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Saturday night I played at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham, which was my final gig with The ELO Experience. Another grand old venue which first opened in 1901, capacity just under 1400 with two large balconies , the upper one being very high and steep. The gig went well, a good onstage sound despite a change of rig as I’ve sold my usual one! Used my GK800RB again, this time with my old standby cab - a Loud Inc 4x10. Really enjoyed using it, and pleased it was enough for such a big venue/stage. It was a near sell out gig which made it great for my last one, as well as being my 800th appearance with the band. I first played with them as a dep at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in May 2009, and then joined permanently in 2011 - first gigs were a short tour of Northern Ireland which were very memorable. I couldn’t have found a better bunch of people to work with, starting out as a 5 piece & then adding 2 cellists and a violinist. It’s been an absolute pleasure throughout, and I really will miss the band and crew (pictured below) who have become like family. I’ll still be playing with the acoustic duo though, as well as any deps that may come my way so will hopefully be gigging more locally for many years to come.

Last nights gig for me was absolutely amazing. It was a sort of open night in a beautiful venue called The Mill in Elstead. Backline is provided and 5 bands played, each getting about 25 minutes each. The sound is amazing and it's super intimate with a really appreciative audience of music lovers and musicians. We play very stripped back, heartfelt singer songwriter stuff with lyrics personal to the singer. I'm on fretless creating some ambience and our drummer is very chilled and percussive. The first song is very atmospheric and as soon as I started playing, our singer said the two young girls sitting in front me who were about 16, their jaw's hit the floor. They'd never heard fretless and I had reverb and chorus and apparently they couldn't take their eyes off my playing. Mid way through the song, I get a sort of instrumental lead part and as soon as I go into it, the lady at the table whoops and shouts out, 'woah, go the bass player'. When I finish my little piece, the whole place applauds 😮 I've never had that and it was very much like what happens at a Jazz gig. Anyway, we play a blinder and we even had some of the audience in tears by how the singer had captured them with his lyrics. We get to the last song and we are improvising massively and our singer got the who room singing followed by a standing ovation 😁 Afterwards, we got a tonne of compliments and it turns out the lady who shouted 'go bass player' used to be a singer back in her day and one of the two girls was her daughter who is a singer songwriter. Her husband was also there and after chatting to him, it turns out he's a Jazz trumpeter 😎 What a amazing night and just makes it all worthwhile 😁

Both Hurtsfall and In Isolation played the Goth At The Brewery Event on the 27th as part of WGW. This is a free gig at Whitby Brewery on the Saturday afternoon of the Goth Weekend organised by Dominique from the band Westenra and over the past 3 years has grown from being fairly low-key to one of the major events of the weekend, and for those who attend WGW for the music probably as important as the "main" event at the Pavilion as it showcases the current generation of Goth bands. It draws a massive audience made up of people who are there for the music rather than parading around town in their "costumes" and is now so well attended that the main doors of the room are opened to allow people outside in the courtyard to see and hear the bands too. This weekend was a "Nottingham takeover" with Chaos Bleak also playing. Hurtsfall were on first at 2.00pm. We probably had the best on-stage sound of the afternoon, but even so there were problems with the monitor in front of me which kept cutting out. However due to the nature of the band we are well used to playing under less than ideal conditions, so it wasn't really a problem, and everyone we spoke to afterwards (including several people whose opinions I trust) said the FoH sound was excellent. The audience appeared to enjoy it, and we sold a decent amount of merch afterwards. This photo was taken at the beginning of our set just before Sam, our singer, got everyone to move forward so that more people could get into the venue. Even after that there were still almost as many people outside enjoying the gig as there were inside (and yes that is Whitby Abbey you can see in the background): And two more general gig photos: Chaos Bleak probably pulled the best crowd of the afternoon due to both their time slot and their reputation. And then at 4.00pm I was back on stage with In Isolation. By this time it appeared that all the foldback had stopped working - There wasn't anything coming out of the wedge in front of me, and unlike during Hurtsfall's set I couldn't hear anything from the other two. Still we powered through our set even though it sounded weird on stage. Again we were told afterwards that FoH the mix was excellent, but it was unnerving playing some of the songs with longish intros on the backing tack where they were barely audible on stage, so having no clue when our drummer was going to count us in! Also we discovered that playing last in the afternoon isn't the ideal spot as people tend leave before the end so they can get ready for whatever night-time event they are going to. Still there were a decent number who stayed all the way through our set, and we even had to sign CDs at the end - something which always bemuses me... For some reason there are a distinct lack of photos from our set on Facebook and this one of me was the only one I could find.

