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Here’s the end result - what a stunner!!!

I always liked Howlin' Wilf, although he wasn't really a tribute act.

The basic carve of the body is almost done. Just got to take a bit of thickness off the back of the lower bout and then I'll move to the neck. I'll finish sand it all at the same time. From the view above, it looks pretty conventional. But this gives a hint that it's not quite... :

Punter came up and handed me a slip of paper once, with a request on it. At the end of the song, I announced "We've had a request from one of you lovely people, it's for a song called...", I unfolded the paper and read, "...'youre crap, pack up and fk off'..." Nah, not really. But it's only a matter of time till it does happen.

Further to my last, as they say. Just found a snap of my 7er.

I always thought masonic ladies were known as maisonettes

EBS_freak, great questions. We're at the Summer NAMM show this week, so please give us a bit of time to respond.

Dread Zeppelin are real. And awesome.

I'd suggest you are not driving the existing 4x10 sufficiently. Buying a better cab will not change anything if you are still using an inadequate head (I would imagine a Behringer amp taken from a combo will not have much power). Upgrade the amp and continue to borrow the Hartke for now would be my advice.

We'll do pretty much any request as long as it's from the 20th century. Any requests for Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys, etc. receive a good telling off

We do abba, so that is why that doesn't cause a problem for us. One of the heavy songs, I use the full distortion for that one. We get that quite a bit. People get a bit annoyed with me - "Do you do any oasis", "Who?", "Oasis!", "Sorry mate, never heard of them", "Dont be stupid, you know - lateleeeey.. gonna be the one that saves meeeeee...", "Nah sorry, doesn't ring a bell". I really really detest oasis! On the other hand, one guy at the last gig was really insistant we should do Hazel O'Conner 'will you'. Doesn't strike me as a good song for a party / dancy band like us.

Hi All, We've caught wind of this discussion and wanted to chime in a bit more "officially". First off, we're thrilled about the enthusiasm and the discussion here regarding our latest model, the N8. Keep it coming and we'll do our best to chime in as-needed. The response above is accurate. We wanted to provide a bit more context: Often times the recommended minimum impedance is stated for damping factor reasons, frequency response reasons, or as a precaution. Whatever the case may be for why Shure stated 9 ohms in its specs, the results of the tests we conducted show otherwise. We have tested the N8 with both the Shure P9RA and the Sennheiser G3 EK 300. Both body packs drive the iem well with no problems. The output impedance of both packs is on the lower side so they are able to provide MORE than enough juice should you choose. Neither of the packs presented any "cutting-out" or went into any over-current protection modes, etc... We were impressed, so we decided to try an artificial 4 ohm load as well. The results were the same. Both packs remained stable and were able to drive the 4 ohm load with no problem. The THD stayed low at an impressive 0.01% on the Sennheiser and 0.04% on the Shure. The voltage across the load was 1.9 on the Sennheiser and 1.55 on the Shure. Driving the N8 "as is" with either of those two body packs should not be a problem based on our tests. Also, we beta tested the N8s over the last few months with a number of people (including Nathan East himself) and there were no reports of any issues related to driving the iem with any of their amps, phones, body packs, and other devices. We're all ears so please keep the feedback and questions coming!

Seen this a few times in the last couple of days. Fortunately, if you look closely, in the text of the fob-off the word "listing" is actually a link back to the original item. Still a frustrating pain in the ar$e though. I'm guessing there's a rationale behind this, not including an obvious link & making the actual link inconspicuous, but it's anyone's guess what it is. Just another step in the ongoing process of making Ebay hostile, awkward, unintuitive and irritating.

We regularly announce songs as requests , it engages the punters quite well cos although we might not have time to do all the requests , at least they know we are trying , we get away with as long as they don't see the set list 😉

Both types, country and western

I like it.

We only play requests when we’re asked.

Last Saturday we'd just finished playing Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac when a rather drunk punter asked us if we knew any Fleetwood Mac.

Recording the gigs and playing back afterwards can be a useful tool - sometimes people don't realise quite how fast they are playing.

Updated on this, having lived with the bass for a few weeks: it’s now wearing flatwounds, which feel and sound excellent. It’s completely the wrong sound for my band so I’ve not gigged it yet, as I’d planned, but I have a project in mind which might or might’nt happen, for which it’d be perfect. Great for noodling around at home to old Motown tunes too, what fun!

I've been trying to keep this picture quiet, careful, everyone will find out...

