Leaderboard

Basschat to the rescue. a very friendly owner of a 63 “pure vintage” reissue bass has offered his flat covers and thumb rest so I’ve snapped them up and will return the incorrect items to the shop.

Anyway - using router guide bushes and bearing cutters to take the ash excess off about 2mm at a time, some noise and lots of dust later, we have a basic body shape You can see here how much scooping's going to go on in the next stages! And that's to get it to 30mm max. I might go even slimmer if I think it's going to balance OK...

Trump isn't the problem with Gibson's potential for recovery, but the continued presence of Henry Juszkiewicz very much is. A while back Gibson's main creditors but together a package that would have allowed the company to continue trading as normal, but the stumbling block was that they insisted on the removal of Henry Juszkiewicz as CEO, and he wouldn't step down, hence the current Chapter 11 situation. Personally I can't see any future for Gibson while Henry Juszkiewicz retains any role whatsoever within the company. So either he will be forcefully removed (if that is indeed even possible) or Gibson will collapse completely and the name and IP will be bought up - Yamaha's name has been mentioned more than once in this respect - in which case they will cease to be a US company and Trump will no longer be a concern. Also I can't see what the big deal is with US-made instruments. The products of all the big US manufacturers are without exception vastly over-priced compared with what is actually on offer. It's not like the 50s and early 60s when US manufacture counted for something, and the rest of the world was still lagging behind when it came to both design as well as actual build quality. Nowadays great musical instruments are being made all over the world, and TBH at an equivalent price point for mass-produced instruments the output of just about any-non US factory is far superior.

Its been a while and this is really late but... I was on the hunt for a head and having taken a trip to the big smoke to no avail I decided to take a trip back to one of my favourite shops PMT Birmingham as it was in my old stomping ground. looking to demo a couple of heads Orange 4stroke,Ashdown ABH600 etc so needed to pick a bass to try them out with. Hidden at the back where they put some of the used equipment a silvery glint took my eye! The bass looked used had some marks and crazing in places I had heard good things so decided to give it a go. It sounded and played beautifully but I wasn't looking for a Bass really but I just kept playing and playing. A brew a bit more playing and finally a deal for a head and the bass came about. Now the special bit is the bass had a couple of quirks but after a chat with the staff and emails from yamaha all became clear the bass is one of the demo/proto basses made to take to trade shows/let artists use I believe 4 were made and this is one of them (picture in another thread here https://www.talkbass.com/threads/yamaha-prototype.569739/page-2) This explains the age related marks and knocks etc. Anyway it's a stunning bass and plays amazing with cobalts on it.

Right, I had this feeling that I was being held back by something and realised it was the colouring. I would go and sand a bit then go and sand a bit more. I have all the bits, the only things I need to drill were the holes for the neck screws and the jack socket. Basically, I was procrastinating, and I had a bit of a colouring anxiety. So I decided, I wanted it red, I have the red and everything else, so if I just do it then it will be done. So I did it (well, I drilled one of the screw holes for the neck then realised I couldn't find my 13mm drill for the collet after doing a 14mm one and it being a bit loose). So I pained it red, with a small paintbrush. It drank up the red like it was going out of fashion. I will go over it again tomorrow, but it has taken the red fine, the line on the back that was worrying me, well, yes, you can see it but no it isn't bothering me. Some bits are redder than others, some a bit lighter. You can see the grain and all the imperfections in the wood, and turns out, I love it. It has an imperfection that I like, I can see the bits where I left a little mark, that I remember doing, I see the bits where the wood is different, where i have been watching it as I was working on it. I don't think it is going to win any awards, but It feels really 'personal'. It will be better once I oil it after the colour is done, but I am pretty happy with this. And in putting the neck on to take pictures, I can carry it round with the neck without dropping it - I guess the pocket is tight enough! Yes - I know I need to repaint the garden table!

