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Well, if we're going to get that picky... This fellow was using electrics on solid bodies in the very late 17xx's, according to Ms Shelley. The experiments were not popular with the neighbours, though, and the technique was abandoned for a couple of centuries.

As promised, here is my mémoire about the subject, written in French and published in 2001. Hope some of you will enjoy it. The link : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MH6uXdr4PAOTlt9h-vh1aVaeeYCTSfPj

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Well, it’s done (kind of). Neck pocket definitely needs a shim as I can’t get the action low enough (and I don’t like a particularly low action either!) or the pickups far enough away from the strings. Tuners are pretty dreadful - the worst (thankfully the G string) is a real pig to turn. I’ve given them a bit of lubrication so we’ll see if that helps. The A and D are OK. Truss rod works fine. Neck relief adjusted (I use really heavy strings so it went very banana-like at first tune-up) and will leave to settle overnight. Might’ve made a mistake with the wiring as the series-parallel mod doesn’t appear to work properly. No matter, I’ll retrace my wiring tomorrow, but I’ve had enough for today. Neck plays and feels pretty great actually. Shame about that tint but I’m sure I can live with it. Just the headstock decal to apply when it arrives. I’ll figure out the actual cost once I’ve worked out the gremlins detailed above, but at a rough guess I think this comes in around £180, not including strings. IIRC correctly the yellow one will come in at slightly less as the body was £15-20 cheaper.

If you understand French, I wrote a mémoire some 15 to 20 years ago about the origins of electric basses and guitars up to 1965. It was an event day around lutherie and I also made a presentation of the main usual basses and their respective sound, and also explained how to have the real sound of your instrument with any amp. I can create a topic and put a link to the pdf.

09.30 after logging online call at 11.00pm last night - message from shop apologising profusely and telling me they are setting up an exchange (pick up and drop off at same time) as soon as they can. If I still don’t like it then full refund. Phone number and name of assistant provided if I have any questions or concerns. Yeah - I can’t fault that at all. It’s the sort of service you hope for but don’t always get.

I bought a Sire Marcus Miller M7 in February. Most impressed. It has replaced my TRB5 completely. However, playing an open mic last night & turned the Frequency part of the stacked knob round to high end & turned up the Tone volume. Did number fine, then was turning back to flat when I experienced a big CRUNCH from the pot. Since I use this setting for several numbers I was concerned. Indeed by the end of the night this had progressed to several crunches quite close together. After I got home I stuck on my headphones and examined the problem. There were about 3 places quite close together crunching and if you got the setting right on top of one you got feedback overpowering everything. If you switched to passive mode you could still hear it. Not good. I changed the batteries to no avail as I know some preamps give this kind of signal when battery is low. Phoned Andertons this morning & was passed to their bassman, Dave, who asked all the right questions and after a a few minutes agreed it sounded like a faulty pot and would get the item collected and repaired. I've arranged for it to be collected week today. No probs. How it should be. Thanks Andertons. And I'm going to mark the circuit board so I know if it has been replaced or if they've just used a blast of pot cleaner. OK, I'm paranoid. Anyway it was much less painful than I expected. G.