You have a long and fun journey ahead of you Ben! Since you mention wanting an octave pedal for chordal things, I'm guessing you have an octave UP pedal in mind. There are basically two classes of octaver - analog and digital - which should be thought of as different things. If you want a clean octave up, you need a digi octaver. For octave down, people generally agree that digital sounds wimpy, while analog is awesome (and can get very synthy). NB analog octave up does exist, but for technical reasons it has more in common with a fuzz effect - you won't get a clear sounding octave-up note. A classic combination for synthy sounds is Octave > Dirt > Envelope Filter. Octave can be either digital-up or analog-down. Different flavours... I like using both at the same time ;). Also defo worth playing around with the order of these three effects though. Xotic BB has you covered for dirt, at least for the time being. Fuzz (especially gated fuzz) can work very well for synthy stuff though, so you might want to add one in due course. I personally go Analog Octave Down > Fuzz > Digi Octave Up > Overdrive > Envelope Filter. From what it sounds like you are looking for, I would recommend that you buy a digital octave pedal (as per my first point) and envelope filter to begin with. Combined with your BB, these will give you a flavour of what the octave/dirt/envelope combination is all about. You will probably end up adding an analog octave pretty quickly after that. Followed by a fuzz. My personal recommendations are as follows - DIGITAL OCTAVE: TC Sub'n'up. No-brainer IMO, check my post on page 2 here for why. ENVELOPE FILTER: More than any other pedal, this really is all down to personal preference and playing style. You will have to try a few. MXR Bass Envelope Filter is a decent starting point. Very popular, and very tweakable so you can get to know what you do and don't like. ANALOG OCTAVE: Boss OC2 is the classic, but it has its problems, so a lot of people prefer modern interpretations of this pedal - check out 3leaf Octabvre, MXR Bass Octave deluxe. Those kind of build out from what the OC2 can do as a starting point. Aguilar Octamizer and any of the COG models are very popular as well (but a bit less focused on 'nailing the OC2 thing'). FUZZ: Many many options. For 'synthy' I would start by checking out 3leaf Doom, Darkglass Duality, Zvex Mastotron. NB there are quite a few all-in-one 'synth' pedals out there. My personal preference is to avoid these, because I feel like I get more versatility out of multiple 'specialist' pedals. I'm also picky so I like to be able to choose each element of the 'synth' signal chain. Perhaps others will chime in with recommendations for 'all in one' pedals though, if you want to go down that route. Also, I personally don't like modulation effects, so somebody else will have to chime in for Chorus pedal suggestions!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yamaha-bex-4-hollow-body-bass-guitar/152848038036?hash=item239673f894:g:0l0AAOSw9idaEHUW

Good afternoon, JB, and ... Plenty to read and amuse you here, and lots to learn and share.

Been there, done that, tee-shirt etc... It's the first forty years that are the worst, after which things sometimes tend to get slightly better.

One of the best interfaces I’ve seen which combines presets with WYSIWYG is the Moog Little and Slim Phatty which has LED rings around the knobs which show where the current value is. Each of the four knobs has a few buttons which select which parameter is adjusted and the ring displays the value accordingly. Nord Lead 3 has a similar arrangement but it is one-knob-per-function.

Yeah Im actually playing with the Ping Pong effect right now with "Tail" whatever that is, sounds great actually, Im not hearing any drop off in bass either Ive tried uploading a quick demo from garageband, pingpong with a stero delay overdub, straight in, no effects bass demo - 26062018, 17.55.mp3

Yes. I'd also consider looking for an Orange Terror Bass 500 if I were you (£300 - £350 used). Along with Ashdown ABMs these are the best amps I've owned. Have a nice grind in the preamp. EQ isn't especially powerful, and some would say they are a one trick pony, but it's a really, REALLY good trick! And they're RIDICULOUSLY loud...

New updates to the NT Series bass designs. Here's the 4 and 5 string. These are near final.

A friend of mine has always wanted to form a mariachi band covering rock bands called Juan Jovi! I'd pay to see that, I really would!

I wouldn't bother with a pre-amp pedal. Put the money towards a decent head, which will have a good pre on board. As far as recommednations is concerned, you need to go and audition a few to see what works for you. One man's meat and all that.

