (woods, pups etc)-it’s a p bass and does the p job just fine. Basswood body has stood up fine to my carelessness so far. Stirring up a hornet’s nest maybe, but imho technique, paying attention to room acoustics, amp etc are much more important & determining factors re tone. The logo is the Fender TV logo (thread on here somewhere with the relevant history)

No, it wants me to log in on a browser and I don’t recall my password 😊

Played in Maidstone at the weekend. Venue was pretty busy and all there seemed to enjoy it. We normally play as a 4 piece but were a guitarist down last night and played as a 3 piece. Gave my new Markbass combo a run out and I was impressed with the sound & volume it gave out. i am trying to gig with the least & lightest amount of gear possible, and this is definitely helping with that!

Sirens - Paradise Lost

Joe bought some tuners from me - great comms and he was a real pleasure to deal with. Thanks Joe.

Hm, I see what you mean. It's a moot point now though as the band's broken up ☹️

Good to see BBC devote a chunk of prime time Saturday viewing to the concert celebrating 100 years of the Opry. Can’t say they were my favourite acts from the US, but the house band were great. I wish the chosen UK acts had represented some of the British Country talent, may be the Shires or Remember Monday.

Follow up YT post by Lasse Vuorsola dealing with several queries about the pedal he received from TB'ers:

After being christened such by a mate at school, I went under the name Ivan Schmuffigan for a very long time.

I’ve a bunch of mates who are in a band that aren’t that great, but they get really good audiences when they play so people like them.

Sound of da police - KRS-one

Nothing so glamorous, I am mostly Laurence.

To be fair, any store could have ordered those. Just take a look at their Facebook page, all the lovely custom shop instruments pictured there are ordered by (or through) dealers, that are named in the posts. It's true they had a number of "premier dealers" though, of which Sweetwater is one. And I always used to see UpFront Guitars mentioned a lot in posts with tasteful custom orders!

Short for Lorraine?

I'm not sure that that would pass muster, these daze.