Wow it's been hot today. Didn't get in the workshop yesterday, I think I slept most of the day. Started the day by planing the scarf joint flat, I checked the necks for flat and they were both still good. The next step was routing the truss rod slot then making the template for the headstock then drew it onto the wood and bandsawed the shape out then used the offcuts to add on the missing bits on the wings. While the glue was drying I played around with the placement for the tuners as my initial drawings didn't look right. I made a test piece from some MDF just to be sure. Once the glue had dried I again bandsawed the rest to shape and marked out the plan view of the neck and cut that slightly oversize. Now it looks more like a bass. Tomorrow I will I think scribe in the neck joint to fit the body then make a start on the fret board, actually more accurately I'll make fret template for my home made mitre box. Moving on from there, I'll leave the necks be until the fretboards are fully finished then I'll have a last check for flat, glue on the headstock veneer, cut the truss rod access slot and drill through before gluing on the fretboards. That I think will be the ongoing plan

Exactly why I drive a relic'd car!

Because we are converting a 4 string to a 5 string which happens to have a rosewood bridge (that, once again, isn't an off the shelf buy), Simon had to make a new bridge. He just happened to have a block of left over rosewood that was the exact right size. Because we couldn't find a piece of plastic/graphtech or bone long enough for the saddle, brass was used.

Oi! I'll have you for copyright!

The Rumble 15 is pretty good for what it is, and that's a home practice amp. However, the bass in that kit is from Squier's "Affinity" line. Again, this is very much a beginner instrument, with dubious quality control, and you may find you outgrow it very quickly. To buy a Rumble amp and a Squier "Vintage Modified" Jazz bass separately would cost £400 total. This is probably about £100 more than the pack you're looking at, but will be a much more "future-proof" investment and will keep you going for longer before you need to upgrade. S.P.

Yeah but in this case 👉 I 👈 am the drummer's mate 😝. S.P.

Yes! In my experience, it's always been drummer related. With a better drummer, I also find that my own playing usually improves too. Weak link in any band brings everybody down.

I avoided them for years because I thought they were boring. Then one day I decided to see what all the fuss was about and instantly fell in love with the sound.

2024x I can't believe how good it is.

I think it's more likely that any they do stock take a long time to sell, mainly because they're gash. 😋

Would a re-finish involve stripping back to wood, re-painting, then applying the orbital sander for a while..?

Whatever the number, it'll be one less than the combined population of bassists think they need.

I don't get why european bass players like to fosters and moan about the American presidents so much. Clean up your own house......oh wait, we sent a rep to improve the royal line. Things will get better.

I did once see: "Fender Roadworn bass for sale. Mint condition..." I did laugh.

Some guys are too old at 25. Depends on your disipline, apptitude and ambition, not age. Blue

Keep the basses, get a new wife.

A bit like an old Landrover, an outside toilet or a Yorkshire pudding.

They're as American as an apple pie made by an American using American apples, in America. I love 'em (Precision basses, not so keen on apple pies, difficult to get the intonation right).

I'd put the Jazz neck on the precision body and hide the Jazz body & Precision neck from the missus in the loft.

Cort basses are the nuts

Found a few, very cool. I'm ordering one today, $16.95. Blue

me too lol .... i've been staring at it since the boss sent it to me after i innocently asked "anything available" lol ....

I've got an audition on Friday - with 8 songs to learn: which is kinda reasonable: 3 songs with a male singer, 3 with a female singer and 2 duets. It's a new band to actually playing together for 90mins or so will be valuable. 5 days to learn 8 songs is fair (and they are all 80/90s soul so no mustang sally or sex on fire to busk!).

Guessing, but maybe the control cavity is painted in Conductive Shielding Paint to reduce hum etc., and the stray wire should be attached to the screw?

There are far too many G clamps for the key of F sharp. Would you settle for G flat? Clamps

It always amazes me when people manage to get a bad sound from a Precision - with most amps set flat they work well in the mix, and if you then eq them they can do so much.

I knew there had to be others! Happy to help 😊

I may contact them myself as I find the eq pretty useless too. Thank you for the information 👍

-

I will take this to pm otherwise I will be a contender for the wildest thread derail ever.

And now it's mine, delivered in person by Simon yesterday; I nearly bought it a few weeks ago following a bit of cheeky best offering, but I didn't follow through, but the price came down and the gas could not be resisted - I did suggest to him he put it for sale on here as there's love for them here, he was going to take it back to BD but didn't and kept on trying to sell it the bay OMG it's lovely 😃 understatement and light 😍 I will be selling most of my other instruments now, this is it, no more buying, gas cured : ) and I will practice more

The 70s ones certainly could have been made by British Leyland.