We closed the Tackley Beer Festival on Sunday. A good fun gig and the (gluten free) beer was great. Unfortunately our photographer couldn't get a complete picture of the band on the trailer (technical issues I believe) So just my smiling face I'm afraid. Regards, Doug

I agree. Other things to look at in that bracket are the Moog Sub(sequent) 37 (£1200) which has two VCOs plus sub and a two slot mod matrix. It’s very hands-on with most stuff immediately to hand. There’s a bit of extra stuff in the menu but it’s easy to navigate. The Arturia Matrixbrute is amazing and presently can be had for £1400 until July 1st, whereupon it will go up by a few hundred. The has 3 oscillators. Two of them have 3 basic wave types which have a shape mod and all types can be played at once, per oscillator! This is incredibly powerful. It’s mainly mono but there’s a paraphonic mode which allows 3 notes to be played at once. The routing possibilities on this are immense (as is the Pro 2) but everything is immediately visible and to hand via the 16x16-button matrix (which also doubles as the preset selector (direct access to 256 presets) and the sequencer. A used Prophet 12 can be had for £1400. Also check out the DSI Rev 2 and Korg Prologue which are poly synths. Check the Marc Doty videos on the Pro 2 and Matrixbrute. For dipping your toe in the synth waters, Korg Monologue, Minilogue and Behringer Model D or Roland SE-02 are all worth considering.

Do you cut your own inlays? If not I can heartily recommend Small Wonder Music. He did an excellent job on mine and very reasonably priced I thought for the work involved

So unlike me it's time for a preview of what's coming up, the headstock design. After some discussion with my friends we shortlisted down to two designs from which I chose the one below. I have always made my basses under the name "Dragon" because I'm Welsh but I was told it made them sound like a cheap Chinese copy of a BC Rich made for school kids to pretend to play metal in their bedrooms, so maybe a rebranding to the Welsh word for Dragon which is "Ddraig". Either that or at the American Luthier Bruce Johnson's suggestion I rename to "Daft Bat" which is a strong possibility. The design will be a Welsh dragon in white Mother of Pearl with the brand name Ddraig either in Paua or Abalone. I haven't got any Paua yet but I've ordered some and should be with me by the end of the week with luck.

That's the one I got mine from, and so did several others at the time.

No on should be "following" anyone. Everyone in a band is responsible for playing in time and keeping to the correct tempo. I don't understand why there are so many posts about bad and incompetent musicianship referring to "our" drummer. These posts should be saying "our old" drummer. If someone can't or won't keep to the tempo they should go. Sooner rather than later.

They're all beautiful!! :)

Yes the in-house guy seems to like low-end bass. My sound is anything but and I`ve had "the discussion" about not DI`ing a flat Precision sound as he would destroy the sound of the band. He`s pretty reasonable though, and once you explain to him what you`re after he works pretty well to get it.

So how many pairs of shoes and handbags does this equate to for Silvia?

I really like it - but it's Fender so will be overpriced.

I did a review video of the bass, the day I received it. There’s a NBD thread here: and the video review here:

As well as being reliably spot-on, skank's response hints at how things have changed in the last few decades. It seems that we've moved away from a time when the single reliable measure of success was "the charts." Getting a song or album to cause a small ripple in the appropriate Top 40 would have been a good indicator of an early success; being able to follow that up would indicate that you were more than just a "one hit wonder." Trouble is, now that everyone takes their music differently - whether buying physical reproductions, paying for downloads, not paying for downloads, paying for streaming, finding free streams, or just good old-fashioned shoplifting - it's much harder to put a single measure on success. Streaming has only recently been added to physical sales and downloads as a measure for The Charts, and even then in a fairly arbitrary and clumsy fashion. But with this, of course, it now seems more acceptable - indeed, more sensible - not to desire the old trappings of fame as a musician. Most of us have accepted that a Los Angeles penthouse with booze, drugs and groupies available via Deliveroo is greedy, puerile, and unrealistic, and would settle instead for our music being sufficiently important to enough people that we could make a steady income from it. Steve Lawson is the first example who springs to mind, of somebody who has embraced a different, more low-key model of success, and seems to make a comfortable living from a loyal following and a healthy ratio of fingers to pies.

Here's my more modest contribution - a recent acquisition, my NS-2JR-A. It's a 2008 Czech reissue of the 1983 original, with 83 of each colour (black, White and Natural) available worldwide. Very happy to have mine, the active EMGs making for a nice super-Jazz, if not perhaps to traditional Spector specifications. Sorry they're a bit lop-sided. I bought the wife an iPad for anniversary - haven't mastered it!!! Bass/hound crossover!