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That makes things a lot easier. Here's what you'll need – – Two or three long-opening clamps. I used a pair of clamps I had lying around with a 12.5 cm depth – Various grades of sandpaper (up to like 400 grit) – a very sharp and quite small scraper – perhaps a scalpel or craft knife – tools for making simple camping cauls (saws, rasps, etc.) – decent masking tape (like frogtape or similar) – some cheap chopsticks (ideally PTFE rod or something like that) – Some offcuts of shelf timber or something for making cauls. – a round needle file (can be cheap and crappy) – Some double-sided tape (the weaker the better) As for glue, you could certainly use hide glue, but it is a pain in the arse to work with. I've not touched the stuff in a long time. When I did the bridge replacement, I just used standard, red-label Titebond, which is what I use for all my instrument building work. The first thing you'll need to do is carefully clean up the area under the bridge. This is what it looked like on the guitar I was working on after I'd heated and levered the old bridge off. You'll want to mask off the area of the finish that isn't under the bridge, and then carefully scrape and sand away the old glue and any finish that's under there (you want the bridge to go onto bare wood). You don't want to go too hard, because the wood is thin and pretty delicate. Here's an "after" photo from the instrument I was working on. You'll also want to do the same for the underside of the bridge, being very careful not to sand a curve into the base. I didn't have to do that on the instrument I was working on, because I made a new bridge from a rosewood blank (the old one was mangled by having been originally right handed, then adapted badly to play left handed, then adapted slightly more competently to play left handed and in tune, then finally adapted badly to play right handed again). To glue it up you'll need to make two clamping cauls. One sits on top of the bridge and has essentially the inverse of the shape of the bridge carved into it, the other sits inside the body on top of the bridge plate (the solid piece of wood, usually maple, that supports the bridge. I don't have any clear pictures of the top caul, but you can sort of see it in this picture of the gluing up process. It doesn't have to be perfect, just roughly the right shape to make solid contact in the middle and at the ends. It has some cork sheet glued to the underside to spread the force more evenly. This could be replaced by anything soft really – a piece of an old tea towel, some carboard, etc. The inner caul is a maddeningly fiddly thing to make and fit. It's a little triangle of wood that you need to keep the clamps from crushing the x-braces that meet just in front of the bridge. I made mine by shoving a piece of modelling clay into the back of the x-brace joint and using that to very roughly guess the angle the braces meet at. The whole process of making the caul, stucking masking tape to the inside and then sticking the caul to the tape is fiddly and frustrating. It helps to have a mirror or to put your phone inside the guitar with the front-facing camera turned on. You'll end up with a lot of pictures on your phone that look like this. It you have some PTFE rod you can cut some short lengths to go in the outer string holes to line the bridge up prior to clamping. I remember lining things up using some chopsticks, but I can't remember if I kept them in (cut down) during the clamping process. If I did, they would have been liberally smeared with wax or vaseline and possible wrapped in baking paper to stop them getting stuck. After brushing on a fairly generous layer of glue on both surfaces, clamp it in place (wiping up the squeezeout) and leave it for a day or two. Once it's set, get a needle file and clean the excess glue out of the holes, taking care not to get over-enthusiastic and stab a hole in the top.

Highlighted the problem for you there

Get six 8x15 cabs. You know... for 'future proofing'... 🤔

It wasn't quite a band yet but... I wanted to start a new project in a particular vein, as a side thing to my main band, with as many new people (to me) as I could. I made it very clear I wanted it to be a collaborative thing, writing together etc. Mostly reggae-tinged. One guy stood out, who played guitar and sang and we seemed to be looking for a similar thing, so we met. It was fun initially. He showed me some of his stuff, singing mostly in French (he's from Senegal), and it was cool enough. He was going to do a little solo thing at a coffee shop in a couple of weeks and I agreed to play his stuff with him, mostly on bass with a couple of songs on guitar. It was fun, and then we went busking and it was fun... Until it wasn't. Very quickly it turned into just playing his stuff, and only the way he wanted. Basically I had no input... and since this was not bringing money or what I had set out to do, I brought it up one Sunday afternoon while jamming at his, with his teenage son playing various percussion instruments, and it was as I had farted, no, sharted on his face. He basically kicked me out of his place I was a little amused by it because it felt so crazy. As I was packing my stuff he was just ranting about his integrity as a musician and how it's impossible to find someone to play with because everybody wants to do their own thing and be creative with HIS songs. I had to remind him the premise under which we first met, which only aggravated him more. His son looked like he didn't know where to hide... He slammed the door behind me, and as I walked to the car I was laughing, it was so surreal... A bit later I was talking to somebody who had seen me busking with the other guy. I told him I was not doing that anymore and that's when he smiled and said "I didn't think it would last". He knew the guy... 3 years later, the guy is still playing solo. It sounds good, I enjoy his stuff, I just don't want to play with the guy. His erratic sense of timing in particular was really difficult to deal with... but as a solo artist he's good.

Hey Bulldog - Beatles

My Cheapy 500 came with a well worn finish!.. Bit of a sand, few coats of truoil applied with wet and dry, then a bit of a wax applied with a scotchbrite pad and buff rub... Bit of damage around the controls. Mk 1 Barts (Reverse P in a soap bar) Volume and 3 position pickup switch. And this found under the brown finish on the headstock.

