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Yep, just got home after having attended both days. Arrived quite late yesterday and missed all the workshops/seminars but got in a couple of hours worth of gear-drooling. Spent some time with Alan Cringean of ACG who was an absolute gent and had some glorious basses on display. I had the pleasure of playing a lovely red P-Retro 5 string which I fell a little bit in love with. Just before closing time I got chatting to Scott Devine who asked if I was coming to the pub afterwards. The answer, obviously, was yes. So off we all went (many of the show’s exhibitors, SBL faculty as well as ordinary folk like myself) to The Albion. On arrival it transpired that the pub were hosting a LBGS jam night, kicked off by Dave Marks who had to promptly leave for a gig after playing the opening number. Before long one of the guys I’d gotten chatting to earlier in the day started spreading a rumour that I wanted to sing. I soon had a small rabble of folk peer-pressuring me to get on stage! To be fair there was a distinct shortage of vocalists so after putting it off a bit I obliged. Got to close the evening with a bit of Never Too Much followed by a blagged rendition of Superstition. It was great fun and I got to meet some great musicians! When the pub kicked us out many of us trawled to the Hilton for another bevvy. Got chatting to Thomas Eich who was happy to talk shop, clearing up a few questions I had re: the Tecamp/Eich split. I didn’t stay long though as I wanted to get to the show a bit earlier today so as to sit in on a couple of workshops. So today I saw the Scott Devine workshop followed by Rich Brown who was incredible. Wanted to stay for Henrik Linder but got caught up in a wild goose chase looking for John East! In the end I never did find him, much to my dismay. Spent some time at the Aguilar stand, wincing at the prices of their pedals. Also, wincing at their ludicrous signal path: Filter Twin > Chorusaurus > Octamizer > Agro > TLC Compressor > Grape Phaser. I was gagging to tear their board apart and reorder the whole lot . To be honest I was mainly there to try the new Grape Phaser but it was borderline impossible to tell if it was any good or not because there was too much ambient noise and I felt like the TH500/SL112x2 setup wasn’t able to cut through it with any real clarity. It may have been wise for Aguilar to do what many of the other exhibitors were doing and provide a couple of Phil Jones headphone amps. Towards the end of today I had a chat with Nick Smith (haven’t seen him in about 10 years) with whom I lamented the absence of several British companies. The likes of Barefaced and Alpher Instruments, amongst others. Bit of a shame not to see them at LBGS to be honest. All in all though, a great weekend was had. I met some lovely people and saw some great playing. I was a first-timer and it wasn’t the mad slap fest I had anticipated, though of course there were moments of it. I’d happily go again next year.

Mwaaaahahaha....😌

Enjoyed today, although didn't manage to bump into many of you unfortunately! Bobby Vega on the main stage was brilliant. Steve Lawson was okay but didn't really connect with the room at all, lots of people leaving quite quickly which was a shame. Gear wise, I come away GAS free really, nothing tearing me away from Warwick any more, although I was thoroughly impressed with the Tuli basses! Amazing craftsmanship. Eich stand was annoying, far too loud, especially the guy with the ridiculous quad neck bass, noone at the Bass Direct/Darkglass/Earthquaker/Flately stands could hear themselves think when he was playing that thing. Its funny, everyone I spoke to thought the same, Im sure they must have done more damage to their brand than good over the course of the two days.

final (and much simpler) version of the REAN connector retaining block. no screws & no clips this time - just a one-piece printed part attached with 30mm wide velcro

If you want that dull thumpy flats thing just buy normal Roto rounds and play one gig, job done

I’m almost back in Amsterdam, and I enjoyed the show a lot The lay-out was better than two years ago (I wasn’t there last year) and although I hung around at the Eich stand mainly (who tried the Bass Board?). Sorry about the noise now and then. We try to keep it down whenever possible but some people love to crank up the amp when we’re not watching. We sometimes had some problems talking when someone was trying out the Darkglass pedals or a Vanderkley amp, so I hooe we can find a better solution for that next year. Testing amps is always a hard thing at a show like this. Personally, the four-neck bass wasn’t my fsvourite either and I’ve turned down the amp multiple times there. But as I said yesterday, please please ask us about the volume next time. We rarely got comments from the lady with the decibel meter, and especially today the guys from Bass Direct didn’t complain either. It’s hard to hear how loud you are on the other side of the room when you’re standing next to an amp I occasionally walked into the luthier’s room or the hallway to have a chat with Sander de Gier, Andrew (of Anaconda basses) or other great folks. Absolute peak for me was the Dingwall Combustion 5, the trans white one. It fit my hands perfectly and it’s an amazing match with the Eich amps. Might save up some cash to buy one soon. Another plus for me is always the city, I’ve visited London many times already and it just feels like home somehow. I already saw some photos on Facebook, looking forward to seeing more shots!

