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I've just completed another bass part ex / sale with Martin from Wales - we had lots of communication both ways throughout the process and have been exchanging a few texts since about the basses we swapped. And it got me thinking as I was writing his feedback and looking at the three pages of feedback I've got....basically (bar one specific example - exception that proves the rule?!) I've had nothing but overwhelmingly positive experiences ( a LOT of them!) with people I've never met. Often involving quite a lot of money / expensive instruments and therefore trust of this unknown person. It's a great community of people who really do give bass players an excellent name. I'm sure other forums for different instruments may be the same (I'm not on any so can't really comment) but this really is a lovely group of people on here and I"m chuffed to call myself a bass player knowing that there's a lot of lovely people out there who also call themselves bassplayers! All good!

Nice to hear this, glad you all like our little community. It’s been a pleasure to run and has been a massive part of my life.

I used to get grief many years ago when I lived with my ex girlfriend about the combo amp that lived in the corner of the living room of our small one bedroom flat. I had nowhere else to put it really but eventually managed to find room to accommodate it in the cupboard under the stairs (which involved building a shoe rack to put on the triangular shaped wall above it). Imagine my joy when I came home one night to find a running machine occupying the space in the living room where my amp had been...

If you're going to talk like that, at least have the decency to use 'your' rather than you're and put EVERYTHING IN SHOUTY BLOCK CAPS. Looks far more comically unhinged that way.

Bought and sold stuff here for years, never had a bad exchange, everyone's polite and the couple of people I've met have been friendly and honest fellows to a man. Only problem I've encountered is the lack of interest in some of the dodgy kit I've advertised sometimes...!

Watching The Selector on the BBC Iplayer at the Biggest Weekend in Coventry. The bassist is playing a Squier Classic Vibe Precision, how cool is that! No gear snobbery there. Good bassist too, although I think Pauline Black is the only original member.

Phew it's been a hot one today! Not happy I have a blister on my thumb! How you ask? I'll tell you how Started off routing a shoulder at the level of the top of the binding to give myself a clean edge to work to while shaping the tops, yes shaping at last WOOHOO!! After that I drew a rough contour map of the general curves I expected to get, after that well it was shaping time. I used a thing called an Arbourtech, a rather nasty carving attachment that fits onto a grinder, this is a method I do not recommend, it can reduce your guitar body to firewood in less time than it takes to blink. So why am I using one, I've had a lot of practice with it but even then it's a worrying procedure. After rough carving I used some small thumb planes (blister!! ) to just get it somewhere like a shape at the back, the front couldn't be done until the angle for the neck/fretboard had been cut. For that I just made a jig, basically a sloping bit of MDF at 4.5 degrees with a hole in it to access the top of the body. There was some spare wood the jig didn't reach so I whipped those off with a drawknife, a bit like a massive spokeshave then took a bench plane to flatten it. Finally I took the thumb planes and some tiny spokeshaves and tuned the shape to something that looked right, it's sort of an intuitive process, try it you'll see. After that I was tired so I still need to tune the shape on the second body but I'm happy with the first, that just needs the neck fitting and sorting any snags before sanding etc. Oh and I also checked the neck blanks for any movement, admittedly they are still blanks and any movement would be unlikely but if there is any movement at this stage then the blank is firewood. There was none but some of you may be interested to know how I checked. To see if there is any twist on a narrow board you used a gadget called a pair of winding sticks, these are basically two parallel wooden straight edges with two inlays on each one with a pair of black (Ebony) and one with a pair of white (in my case Ivory veneers from a piano), as luck would have it I couldn't find them so I used a pair of 12" rules one balanced at either end from which you can sight down to see any twist (wind) exaggerated by the length of the winding sticks. Handy thing to know

I'm a lifetime member of Scott's Bass Academy. Yes, some of the people in the forum ("Campus" as they call it) are a PITA. Much of the chat is all very... well... But I don't regret having open access to an incredible and growing number of lessons FAR out stripping ANYTHING on Youtube. The SBL paid-for lessons are much better than any Scott ever gave for free. You also have opportunity, once a month (?) to be at a live video-chat session with guest speakers, who are often teachers of bass at the Berkeley School of Music. No, no regrets here. Go grab a 14-day trial membership and try it for yourself. You have nothing to lose. If you don't like it Scott WILL give you your money back. https://scottsbasslessons.com/ IIRC the first year was about £100. Topping up, at the 12 month stage, to "LIfetime" was another £200. Compare that to 1-to-1 lessons with a mediocre teacher at £26 an hour? 10 lessons inc travel costs?

