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Or it's plectrum, or pick, or flatpick ... you can call it what you like. 'Hey Charlie, I've forgotten mine, can I borrow a pick?' 'Sorry I've only got plectrums.' 'You're a tosser ... just lend me one of your plectra.'

I'm having one of those mornings remembering friends departed that you get from time to time. The post above about the white spirit soaking into the rosewood reminded me of my favourite oil finish that was explained to me by a Devon cabinet maker called Alan Peters and I thought I'd share it here. This oil finish isn't for the light hearted, impatient or fretboards, it is best suited to darker solid timbers, Walnut being a perfect example. Many people might well just slap on four or five coats of Danish oil and call the job done, well yes that has it's place and can be more that adequate for many applications but it lacks that little something and lacks a lot in durability especially on furniture but less so on guitar bodies So why bother mentioning this, well if you see the two side by side there is no comparison at all visually, the depth of colour is really brought out by this method and after time (several years) the colours and subtleties of the wood explodes with life whereas the four or five coats of Danish oil will just have faded a little. So what is it and how do we do it: Well you finish sand your piece, then with a damp cloth wipe the surface to raise the grain, then with 240 - 320 paper sand it smooth again, do that again three or four times until the wood remains smooth after wetting leaving a good hour between goes. Your piece is now ready for the first part of the oiling. In a jar of some sort mix 50:50 white spirit and RAW linseed oil, now wet the surface of the wood, almost flood it if you can, every time the surface has soaked up the oil re flood it and keep doing this until the wood will absorb no more, give it a wipe between coats to remove any dust with a clean rag with white spirit on it. That process may well take a good week, sometimes even longer until it has become saturated. The wood now has to be left to evaporate out the with spirit, so a warmish room for maybe two weeks with good air circulation. Once the smell of white spirit have gone and it feels dry the next stage is a two stage process using BOILED Linseed oil. The first part is with the oil diluted as above with white spirit, once a day flood the surface, let it stand for 20 minutes then wipe dry and leave for 24 hours and do it again. If the surface stays wet looking after the 20 minutes let it rest for a couple of days then move on the the part two stage which is exactly the same but with undiluted boiled linseed oil, you need four or five coats of this until the surface layers are totally saturated and won't absorb any more. Now you need to let that fully dry for about a week before moving onto the final stage. Lightly sand the surface with 320 grit paper then wipe the dust off with a clean rag dampened with white spirit then wipe it dry. With a clean cloth apply the first layer of Danish oil, wet the surface, leave it for about 20 minutes then with the same cloth wipe the surface dry, leave it 24 hours to fully set then lightly sand with 320 grit. Do that again the next day. On the third day we change our technique slightly, we apply the oil and wait 20 minutes (or so depending on how quickly it dries), then with the same cloth rub the wet slightly sticky oil in circular and figure of eight patterns as in French polishing until your left with a swirl free finish, the oil will thicken during this and get pushed into the pores of the wood. The next day if the wood feels perfectly smooth then do the same again, if it feels slightly rough cut the surface back slightly with 0000 wire wool first. You might need four or five applications like that until you feel the surface is as you want it. Once the last coat is on leave it overnight then have a good look at it in the morning, it should be perfect, if not then with a very clean soft duster buff the surface in the same patterns as you did with the oil then it should be 100% perfect and with a high sheen. Once we're there we again set the wood aside for a week to fully set and become durable. If you want a satin finish then at this stage just cut the surface back with 0000 wire wool That's about it, ongoing maintenance would be an occasional wipe with Teak oil as needed. Your surfaces should now be deep and full of lustre and be ultra hard wearing. Whether or not you want to do that on a bass body is up to you obviously, it's a long process but if you have a nice piece of wood it may be worth it. Lastly a word of caution, those rags with oil on, dispose of them after every use either by laying out flat to dry before binning them or by burning them, oily rags can and often do spontaneously combust. I once did a job fitting out the local church with new fittings (alter etc.), I needed to do a little oiling there for some reason I forget but rather than take the rag back to the workshop I threw it into a public dustbin outside the church, four or five hours later that bin caught fire Whoops!

Dear Basschat, meet Thunderblackstone.....

My Stingray only does one thing. I tried it as a toaster, a car jack, a ladder, a cheese slicer and a hammer... but it was totally useless so now I only use it to play bass.

Stingray and Telecaster only do one thing? !!!!!!!!!! sure thing... love it!

There, I've said it. Les

What’s wrong with 'guitar luthier'? A luthier someone who makes/repairs stringed instruments, which usually consist of a sound box and a neck. Derived from the Latin (?) for Lute. Seems logical to me then that a guitar luthier is one who makes/repairs guitars. (Similarly 'driver' is generic, but 'bus driver' is specific) Back on topic, isn’t "pick" yet another Americanism? It’s a fairly recent change, it’s always been 'plectrum' for the 50+ years I’ve been playing guitars of one sort or another.

No. Not at all. I really, really wouldn't. I have absolutely zero interest in a £2000 wonder-bass that plays like butter and sounds superb, and for which I have no justifiable need.