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Stromberg catalogue 1929 At the risk of being even pickier - in 1929 the Stromberg Voisinet Company was selling flat tops with an integral pick-up and a companion amplifier which looks remarkably like something Phil Jones might have put together. So that's six years before the Rickenbacker / Electro-string Ken Roberts archtop in the article about the guy in Lewes and three years before the frying pan. Vivitone Electric Guitar circa 1933 Now let's get really picky... Gibson's Lloyd Loar was working on pick-ups and amps from 1919 onwards and in 1924 designed an electrically amplified upright bass. Though Loar was their mainstay guitar designer Gibson's management scoffed at his ideas about electrics. Outcome? Loar got the ar$e and had it on his toes to set up his own operation. By 1933 Loar's Vivitone company was chopping out arch-tops with a pick-up and a companion battery powered amp (busking, anyone?) that pre-dates the Pignose. There wasn't much demand so Loar turned his mind to the idea of electric pianos. Gibson would eventually catch up in 1936 when the company released the ES-150. Vivitone electrics / dope cubbyhole The eagle-eyed observer will have spotted that Lloyd Loar's hollow-body Vivitone has no f-holes through which to insert the electrics (early attempt to reduce feedback?). Loar's elegant solution was to put everything in a little sliding drawer on the bout which presumably also provided stash-space for jazz cigarettes. All this was 85 years ago and two years before Rickenbacker. Jazz Great Perry Botkin with Doc Kauffman's Vibrola guitar / amp combo My favourite early guitar is the Vibrola designed by Doc Kauffman which debuted in July 1936 and was taken up by Electro-String. The guitar was mounted on a pole which was attached to the amplifier. Inside the solid guitar body was a system of electrically driven pulleys which provided a mechanical vibrato effect. Doc Kauffman not only invented the first guitar whammy bar in 1928 (Les Paul bought one) but went on to found K&F with Leo Fender in 1945, leaving around the time that Leo started working on the Telecaster. In another wang-bar coincidence, around this time Leo was allegedly picking Paul Bigsby's brains for solid body guitars and nicking the design for the Strat headstock. Fender's distribution company was owned by Francis Hall who in 1951 bought Rickenbacker from Adolph Rickenbacker, he who had first produced the frying pan, drawing on his experience manufacturing steel guitar bodies for Dobro back in the 1920's. (Francis Hall's son John now runs Rickenbacker; his hobbies include firing off menacing threats at UK bass forums). Thing is, all these guys knew each other or were aware of each other's work. Fascinating times.

Good progress this morning. Got the neck on (bit fiddly but using pieces of string as the 1st and 4th strings I was able to get it there or thereabouts). It’s probably not 100% correctly aligned but it’s pretty close. Might need adjustment once the strings are on but we’ll see. Control plate, pickguard, control knobs and strap buttons all fitted. I’m a couple of screws short for the pickguard, which is more annoying just because I had three packs of the buggers last night and now I can’t find them. I’m sure they’ll turn up. Obviously had the inevitable false start with the pickguard where I’d almost got all the screws in then realised I hadn’t peeled the plastic film off. Joy of joys! Tuner ferrules are in so I’ll hopefully get the tuners on today. Need to make sure they’re correctly aligned so will be taking it cautiously from here!

So it finally happened. After a long hiatus we at last got the band off the ground and I have lost my singing in public cherry. In the end I simplified the bass line under the verses to a straight four so I literally didn't have to think about it and concentrated on delivering the vocal line. The more comfortable I became with words and structure the easier it was to add to the bass part. It's not perfect yet but I have a vocal coach and she's working on the weaknesses in my voice. A lot of work but my God it was fun.

This. Don't know why sellers don't organise their own courier, it's easy enough via ebay or via interparcel. The hard part is packing it all up.

Hi all! This episode I'm joined by the wonderful @Sibob who deserves a great thanks from us all, because he took care of all the editing/post production on this one and it sounds amazing! As requested we've gone for a totally unscripted approach and we cover a multitude of topics; making music, playing solo vs being in bands and, of course, gear! So have a listen and let us know what you think of the new format, we're all really exited to hear what you all reckon! 🙏 Now for few bits of administration gubbins; at present we're sorting out all the publication side of things, hopefully we'll be up on iTunes within a week but we're having some issues with the iTunes connect service, so as soon as it's resolved I'll post here and let everyone know. In the mean time we've got a new main page for hosting the podcast; http://basschat.libsyn.com/ and it's already live on Spotify; https://open.spotify.com/show/1AXD0U4t9RxZaFw2R29FnH It can also be found on Stitcher. Thanks to all involved behind the scenes and thanks to everyone who listened to the pilot and got this thing off the ground! Much Love and happy listening. 😊 Bo aka @Akio Dāku Edit; Issues resolved so now we're up on iTunes! https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-basschat-podcast/id1428552711 Oh and I forgot to mention we're on Stitcher too! https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/basschatcouk/the-basschat-podcast?refid=stpr

Or one person buying twelve (which isn’t beyond some of you 😂)

I did! I've gigged it hard too since it arrived and it's really special. The range of tones is fantastic and it's a joy to play. The craftsmanship is incredible. @CameronJ, try one out if you can! I want more of them! Might pick up a 235 next.

Don't worry, as you certainly noticed I'm fluent in English and my tailor is rich. 😉

For the first time in ages I have something to contribute to this thread! Did anyone else get along to Danzig last week in Brixton? Great show; only got into them in the last few years thanks to Mrs Mooseblaster, and it was a bit of a treat for us that the set featured a lot from the first few albums.