Hi Daniel, Hope you don’t mind me chipping in on an official capacity, am only doing so as it’s both our products your’re comparing. Essentially what you’re paying for with Clarett is upgraded preamps, and the ‘Air’ feature, which hardware models the sound of our ISA preamps, really great for vocals (as well as other things of course, whatever your ear likes). So whilst the Scarletts sound great, the Claretts are a step up. If you’re running a very recent Mac (USB-C), and you don’t really need the simultaneous recording ability of the 4Pre just yet, you might also consider the 2Pre USB*, which you can bus power with your setup, no need for a power supply :). The 2Pre USB also comes with ADAT in, so you could increase channel count with something like a Clarett OctoPre at a later date if needed. Obviously in the Scarlett range, the 18i8 is the smallest unit to include ADAT in, so this is also a nice addition with the 2Pre. Any questions, please let me know. Obviously fully encourage everyone else to chip in too! I know there are some Scarlett and Clarett fans on here Cheers Si // Focusrite Media Relations *You can’t bus power the 2Pre Thunderbolt

Fret wire comes in a large range of varying heights and widths. It's down to personal preference. A lot of people go for "jumbo" frets, although you'll struggle to find a fret wire described as such on sale. The action is the gap between the strings and frets, so the height of the frets doesn't really have a bearing. However it sounds like you might prefer a shorter fret, in which case it's probably best to keep them wide to avoid excessive wear, especially if you use roundwounds

I don't know why you don't just say what you mean. Heeheehee On the UK ice cream industry; you could argue that the price of a ninety nine is threatened by the possibility of US owned Cadbury having tarrifs imposed upon Flakes. Anyone who wants to point out that these aren't imported from the US to the UK ought to take account of the fact that this is already a flaky opinion and they should not encourage me to derail this topic any further.

Absolutely - somewhere I’ve a DVD of him using this Basic 350/ST800 setup into a pair of Goliath II’s. Mind you, any good Jazz bass into a Sadowsky preamp does the MM sound for me..no amp needed 😜

Just do it.

This is for sale in Japan at the moment........ DHG.....its stunning.

Sell both the P and the J. Then buy a sunburst P with a rosewood fretboard.

Kudos to you for not settling whith what you had and also to Ashdown for presenting you with a working solution for your issue, even though there was nothing wrong with the amp, as there may be some people that aim for the sound this amp has from factory. This may be a helpfull topic for others in your position.

Great thread and I rarely if ever read every post of any thread. This last audition whilst not hellish was I have to admit bloody nerve wracking . The practise room is a little annex off the BL open plan kitchen. Everything's setup, tiny muffled kit, keys, couple of amps all crammed into this very small space and I'm starting to think...blimey this is cosy. We sit down and are literally rubbing shoulders with each other, not an inch of room between us. BL asks me what I want to do and I say well lets go from the top of No 1 set list. ( their a 60's tribute outfit, and they do three sets of twenty each!) First tune is the Beatles "I'm A Looser" with that fab two part opening harmony. I haven't played for quite a while and was almost knocked off my stool by the power and tightness of that opening vocal.....christ these guys are good I think. Then the BL wife who's on keys starts warbling and the whole thing goes stratospheric. Not bad for a bunch of 70 yr olds. I'm 58.... To be sat in the middle of a four part harmony reaching for the sky in a room you couldn't swing a mouse in left me feeling emotionally drained....quite an experience. I've subsequently learned they've been doing this for 40 yrs and the front guy had a No1 record in South Africa.....no reason to doubt it really. Our first gig is this weekend ( a mini festival apparently)...can't wait if a little apprehensive. They give the bass loads of frequency space, its all very jangly and trebly as would be expected, so no room at all for any mistakes.....yikes!

New video this morning! We're actively looking for people to come in and film stuff if anybody is interest. Come alone. Bring a drummer. Come with your band. Whatever you fancy doing. We're happy to use the might of the Chowny empire* to promote your stuff. *actual size of empire may vary

Just finished installing mine today...