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Absolutely mental, very funny, and a great player.

It's his hat, right?

Has there ever been a cooler drummer than this?

Modding an Already-Modded P Bass... You may or may not have seen my Modded HB PB-50 (Version 3) - if not, it's here. All well and good - I liked it a lot... the single-coil vibe is nice, but sometimes you really want that mid-forward, split-pickup dual-coil 57-type P sound as featured on every recording since the Bronze Age. Consequently, I started looking for a bog-standard 57-type P Bass. There are lots and lots and lots of them available for sale... THEN, I came across the concept of the dual-coil 51-type four-pole telebass-type pickup... with that in mind I bought this Jess Loureiro dual-coil 51-type pickup with a view to fitting a switch to give me the option of series (57-type dual) or parallel (51-type single) coil pickups, both with the fast attack you get from a one pole-piece-per-string setup... hopefully negating the need to buy another bass, cart two basses around with me and change them on stage for different songs... I also fitted a new Fender American Deluxe bridge with part-threaded saddles. Stable, well-engineered... top load or through-body options... and way too expensive in the UK, which is why I imported one from the States. Even with import duty it was still cheaper than buying one here. Many thanks to Mr Gary Mac, without whose help and assistance I'd be in hospital suffering from soldering iron burns and crying. Thanks, Gary. Sound clips: Listen on good phones or decent monitors, etc. etc... Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

Blast! Well, based on it feeling like the fretboard has taken longer than the body so far, I'd better just remake the body and persuade Neil that learning to be ambidextrous is a real life-skill!

No worries Dave, I see what you mean. I took said claw hammer so that if I saw the person I suspected of stealing my bass, I could hit him with it. I was less reasonable in my younger years.

Great idea! Looking forward to the first one. ☺ Once it's up and running, can I suggest that we link this idea to the various regional Bass Bashes, where there will be opportunities to get some fantastic content for the podcasts. For example, the SE Bash has had so many good workshops and guest speakers over the years, much of which would have made for interesting and relevant podcast material...

I heard this on Radio 1 earlier and love it. Me and the wife's heads were bobbing away in the car. I thought we were listening to another station too be honest.

Garfield Fleming from the Delfonics was walking past a record shop and heard a record he wrote and sang.. They didn't realise who he was. Just an excellent moment.

John Taylor from Duran Duran gets my respect. I was never a fan when they were big in the 80's, I always had them down as a kiddy pop band. But some of his lines are incredible.

Last time I went for a 'well person's checkup' at the local surgery, the GP told me that for the health of my heart, I should do "1/2hour of intensive effort at least once a week that you enjoy and that makes you hot and sweaty" and then gave me a big wink. How the Dickens did he know I have a Veritas Pullshave??? Sure enough, 1/2 hour later, I'm hot, sweaty and pleasantly fulfilled: What a doctor! What great advice!

Buy a Harley Benton PB-50 from Thomann and put some decent flats on it. Sorted. https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_pb_50_sb_vintage_series.htm If you like P Bass necks, you'll love this. You get Thomann's 3-Year Warranty and 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee, too...

And when looking at it too, when my Custom Shop decal arrives!

It seems to work really well, especially 'in your face' through an amp. I'm no top recording engineer or producer, I did the audio clips very quickly. There are a few other dual-coil 51-type options available, notably from Lindy Fralin: https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/split-51-p-bass/ It is a lot more expensive that the Loureiro version, though. And the main selling point is noise reduction - the fact you can approximate the sound of a 57-type split-pickup seems to be totally ignored. As a split pup is essentially a humbucker yes, you're going to get less noise in theory, but I've had no problems in that area even with a single coil. My bass is quite heavily shielded with copper tape though and is just as quiet with a single coil or a dual coil.

It's interesting as I'd heard examples of the old S2 switch on past Precisions and felt that their pickup choice didn't seem to suit the function, whereas this sounds way better by comparison. I'd put it down to the qualities of this pickup. (The S2 is great on jazz basses).

Yes - but look where my mind's gone now, no wonder 😃

Thanks for the comment, Dan. Plugged the bass into my combo this morning and wound it up - The Loureiro is a quality bit of gear and no mistake. The previous Herrick pickup was a class act in itself, but as well as having the switching options, the Loureiro is a bigger-sounding, warmer pickup overall.

