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Leave enough room for everyone. Sounds simple and obvious but I turned up late one night and the guys had already set up. . . and left no space for the bass at all! They just looked blankly at me when I asked where they expected me to go, and then got a bit ratty when I told them all to move up to make room. What a bunch of idiots!!

May their next turd be a hedgehog.

It is a pleasure to be here. I would like to invite people to share thoughts and invite you all to get to know me. Sending you my best regards, Jeff

Blood and sand, Jez! For a start they look wonderful (mine's the one at the bottom if you are sending them as free gifts to deserving sycophants ) Secondly - we retirees rely on you employed folks to keep us in the manner we once dreamed could have been possible until we all realised that money purchase pension schemes are just charity donations to rich financiers. So it is always a concern if the employed tax-payers start letting their attention drift away from their prime purpose - that is of keeping the state pension provision afloat. So to come to the leading question - when on earth do you have time to work on your proper tax paying job if you have all those beauties on the go and should Phillip Hammond be informed? More specifically, do I need to tighten our family's belts and hide the gin from MrsAndyjr1515? Trust me, she's a very scary woman when she's sober! Ps. My wife's solicitors have served a cease and desist request based on the hurtful comment above. She wishes me to clarify that she is a very scary person whether she has consumed gin or not. I fully concur and apologise for what might have been a seen as a misleading statement.

Not much progress as I've been working on my semi hollow basses but here's a piccie of what builds I've currently got on the go....it gives a good impression of how dinky these headless things are!!

Erm...this just happened...and my pants are ripped.

Interesting development. I've posted a thread about it in "Basses" as well as it might be of interest to the general community. Oil City Pickups are doing a one-off 51 P single coil style pickup (which he's agreed to sell me ) using ceramic bar magnets, and the exact dimensions required to be the same architecture as a certain other bass which uses two single coils (no, not Jazz - the other one which rhymes with fakenpicker) It's got big slug poles in it, and it should produce quite a bit of that snarly midrange grunt which many like in "that tone". I'm going to fit it to this one and put the split coil into my solid body 51P.

I've actually just shared this to my facebook page, you never know, some of my FB friends may donate. They are mostly musos and it may touch their hearts too

Yet another thread that makes me realise how special our band are. Everyone turns up about the same time, we have a quick drink, unload all the gear from our respective cars and just get on with it. Very quickly the stuff is setup and seems to be in a good enough place for people to be ok. At the end of the night we take it all apart, put it in cars and go home.

Old valve gear is the easiest to work on. Point to point wiring and easily accessible parts make working on them not unlike working on a vintage car. Modern amps are a PITA, just like modern cars. They're made with everything attached to circuit boards, including the pots and jacks, and getting those boards out to work on them can require removing every knob and nut on those pots and jacks. It can take over an hour to remove a board to replace a component, if you can replace the component at all. Often the cost of repair exceeds the cost to replace the amp. It took me an hour to even find the oil filter on my last car, while changing it required pulling off a tire. Things today are designed to have the lowest possible labor cost to build them, with no regard to how difficult and expensive that makes it to fix them.

Finish pretty much done - it'll take maybe a week to fully harden before it can be micro-webbed, but I can finish the fret-levelling, hatch magnets and shielding / electrics installation while I'm doing that. Although I've had issues with the gloss version, the satin version of the Osmo Polyx is really straightforward to apply and gives a nice looking and tough finish.

Certainly working for them currently, but I think as a long term option it is a bad move. They are iconic because the were the instruments played by the youths in groups of iconic groups. Those groups when they start don't have a great deal of money, if you put your instruments into the Gibson custom shop / stockbroker and retired banker toy, you make money now, you don't get seen by the people who are going to be buying things to emulate their icons. When I was growing up, a lot of my bass heros played them, so I still love the look, if not the instruments themselves. They were something I wanted. When I watched top of the pops, at least one in 3 groups would have one. Now? doesn't seem to be the case any more.

I don’t think he’s changing the rules, as has been mentioned, he’s building on a lot of ideas that have gone before. However!!!!....his interpretation of those ‘rules’ and theories is wholly individual, a pure joy to listen to him explain theory and musical ideas. I actually think he’s incredibly important for music at the moment, he’s completely invigorated an entire generation of theory lovers. I don’t agree that he is danger of ‘falling’ into easy listening, he’s way too in control of everything he creates. If he writes something ‘easy listening’, it’s pure choice, and that’s fine. I actually find it refreshing where someone writes music that is beautiful and relatively accessible, instead of writing what they are technically capable of all the time. Si

To be honest, part of my excitement is the idea of a different tonal platform for a bass I'm familiar with. We have a lot of basses out there that proscribe to a specific formula: Split P pickup on P body 2x Jazz Singles on a J body 1xMM Humbucker on a MM body And so the list goes on. Now, I did a PJ partscaster last year and I have to say, I found the combination of the two to offer some tonal difference, but for me, it wasn't huge. I'm interested in the idea of a bass with something out of the ordinary. Ric pickups use ceramic bar magnets and oversize slugs with 44awg wire in a specific wind shape - it does make them different to a Jazz or a 51P single coil. I really like the idea of getting that different formula and sticking it in a 51P body made of swamp ash or the hollow variant I have just done to see what it sounds like. Will it sound exactly like a Ric? Don't care frankly. For me the experiment is "how different will it sound to a normal 51P single coil?" Ultimately, it will sound like me playing that bass - but I hope to do a compare and contrast for the interested amongst you

The dead one of course. The other one has just been copying him and faking it all these years.

