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Acton 2007 Many years ago I decided to take on a second project while my main band were on a break for a few months. I get invited to this audition which sounds interesting. Kind of like the Doors, but they don't have anything online. I decide to chance my arm. This sorry escapade was the last time I ever did that. I show up and the band aren't there, so I set my gear up and go outside for a cigarette. I get a text saying they're running "5 minutes late." 40 minutes later the drummer and keyboard player arrive. The guitarist apparently isn't coming. Flags are starting to ascend in my mind. We get in and the keyboard player (we'll call him Bob - not his real name) asks why I've got such a crap bass and didn't have a precision. I was playing an Alembic. Bob then literally throws some sheet music in my face and says this is bassline. I had asked and confirmed that I could make up my own bass parts. Seemingly, this had been forgotten. "Can you not read?" Yes, I can, and I took about 20 seconds to read it before getting it into my head. We start playing. It's quite clear that Bob is taking every song as a keyboard solo. The bass part whilst very fast isn't what I'd play. Bob reluctantly agreed to play it again giving me some leeway noting sternly "that the songs are already written." So we start again. I play a bit looser and so does the drummer. The song sounds really fun. Then Bob stops playing and quite annoyed says that I'd "deviated too far and that I was playing like "a f@**ing talentless idiot." Hmm. That sounded a bit like an insult so I broke it down in my head. "Idiot?" Yeah, that's probably true. "F@**ing idiot?" Maybe. I don't have documentary evidence on me to refute it. Hang on, I'm not talentless... I politely ask Bob to repeat that as I assure him it'll be much more difficult to do so once I knock out his front teeth. The drummer asks Bob to calm down. I hasten to say at this point that Bob is 6 foot 2 and I'm only 5 foot 9. Still, I guess the sight of an angry Scotsman starting to clench his fists is enough. Or at least so I thought. I decided to leave really quickly before I really lost my temper. Now, I always wear earplugs. Bob wasn't so he thought he'd said something that I wouldn't hear under his breath, but sadly, slightly too loud. As I was putting my bass back in my back I hear the muttered "f@**ing w@**er" behind me. So, I very calmly stood up and lamped him. He went flying over his keyboard and into the wall. I then calmly pick up my stuff and leave (the drummer is in shock and doesn't say anything). A few months later I was contacted by Bob through Myspace (he didn't know who I was) asking if I'd join his band. As tempting as it was to agree and go in disguise, I didn't reply. Finally, there is proof that you can get a callback after literally doing anything at an audition.

I don't often post on here but wanted to publically credit a bass manufacturer, since it's always good to hear good news. Long story short, I have a Sandberg California TMII 5 string bass, which I absolutely love which I bought 18 months ago second hand from Bass Direct. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, it just stopped working, took it to a local guitar repairer I trust and he basically said the electrics are buggered, a circuit has gone, not a lot he could do without direct contacts in Sandberg etc. I emailed Sandberg directly (only hoping they might recommend someone I could pay to fix it etc.) But instead, I got an email from Mike, one of the service engineers, who asked me to remove the entire circuitry and send it over to Germany for immediate free repair. I did this, he sent back the newly repaired circuit (1 part on the circuit board replaced), with lots of good communication along the way and last night I put it back in. And it is now as good as new! I just wanted to commend Sandberg for their amazing customer service, all done (including free tracked postage back to the UK) for absolutely free, there was no obligation from their side, they could have just sent me back to the second hand dealer I bought it from. I wouldn't imagine you would get the same level of service from one of the other big guitar manufactures (although I've never tried)! So hats off to Sandberg....not just great quality guitars but a top notch company with amazing customer service too!

Shouldn't a fretless Precision be called an Imprecision? Sorry, I'll get my coat...

Arrived!!! Not in pieces!!!

I avoided a certain audition from hell three or four years back. My wife said it was a shame I had all this bass gear but didn't play in a band. I agreed, and we said before we had kids I should join a band, play some gigs, etc. So I set about looking, in the meantime invested in a gorgeous P bass, and had some interest. I was looking only within five miles of home initially. There was a guy who said he plays country, has recorded ten albums, most of which were recorded in Nashville and played regular gigs locally. He was dead keen, I like country but was honest in saying I'd never played it but would have a go and learn as I went along. He was trying to sort dates for rehearsal with his band mates. All sounded promising. So as this is going on I asked for the third or fourth time for weblinks to his songs. I got sent a YouTube clip to his "video". It was the most excruciatingly embarrassing thing I have ever seen in my life. The guy could barely play and obviously could not sing. Camcorder video of him strumming a guitar on his garden while wearing reactolite glasses with his "pro recording" dubbed over. It was absolutely dreadful. Don't know of it was the awful voice or studio autotune but my wife summed it up, between fits of laughter as "it's Kermit the ****ing frog!!!!" I sent a polite decline email saying my old band was getting back together (a lie) and I didn't have time for both adventures at once. I then receive an email saying "bassist has cried off, shall we meet anyway?" So I replied to him "don't think this was meant for me, and I'm doing ok holding back the tears"

