Leaderboard

It's been something of a struggle getting all of the band in the same place at the same time in recent months, what with work, family, etc., etc., but we've finally managed to pin everyone down and restart regular rehearsals (woohoo!). The rehearsal room also has a recording studio, so we booked a recording session & finally laid down the 4 original songs we've been working on to "tape". The engineer sent us copies of the raw mixes of the songs, and I have to say that they sound seriously good, and should sound excellent after mixing. We're in next week to get a better vocal take, some guitar overdubs, depending on the time another bass take on 1 song, then start mixing. When that's done, it's a case of touting it around to get some gigs. Feeling very enthused about the band just now, big grins all round! :)

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NEIL! With the proper Nordstrands arrived, I could move forward today on this. For cutting pickup chambers, I've found a way that works for me. Although many will do it quite differently with equally good results, briefly, this is what I do. I draw round the covers and centre point the critical radii: I use a bradpoint and forstner to drill those points to full depth: I then use a forstner to hog out the rest to 5mm shallower than final depth: Having at last learned how to sharpen and use a chisel (trust me - it's worth learning), I chisel to finished shape: Then rout to finished depth using a short trimmer bit. You can see here where I've broken into the cable channels: And - to my great relief, first try, no trimming or sanding: This means that the fretboard can now go on: Which means that tomorrow, I can start carving the top

I've contoured the neck and started shaping the back still got the belly carve to do I'm not sure whether I need to take a little but more out of the neck transition? Also I've still got to smooth off where the body meets the neck 😀

Indeed it is. The Diamond Jubilee!

The forecast for tomorrow is that it's going to get seriously curvy with breakouts for pick-ups and controls. Be prepared for drifts of shavings accumulating in sheltered areas of the workspace.

Is that regarded as being more or less PC than dwarf tossing?

With my collection of Ibanii, I have gone through most of the collection of Bartolinis, genuine and licensed and Nordstrand. I can see why people would choose one over the other, they are not that similar (although I haven't tried many different nordstrands). For me, the Nordstrand Big Single wins the pickup I would rather have on everything award. It is rather growly and just has a life and presence to it that very little I have used has. The custom designed pickups on the 5005, they are so different it is hard to say, although the neck pickup on that is nice. I think the bridge one has a nice sound but it is hard to go from one to the other because of the volume difference. The general barts I have had on the other basses have varied, and are all pretty good, but nothing really grabbing. Apart from the wide ones on the SRFF805, which weren't pretty good. they were pretty dull. I do have a Nordstrand big blade to use, it was going to be on the GVB bass I have, but I am not keeping that so it is a spare.

And the fretboard is on! So tomorrow is officially designated top carve day

Looks even better in the flesh. The DB didn't look too bad too.

Playing too fast / too slow, too loud / too quiet and so on... it's the same thing as playing the wrong notes as it's doing it wrong. If you're doing it wrong (and we ALL do) and somebody points it out to you, you say "thanks" or have a polite discussion and sort it out. A musician who can't do that is a bit of an derrière and a liability. It actually IS a team sport.

We played The Underground in Dublin last night. We set off at 5am to catch the 11:30am ferry to Dublin. Got to the venue about 3pm, loaded gear in then went for a relaxing drink in a bar down the road. I had a Hartke LH500 & Hydrive 410 to play through, with my trusty Sansamp Paradriver providing my eq. We went on at 10pm for an hour and it was great, considering we`re an originals band it always amazes me the amount of people singing along with the songs. As we were in Ireland we had a temporary change of one of our songs, Football Beer & Punk Rock to Football Guinness & Punk Rock, which went down very well. Finished at 11pm, chilled for about 30mins then loaded the car, set off to the port for the 2:15 ferry back. Landed in Blighty at 5:45, home at 11:30ish. Tiring but a great day and great gig, the promoters were amazing, really hope they`ll want us back.

Lovely work!!

