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Not a single close up of the bass player - criminal! I think Ovation Magnum is on the money - and I smell an endorsement deal of some kind, because Jeff Lynne looks like he's playing an Ovation also - perhaps a Deacon 12 string?

As long as you're making a new pickguard (and doing any routing underneath required, then you could do worse than this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394653160508 £22 - and Artec is a known brand who make decent pickups. I'd use a bridge strat pickup, higher DC resistance than a middle or neck one. Even if you're putting it in the neck position. I did this many years ago with a Squier Bronco - sounded pretty good as I recall - although it was a different brand - GFS (Guitar Fetish) which I probably imported from the States because the pound was strong then. The only downside to these kind of pickups are the rounded ends - pretty tricky to perch your thumb on. If you're willing to spend a bit more (£60), I have also used these: https://www.armstrongmusic.co.uk/collections/kent-armstrong-split-tube-guitar-pickups These are Jazz bass pickup sized and crucially they have flat ends, so using them as a thumbrest is much easier. I put these in my Burny LSB-70 thus: Hope that helps!

Could it be magic - Barry Manilow

I thought Kelly Groucutt might be playing one here, but it's very hard to see it properly... it could be the Ovation Magnum. What do you think?

Another weekend of incremental progress. I was out being sociable on saturday, and being slightly hungover today, so I was only really able to do stuff on Friday and Sunday afternoon. I'd decided early on that I was going to give this bass a full refret, and I figured that bit should probably be next in the order of operations. That way if I clip the body with a fret-cutting-saw or file, then I can address it when I'm tidying up the body before spraying. This might seem a little drastic, as the frets weren't in terrible shape, but I have my reasons. The first, and simplest, is that I may as well do it if I'm going to be putting in a dozen or so hours on restoring the instrument. The frets as they were could have been dressed and polished, but they would always have been a bit sub-par. The second is that I noticed that the fretboard is very low to the body by design, and that the saddles on the bridge appeared to be as low as they'd go. Obviously I've not seen what the action is like with strings on (I got this in bits), but those details were enough to make me a little worried that I might have trouble setting the action, especially if I had to dress the frets down any lower. To that end I ordered some super-jumbo fretwire – 3 mm x 1.47 mm – figuring it will raise the "floor" of the action up a bit, and hopefully give me a bit more leeway with saddle adjustment. The height of the existing frets was about 1.2 mm. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big difference in terms of feel. I like my fretted basses to be really emphatically fretted, if I want low-profile and smooth I play my fretless. First job was to take the frets out, which just involves carefully pulling them with a set of end-nippers ground down to have an edge that's flush with the front. After that I relaxed the truss rod and levelled the board with light sandpaper and a levelling beam. This fretboard was already more or less fine, so I was really just doing this to tidy some of the tear-out around the fret slots. I have to admit that I didn't do the most careful job with the fret pulling on this occasion. Nothing that can't be addressed with some sawdust and glue down the line though. I radiused the fretwire with my home-made fretwire radiusing tool. This is just three bolts through a old chopping board, with a set of roller-bearings and washers spaced so that you can tighten up the radius on wire. Trying to do fretwork with wire that's a bigger radius than the board you're trying to bash it into is a maddening experience and the results always suck. Professional versions of this tool are adjusted with set-screws and gears. I adjust the radius on mine by gently whacking the middle roller with a hammer. After that comes the arduous and boring task of cutting fretwire to size. This just involves standing at the workbench with a big pair of nippers, cutting off each fret-length piece until your hands hurt. The last few times I've done this it's been on acoustic guitars. Going from those to a 24-fret bass was an annoying experience. If you have the proper tools this goes a lot faster, and with less bruising of the hands, but the proper tools cost like £200 and take up a lot of space. Then, if you think that's boring the next job's even worse. If you don't have a tang-nipper (again, those cost about £200) then the only way to take the ends off the fret tangs so they don't look ugly on the fingerboard edges is to file them off one at a time in a vice. I genuinely don't think I would have gotten into guitar building as a hobby if if weren't for the ubiquity of podcasts and aubiobooks. Finally, you take the fretwire and you bash it in with a hammer. You can get professional results this way, it's just slower and takes a little more care and finesse than using a radius clamping caul and a fret-press. I don't have the space for either, and wouldn't want to spend that much money, so I've just gotten very practiced with my nylon-headed hammer. Pro tip: If you're installing frets at about 7 pm on a sunday evening in a thin-walled terraced house, do it on the kitchen floor. This is just a thin rug over tile on concrete, nothing to reverberate and boom with each hammer blow. The next step is to file off the ends and dress the frets, but I've run out of time for this weekend.

Can you share a photo and dimensions? In the past I once replaced a non-standard pot with a switch (that worked backwards to the normal way) by contacting a specialist company. They made and sent me one as a free sample!

I've found playing drum rudiments helpful in the past. Treat left and right as different notes. https://ae.vicfirth.com/education/40-essential-rudiments/

The book I’ve linked to has a series of exercises that divide 4/4 time up. They increase in complexity. You can also get an odd time signature book too which is very good.

Well FOH got good comments and as the Singist was in a chatty mood, all was good BUT I could not get the stage monitors to a usable level. We could hear the FoH quite well on stage and that make me wonder whether that was adding to the problems. We go again next Sat with a few changes that might help. 😀

This is what you need https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/modern-reading-text-in-4-4-book-louis-bellson-9780769233772?sku=GOR001912630&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17428061960&gbraid=0AAAAADZzAIDzWxs1GLWi1sPdAvYw2Zjy-&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv4_jp9XvjgMV1ZtQBh2Phyc8EAQYAiABEgIUnfD_BwE

Pictures please

I bought a Hohner Jack that had been badly converted to passive. I put the Artec in and loved it.

I’ve got a v7 5 it’s perfect to play

I saw the thread, but it's not really what I'd like. Something more like a standard 34" bass with more conventional spacing. I already have a couple of 30" 6 string basses, such as the SRC6 in my avatar. Over the years, I've seen a couple of boutiques and even a CS Warwick (IIRC) and maybe an Alembic, nothing else. Closest 'conventional' bass is the 10 string Deans.

Fair enough, was looking at the higher end Z7 5 strings around 700 euros on reverb.

That's fantastic! Sounds like you had a great time Great to hear from some new bands and glad everything went well for you 👍

Just goes to show that genius isn't always cleanius (or something).

I counted twice as fast as Chris for starters so everything is going to sit differently. The first thing to remember is that a transcription is NOT the recording. Chris is hearing 73 bpm. I am hearing 146. I will have a closer look at Chris's transcription tomorrow to see whether that is the only difference. I am as interested as you are.

They're definitely learning that a big PA is very different to a club PA and it shows up things that just weren't a problem before like the occasional string touching a pickup is barely audible on a small PA but its like a punch in the face on a big PA. Fortunately, they're quite mature for teenagers and learning quickly and keen to adapt. They played another festival today and went down really well, the organisers want them back next year.

“When they go low, we go high”