Ooooh it makes me wonder!

I think I met him once. Is this him?

What do you think are your chances of finding a buyer who appreciates a neck as you do? IMO I think it's pretty certain that you'll adversely affect the value of the bass if you start scraping off the finish. You've posted this so I guess the resale value is important to you. . . . in that case, don't do it.

And here is Happy Jack with that bass!

Very nice; but you appear to have made a left-handed fretboard!

Absolutely no prob re. getting audio from the bashes. I usually record almost everything on video, so adding a dedicated, good quality audio recorder will be no problem at all. Looking forward to this!

Well, it was a lot of work - but on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfying was that?

I’ve got a Spectrum DX and it’s really decent. Maple body rosewood neck. High gloss black finish looks immaculate from several feet away though fairly dinged up on closer inspection. Single pickup is I believe essentially a p and sounds excellent. Unlike the Thunder it’s not a heavy bass. I’d definitely recommend.

Thanks for this - I don't know how peeps (on both sides) would feel about a closer link than that with the magazine? Feed each other content and promote each other to some extent??? Audio would be a perfect complement to the forum - I for one would enjoy listening to sound samples in the flow of a podcast which I don't bother to click on in a forum post. A good example of the value of audio but perhaps a bit extreme tech for some of us :-? Thanks to those who have offered to make this happen, I await with interest 🙂

As with all things bass-related; beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My first decent bass was a Thunder 1A in natural finish and what first caught my eye was the visible real wood - ie not hidden under solid paint or a plastic pick-guard. The other thing I liked was that it had its own look and wasn't a clone of an American design. Having enjoyed playing it for about 2 years I wanted to upgrade and a Thunder III was the automatic choice. Having owned that bass since 1985; I can only say that the build quality and components stood the test of time and I've never had any problems - the bass was 100% original until I did the electronics upgrade mentioned in my post above.

Apparently, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Bob Harris has been running his Country Music show since 1998. On the whole I think Bob Harris plays pretty good music on his shows. He also champions live music so he's a good'un in my book.

I use Simple Pure Fine Talc, as it's unfragranced. Mrs CP put some in a jar which I keep in the uke gig bag. If ever I get stopped on the way home from a gig and the police do a search it could be interesting....

For the avoidance of further confusion: England Flag UK Flag Flag of the Klingon Empire

It always does. Any time a thread with a title such "as are you bothered if you ding your relic bass", it is inevitably hijacked, often in a good natured way, such as here, other times less so, by posters expressing their distaste for relic basses, and passing judgement "sad" etc - often less pleasant on the instruments and those that buy them. It is seemingly not possible to have a discussion about some aspect of relic basses without it, If a thread is on a subject I'm not interested in, I don't bother posting that I don't like it,, because that would seem to me a tedious and oppressive waste of time for those that are and would like to enjoy an exchange of views on it. Further, passing judgement on posters based on the finish they prefer on their bass, as has often happened in other threads on the subject, is sad. It might be described as "bassism" i don't have a relic bass, Im so grateful that by your standards I have a life

Excellent, following this!!!

Another fan of Jess Louerio here. His pups are fantastic and great value too. I just bought a split coil bridge pup to o with my Clasic P bass pup.

Get some taller feet on that board and put the power supply and MIDI hub underneath! What do you use the hub for anyhow? I just used mine as an expensive dongle to make the Manta work with my Dunlop mini expression pedal.

I don't have a bass strung with roundwounds Dan, unfortunately... but I've quickly cobbled together a couple of short recordings. You probably won't hear much difference on computer or phone speakers, but good phones or decent monitors should give some idea of what's happening. Like I said, when plugged into an amp the difference is night and day and the new pickup will definitely do the business at rehearsals and gigs. The dual-coil is definitely more mid-forward, has a tighter bottom end and fit into the mix very easily. The single-coil is clear, has a pillowy bottom end and was a bit harder to slot into the mix. Either would work fine in a decent studio. I have bumped up the level of the bass to make it easier to hear, I wouldn't normally have it this far up in the mix. But the real advantage is going to be apparent when playing live. Dual Coil.mp3 Single Coil.mp3

I would love to hear the tonal options! (on Roundwounds .. I know... sorry lol) But I love the idea! I'm not expecting to hear much volume difference between the two as the coils are looking after different strings, but tonally I am intrigued!

