Leaderboard

No, better for sole.

Yeah. I've found that keeping your teeth in the glove compartment of the van on those long overnight drives never endears you to the younger members of the band.

Anyone got JH's number?

What, Paedo Pellets?

Second gig with the ska band last night. Longer set this time. Went really well and i got lots of compliments on my sound, the band in particular loved it (all i did was roll off the passive tone on my Sire V7 fiver about 60% of the way to take the bright snap out of the tone, and boost the active bass a bit). I had a total mare in a couple of songs, Ghost Town in particular was a real car crash. Which is annoying because it was fine at the last gig -- more personal practice needed and less complacence. I'm having a ball playing this stuff. The venue fed us too, absolutely belting pizza.

Ordered

good for metal?

Hi You can buy the EQ01 directly from me or John East. The preamp amp I use in my own basses is the DFM the EQ02 was discontinued a while back. This along with the MC Series pickups are not available outside of the basses. The DFM is the fourth version of the pre-amp and will probably be the last having got it where I want it. The EQ01 was the first version made but has had the spec updated as we have moved through the different versions.

Thanks for all the positive responses, the drummer from Band B , messaged me about putting together a band to back a singer he's worked with in the past. So I guess it's a case of one door closes another one opens. Maybe I'm not quite ready for the scrap heap.

Hi Guys Thought i should close the loop on this one, and announce I have taken the plunge and bought a CS 62 P bass relic. Having missed out on the Nash that came up on here from Croatia, I then saw a 60's P come up on the Bravewood site and bombarded him with e-mails only to find it was a ghost page that popped up during editing of a bass that had been sold some time ago. So a CS bass seemed the sensible route, but it would be at least June before i had the funds, then this came up at a greatly reduce r.r.p. wrong timing but the right bass so had to go for it, which is why i didn't get the time to take you up on your kind offers of trying your axes first. But Thanks The neck wood and Rosewood board are beautiful, my wife commented "its a bit knocked about isn't it"

But there's definitely an argument to be made that the sooner some you old fogeys graduate to pipe and slippers, the more opportunities there'll be for youngsters like me.

I’ve had this guitar in parts for about 3 years but it’s finally finished!!!! I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out!! It’s much better plain than chequered!!! 2 down 2 to go!!.......

I have not read the whole thread but there is both a lot of good and bad info on this thread so I will put in my 2p. For the record I am an Electronics Engineer and advised on the design of the HPF on passinwind's HPF design. However that was all his work and I take no credit for it. So what is an HPF? High Pass Filter or less commonly called a Low Cut Filter. So why do we need one? Bass guitars and DBs and the whole system between them, and the Loudspeaker, produce very low frequencies that do not add to our sound. These VLFs work the speaker hard and rob us of headroom. How do I know if this is happening to my system? If you can see the speaker moving, that is caused by VLFs. Take you grille off and watch the cones while playing. Your eyes will not see a cone vibrating at 25Hz* so if you can see it move, it is below 25 Hz and well below Low B at 31Hz. Watch the video of the Micro Thumpinator in action on the SFX site to see the effect.Microthumpinator web page My amp has an HPF do I need an external one? It depends, some built in ones are too shallow. 12 dB per octave is too shallow, 24dB is the minimum in my opinion. That rules out the Broughton. It would be better than nothing but imho not much. What if I just turn down the bass? Most bass controls will affect frequencies in the low mids and higher and have a big impact on your tone. Do I need a variable or adjustable HPF? If it works it does not matter. The Thumpinator works well and also the various FDeck versions from the USA, are good. Variable Filters have a bump at the f3 point. No a good design will be flat to all intents and purposes. If a fixed HPF works well, what benefit would a variable HPF bring. Mainly to help tame room resonances/boominess in conjunction with the normal EQ. It can also allow you to experiment for yourself, a variable HPF can start the cut-off higher for a 4 string than a 5 string. Alternatively it allows you to tune the response so as to just remove the unwanted VLF stuff leaving more of you tone intact.