Yes they really are. I had one, sold it, regret it. The story of my life. Well, my life since joining Basschat that is...

In May I'll be meeting in Leeds, with a colleague from Scotland. After the meeting I'll be driving home and on to see my customers in the south counties. So, I could drop it into Wal. So as you may not be a tearing hurry, maybe my colleague and I can help?

Thanks everyone for the brilliant replies, much appreciated. I bought a Fusion Urban direct from Fusion. I’m really happy with it. I like the external padded thing that you can move around. I bought the guitar version which is excellent. So nice that I can carry my bass around and not need to worry about bumping it when I walk through doorways or along trains.

My first interest in Fretless bass guitar was Boz Burrell with Bad Company, followed by Jaco and then Pino. I would say that between Bernard Edwards, Louis Johnson and then Pino, my interest in playing Stingrays was born and when an immaculate 1993 example cropped up on You Tube about ten years ago I couldn't resist - actually playing all those bass parts recorded on a Fretless on a Fretless rather than a fretted bass (as I did previously) is great fun - a good, and probably not obvious example is Feel Like Making Love by Bad Company - sounds better on a Fretless 😏 However this should dispel any idea a Fretless can't be aggressive sounding as well - excellent slap sound as well as Fretless sound - along with Pino's ever impeccable groove. Musicman Stingray and Trace Elliot I think.

EBay, by comparison would charge 10% They won't be standing about in the shop, supervising people "testing" out your bass. They won't hang around after hours waiting for another punter to try it on the way home from work. EBay don't get sellers calling 3-4 times a week for a report on who tried it and why they didn't buy. EBay won't offer your buyer a 6month after sales warranty. And for the added 5% you won't have your buyer calling PayPal to say it never arrived/not as advertised... can I have a refund please?

I've put my Suhr J Bass with the Gallery to sell for me and I'm very happy to accept their commission. They get the right sort of customers for this bass through their door and browsing their web site etc, plus they will ship...meaning I don't have to. I could have put it on eBay and suffer the charges from both eBay and potentially PayPal and in all likelyhood have to ship it too (not to mention all the tyre kickers with stupid low ball offers and so on) So all in all I beleive that for a high value bass, like mine, a commission sale at places like the Gallery do represent fair value.

I have attended every show since it began. I visited yesterday and noted the differences. The large hall has been partitioned into zones. The upside of this is the feeling of greater intimacy and less noise spill. Several repeat exhibitors have downsized their stands. To my mind, this did not reduce things from a visitors point of view. As an ex-exhibitor, I know that this reduces the amount of effort involved to load in and out. Consequently, we all gain because it makes the exhibitors more likely to rebook for the next show. I thought the luthier demonstration area near the cafe was a great idea. It gives people a place to sit to eat and drink whilst watching something relevant. Another improvement, albeit a small thing, is the lanyards have been replaced by wristbands and e-ticketing. This is not only more efficient it is also more environmentally friendly. I didn't attend any clinics or shows but I know these have become a real draw for visitors. All in all, in my opinion it is an improved show and that we should be grateful for Future to be putting on and allowing a focal point for the bass community.

MiniMert and I quite enjoyed the Little Stubby. The overdriven tones are sublime and it goes quite loud, I’d say louder than the CTM30 but I’m basing this on fuzzy memory only. The feedback control is very cool, it literally feeds the signal back through the preamp valve (pre EQ) to thicken up the tone and add more “girth”. It also adds more volume too. The drive control seemed quite sensitive, below around 10 o’clock there seemed very little if any signal passing through, then it suddenly burst into life with warm thick valvey goodness. After about 12 o’clock you start dialling in more and more grit and overdrive - this thing is a monster for a hellish dirty tone. It’s not something I use a lot of but I can see myself trying it more, hehehe. Anyhoo, the pic is of MiniMert, sensibly defending his ears from the slapathon, giving my the all clear to buy it 🤓

i just joined the club!!! ive been looking for a tasty P 5er then i came across this.... well happy

Short video of me playing in my current show, Hamilton so you can see what I'm about.. Cheers, Ian

@T-Bay - that's very kind. I do have family in Brum so head up that way from time to time. I'll see if I can get my hands on a second hand Mojomojo ahead of meeting up, bring along my Ibby with its aggressive Nord pups and a pick and show you what a good little sound the MJMJ can deliver. But ALL the Mojomojos seem to have sold from the effects section...I'm sure one will pop up again shortly. You can then take the innards out and use the case for your DIY project. And then you can show me the trick the dannybuoy said you need to do with Orange Amps which is to dial all the EQ back to nil to get it to sound good and then add just a smattering of Orange EQ dust on top. No need to take its innards out after though, I would have thought? I'll bring along my SA Aftershock at the same time so you can hear a truly versatile dirt pedal which will even sound good without a pick. And you can maybe also confirm for me why I decided not to get a BSF. Sounds like a full agenda for our meet up

Not being funny but why hasn`t the physio recommended the relevant exercises, surely that`s part of the treatment.