We opened for the Sugar Hill Gang at MK11 in Milton Keynes with our Soul/Motown/Funk band. I've played the venue on open Mic nights, but this was my first foray as a band. The stage is narrow, but deep enough for us all to have room to move around. The sound was pretty good too, (awesome house PA) although I would have preferred a bit more definition around the bass tone - the sound guy just mixed it low end. We had a lighting guy as well, so all in all looked great. The crowd was great and gave us a real warm welcome, and we got a couple of bookings as well as securing a couple of return gigs as main act at the venue. The SHG were great, i you like that sort of thing, but they could work the crowd.If you haven't been to MK11, check it out - the lads there run a good, if a little unusual venue.

I'd like to add a good quality chisel makes a hell of a difference too its worth spending a little bit extra and get a 01 high carbon tool steel set as they will keep a much better edge on them!

Black will look awesome against the zebrano, in my opinion

Annoyed but mostly rather happy and a little chuffed. I put the neck screws on, the bridge on, the nut on, some (old) strings on. Need to do the relief, still need to wire it. I am rather happy with it, it plays like a want (or will when the neck is adjusted). Annoyed because in the last days it has picked up some scratches, which I am not sure how I can correct. At the moment I will live with them. I am sure they won't be the last. So I took some pictures: This is what I wanted (except the lack of wiring currently!). 2 months ago it was 2 slabs of wood and a chinese neck on ebay and a bunch of parts in warehouses. If it wasn't for the fantastic community in here, it would still be those things. Thats everyone for the support and encouragement and I would like to reiterate the point that for anyone watching, I am completely inept at woodwork, if I can do this, you can do this too (and probably a lot better).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't show his ugly face again!! I've taken out a little bit more of the neck transition and it feels nice and comfortable, belly carve done and arm carve done I'm really pleased with my first attempt of making the neck from scratch Now to order the veneer, truss rod and fretboard 😀

Any of the decent brand single or double cutaway semi- hollows or hollows will fit the period. You should invest in a period strap as well. Blue

I’m now working on fitting leds to two more of our basses. I’m going to use a “project “ bass first, then if that works, I’ll convert my wife’s Aerodyne. We’ve tried the luminous dots, but they need a lot of charging to last a gig, even after a boost with the uv torch. I’ll take photos, and try to keep a up date of progress. Mike.

3 beautiful Spectors !!!!!!!

+1 they look superb!

If I ever have a custom bass built, it will have colour-changing LED dots/inlays. I love the idea (that I just had) of LED (or maybe fibre optic) lines on a fretless. Vulgar & garish? I should hope so!

Both coming on a treat....

Do you want a polysynth or monosynth? Do you have a budget? The Nord Lead 3 is better than the 4 in my opinion as the interface is way nicer (each knob has an LED ring around it so that when changing presets, one can see the actual parameter settings). The synth on Chameleon (bass and solo) was done on an arp odyssey. The Korg minikeys version actually has a nicer keybed than the full size Korg one. Behringer are set to make a clone too which has built-in effects and a sequencer. Behringer have done a rack version of the Minimoog model D for £299. Korg Monologue and Minilogue are great little synths. If you’re looking at Prologue money then also check out Dave Smith Instruments’ Prophet Rev 2. The Prophet 6 and 12 are also great as is the OB6. Monos worth looking at are the DSI Pro 2, Moog Sub 37 and Subsequent 37 and Arturia Matrixbrute. The last one is about to go up in price by a few hundred on July 1st. Also, Moog Sub Phatty, Little Phatty and Slim Phatty. Check out the YouTube channel Automatic Gainsay for really good and in-depth reviews and demos of the Minilogue, Odyssey, Pro 2, Matrixbrute. Drop me a line if you want some more help.

I get annoyed by people who don't know the difference between "Yes I am aware of a song" and "Yes the whole band knows how to play that song." Which leads to conversations like: "hey mate do you know Delilah?" "Ah sorry man, we don't know that one." "What do you mean? You must know Delilah (starts trying to sing it to me at this point....).

