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I don't know what I'm more proud of - the fact that I proudly own basses which would cause many of the members of BassChat to reach for their weapon of choice, or that my own prejudices are so absurd that it's pointless trying to explain them. While there are several things in the Wonderful World of Bass that make me roll my eyes and tut, there are only two which cause me to clench my teeth, fists and buttocks simultaneously. Both are pictured here: Exhibit A: The two "extra" screws on some BBoT bridges. Why oh Lord, why? Exhibit B: That bonus bit of wood at the dusty end of the neck, often shaped into a jaunty diagonal. I don't know what it's called, I just don't like it. I have no doubt that these are perfectly great sounding basses and fun to play, but I'm afraid if they ever fell into my hands, I'd probably have to take them into the darkest part of the woods and put them out of their misery for the good of mankind.

Took delivery of this Sire V5 Fretless today. I am blown away by the quality of this bass for not too much money.

1. MD Phillips' Monstrosities. 2. Garden shed reliced travesties. 3. Precisions with the PJ configuration. The J pup always sounds Schieße to my ears! 4. Single cut basses with the top bout that runs a quarter of the way up the neck. Eg Fodera Emperor, Sire Marcus Miller F-10. Choices 1 & 2 could well go hand in hand.

That's entirely dependent on staying with the same brand. Some strings have far bigger gauges but are lower tension than other brand smaller gauges. I suppose we are all used to relying on gauges for tension but it really is a useless way of judging tension when swapping brand or string type. DR hexcore strings are much higher tension than their roundcore even when the gauges are the same. DR Hi-Beam 45-105 are more flexible than D'addario Pro Steel 40-100 and so on. Tension isn't the same as flexibility either. There has to be a better way! Would save us all loads of cash in failed string experiments over the years.

Hercules three way for me - here it is with both guitars and basses (one arm folded down as only two basses that day.

I used Ronseal High Performance Wood Filler recently on a bass, it’s fine in deep holes in one application and sands nicely.

This one is pretty brilliant. I use it for everything from P bass to T Bird and its class

John made me a lovely Jazz loom, a quality bit of kit as per usual and super fast delivery. Thanks!

Gigging tonight so Im not messing with it until afterwards. Then I have a 2 week window to fanny about with it until I need to use it again in anger. Should give me long enough 🤣

Through The Never - Metallica

To clarify, it's a bridge jazz pickup. No custom scratch plates, ashtrays etc. Remove, fill, forget. End of.

Stagg SGA100BK. Cheap, stable, accommodates headless and asymmetrical basses, with a neck security thingie.

With one pub/small festival/function band I play with we now use this for rehearsals and gigs. Total cost for the critical gear in these photos, bought new for £95, excluding cables, an inexpensive way of trying out IEMs. What we have now: * all mics and instruments split in the mixer, with copies out to FOH/PA. * all 4 of us, plus occasional guest sax player, gets identical stereo IEM feeds. * All band members can tweak their own IEM booking at source. * each band member chooses wired or wireless connections to their IEMs (mostly we use £5 KZ EDX Pro models). Our wireless IEM system units are an additional £20 for two. * another optional extra each band member has is a £15 MA400 personal headphone mixer so we can add "more me" to the common stereo band mix. * the drummer likes his IEMs so much he wanted a drum mic mixer so I sourced him a 6 channel one with all the cables, so he now presents a L/R stereo feed now to the band IEM mixer, instead of mono kick and mono snare/kit. So far it's working out well, but I can see us getting an XR18 once we get gigging more.