My gig wasn't last night, but rather last weekend when on Friday we opened up for Subhumans at The Drill in Lincoln (a 550 person venue, but I heard that around 300 tickets were sold). I'm a huge Subhumans fan, have been ever since I was about 13 or 14 years old (I'm in my late 40's now). Fortunately I met them once before, otherwise I would have been completely geeking out. There is a Subhumans cassette tape that I have had since the late 80's / early 90's, which I used to just leave in the tape deck of my car for a long while... I brought it on to stage with me when we opened for them. The Drill is a really impressive venue, and the organization in advance was superb. It was the largest stage that me or any of my bandmates had ever played on, and we felt a bit out of our league (in the same way that you might feel flying business class when you normally travel economy). We certainly enjoyed the experience, but at the same time we were playful and laughing about how unusual certain aspects of the show were. I had brought my Mesa 6x10" cab specifically for this show, but sadly the main sound engineer did not want to mic it (he mic-ed the Subhumans bassist's cab, and commented it's only done for the headliners). For me he used the post-eq DI on my amp... oh well! We had one dedicated sound engineer just for monitors. He seemed very attentive during soundcheck, but when we played our set in front of the audience he seemed to forget my request to kill the vox in my monitor. This threw me off a bit at the start, and our songs came fast and furious... I was only able to communicate the problem to him on the fourth song of our set, which starts with the bass and gave me the opportunity to briefly pause. We had a dressing room complete with mirror and large round bulbs, a couch, fridge, and the wifi password. Beers and other drinks were provided. My family came along, and my son ran the merch desk. He did really well on sales! He sold 5 tees, 6 CDs, and 3 cassette tapes during the show. We played really well, and someone who had seen a lot of our performances commented that it was the best show yet. Most of us stayed overnight in Lincoln, and I went around the town the the fam for some sightseeing the next morning. We didn't stick around too long however, as we had to hit the road and head to Boston. There we were headlining on Saturday, but given a lot more time for our set. We played every song that we had, and I honestly think that the Boston performance was the very best show yet. They get better and better... I had to take the fam to Manchester airport on Sunday afternoon, and Subhumans were playing at the Star & Garter, so I popped in for their show. I caught the opening bands too, and between acts I went into the loo... I find Trotsky (Subhumans drummer) taking a leak next to me and he says, "Hey, what are you doing here?!?" Funny. I chatted with the Subhumans merch guy (he owed me a shirt from the Lincoln show, when I traded tees with Dick but they sold out of my size), as well as Phil the bassist (there are two flights of stairs at the S&G, and he said he was too lazy to carry up his bass cabs). I'm honestly not sure that we'll ever play such a large show again... but who really knows? Anyway, we enjoyed this weekend, which was awesome.

The rather magnificent St Luke's in Glasgow. Brilliant crew, and sound, too.