Last night, played The Railway Club in Keith with Nine Lives. Drove through a one minute monsoon on the way there - rain so hard had to slow down because even with the wipers on full speed I couldn't see very well. Then it was done. What a bizarre, angry, and incredibly small pocket of weather! So we get there and get set up - it's an odd place - L shaped, so we are in the bit round the corner from the bar. It has alcohol, we don't. So, as you can imagine, we had only a trickle of folk getting off their backsides and coming round to see us, and a bunch of folk who were quite content to sit round the corner and merely listen. Are people not curious any more? Anyhoo, I frankly don't know how busy it was. We had some people come round for a dance and a singalong, so at least there's that. Got some nice comments afterwards, compliments on our playing and the sound (which surprises me because the first half was a nightmare - just couldn't get the singer loud enough. At half time we swapped out her wireless gear for a good old wired SM58 and things improved greatly - we'll need to investigate that. We played pretty well for all that, and the Neep One got its first live outing and didn't explode/collapse in half/go silent so yay for my dubious luthiery skills? Gear was G&L L-1000 then the Neep One into the cubes of doom.

We played at a 40th birthday party last night, held in the hall in which we rehearse, so very much a home fixture. The audience was a mix ranging in age from 5 to 65. Food and drink provided, which is always good. We had been asked to provide a 'rocky' set and I decided to give my recently acquired 5 string Ibanez GSH205 an outing. I've rehearsed with it a few times and it was my back up at the Hulla festival back in June, but this was the first time it took centre stage. I don't play 5 strings regularly enough to be able to swap between 4 and 5 easily but I'd been practicing with it and was reasonably comfortable in using it. It was an 8pm kick off and we had a great sound thanks to our regular sound engineer and, of course, it being a familiar venue. I had a few senior/jazz moments, mainly as a result of the extra string throwing me and I felt the band performance as a whole wasn't as good as it has been recently. There seemed to be a lack of energy in some of the faster songs, with our encore of Dakota being particularly bland. But we went down well with the audience, with our younger fans particularly enjoying Taylor Swift's Love Story - they all gathered around our singer and stared adoringly at him as he sang it. 😀 My kit was the aforementioned Ibanez GSH205 into the pedal board - a Sine HPF, MS60b (for noise gate and tuner only), NUX Sculpture compressor, EHX Bass Clone, NUX Voodoo Vibe and into the desk via my Ampeg SCRDI. This board hasn't changed for a couple of months now (unusual for me) and I find it works equally well into an amp and speakers (last week) or DI (this week). I was monitoring from the desk via a Behringer P16m and wireless IEMs. This gives me my own mix and some protection from excessive noise levels. Footwear was the same as last week - unbranded black boots. Kit: Love Story:

I use a little Phil Jones combo (BG-75) with a FIshman Platinum Stage preamp for acoustic get togethers, I'd probably just scale that up for louder scenarios and use my Platinum Pro for its stage friendly features. A BG-450 would probably do you, what sort of volume do you need? Alternatively a mini head with a decent small cab, a lot of heads aren't voiced particularly well for acoustic music though. A suitable preamp like the Fishman into a compact powered PA cab might be preferable.

Jill Scotts' “Golden” appears on the Grand Theft Auto IV soundtrack. Bass: Harold Robinson

It wouldn't be the worst possible idea, you know?

Get a 2 x 12 4ohm cab and it will be all you need I ran my ABM600 into an Ampeg SVT212AV cab and it was glorious Ideally your single 8 ohm cab needs to be 400w or minimum 300w but a 4ohm cab rated to 600w would be all you need

Our twice yearly date at the Ringwood Meeting House. They’ve been hugely supportive of the Otis Jay Blues Band for the last three years and we have rewarded them with four different line-ups in the past four visits! Cecilia our new singer went down a storm with 53 paying customers - a reasonable haul and very appreciative. Rig: Sandberg VM4, GK MB200, BF One10, waterproof shoes.

Hi all, After a receiving a recent offer to join a full on rock covers band, sadly all the mileage involved in just getting to and from rehearsals never mind to all the gigs after that is just not feasable for me, neither energy wise nor fuel cost wise, however this has helped me to re-focus on what I would like to do as a bass player. I have always wanted to try a more acoustic approach in a small rock/pop covers band, so am currently looking to get something together more locally, with potential for live gigs. I am looking at acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion, and me on electro acoustic bass to give an idea. The rig I have is perfect for loud rock bands, but just way too much in power and weight for this sort of thing so have been looking around at getting a smaller, more suitable setup. As I have little to no experience in this side of live music, I'm really not sure what would be ideal size/ power wise for small/medium maybe some outside gigs potentially. Obviously I will be able to use less power and to give an idea I have been considering A TC BQ250 plus a couple of 2x8 cabs as the price is in the ball park of what I'm working with financially, the compact size and light weight looks good, however I'm not sure if it will really cover all potential future needs? There can be only one amp setup and really needs top be the right one. Any suggestions from those experienced or currently playing in acoustic bands for me to consider would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, James.