If somebody was looking for an argument they've plecked the right topic.

And it's a scratchplate not a pickguard. I'll accept plecguard though.

More feedback. Dug made its first appearance with an electro project featuring no guitars and loads of keyboards last night. They band noticed a difference straight away in my bass sound. "I can hear you more clearly. But there also seems to be more space for my keys". - The keyboard player This non-bassist's feedback speaks volumes. I have found myself being more judicious with the bass settings on this unit. Much more so than on any other Tech 21 produced I've used. But, so what? It's a very different beast and I love the fact that it has a very distinctive voice. And one that just 'sits' really well in the mix.

But which topic is best for metal?

I agree - where would be on basschat if we ever did a topic here more than once? 😂

But your spelling has never been the same since

OK - a bit more info for anyone who might want to build an acoustic. Why all this fuss about the kerfing strip joint line? Well - for a start, remember that the top is spheroidal. Therefore, the kerfed strip surface isn't going to be square to the sides - it's going to be at a slight upward angle from the edge of the guitar sides. Wouldn't just sanding it flat be OK? Well - no. Remember that this will have binding fitted. And therefore after gluing the top or back, this much (dashed blue line) is going to be routed away! So it is just as important that the inner surface of the kerfed strip is flush with the (curved) top edge as the edge. In fact, arguably, more so. What you are after, as well as a closed joint at the outside, is for the inside to be also tight like this: Note, by the way, that the structural braces on the right - the X brace and the front cross brace - go through the kerfed strip to the inside edge of the sides and form part of the structural integrity of the sound box. The tone bar braces peter out at or before the join. The other tip is to not glue the top until you've done the same fit job on the back - otherwise it's impossible to see if you've got a decent internal fit! And so with the top now fitting internally and externally: ...it's time to tidy up and brace the back (this will be a 15 foot spheroidal radius) before I go through the fitting process - which is actually more complicated because the depth of the sound box slims as it approaches the neck joint. But while I've got a flat piece of joined back wood to work with, I need to put in the decorative strip hiding the join line. I use a Dremel and precision router base. Normal stuff - always try out the set up with some scrap: ...and next job is doing the full length rout on the back and gluing in the strip.

I'm with Reggaebass the lighter neck looks better! Add some blocks and that will look awesome!! 😁

you rally shouldn't have a problem. Amps and speakers are rated by completely differet techniques so their power ratings bear little relationship. Amps are really simple beasts. They amplify the voltage until they reach the voltage of the power supply and this is their upper limit and the rating of the amp is worked out from there. That's the loudest sound an amp can make Speakers break in two ways, put too much power in and they will overheat and eventually fry. Alternatively put too much bass through them and they will over extend the cone moving the voice coil out of the magnetic field and maybe even banging it against the back of the magnet. Their testing is simple enough, pass a signal through the speaker increasing the power and eventually it burns out. just below that is it's power rating. When you play music however you don't pass a continuously high signal through the speaker. You play a note and it decays before you play the next, sometimes you play the notequietly sometimes louder and sometimes there are breaks. All this means that your average power to the speaker is way less than you think. Your loudest sound might need 100W to be clean but the average power for your speakers will be only 2W, they won't over heat. The main threat is bass over extension. The other way o looking at it is the sound levels. You say you play at modest levels. Well even in a rock band going flat out you won't need to be louder than the drums. You'll usually get something like 99dB/W out of a couple of 12's so 150W will be loud enough to do almost anything other than massive bass boost or drown out the est of the band. In reality your quietish on stage sound means you won't be running at 800W ever. There's no protection against idiots thrashing their gear with no respect for everyone else on stage or their gear but I don't think you need to worry, just be aware. I'll use the car analogy. Your car may rev up to 5000 revs but if you thrash it round Brands Hatch never letting the revs drop below 3000 then it won't last long, drive it normally and you'll probably never get anywhere near 5000 revs and never need to worry about the limits.

Many people see music school like ordinary school. They want to be told stuff and do the tasks outlined - which is what happens at school. SBL is more like university. You train yourself, with the input of a guru. Well, that's how it was in my day anyway. If you took charge of your education you got a first. If you went along to take notes in lectures and hand in the essays on time you got a 2/2. Understandably those who didn't go to college reference their music training needs by what they know - the school model, spoon feeding. Monkey see, monkey do. Scott himself is self taught. He worked out what he needed to know and then scoured the world (quite literally) for the bassist who could help him do that. Didn't he travel to Barcelona to learn from Gary Willis? It's that extraordinary - almost nerdy - focus and self discipline is why he's where he is. It reflects in the way SBL is.

This. My teacher does push me and teach me new good things during lessons, but even more important is that I know that I have to remember what he's taught me, and make progress between lessons, or I'll be letting him down and wasting his time. There have been many dull days when the only reason I've picked up my bass was that I needed to be able to look him in the eye at my next lesson.