You can certainly get them, but as I'd already had to be 'creative' about making space under the control plate for full-size CTS pots, I thought I may be pushing my luck. I knew there was just about enough space between them for a toggle switch.

This is like a spam email...do you or don't you open it? I'm scared my ears will hate me forever if I do...

I heard in an interview with Abraham Laboriel Sr that he'd lost the tip of one of his fingers on his picking hand very early in life. It was then that he discovered he could use four fingers as we see him do today.. I wonder if the accident evened out the length of his fingers thereby making a rolling four finger pick easier somehow. I ain't gonna do DIY surgery to find out though.

Awwww man, I had mahoosive GAS for one of these back in the day. I'd still like one now , more for nostalgia than anything.

Another quiet late shift in work, another boomer slammer of a bass put together on the whatsitminator. There are sooo many things I’d be obliged to spend £1600 on if I had spare, but this is deffo on the lottery list. The neck is roasted too.

That sounds like a great compromise, ( and based on the what onehandloose said ) now that i've done it all back to front. yes, cut through the whole foam in the shape i want, then slice the bit i've cut out in half, longways. I can then ' plug ' the hole with half of the shape i just cut. Nice work daddy o. It means i dont need a specialist cutter, just a plain old sharp knife

Now that’s a difficult question to answer because I tend to choose instruments I buy very quickly, the one I’m going to purchase ‘becomes apparent’ almost straight away. In all honesty thei was very little difference between the Talman and the Jaguar, I was equally impressed with both, but the Talman was in cream, which I’d never buy and the Jaguar was black which I’ll always go for over any other colour but the ergonomics of the Jaguar just suited me more than the Talman. The Jaguar just felt ‘right’, it is comfortable, light and I just felt at home with it. I was impressed with the Talman, however I was smitten with the Jaguar. You are right, the look of the Jaguar is lovely, I really don’t like the look of the Talman headstock, again, aesthetics but with the basses being similarly priced things like that tip the balance. I loved the matte neck on the Jaguar, I think I’m right in saying the neck on the Jaguar feels a little rounder too... I’m waffling, I just preferred the Jaguar for mostly undefinable reasons!

It looks like this might be a thing folks, I'm going to try and put decent pilot together with @SpondonBassed by the end of the month, so we'll see where it goes from there. I'll PM people individually to sort out the specifics. Thanks to everyone for showing an interest in this and feel free to keep posting any ideas in the mean time, but it's not the end of the world if this thread sinks, I'll be sure to bump it once the episodes out! 😁

Looks bit like the York->London training but with better seats. And more seats.

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.

Hey guys - great to see that you're checking out what we're doing over at SBL! Thought I'd chime in to add some clarity that may be useful in some way, shape or form. What I publish on YouTube is a completely different kettle of fish compared to the ScottsBassLessons Membership. My YouTube lessons are kinda bite size chunks of standalone info, usually on a particular subject. The latest one's (as in, for the last 18 months or so), are very "unpolished", show a lot of behind the scenes stuff, and 99% of them are all me. ScottsBassLessons on the other hand is an online school. We have a library of over 40 courses (each course is focused on a particular subject, and some are up to 10 hours long) We stream live classes for our members each and every Monday from some of the best bass educators on the planet (these are also interactive so our students can ask questions, live). I host a monthly "student focus" class - so members can submit videos directly to me, and get a video response from me in return And a bunch of other cool stuff... but I'm guessing you get the idea. Again, just to make it super clear, ScottsBassLessons isn't just me - our faculty consists of bass players such as, Gary Willis, Cody Wright, Rufus Philpot, Steve Jenkins, Rich Bown, Danny Mo Morris (Berklee College of Music), Ed Friedland, Ariene Capp, Evan Marien and many more... As I'm guessing you'll see, it's a big operation and is nothing like what I do on YouTube. I should also mention that all of our courses inside SBL are highly produced, unlike my YouTube videos. If you do wanna check it out, we have a free trial for that exact reason - so you can take it for a test drive and see if it's for you. Any other questions - just gimme a shout! Cheers, Scott. PS. I'll try and keep the meaningless drivel down to a minimum for ya @thebigyin