I personally prefer having the jack on the front for the very reason that it gives me the option of sitting or standing. I don't have an issue with the look of it either actually. I've just commissioned my first Fodera build - it's costing a fair amount but I'm obviously comfortable otherwise I wouldn't have proceeded. I play 6ers and my tastes are generally quite conservative/boring - I find they're one of the few builders who make extended range basses that I like the look of - I've gone for an Emperor 6 by the way.

Did a bass cover, first time for everything. John Mayer's 'Still Feel Like Your Man' (Pino):

aging hasbeen getting some publicity.* nothing to see here, move along. * I say this as a fan of The Who

Mooer'd right up mate...😊

Or marry another bass player! 😄

Have you tried offering to help carry the stuff to the car, you know, don't leave it all for her to do? I mean, don't strain yourself, obviously ...

Dropped the Mrs at the gym and thought I'd pop into the LGS which is only a couple of minutes round the corner. Just browsing - mostly at guitars when I came across the Mockingbird MK3 below. It looked stunning so I tried it and loved it. It's a bit neck divey as you would imagine , but sustains forever and has an awesome array of tones. I wouldn't have ever imagined buying a BC Rich but it wasn't what I expected at all. The shop had set it up perfectly too. I now feel compelled to put gold strings on it (it's an obsession) It was marked up at £500 so a quick google found it for £386 in Thomann and the LGS (Sound Affects) matched the price. A good days work !

Over the moon at how well the two cabs compliment each other. The 102p is very tight and punchy while the combo's 12 inch driver is rich, fat and equally punchy. My amp buying days are over! Many thanks to Wunjo's on Denmark Street who put up with my madness.

Yeah, I got that.

Have to point out that my comments were made in jest to my wife. She is in no way a controlling type of person and would readily let me put bass things on display ........... if it made sense which of course it wouldn't Only kidding Dave

At least you can get him to make you another one!

You’ll be interested in this - this week I’ve been setting up and playing the polyphonic octaver. This means I can play -1 octave and do chords or just not worry about tracking at all (no glitches whatsoever). Then I discovered you can add another -2 octave on top of that.

Hey Friend, If you're talking about my two band preamp, it will most likely end up being branded as Marco Bass under a licensing arrangement. It does use a standard sort of passive treble rolloff control in both passive and active modes, and the active section does bass and mids rather than bass and treble. My personal favorite that I use in my daily driver bass omits the passive treble, since I typically never turn those things down at all anyway. And as always, I should reiterate that I have no hardware to sell, I am just an aspiring freelance designer looking to transition from long time hobbiest/DIY'er to maybe making enough to buy a few pints one day.

I do like thumb planes. Very handy. I've never used a (?) thumb shave before - that looks useful too Nice work btw

I have a Mike Pope FlexCore 4 band in my MTD Kingston. I initially upgraded the stock preamp with the USA spec Bartolini but that didn't last long after I found the Mike Pope.

I had both. I really miss the Roadworn S/B Jazz the most though - wish I hadn't traded it - but in a moment of madness, I was trying to reduce the number of basses I own... I preferred the 60's S/B Roadworn, mainly because, for me, the neck felt "just right". The Flea Jazz neck is a tad thinner, but still very nice Personally, I'm used to the VVT control arrangement, and I wasn't so keen on the stacked knob controls on the Flea Some people much prefer them, but I found VVT a bit quicker to get the sound I wanted In terms of sound, they both sound great, but my sunburst RW Jazz had the pickups replaced with some lovely 70's / 80's vintage DiMarzio's and they were great The Flea sounded good though too. Oh, the Flea felt a bit lighter weight - in case that's important to you (though I never weighed them precisely) Re the Flea bass colour - it's pink, but it's a very pale, faded pink, and not so in-your-face Whichever of these you get, you'll have an amazing bass, I'm sure of that. To my mind, the differences are minor (apart from colour, of course) Fender Roadworn series basses are amazing - they really feel "played in". Good luck with your purchase

Basschat spreading the love (ur, GAS) as always

Seems the "get well soon" messages we sent from BC worked then...