Yesterday I worked on the Rosewood fretboard, got it inlaid. Turned out that the new binding cutter I bought wouldn't do the fretboard because the bearing was too far down from the cutters so today I just cut both on the router table and stuck the bindings on with CA. I started with a thick gel type with a slow setting time so I could get the inner edge of the mitre exactly in the right place then used a thin CA to do the rest, horrible stuff, gets everywhere, made a right mess of my finger nails After that I scraped the bindings flush and sanded the faces through to 3000 grit which looks very good. The Mother of Pearl is stunning and no filler used at all, feeling a little smug about that LOL I finished off the day by putting a thin coat of Lemon oil on the faces, will give a couple more before fretting them

Amp Hum Help is a great song title, perhaps by Bow Wow Wow.

I got a bit carried away with the time again on this one so it's another long form turn. Mind you the bass actually sounds like a bass in parts of it. 😱 Boil the kettle, sit back and let your mind wander to somewhere else.

What I really like is the way that you don't leave the witness marks made by the forstner bit. Is it really Len's b'day or were you referring to the long awaited pick-ups arriving?

I think you've answered the question already by saying they won't be the last. In my humble opinion; you have merely started building up a natural patina. Much better than making it look like a relic. If you like playing it, it will eventually become one anyway. Great photos. In daylight I can see how well the striking colour and the neck ornamentation work together. Don't leave us hanging though. It ain't done 'till it makes your trousers flap.

I think you've done a great job I'd be chuffed if my first one came out like yours! Have you started planning your next one? 😁

I found that interesting too. Back in the day there might have been fewer DIY enthusiasts willing to risk damaging an expensive instrument though. If the work is done by a craftsman, it's not really a problem. Drilling out worn thread and plugging with dowel wood and adhesive appropriate to the neck will restore the parent wood so that a new and correctly sized hole can be bored and re-cut for the screw thread. As an aside; the question of whether screw or bolt is the appropriate term is an unnecessary distraction since you can have machine screws that have bolt like characteristics and bolts that have screw characteristics (such as a tapered thread). As long as it is the correct fastener for the application at hand, you can call it a doofer for all I care. As an engineer, it pleases me to see thread inserts used on modern builds. It might leave a sense of distaste in woodworkers who see woodwork and metalwork as being mutually exclusive but it is a solid engineering principle. I wouldn't criticise anyone for retrofitting thread inserts to a vintage neck and bolting it down if they aren't bothered about originality but they still want to be able to do frequent truss rod adjustments.

@BreadBin is absolutely correct, B L A C K... ...do not displease us. 😈

Good lord, that's a beauty!

Alusonic?

Wow that looks fantastic

He found it was too heavy.

mine with the EMG-HZs and mystery rounds is so good straight off the truck I'll just get another PZBXP and see what flats, maybe rosewood, and different PUs do. GC had this lil devil @ $125US earlier today! for me these are the greatest discovery in ages.

So when I become famous playing a Jack Casady bass, and get a 'signature' bass of it, Jack will doubtless hear of it and adopt my signature bass (well, he would, wouldn't he..! ). He might then be offered his newer signature bass, based on his version of my version of his version of the Les Paul bass. I may well be tempted to use such a bass, and have a 'signature' offered, and the whole thing keeps going...

+1 for this, I now use one instead of my Ray, love em both ESP Surveyor basses also has a similar feel. The ibby's my favourite though.

What an amazing looking instrument and wife

My future tasty morsel

+1. I love a bit of Indian Yanny.

Indeed. I'm living proof of the inverse correlation between gear and talent.

I just don't see how type of body wood or finish can possibly affect your signal at the output jack. The difference in sound between a Ray and a P Bass (for example) is largely in the design and position of the pickup and how the electrics are configured. This being my opinion based on 40 years of listening - I'm no audio scientist and I could be wrong. Not saying you didn't perceive a difference in your own mind after all that work, but Confirmation Bias can be extremely powerful!

Got round to taking a couple of photo's outside now.