Perhaps I should have gotten round to posting this thread sooner. Indeed, just having a Warwick Dolphin in my collection at home is grounds for celebration. I had waited, however, to get it set up and get used to it. More on that in a bit... Now, I wouldn't normally preface every NBD thread with a backstory. Or would I? Perhaps I would, because these days I don't really buy a bass unless it's something I really, really want or have wanted for years. Maybe this leads to less 'wildcard' revelations but all the same, I have never been disappointed by taking a more selective approach to buying. I keep saying I'll get back to selling or trading but so far, I keep getting things I can't bear to let go. I've wanted a Dolphin since I was about 15. I've long been a Warwick fan and I've had Thumbs and Streamers in the past. There is room in my collection for a few more, I dare say, so watch this space. My affection for Warwick goes back to the turn of the millennium, when I was first getting into Talkbass and discovering the world of boutique basses along with a world outside of rock and metal. However, I was very familiar with that world at the time and Warwick were very visible in that field. If you were anyone in the nu metal game, you probably had a Warwick bass and a great tone to go with it. I remember the Dana B. Goods Warwick website (indeed, I'm sure that they owned 'www.warwick.com' and enquiries would take you to their site rather than Warwick.de). In short, Warwick were everywhere and I loved them. Nothing sounded like a Warwick, particularly the 'dark' wood models (bubinga Corvettes, ovankgol and walnut Thumbs, boire and ovankgol Dolphins etc). I had consigned myself to never seeing a Dolphin in person, never mind owning one. The one I ended up buying was in fact, the first I've ever laid eyes on. The moment of seeing those unique and unusual proportions in person will stay with me forever, a bit like seeing the leaning tower of Pisa or whatever - you know them innately, by exposure, but seeing them in person is an experience on another level. So there I was at work in late March on a night shift, idling away. I'd seen the advert here for the Dolphin in the classifieds and considered it but thought restraint was more satisfying than indulgence. In that moment though, I decided that spending a little dough on something I'd wanted for two decades was a fair trade. Communications were made and a deal was done. The bass came looking, plainly speaking, like a new instrument, save for the frets. Like most Warwick bell brass frets, they need occasional attention to polish them up. But the wood was as smooth and satin as any Warwick I've touched and the gold hardware completely unblemished. The action was sky high and the strings were absolutely dead so despite getting the bass in my hands, there wasn't much to report on getting it home. I played it for about ten minutes and felt it had a huge potential, then put it back in the Warwick flight case and put it away. On another note, should nuclear war ever start I'll be hiding inside that case. I trapped my fingers between it and the car's B pillar when I brought it home and howled in pain. I accidentally stubbed my toe on it putting it into my car once and felt like I'd kicked a boulder. Built to last, it is. A visit to the greatly-esteemed Bass Doc, Howard Satterly, finally had the Dolphin ready to play. Strung with some EBMM stainless steels in .45 and with frets polished and the action brought down to a realistic level. An instrument of this level deserves a professional setup and will receive any necessary tweaks by my own fair hand in future. But man, does it play nicely now. Getting it home and plugging it in, I could finally give the full appraisal. The weight is surprisingly light. This is no Thumb and whilst I have no means of measuring it, it is lighter than my Spector NS-5CR and my Pedulla Pentabuzz. The rhomboid body gives it an offset position over the body, such that the bridge is almost offset from your midriff. It doesn't quite hang in a jazz bass position but it's not far off. If the central position and long reach to first inherent in the Warwick Thumb is not to your taste, you would probably prefer this. Seated, it's a joy to play in a classical position over the left knee. I never do this with my other basses but I could find some mileage here, since it seems to encourage a very right hand position that produces a very clean and articulate sound. The sound is absolutely classic Warwick, hi-fi and crisp with a distinct growl in the low midrange. The humbucker back pickup sounds absolutely great and so far, I've been running it solo. With both pickups on full, the sound is so rich with bottom end that my neighbours have been banging on the wall in a show of appreciation. There is little to none of the 'tone suck' that some basses experience when running both pickups on full. The coil tap for the back pickup is also super cool, as running both coils gives a big, juicy sound. Splitting them gives a more classic jazz bass style honk, and you fan further accentuate this by pulling the other pot up to run the bass in passive. I've mainly been playing it through my Markbass Jeff Berlin CMD-151P so far, occasionally running it through a Samsamp GED-2112. However, I've found it most satisfying just running straight into the Markbass and getting some very sweet hi-fi sounds as a result. Well, all I can do now is put the miles on it and see how my opinion of it moves. So far, it has been absolutely and unwaveringly positive and I've been having a total blast with it. A Thumb or Streamer could yet find it's way into my collection, but I feel as though the crown jewel has already been located.

Just got home from our now monthly gig at The Sun Inn in Beverley. Usual request style gig with my acoustic duo, and some great tunes asked for including ‘A town called malice’, ‘Shotgun’ and a bizarre Pulp Fiction medley comprising ‘Miserlou’ segueing into ‘You never can tell’! At one point they had the door locked to prevent any more people coming in, and also ran out of glasses - the place was absolutely rammed. Although a great crowd of people, it is one of those gigs that is very full on - we do three 40 minute sets and with so many people it is impossible to play all their requests. Still, plenty of good comments afterwards, and the landlord was pleased with the turnout too. ( Picture below is from last week at Scarborough, just sent to me by a punter).

The pedal I was waiting on to finish my sci-fi board arrived this week and the board is ready! Thanks to @lee650 for selling me the pedal that got the ball rolling a couple of years ago and to @pbasspecial and @andybassdoyle for a couple of other excellent pedals. The signal chain is: WTF > T-65 > Grand Tarkin > Destroyer Bass Fuzz > Dual Knightfall > Tarkinfall > Han-Taun > Kaiburr > No Moon > Resurrector > Hyperspace Bass Chorus > Darth Fazer > Harmochorus > Blue Harvest > Dark Father T-65 FX Loop: Boba Fuzz

Landed back from hols at sparrow’s fart. Bit of a nap then lock and load. A couple of ‘how does this go again’ moments to start but woke up and cleared ‘flight throat’ for backing vox and overall a great fun night as ever at a small but appreciative pub 🤘😁 I still need to get things sorted with the IEM feed as something doesn’t seem quite right. I should be getting pre-fade, but I’m not convinced that I am. I set my mix, and then it changes leading me to suspect I’m getting post. i also need to get a damn sight fitter and shed a few stone!!!! New bike due I a week or so so I must get on it regularly!