Yip... Always been nothing but great people I've dealt with either in person or by post... The feedback part does seem to get forgotten tho.

Jolly good choice. Enjoy muchly 😎🎸

The only thing around here that's peaked is most of us!

That’s not a bass, it just a guitar with fatter strings 😀

I'm not even qualified to play bass. Yet I do.

I'm with BRX in the James Randi camp here (without the cash, sadly ) - show me the actual, repeatable, provable science, and I'll believe it. Electronics, pickup placement, strings, design (in the extreme) yeah, everything else? What BRX said...

Ok I do know it’s been a while ive finished grain filling finally and I’m sanding off the residue one trick I’ve learned is to wipe white spirit over to show the grain and highlight spots that need more filler or sanding. Monday is final sanding and sanding sealer

Hmmmm...Hunky Dory, LA Woman, Led Zep IV, Fragile, Aqualung, Master Of Reality (Paranoid and Black Sabbath were still in the charts), then for the non-rock-fan there's Curtis Live, What's Going On, Surf's Up, Joni's Blue, The Allmans at Fillmore East, Shaft, Bryter Layter. Whilst I fully agree Mr Daltrey is hitching his latest project onto a controversial statement, outside of the pop field there was an enormous amount going on in 1971... I think picking the top of the pops in any year can ruin its credibility...look at '78: in the midst of the Punk Revolution(tm), Paul McCartney spent nine weeks at number one, and Boney M's Brown Girl In The Ring was the biggest selling single of the year...

as promised.... The playing is a bit sloppy but the tone is there even at 5am this morning! signal is.... Fender Jazz elite 5 (Active, Flat EQ)-> GB shuttle 9.2 (flat EQ, low boost) DI out -> Scarlet 8i6 > Ableton (no processing) elite demo.mp3

I really like my Genz NEOX212T, but am thinking of changing over to a 2 x 1x12 solution to make things a bit more flexible - but I have NEVER had a problem hearing myself.

I feel for the OP's mate. Couple of things... * If it's choking out on bends it's just as likely to be the neck relief as the action - best he check this before he gives up. And if it isn't the relief it could just be a high fret. Also, if it's a vintage spec neck the 7.5" board radius will always choke out with big bends up at the dusty end unless the action's jacked well high. * Alder / agathis / basswood? TBPH, it's not going to make a huge amount of difference anyway if it's a multi-piece Squier body. Whther it was ash, alder or agathis most people would have to be have to be a total cork-sniffing tone hound to tell the difference blindfold . People go on about alder and ash but afaich there's not much difference, unless it's a shoot-out between some really light, resonant old swamp ash and some boat-anchor alder. Even then the amp and the speaker make more difference than wood types (as the OP's mate has discovered). * I've done the steel trem block thing on a proper Strat and it made a microscopic difference to the sound - nowhere near as much as the difference between setting the bridge to float and setting it flush to the body. * Final thing: He's gone round, played it and walked out the door with it 'as seen'. Very difficult to turn that one around. The other guy claimed it was an alder body; maybe he genuinely thought it was; maybe he's a fibber; hard to prove either way without suggesting the guy's a liar which isn't going to get the Chapman back. Really, I think he's just going to have to suck it up and put some work into the guitar. Caveat emptor.

Time then that the curriculum was changed to educate them that they should do things the way they were in the olden days. They were so much better then.

Simple, but pretty happy with this setup.

Ah, now I see where you're coming from. That was way ahead of its time. Steve Lawson is my biggest influence at the moment and I can hear the same sort of format in his music to Bill Nelson's. Shall have to look into more of this. That's the value of social media, endless inspiration for new directions.

Damn, nice gig. Rag & Bone man has a great voice.