It is essentially the M80 minus the overdrive/clean blend/parallel out etc but plus the parametric mids. Great little preamp.

Tuners ahoy! Did this by eye and very pleased how it turned out. Obviously took my time with it but as long as you get the first one right you’re laughing. Might even get it strung up tonight, but not sure how to approach positioning the string tree yet.

It’s the future, man! We will pop your “I killed rock and roll” bumper sticker in the post

Glad it's getting sorted. Mine arrived today and have to say, it's perfect! Reached straight for that '74 P w/ flats, instant joy! Happy New Tube Amp Day to us all!

PS: All builds will obviously be crowned with appropriate amusing headstock decals in a Fender style. They're on the way.

Noooooo Tort is wrong on so many levels!! The only place I like to see Tort is in the bin!! 😁

Looking good!! I've never really been a fan of the sky blue-ish colour but that looks really nice, but I'm a bit of a sucker for a maple block neck...... 😀

What gets me wound up, is people doing a no finger style demo. Its all slapbass (See bottom of link). The thing is ancient too (1936), it's just wrong, him sat there slapping the stinky poo out of it. Then he breaks out a pick from nowhere and really goes to town with that too. I stopped watching when he started tapping. I want to hear its normal finger style tone. Haha only joking. There isn't any slap bass or pick playing in the demo , I wish there had been. I'm parodying demo comments.

Yes. Little known fact that FOH originally stood for Full Of Heft.

That fact has probably saved her life.

Does FOH have 'heft'? Because that's where your signal goes...

I have played the blues circuit a bit and sometimes help out backstage at the Colne Blues Festival. Generally the bigger acts use a hire SVT rig or are happy to use the house rig (usually something like a SVT4 and a 8x10 fridge). However, I have seen plenty of good pro players turn up with something like a Mark Bass or Aguilar Tonehammer rig and get a great sound. Personally I would avoid using overdrive for blues and go for something a bit cleaner - no need to go ultra vintage or anything, but avoid anything too hi-fi or with too much gain.

Recently, i was fortunate enough to be able to visit Stephen Chown and try out various basses and effects. After a trip to visit family down south, i went to see him in Bristol. The office is housed in a Victorian bridge arch, which certainly beats most offices. After a while messing with basses and pedals, i brought up the point of me making some short scales. Within ten minutes, i had two chowny swb necks in my hands. At some point, a chowny swb with a carbon top will exist (watch this space) Anyway, cheers to Stephen for allowing me to attempt an swb replica, i recommend chatting to him if you ever get the chance, and hopefully visit him in Bristol again soon.

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Just got the Zenith back. All I can say is OMG. It's gorgeous. Simon at GUS has managed to fit a 22 fret 5 string neck to a 21 fret 4 string bass and you'd never know. The passive EMG's and greasebucket tone mod sound lush with a threeway switch and wired in series and parallel. The piezo only has a volume pot but it's got a hidden secret. Instead of being battery run it's powered by a capacitor that takes only 1 minute to charge and this will last 16 hours. I've put the original brass bridge logo on the headstock instead of where it should be. In my opinion it just looks better on the headstock (it looked good on the original rosewood bridge but now that has been made larger it looked out of proportion and 'wrong'). Anyway, I know I didn't do anything to convert it (unlike some of the skilled people on BC I would have just ruined something that, in my eyes, is probably one of the best looking basses I've ever laid eyes on), but I knew what I wanted and luckily had one of the finest luthiers on the planet just down the road from me who managed to transform my thoughts into a work of art

I’m an SWR’aholic. There, I’ve said it, it’s out there and I feel strangely unburdened 😀 So as a few of you may recall, I own the daddy of all SWR amps, the SM-1500. This is an absolute powerhouse of a bass amp with 1500 real watts available if you ever need them, but that comes at a price, and that price is weight. A few years ago I was pairing the SM-1500 with either a Goliath Snr 6x10 or a pair of Goliath 4x10’s but eventually I learned that I didn’t need that type of stadium filling rig for my regular gigs and paired things back to a single Goliath, mated with an Aguilar AG500SC which is more than enough, even when headlining the Bulldog Bash to 4,000 last year. As a result, the SM-1500 lies idle most of the time in the man cave. But as good as the Aggy is, I still hanker for the SWR sound, and so I started to look for an SM-900. After a few wanted ads on here, I got a couple of leads but nothing that came to a purchase and then last night, whilst browsing a Facebook selling group I spotted what looked like a pristine SM-900 for sale in Holland. As luck would have it, I work in Holland Monday to Friday, and the SM-900 was unbelievably just 15km away from me. A few messages later and a swift trip up the road tonight and I own an SM-900 😎 Now all I need to do is ship it back to the UK and I’ll be one happy bass player.