I went yesterday...good to catch up with the usual suspects. I think if nothing, I came away with distinct non-GAS! It's interesting to see a load of gear in one place, but peripherals aside, nothing really appealed, which probably says a lot about my current setup if nothing else. Might get some SIMS LEDs installed this year. [Edit] The Yolanda/Guthrie show was great, Steve Lawson was dreamy, Guy Pratt very funny. Jah Wobble was a bit meh to be honest; was expecting so much more.

Played a new venue in Corby last night - St Jame/Breakers bar. Huge venue on an industrial estate - two large pool rooms, snug and bar area with a stage/dancefloor one end. Good crowd though the format means they are seated stage left and in front of you you have 8 pool tables with players playing all evening. Large screen sky sports going as well. We're a loud funky soul band so that's not an issue and from the get go we had them up and dancing in the dance floor in front of us. What was significant was the green room/dressing room!! - The owners clearly haven't read the manual about band facilities i.e if they really insist - stick em in the meter cupboard and they can change in the gents - standing on one leg trying to keep your stage gear out of the fosters on the floor. No this was deeelooouxe - easy chairs, practice amps, sky tv, fridge full of softs and beer - optics on the wall with Vodka, Jaegermeister and Jack Daniels. Had we not been driving we would have given that lot a bit of damage!! Anyway - we had a good night despite the snow - happy crowd, happy bar manager, happy band.

I fell in love with the sound of fretless many years before playing bass. I also fell in love with trumpet, oboe, cello, guitar, piano... I just never began playing those lovely instruments. Once I began playing electric (fretted) bass, fretless sound was there haunting me every time I listened to a song with that sound. Many many great songs I can't even recall were played with fretless bass or double bass. It wasn't who played fretless (that came later), it's the sound and the expressiveness and subtlety in playing that you get from a fretless that I love.

jammy sod!

The GAS kicked in big style today; if I hadn't left when I did, I would now be annoying every flat in the building with a Cort Bertolini playing through the Ampeg Rig of Doom. I was supposed to be seeing my kids this weekend but the weather scuppered that, so I decided to go along today. I hope I'll make both days next year, and feel less like a rabbit caught in the headlights!

And in a strange twist of fate, a jamman came up on the facebook group just round the corner from the today, so I went and bought it!

Congratulations on your new acquisition (and helpfully one less temptation in my path!)

Value+ reliability = Squier

When I first picked up the bass in the 80s I swapped my Yammy BB300 for a Thunder lll. I didn't have it long when I ripped out the frets. Shortly after that I one t back to guitar exclusively, but since returning to the bass at the turn of the century, I've pretty much always had a fretless (or 2) and wouldn't be without one now. If I was only allowed one bass, it would be a fretless. I blame Pino.

That really is beautiful work, @Bastav . Lovely.

Started working on the headpiece/nut And did the last bit of routing plus drilled for two strap buttons. Will need to add one at the top aswell

£2000 insurance ? I would have thought any WAL would be worth more than that. Are you that far from Wal to drive there yourself ? That way you get to see the service being done hopefully and then try it out before you leave to make sure its all perfect. Make it a few days holiday or something like that if its too far to drive in a day. Dave

I took 800 (eight hundred) photos of LBGS 2018 Day 1, which comfortably beats my NAMM record of a month ago. I'll be there again today, with Happy Jack, who won't tolerate staying for the whole day, but will be around for a few hours. Say hi if you spot me/us!

Welcome Jeff. Have you tried to tune it yet? You might be lucky enough to have got it set up to some sort of standard already. With a new instrument it is not always obvious how to get the best from it. As a new player you have the added complication of not yet knowing how you will be most comfortable with it. Satisfy yourself that the neck is true. A new instrument should be supplied with the truss rod set correctly for standard gauge strings. Usually, a neck (with strings tuned) will be straight but for the slightest visible bow towards the strings. Generally, string height should give enough clearance above the frets to eliminate fret buzz wherever you fret the string along the entire length of the fretboard. Sometimes a little buzz is acceptable but that's an individual thing and often has to do with the style of music being played. The clearance should not be so great that you can't fret a string without fouling the adjacent string. If you need to drop the string height significantly it might become necessary to adjust your pickup height relative to the new string height too. Make one small adjustment at a time and note the difference(s) to the sound and feel of the instrument. It's easiest to do adjustments in quarter turns of the allen key. Count the turns and apply them evenly to both sides of the saddle if the saddle height screws are in pairs with the saddles level. Soon you will get a feel for what's going on. If you need to adjust the truss rod tension or set individual saddles to get good intonation on individual strings, get specific advice for your instrument.