Agreed, If you play as many bar gigs as me and you've been around for a few summers, you don't come in like "rock stars". It should be clear you are part of what we call " the help ". Your no different than the bar staff or those washing dishes. Blue

Learn to play Smile by Lily Allen. Don't stray, noodle or embellish. Get the dynamics and the rhythm spot on. Understand how the bass line groove works against the drums on paper. This is an exercise in restraint, focus and time to concentrate on technique. The first person to say 'oh that's easy, it's 4 notes' has totally missed the point of my post. K.I.S.S for a reason.

Picktrum.

Sunday gig with the seven piece "little big band".We played the same venue as we did in March("Jazz at the Junction" held in a Legion hall) and had another full house of about 100 in a smallish room and they loved it.We did our usual two sets of swing charts and then a shorter Dixieland set where I switch to tenor banjo and one of the band plays tuba.We got another standing O at the end and will be booked back and we got paid. The big thing for me was the gigging debut of "Marilyn",the Englehardt Swingmaster blonde bass I got a few weeks ago.I usually use my Yamaha SLB200 EUB with this band but decided to introduce Marilyn to the world at this gig and it was great.I ran through my K&K Pure preamp into our Bose PA(which can be set for different types of basses including acoustic upright) and the sound was perfect and I had lots of good comments about the sound and the sheer visual impact of that big blonde bass. I used the K&K Double Big Twin pickups that came with the bass(it is ten years old) but will be using the new KNA DB-1 pickup next time, I got it too late to be used for this gig. Not a very good pic but you can see Marilyn waiting in the background while we finish setting up before the gig.

I imagine most of their members are American, what's Scott going to do?! Si

Or lack of given my work schedule at the moment!!

I loved my LMiii, but i always found the eq and vle and vlf a confusing combination. I always thought theyd be better with either a 5 band eq or just the vle or vlf. However, scratching my head to remember, isnt there a daft set up with the markbass regarding on, off, and flat? I dont think 12 noon is flat on some mb amps? Cant quite remember, but worth a check.

+ 1 for Hit me with your rhythm stick. Too shy by Kajagoogoo - deceptively tricky to get just right . very melodic and low on repetition and box patterns Club Country by the Associates for pick style. Cant think of a better bassline played with a pick Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder - IMO the best for getting used to moving up and down the fretboard and using all fingers on your fretting hand Love games by Level 42 - great for 'machine gun' technique slap n' pop

The System won't let me 'like' as many times as is deserved, so have a balloon bouquet' instead...

As a trainer myself by work I should support this idea, were it not for one thing: music teachers are of very variable quality. Teaching is a skill and an art and too many tutors do it purely to augment their income as musos. My first bass tutor was a fine player and still is. But he's a rubbish tutor. He started by teaching me ( a total noob) a double stop, and then spent the rest of the hour noodling. Cost: £25. My second bass teacher charged me £30 and I can't remember anything he taught me. My third teacher was an ex London DB pro. He put the bass in my hands, stroked his chin and said : "I won't charge you, you don't need training". By way of contrast, with Scott I have received seven years (on and off) of genius training which I could have augmented with personal feedback from the man himself for no extra charge, plus access to more top globally important bassists and training than you can shake a stick at, for not much more than the price of six hours of private tutoring per year.

About 25 years ago ('The Metal Years'), I had one that warned ladies not to stand too close to the bass stack as the frequencies might moisten their panties. I do wonder where my head was at sometimes.

Another update.. Gig on Saturday night - it was a pub having a festival. Pub Car park job. Sounded like it was going to be average at first, but it was a decent size setup and there were loads of people there! We did the main closing slot from 9.30 to 11.00 Took the FRFR and the new Dave Hall Preamp. DI out from FRFR to FOH which was really well set up and sounded glorious. The FRFR did a great job of giving over the fullness and "authority" of the DH Preamp and it's valve goodness. Plenty of volume and saved a load of space. Once again, did it's job well. Turned out to be the most enjoyable gig of the year so far..!

It would definitely be a clue to me but... the bottomline is they're the customers, and you an employee of sorts.

It's times like this that lightweight gear isn't an asset.

I ordered myself a FMC 212H UL (UL for Ultralight) see the Picture. Its the Cab in the Middle. 2x12 Neo Driver by SICA or Faital, fully adjustable HF Driver, 600W at 4 or 8 Ohm, 102db @1W/1m, 17,8 Kg, with Downfire Pricipe, what means the Reflex Port is in the Bottom of the Cab. Will be fired with my Mesa D800. My Cab will be ready Mid of Sept, as Hans from FMC is on Holiday right now. Pic is also done by Hans and shows 210H UL, 212H UL and 215H UL

Result! I convinced my mrs to take the kids out for the day so was able to make some progress. Routing done, scratchplate cut and routed but still needs some sanding/finishing/screw holes etc. Notice the control cavity (freehand route), the acoustic foam is clearly visible. Amazing stuff, it is incredibly dence and even behaves like wood when routing. Plastic is still on the scratchplate in case you are wondering why it looks “dirty”

I like this one but fear our lead guitarist may take it too seriously

Yep - did that and it sounds lovely adding a second 2 x 10, amazing how much it fattens up the tone.

Rather than going the full custom route, a cheaper alternative would be to get somebody such as John Shuker to make you a custom neck for your Squier?