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But you don't look anywhere near that age Blue so be careful what you wear. You don't want to look older than need be

Brilliant stuff, thank you very much for sharing.

In all fairness I'm not much of a fan of the colour either, but I just went with what I could pick up on eBay for a reasonable price. I was prepared to refinish anything I didn't like the colour of (the singer in my band is a bit handy with a spray gun) but I can live with the blue. It's red I really can't stand (incidentally I picked up a red Squier P body just before I started this pair of Jazzes - he's already on with the refin so stay tuned for another bitsa thread)!

I'm into my slightly higher end jeans (raw denim) but I couldn't hack playing in them so I popped into Next and bought a pair of black jeans with a touch a lycra in them. I wear them for every show. The lycra stops me from splitting them as I have done in the past. and I normally wear a T-shirt of a band that my singer doesn't like because I like winding him up hahaha.

Athletic cut Black t shirts, jeans and colorful Nike's. No matter what you wear, how good do we look at 65? Blue

I play in a more Chicago style blues band at the moment, although we do cover material by the Stones and similar. Having listened to a lot of older and modern blues to get myself more acquainted with blues and I can't really find 'a bass tone' used by everyone. I use a Jazz type bass, Aguilar TH350 into a Schroeder 1212L. The roundwounds I have on that bass are as dead as a set of rounds can be. I can turn up the gain and drive a bit on the amp, give the low mids a bit of a boost and that's about it. It fits with the rest of the band, whether it's an older blues song or a more up to date song. I'd use what you've got at the moment and see if it fits the band.

I use an LM3 with either one or two Markbass 2 X 10s dependent on venue size and use the LM3 line out on about 50% line out gain and post EQ for the PA. I always use a Musicman bass (don't have anything else) but ensure the sound is a good balance between thump, note definition and warmth - it also leaves the option to get more 'modern' sounding if you go in the direction of Hamilton Loomis, Keb Mo etc or some of the funky Albert Collins stuff. In all of this the bass is quite up front in the mix. I don't view using a Precision as essential - in fact Pino actually plays quite busily with John Mayer and I would see his style in that setting almost as a Jamerson/ Babbitt with more 70s/80s and rock influences - fact is he plays that Precision hard - not much difference between a Precision played hard and a Stingray played more softly - perhaps plucked nearer the neck. Works for me - in fact I'm often asked by sound guys at small festivals why you can hear my notes whereas some (but not all) other players get an ill defined sound - it ain't all the bass and equipment I think!! Come to think of it one of the best sounds I got recently was with a Musicman Bongo - so impressed was the sound guy/PA supplier he came and asked about the bass after!! I will confess to having a 2 band Classic Ray with flats and (yes I'm a Pino fan) a Fretless Ray with cobalt flats and the mutes engaged a little. I play what takes my fancy to be honest so long as the band is happy with the result. 5 strings is often useful as well - some if this more modern stuff actually uses the lower notes (as it's very funk/R and B influenced). Youll have seen from the replies in this thread the number of people who have said P with flats - there is undoubtedly some presumption of that among non bassist musicians as well. However it has not stopped me - I guess it depends who you are working with. I hear the comment about Texas Shuffle and Purdie Shuffle - it gets interesting when overly flash drummers try the latter when it isn't even a shuffle.....

Feel free to share this one of me:

Nice job. 👍 You could get a small blue paint sample pot from b&q for about £1.50 just to cover the bare wood

Did you give your bass the last rites before you put it in the 'case'? 😋

Has to be my fretless five string Kramer. It's not worth much at all, but I got it for my 18th. It still gets gigged nearly seventeen years on, here it is enjoying a sunny June afternoon depping in with a friend's band. You know when you've had a bass so long whenever you pick it up playing is just effortless... For long periods of time this was my only bass. Others have come and gone but I wouldn't swap this for anything. It's been gigged in every band I've been in, whether it looks the part or not!

The F1 sounds quite a bit different to the LM series. I had both. If I was buying again I'd buy the Marcus Miller version. The EQ points are far more sensible.