Bass heaven: Listening to a great bass player Bass hell: Listening to me try and play the bass

Heaven- tommy cogbill, duck Dunn, chuck Rainey. Hell- slappity slappity slappity slappity, especially on gear demos.

Sorry, but if you don't hear the difference between ebony, rosewood and maple, it's about time to make an ear test as there are huge differences in tone. I know that most the musicians are almost deaf and only hear harmonics, but stop this please : it's not only a cosmetical difference, it's a tone difference. At a time, for some personal reasons, I had two identical Leduc MP 6 strings fretless basses (neckthrough abd bubinga wings), but one had a pau ferro fingerboard and the other a Brazilian rosewood one : there was a BIG difference in tone between the two. Strangely I ended up keeping the pau ferro one that had more bite and high mids, which was what I was looking for at the time. In November, I bought another Leduc MP 6 strings fretless I was hunting for 10 years : quite similar in contruction but the wings (flamed maple top over ash with a mahogany veneer in between) and the fretboard which is Brazilian rosewood. Soundwise you get a more present fundamental, more low mids and less high mids, so a hugely growling and mwahing fretless. I know I'm a bit harsh on this subject, but I'm really fed up with these comments. It's like saying that a carrot tastes the same as a cabbage.

My First Assembly - '76' Jazz Bass Sound Clip As a committed P-bass man of more than 40 years, I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with Jazz basses. I like how they look (mostly), I like how they sound (sort of) and I like how they play (up to a point). And yet… when I don’t have one I want one, and when I have one, I’m always looking to move it on… WHY?? My most recent GAS was for an aged Oly White late 70s-type Jazz with a black guard and maple neck - you know the vibe - but without blocks and binding... I don’t like blocks and binding. So I put one together, or at least as close as I could get. This is the first time I’ve ever assembled a bass from bits and the first time I’ve finished a body and neck from the raw wood. I’m fairly pleased with the results, given I’m a complete noob and it was all done with rattle cans. It’s not perfect, but the next one will be better. I learned a lot about the nature of nitro lacquer and the processes of sanding and wet-sanding …and how a bass goes together. Constantly learn new stuff folks, it keeps dementia at bay! Now… what did I come in here for again..? Specifications Paulownia lightweight Jazz body, vintage white Canadian rock maple Jazz neck with maple cap, amber tint Black 3-ply pickguard Alan Entwistle JBX Jazz pickups Schaller BMFL-C 70s tuners Kluson 70s Jazz bridge with slotted-screw saddles Fender CIJ 62 RI control plate, knobs and electrics Fender ‘F’ stamp neck plate with black cushion Fender string tree Fender strap buttons Fender 1969-1976 Type ‘C’ decal D'Addario NYXL 45100 roundwound strings Weight: 7lbs 7oz (very light!) I couldn't decide which pickups to fit. Fralins? Lollars? DiMarzios? To be honest, I was running out of cash so I bought a pair of Alan Entwistle’s JBX pickups, having read some good reviews here and elsewhere. I planned to substitute them with something more prestigious as funds allowed. But! When I soldered them in and fired them up, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought they’d be OK, but they're better than good, they're great. So I'm keeping 'em. What I didn't expect was for the bass to be so light. In fact, the Schallers make it a little neck-heavy, so I may just get some of those licensed Hipshot Ultralites for maximum calorie-loss, in which case the bass will weigh in at around 7lbs. Very rare for a Jazz bass, especially when you consider some of the old 70s examples were real boat anchors. The first to point out what's missing wins half a biro. Good luck!

