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Agree completely with the first couple of points, but articulate when used about bass tone is one of those words like heft, it is a subjective description. I'd say strings can have a lot to do with this, having switched from laBella flats to d'addario Chromes. The laBellas give a lovely warm thunderstorm, but the chromes have a bit more crispness to them, which to me sounds more articulate. @Al Nico have fun experimenting - one of the cheaper versions of Gas 😀

First of all well done, they look great and I'm waiting for the results you find when you finally get them to a gig. Concentrating on the financial side alone that adds up to £805 including the grilles and that is for two speakers. For that you have two speakers which are 'almost Silverstones' and which have the same care over the crossover design that @stevie always uses. I've had the pleasure of following the development of this with numerous listening and measuring sessions in Stevie's workshop and then listening to the subsequent deveopment of the Silverstone Mk1. I know there were changes to the crossovers which improved the sound in the commercial Silverstones but the most significant to my ears was the use of the Celestion horn which you do have. I too test stuff out at home listening to classical recordings and I'm sure you'd hear a difference but in reality that's a tribute to the sensitivity of the human ear. Your speaker would sound the same as a Silverstone with just bass going through it in a band situation. I know in listening tests the BC112 mk3 would leave the Barefaced offerings way behind in everything other than weight. In terms of cost I think the Silverstones were originally £599 so by building you saved nearly £400. I reckon that's a pretty good return for your labours. However it's a remarkable observation on just what a bargain the LFSys cabs are. You'd expect the materials cost of a commercial speaker to be around 30-35% of the cost at most. Add on labour, production and distribution costs and that initial Silverstone should have been somwhere in the £1,000-1200 price bracket. It's only by selling direct and limiting production that LFSys can keep the prices so far below their competitors. The reality is that your speakers are worth £1,000 in terms of the quality of sound they will deliver and what it would cost to buy the equivalent commercially buying from anyone other than LFSys.

Had a great afternoon at Summer Soul Vibe Festival in Ipswich. We played a 40 min set mid-afternoon. Exellent stage, crew and pa playing my first gig with my new Sadowsky ME. The back line the same SVT I played with a year ago at another festival, same hire company! Proper green room in Venue 16, with lasagne, soft drinks tea and coffee and staff looking after you. Really nicely done. Good to get great comments from the sound guys and I could see the foldback engineers having a good time stage left of us. Which is always nice.and reassuring. IMG_0666.mov

We closed the Home Grown Music Festival in Regner Park tonight. We started at 8:30 and played an hour set. If any vids appear I'll post them. Daryl

We closed the Home Grown Music Festival tonight. We started our house set at 8:30. Our crowd dwindled too. Daryl

Regular BCers will already know how enthusiastic I am about graphite necked basses, having owned examples by all the major manufacturers since the late seventies. Since Status and Moses stopped making graphite necks, noone seems to be stepping in for the after market, so for the last three months I've been working on potential ways to keep offering aftermarket graphite necks to guitar and bass playing enthusiasts. I'm at the point now where the the technical side of feasibility has been worked out as you'll see in the ad I have for five prototype headless necks here. So the next question to answer is about commercial feasibility and I was hoping BC'ers might be able to help me decide where to focus next. I did have lined up SR5 and SR4 necks, specifically for preEB and EB Classic instruments. (I'm still planning to install a prototype neck on my SR5 Classic and finally get the 5 string Cutlass bass I've always lusted after.) But what if there was demand from other owners...? Yamaha BB owners for example? Or Modulus owners? Or Sire? Or maybe something else? From a purely commercial perspective, I know there is a limit to how much people will pay for an aftermarket neck and there are bottom line overheads that can't be ignored either. And you'll already be aware that making molds can be a labour intensive task. So pricing has to somehow fit between those two constraints and generate sufficient volume to sustain operations. So if I was to look at offering another kind of after market neck - where should I focus? Have a look at the poll and hit the option that you would buy for yourself.

I’m making a Phil Lynott clone (black respray, mirror pickguard) out of a 1975 Hondo P-bass and it’s got a 2005 Mighty Mite rosewood-fretboard neck on it, so no decals. I won’t sell it as a Fender but so long as it looks good from the front row and in photos I’m down with it. Honesty is the best policy.

It's actually a fairly complicated bit of physics. The thicker the string, the more metal mass vibrating in a magnetic field -> higher output -> louder. But the thicker the string, the more tension required to achieve a given pitch for the scale length. Some people prefer a lighter, hence lower tension string, which has a bit more "compliance". They may be slightly lower output but you can adjust your pickup height, and after all amplifiers have volume controls. It's actually more down to personal preference. I usually play with a medium/heavy set of strings. However it's good fun playing my son's Hofner violin bass with short scale and light gauge sometimes - very bendy strings. It's really down to what you like. Try the skinny strings. "Articulate" is more down to your technique.

For the first time in over two years, and the third time since 1990, I reunited with 60% of my original band from Sixth Form. Everyone has massively mellowed with age and it was worth the trek from North Wiltshire to Southampton. I confidently took lead vocals on a couple and it stands out as a highlight of my year.

Probably just another guitarist 😄

Thank you everyone for your insights, much appreciated. I've been out all day and gigging last night so here's my follow up..... Great feedback on the build and versatility. In some ways its what I would expect of a bass thats a lot of money. Not always the case so its good to get confirmation. I have a Japanese Sadowsky which I really like so to put the Elrick in the same / higher category does nothing for my abstinance, bank balance or GAS 🤣 The standard pickups and pre combination sounded a bit dull to me with not a lot of top end snap when slapping. I picked up a set of Nordstrand NJ5F and at the same time I fitted a Mike Pope pre that I had stored. Now its full souding with the snap and clarity I was looking for. I had a listen to Daric Bennets bass sound and yep I can get that from my setup 👍 I had seen that one on their website and was interested in finding out more. Some nice positive points (for me) on build quality and weight. How was it for knocks and dings? What didnt you like about the Barts? What would you change them for? Glad the Stingray made you smile....thats what its all about. Are you looking for a job as a "personal bass shopper"? 🤣 Thanks for the positive report and nice clip which gives me an idea of the tone and clarity 👍

Naked As We Came — Iron & Wine

Any idea what It could be worth ? 🙂

57 Channels and Nothin' On - Bruce Springsteen

I played through an old Trace Elliot GP7 combo at Glastonbury this year. I was so excited to see it on stage and it sounded absolutely incredible.

Just goes to show how much I know, I said to the wife, that's a Fender Jazz Marcus Miller bass, really nice bass but didn't really realise they were out in 1985. She said, it looked really new so maybe they'd just come out. Didn't realise it was actually Marcus Miller playing 😆

Definitely.

I knew what this would be as soon as I saw the title - either an NS2000 or a Q4. Sellers never seem to know what these basses are!