And at last, some much better photos of In Isolation from Saturday's gig:

There are a lot of brain-dead clowns on the internet ... sounds like you've stumbled across a few. As to the hopeless failed musicians who can't find a better job than working in music stores, don't get me started. Start by Googling famous bass players who used short-scale basses, then try to convince yourself that Paul McCartney would voluntarily play a POS instrument. Good luck with that. In anything to do with music you should always ignore the opinions of others (including mine, of course) and try using your ears. Even when they're the opinions of experienced musicians who you respect, ignore them - they aren't you and they don't hear what you hear. If you like the sound of a bass and the way it plays, then how much you paid for it, what it says on the headstock, what the scale length is, whether it's active or passive, uses flats or rounds, all that stuff is largely irrelevant. What matters is that you're playing it and you like it. If you play with others (in a band, jamming, whatever) then do remember that nobody else in the room gives a damn what you're playing. "It's just a bass, right?"

Played my 1st gig of the year with Felis Leo, 1st gig in Salisbury since joining them 2 years ago. The gig was in a pub called the George & Dragon which is quite a long thin pub. The back of the pub was closed off for the night and we played just in front of that area, unfortunately space was limited and I ended up stuck in a corner behind a wall, my two barefaced one10s on a bench facing in different directions! I could only see the entrance to the loos from my vantage point 😂 Before we started there was quite a few punters in and that was pleasing, after the first set I came out of my hiding place and the bar was heaving! If we're playing a standard pub gig we play half originals, half covers but not the obvious covers... Powerage era AC/DC, UFO, Whitesnake, JJ Cale, Rory McLeod, it seems to work and weave into our own material. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, the bar staff were very complimentary and the 'fans' said it was the best we'd played (this was only my 3rd gig with FL, it was Chris the drummer's 1st!). Despite the postage stamp stage area the sound on stage was great, so much better than at rehearsals but then I don't use the 2 x one10s in rehearsal. Loading out was a ball ache, I won't bore you with that...rain, roads, busy pub full of drunks, etc. Overall the night was a cracker, looking forward to next Sunday with a Smiths tribute and an all female Slade tribute! Here's my strange setup for the evening

Lookatthelittleguy! Boss TU-2 > Hotone Harmony > Yamaha CO-10MII compressor > Joyo Monomyth.

My second post on this forum, with the most important subject for a bass player : ) Pedalboard for my punk-ish drums + bass-guitar DUO:

To get back on topic here's a photo of the whole of In Isolation from our set at Whitby on Saturday:

I got the Schecter P4 Exotic a couple of years back and while I loved the way it played and the look I realised that P bass sound wasn’t for me. After watching @funkle’s post on building a Wal-ish I decided I wanted to build my own. It’s something I’d looked at before but always seemed like a massive leap of faith with the lack of demos, all the content showing off the Lusithand NFP and Turner Pickups pushed me over the edge. Here’s some of the process so far: The original Schecter P4 Exotic. Prepping for incision, getting centre lines and working out how much needed routing out. A little improvising and got it routed, regretted forgetting the dust extractor for the router though… A new pick guard and some extremely deep pickup cavities to house the Turner English voiced multicoil pickups. Test fit before I attached the neck and started connecting wires. The journey has hit a blocker there sadly as I seem to have misplaced my flathead screwdriver bits to connect the preamp and pickups. Hopefully should get that all finished up this weekend though 🙌

Just finished routing the pick guard and some finishing touches like countersinking the screws etc. Was just about to connect it up and realised all my flathead screwdrivers i need to connect the pickups and preamp have gone missing 🥲 Very happy with how it’s turning out, ended up spacing the pickups a little further than initially intended largely down to cosmetics and symmetry.

Janek just posted this yesterday

A mixed bag tonight at the Chadwell Arms in Essex. Set 1 was riddled with issues, which we realised was down to the singist’s radio mic interfering with my wireless. It’s happened before when we’ve rehearsed in a smaller room and the pub was pretty intimate tonight. I wired up for set 2 and it was a million times better. The small crowd loved us, the pay was good and we’ve got a few adds on social media and some pledges to come see us at other local gigs.