Can't see this advertised anywhere, so I've posted it up. Not strictly just guitars - there are a handful of some basses there... but may be of interest to some. The Guitar Show - New Bingley Hall, Birmingham. 24-25 February 2018. http://www.theguitarshow.co.uk/

Yeah it's a great one! So, after studying the pic I'm thinking of a solo cello mimicking the left hand on the piano with a viola (not sure if it's a viola or a violin in the pic but I'm going with viola) mimicking the right hand of the piano. The violin and the trumpet should be performing a duet but not overlapping as the guy's only got one pair of hands. No wait, he's got some contraption hooked up to the trumpet button things (don't laugh, I can't think of the word) so that means they can play at the same time. Right, all that machinery is going to create some whirring, clanking and ticking. I think I'm set

I'm seeing a bloke on Tuesday who has fitted flats to one of the new Epiphone T Birds. I'll let you know what he thinks, and if i get a chance, what I think too.

Wondered how long it’d take for someone to shoehorn that one in...

Oh boy........... (I could live with some of the colours though I think)

Sweet

Love 'em, where did you get them from ? John

Changed my mind

I owned an original 1987 until a couple of years ago. Dunno what the RI is like but my 1987 was almost completely unusable in a home environment. Tried a power soak - quieter but lost all the tone. Even for recording it was so loud there was too much bleed onto the drum mikes. The other thing about 1987s is that anywhere below full beans they're actually fairly clean amps by modern standards. To get the rhythm crunch I wanted I was running either a TS or a Colorsound Overdriver clone into the front end and bridging the two channels. Getting 'the Marshall sound' is problematic for a couple of reasons: * There's more than one Marshall sound; Plexis, Mk2s, 70's Superleads , JCM800's each have their own flavour. * I've tried the modern little 5 watt Marshalls and they don't do it for me. Far too boxy and constipated There's a modestly radical alternative which I've now adopted; a small, clean valve amp (15w) and a good Marshall-in-a-box pedal, e.g. Catalinbread DLS, Wampler Plexidrive / Plextortion / Pinnacle, JHS Angry Charlie. Check them out. The advantage to this approach is that i) One can swap in other flavours of pedal in order to approximate Fenders, Voxes ii) One can run the pedal (not the amp) directly into one's recording device (start with all knobs on zero then adjust), slap a cab sim across it and away you go.

"Rock/metal, jazz and country" pretty much translates as "I want to play anything I like on this bass", which is as it should be. In my experience, going to a show is completely futile if you want to try instruments properly, and trying lots of basses in a shop achieves nothing except confusion unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Big changes won't help you either. Switching between, say, Hofner and Warwick will teach you very little. What bass have you been playing as a beginner?

Bass heaven - High powered amp you can carry with one hand. Bass hell - Fender twin for guitar in a small bar.

I have full-range studio monitors, and it IS surprising. The best natural-sounding bass I've had was a Road Worn P. I don't know what the stock pick up is on those, but it sounded very sweet indeed - the epitome of P Bass.

Might do better in the Musicians/bass players wanted section. There are probably some members that only look at that section.

Joy of joys! The neck and body are both finished and will soon be making their way to me.

Bought a couple of cabs from Alain, could not have been an easier transaction. Spot on in every way and cabs are fantastic. Deal with confidence.

I got an email from Warwick. Although the site says "out of stock", they do have stock. So 1 is ordered and on the way to me now.

That looks thoroughly dodgy to me. Why is Friedland going public like that? No doubt we can look forward to an announcement of his new sponsorship from Aguilar shortly...

Excellent. It was small but perfectly formed 😮

I like Barefaced Cabs, but if weight were not an issue I'd use Markbass cabs. I love 'em. If they are guilty of colouring one's sound, then it's a colour I like. I've used Markbass rigs a lot as backline and I'm always pleased to see an MB rig because I know I'm going to be heard, I'm going to hear myself, and I'm going to sound good. So I play better. They're relatively expensive because they're well-built. They're not actually that heavy, either - only when you compare them to boutique, ultra-lightweight cabs. I'm a fan of Markbass combos, too - the 1X15 combo in particular is fantastic. I have a theory (possibly insane), that bass gear manufacturers know that a large percentage of their customer base never play outside of their rooms and tailor their products accordingly. Markbass may sound a bit flat in your bedroom, but at a venue they really kick it out and sound very punchy, articulate and lush at battle levels and 'in concert'. OK, I'm done!