I read up on a few of the different oils at the time and I seem to remember that it doesn't come from nor is it exclusively for use on Teak. ...but then I didn't really believe that you'd get Danish Oil by applying infeasibly great pressure to a Dane either.

PHOTO OF THE MONTH! That photo has made me concupiscent. I'll just sit here with a cushion in my lap for the next hour or so. If we're picking favourites, mine's the one at the end of the photo. When you've finished, have it washed and sent to my room.

I've always thought the Stream was sex on a stick..

I got one of the Surveyors and it is not leaving any time soon, what a well made and versatile bass. I love how it plays and the B string is just Thunder from the Gods. Love it Love it Love it. I like the H series too, wouldn't mind one of those too

We always get the drums set up first, with my amp on drummer's left and geetar on his right. Then we all drop 3 tabs of acid each and start on the Buckfast to prepare ourselves...

Which one..? ...

Don't talk nonsense!!

I'm quite fussy. We sort where the PA is going first, then POWER! Got fed up of everyone acting as individuals, everything being in place and nowhere to plug in. Now we operate a factory line approach. The singer and I sort the PA and power, the drummer puts his mat in place, lights/amps/ monitors go in. Cases are not allowed in the performance space, drives me nuts moving everything three times because the stage is cluttered. I've trained the drummer to assemble his kit off stage, we run the mic cables to him and the bass/guitar mics with the kit out of the way. He then slots his stuff into place whilst we do the last of the lights and we're ready. It's an 8 piece band and too many people helping actually slows us down. If I'm playing with another band that's got pro level players I always astonished at how quiet and fuss free the process is.

I think that distinction requires that you're in on the joke. I've never heard of Steel Panther, I doubt many people have. It's not obvious that it's a joke.

I've never understood this. Guitarists are even worse for it. The best bit of advice I ever had - set up, plug in, tune up, play a couple of notes to make sure it works, PUT IT DOWN!!

A list... Three words currently being woefully misused... a) Iconic b) Literally c) Decimated I also abhor High Rising Terminal, obviously. One more thing that really grinds my gears is the current trend of beginning an answer to a question with a drawn out “So...” or, particularly prevalent at the moment amongst politicians (I think I remember Tony Blair starting this) starting the answer to a question with “Look...”, a confrontational beginning to an answer that invariably avoids the initial question.

At the risk of repeating myself, can't believe the generosity shown from this forum. Way exceeded anything i could have expected, so again, thank you very much to everyone.

Or perhaps it’s the better way and all us right handed players are at a disadvantage? After all, why does it have to be one way? And if you think about it, when playing normal right handed mode it’s the left hand that has a more complex job to do which is counter intuitive to me as a right hander. If you think of the precursors string instrument wise (assuming double bass played with bow) the right hand had a far finer set of movements to perfect. But short of buying one of each and exactly matching practice from the start to see which feels easier I am not sure how you would prove this one way or another.

iReal Pro works for me.

I see A LOT of praise for the Keeley compressors, now they have combined it with their Overdrive. I imagine this will sell very well https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2018/07/18/keeley-electronics-introduces-the-aria-compressor-and-overdrive-pedal/

Ok, I’ve done a quick picture to help explain. If it’s the same as mine you put a tommy bar into the hole marked with the white arrow and wind the ring down onto the top of the chuck. Once it’s in contact you can force the chuck off the Jacobs taper by continuing to unscrew the ring, some considerable force is needed. I’m assuming that where I have the chuck you will have the morse taper adapter which may come off in the same way?

Josi is a top bloke. I've used his stuff in upgrades. His humbucker sized P90s are fantastic. Frankly couldn't care less where they're made (or the price point), they're just so damn good.

That reminds me of Rory Bremner's impression of Blair, which always began with the nervous blink-and-grin, followed by "Look..."! It seems to have been replaced with the increasingly popular "Let me be clear...", which, as we all know, means, "Let me be evasive and obfuscatory..."

Let me look when I get home from work. I have one or two of which one has adjusters.

Had it clarified by his engineer of ten years, Macca writes with his left. This thread has also had me trying to play left handed, ironically the right hand job is pretty straightforward but I can't make my left do what I want! (I'm a southpaw that plays right)

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Well it's better than Moondance.

Maybe the dog is watering it....?

Done. Only just found the page so hopefully this helps a little. Makes me feel good to be part of something like this. Well done to all our fellow Basschatters that offered some support. Dave

I just wanted to encourage those who had posted in this thread before the forum software change to repost your Laklands!! We're obviously missing a bunch of lovely photos from before the software change happened, so would be great to get the visuals happening again in this thread Whilst mine survive above, here they are again 😍: Custom US 44-94 (passive P/J) & Skyline 55-01 (upgraded US Bart dual coils & NTMB pre). Si

Real Electronics in Sheffield are the approved repair company for MarkBass. From comments by people who have used them they are pretty quick and reasonable. http://www.realelectronics.co.uk/Markbass-Amplifier-Repairs

I can't make up my mind with compression. I have been using a Spectracomp for a while and thought all was good. I didn't use it at the last band practice and now can't work out why I thought I needed it.. Typical!

If you haven't got the pedal because you thought you needed it, I really wouldn't bother with it. Compression can really mess your sound up if you don't really know what you're doing. I'd avoid using it until you personally think that's the exact effect you need.

I switched to 5 strings because absolutely I needed to, came to a point where it was a chore working around the limitations of a 4 with regards to songs we play. Not something I wanted to do (I had some very nice and expensive 4 strings I was perfectly happy with) but needs must. Playing a 5 is much easier too, wouldn't go back if I could.

Andy Fraser’s solo on Mr Big from the Free Live album; not technically difficult, but superb build and note choice.