bit of demo and chat about the pedal, but wise words in general from the big man

yup, as I mentioned, I got all of them used: £40 each for the the evenflo, super nova and doubler. £35 for the isolator £25 for the distributor £30 for the diago PSU. total of £210 for all. It might look a lot but look what it can provide: -450mah 9v centre positive for the H9 (evenflo) -550mah 12v centre negative for Le Bass (supanova) -550mah 18v centre negative for Cali (doubler) -4 x 170mah fully isolated 9v centre negative for all other pedals (isolator) the distributor is just like a normal daisy chain to connect all of this; main advantage of this, as with the whole gigrig power system, is of course you can cut the cables to your desired length as needed.

(grin) 74 in June and thought I had pretty much had it when our singer died late last year. Then a drummer mate informed me that he had booked me to play a couple of local pubs with another couple of friends... Just got booked for Strawberry Fair festival in Cambridge right around the time of my birthday! And I thought it was all coming to a close

I have sold a relatively low value bass on commission and bought two high value (to me!) basses through the same shop on commission. The bass I sold was around £300. I was paying 15% and the service I received was excellent. I suggested reducing the price after a month or so but the shop disagreed and told me to hang on and I would get the full price, which I did a few weeks later. The very easy option for them would have been just to agree, cut the price and make an easy sale, but they didn't. That judgement and expertise in the market is what you are paying for, along with the value-added in the confidence of the buyer in purchasing through a reputable and established trading entity, rather than of some random bloke on a forum or auction/classifieds site and all the uncertainty/risk that entails. I don't concern myself with what their process was to achieve the result. On the occasions I bought on commission basses, the first (custom colour 62 jazz) I was phoned to say they had something interesting in stock and they kept the shop open an hour late to let me try it. The second (ex-pino 79 fretless stingray) I was in to buy strings, it was pointed out to me, and I went home with it. In all cases an exemplary service was provided to buyer and seller. Same thing with auctions, buyer & seller know the terms before they trade. The company is a market-maker, attracting a buying public wanting to buy and with the means and confidence to buy. That, along with convenience, is what you are paying for.

All pedals come down to taste and individual needs and playing styles so it will always be subjective. But the mojomojo was a massive disappointment. I have also had a TC dark matter and that was streets ahead of the mojomojo AND had the benefit of the TonePrint option (a massive omission on the mojomojo). I even sent mine back as I was unsure if there was an issue with it, there wasn’t. Even though it’s cheap I still think it represents a risk and would advise anyone to try one before parting with their money (or buying one second hand perhaps so they could sell on with little loss if needed). I am a great lover of Tc products (three of their pedals are on my board as we speak) so it’s certainly not an issue with TC, except possible profound disappointment. As any review is down to personal opinion, my comments must be seen as my opinion and nothing more, but my opinion is that the mojomojo is awful. And at the risk of going slightly off topic I have found that the valve preamp on my newly acquired Orange Terror 1000 gives the exact sound I have been looking for for ages. The BSF has now been cranked up to provide a more distorted sound to fit in with a couple of songs and made the big bass muff redundant saving space in the bargain.

Can't say enough about my Spector NS5 XL. Bought in 2000. Issue no.18. In that time I've had one pot changed. Had a Warwick Steamer before that. Heard they stole the design from Warwick and sought one out. Can't play anything else now.

Federico Malaman does slap bass courses. They are in Italian but with English subtitles, the workbooks are also in English .. https://malamanbasslessons.com/product/mala-slap-vol-1/?lang=en

testing the prototype now - i need to give it some usual gig abuse to be certain it's OK but i'm pretty confident it'll be fine. It'll probably be a week or so before i can make some more (as my printer is fully booked) and then i'll cost it up (it'll only be a few quid or a bit more with the REAN connector pre-installed. Will let you know.

I just had to double check to make sure I hadn’t logged onto talkbass by mistake.

The Gotoh 201 is a superb bridge, regardless of its great price. Much more user friendly than the BadAss.

Never quite understood it myself Shawn I just play about with things until happy and hope nobody asks me questions !

That is absolutely gorgeous!

My favourite Jackson 5 record.

Gator ProGo user here and very happy with it...... Great protection, a raincover, tons of storage and not too heavy And it has a one piece handle (i hate the two piece velcro together type ones :-)) https://www.thomann.de/gb/gator_g_pg_bass_guitar_bag.htm

Great choice although it's not funk or soul or Groove it's Northern Soul ask any Wigan Fan.