Thanks, I hoped it hasn’t seemed like showboating though - just thought it may have been of interest to see what being in a theatre band was like. All through my time doing this I’ve also kept playing pubs, cafes and private gigs ( mainly with my duo), so I’ve always loved the contrast between the two scenarios. Doing the smaller gigs has meant I’ve never taken the wonderful old theatres for granted, and I will miss playing them a lot. ( Tonight though I’m in an ordinary town pub on the outskirts of Hull playing requests for a small and often inebriated crowd. 😆)

YESTERDAY! Another gig that's not really a gig... played Sousaphone at Upton Folk Festival with Beorma Morris - a Border Morris side from Birmingham. A beautiful day in a beautiful part of the world, dozens of Morris sides from all over the place - lots of different styles on display, Cotswold, Border, Clog, North West and even some wacky medieval/game of thrones style belly dancing (it's not really 'Morris', but each to their own). We had a good turnout and danced really well (so I believe .. I can't really tell) and we were joined by my lovely Trombone playing friend - she's Japanese and had never seen anything like it. Bumped into lots of people I know (the Morris world is quite small, so is Upton-on-Severn) including my old boss and the other Morris Sousaphone player, a lovely feller called Mark. He joined us for a couple of dances - stereo Sousaphone action! Lots of people asking about the Sousaphone (mainly "What is it?" and "What's wrong with you?") and lots of requests for pictures and selfies... Obviously I demurred as I'm a shy, shrinking wallflower 😀 The day ended with a massed dance - about a hundred dancers and forty musicians making an unholy scene and having a whale of a time. Shoe update: I wore the New Rocks for that goth/steampunk vibe, the highlight of the day was taking them off when I got back to the car. Back to the 'proper' gigging tonight!

@Dad3353 While I applaud your efforts to improve forum literacy, if this was aimed at me it is of zero use unless you also quote and point out where I have wrongly added or left out the apostrophe, and as I am mildly dyslexic could be interpreted as bullying. Also in the grand scheme of writing on these forums, missing an apostrophe out or putting it in the wrong place is low down on the scale of crimes against literacy that I have seen inflicted here. However if you were to flag up every error you'd be sticking in some inane graphic after every other post.

With added knobs 👌

Who knows? I wasn't supposed to know but the venue owner paid me before we started. So now I know the total and how much we all got. I'll be looking for another job.

My All boss bass board has reached its final form.

This makes it look like it's closer to finish than it is (I still have to level, recrown and polish the frets), but: - the side dots are in - the edges are feathered in - the fretboard has had an initial dose of Tru-oil - THE TRUSS ROD WORKS!! A couple of pics to be going on with:

So I have a 1963 precision which I love to bits, however I was concerned about taking her to gigs, not that’s its irreplaceable but I’d hate to see her sprayed Matt black and sold for £250 at cash converters if it ever got stolen. I had a Tony Franklin fretless precision a while ago, and it was a superb bass, played extremely well and the build was top notch. I just had no need for it. I’d seen the fretted model in pictures but they seem to be like rocking horse sh!t, so when I saw one pop up at Bass Bros I got myself down there sharpish. I’m playing in a psych rock band now and the precision is a great fit, but occasionally I wanted a little more growl and bite so the three way toggle switch and jazz pick up (I know this sound from the fretless) would be ideal. I wasn’t disappointed. For those that have owned/played a Franklin signature you know where I’m coming from, they easily match the stuff coming from the custom shop. For those that haven’t, I’d highly recommend you find someone who has one and try it, it will start your search. The action is low, I play in drop D and it handles it well, I was disappointed there wasn’t a dtuner on it like the fretless, but I can fix this. Anyway it has surpassed my expectations so much the 63 will be up for sale soon, this meets all my requirements.

Just watched this and was blown away by the chemistry and the talent in this s band . Willow is Will smith daughter , mohini dei on bass 🤯🤯🤯🤯

This is my board for the weekend, nice and simple but gets the job done!

Last night's board...

We've all been there.

MTD Kingston is the first that springs to mind. Good range of models and you can get them for your initial budget of £600. Heck, I got my most basic one for £250

Circa 1990, the band I was in practiced in a large room set up as rehearsal space by a band we knew. In one corner was what looked to be an odd-shaped, ancient and unloved bass coated in a thick layer of nicotine and with utterly dead strings. I paid £80 for it in in instalments. It was only about four or five years old! Now my precious Fender Performer which I gigged solidly for several years in the '90s and have since only gigged a handful of times. But definitely the easiest bass to play I have ever tried.