I currently have two, I am not going to end up with two. I am either going to keep the spector and push the dean on, or keep the deen and return the spector. Initial impressions are stronger on the spector, as I got it on Tuesday. Its the first spector I had, so obviously the feelings probably tie to that. The bass is lovely, it is not too heavy, the body is a great shape. the neck is a bit thicker and wider than I would like, its bigger than an ibby, but obviously most things are. The knobs are also the wrong way round (treble bass) as well as a bit abstract as there is no default position. however, sounds good and works well. The 8 string part. I loved it for the first few minutes, then hated it, then went back to liking it. It *is* harder on your fingers to play, and easier to make mistakes from missing the strings. In general it is harder to play. For some songs, punk, rock, it really does add some body to the song, especially songs where you are playing Guitar / bass / Drums. I wish I had had this in my last group, which was 70s/80s punk/pop based. Its also very good with delay effects, where the increased harmonics really shine. However, for my current group I couldn't use it as my only bass, as it really is no use whatsoever for Ska, which we do a fair bit of! So the dean. Picked it up today, really cheap. Needed a decent amount of time cleaning it and sorting out a noisy socket. It is a little tattier, dent on the headstock, can see the lines from the wood, it is quite old I am guessing - oh yes, serial number says it is 08, so it is doing ok for a decade. Between the Dean and the Spector on their own merits, there isn't much of an issue. The Spector is better. It is more comfortable, it has a slightly easier neck, the build is a lot better, more comfortable and looks a lot better. But, the dean was a fraction of the cost - cheapest non harley benton bass I have bought, so it is not the most obvious comparison. Plugged in, there really is virtually nothing to pick between them. The Dean has less treble, but almost certainly that is old strings vs the new ones on the Spector. Other than that, they sound the same, with almost identical blend between the pickups. The dean you can do a treble cut that you can't do on the Spector I suppose, that is about it. So I don't know what is going to be around after I have decided, but one thing I know is that Spector has entered my head as a brand to explore more.

One of the gigs which Talking Heads turned into Stop Making Sense. The movie is staggering. What it must have been like live... !!

Holy Mother of God, this plus about a billion. Very fortunate at the moment to be playing with a pro drummer who is just on it the whole time. Makes my job a delightful breeze. But when you get a drummer who is, er... less than stellar, it makes bass playing a dreadful, miserable ordeal. Obviously trying to migrate to Europe in a flimsy rubber dinghy with no food or water after your family has been killed by government forces is a lot worse, but we're talking bass playing here...

Can't believe than no one has mentioned the Sue Ryder ...

For an enormous chunk of the population of the planet, a bass is a guitar; end of story.

I think you'll find in the thread that the Mark Bass rig sounded "great" with two of the guys basses but "dull" with the third. That doesn't sound like a cab problem to me.

Playing The Rebellion Festival in The Winter Gardens in Blackpool for the first time in August 2015. When we started out our aim was to try and get on that festival, being the biggest punk festival in the world. Our set was at something like 1:15pm on the first day for 25mins in The Arena, and the room whilst not completely full must have had about 800 in there (capacity is 1000). The set flew by, was well received, and we were all on a high for the rest of the festival, we`d achieved one of of our aims and unlike many things in life, it was actually better than we had thought it would be. We`ve now played there 3 years in a row, and are booked for this year as well but I look back fondly to my first Rebellion.

I totally get it - but if you haven't played a Wal before ensure you try before you buy. They are (in my opinion) a bit Marmite. Something of an acquired taste. Despite being my dream bass I just couldn't live with mine. The build quality was sublime, and the filter pre-amp is to die for...yet it just felt wrong to me. Not a criticism of Wal basses, I really admire them, but just wasn't for me.

...but not in headstock design. If I owned that, I’d need to put a brown paper bag on it.

I recently had one made by jack's instrument services in Manchester. Really easy to deal with, cost me £29 and took about a week to turn around.