I'm sorry but punching out someone like Bob during an audition is entirely disproportionate. He deserved a car bomb at the very least.

Finito. The black hardware doesn’t appear to be forthcoming any time soon, unfortunately, so in the interests of drawing a line under this one I’ve used the chrome stuff I already had. Whilst the neck is definitely a Jazz width, it has a much deeper profile. This at least means it deals with the heavy gauge strings very well, although I’m not sure how comfortable it will be “in the hand” as it were. Rehearsal tonight so I’ll take it along to see how I fare with it. The enhanced thickness has meant there was very little adjustment of the truss rod required - I basically just took the slack out of it and that’s it. The relief has remained consistent over the last 2-3 days so I think that’s probably all it needs. I will of course re-check in a few weeks or so, just to see if it’s holding up as it should be. You may notice how far forward the bridge saddles are - when setting up the intonation it appears the bridge is slightly too far back from where it should really be. When I measure from the nut to the 12th fret it’s about 43cm, whereas from the 12th fret to the saddles it’s considerably less. I did manage to get the intonation almost bang on (maybe 1-2 cents out) so decided against moving the bridge. It’s a string through so I really didn’t want to go through that If I could help it. It’s one of those annoying things you only find out when it’s really too late! I think we’ll call this one done!

Thinking about what you said I realised that I share your sentiment. I then realised that I haven't owned a bass with any sort of pickguard since 1987. Currently I own five working instruments. Then it struck me that another reason for my mild aversion to Fenders in general is the pickguard or pickguard/control plate in combination. I am less bothered about what colour it is than the fact that it conceals some ugly routing in the guitar's top. I know that production cost used to be lower because of it and that low manufacturing cost is part of the reason for Fenders being the Ford of the guitar world. It's cheap but not nasty. Never the less, subconsciously, my brain says Fender pickguard = concealed bodge. I have no problem with the hollow body type of pickguard (Gibson for example) that stands just off the bass top. They're pick guards, nothing-more and nothing-less, so I don't think bodge! when I handle them. It's just that with Fender the pickguard is in reality more of an access panel than it is pick guard. Oh those clever marketing people for calling it a pickguard. That's just my take on it. Other opinions are available. Slight diversion; Burns take the Fender style "guard" notion to an elegant extreme by covering the guitar top with panels. This seems to be for purely aesthetic reasons. It might also have been an attempt to protect new instruments from surface damage from those flouncy cuffs that were big in the sixties - with cuff-links they'd scratch the heck out of the whole guitar top!. Either way, I'd hang a Burns on my cool wall and a Fender on my workhorse wall. P (and J) basses sound okay though so don't take me for a hater just yet. Leo got his priorities right for the era.

I dig 'em! I have a 5 string Stingray Special and it's waaaay lighter than the normal Stingray 5 (I also own one) and it sounds fantastic. I'm using it on tour. I honestly was a bit sceptical like some of you are, specially with the new pickup and preamp, and I can tell there's a tone difference, but the essence of a Stingray is still there. I recorded a little review a few days ago, check it out!

I think the world is out to get me at the moment!! One of those days, well one of those nights, the day in the workshop was good though, got tons done What you ask? Well this: I carved out the necks, out of interest, anyone ever use a drawknife? Maybe better of sticking with spokeshaves if you haven't but a very useful tool with some practice. I carved one neck ultra thin, 20.5 at the nut and 21.5 at the 12th, hells bells I like it! Trouble is I did it on one of the ebony ones, maybe I'll get lucky and no one will want to buy it After that I planed down the stock for the wings and cut them out, I started the contouring too, a little heavier shaping then the original Tbirds, still quite flat but will put a bit of a shallow curve into them tomorrow I think. Oh I cut the control cavity too Drawknife Tools used Uncontoured wings Basic taper

Since I’m propped up in bed with a bad case of sciatica I’ll bite on this. My first decent bass bought bought new in 1975 was a 4001. As I was into Yes/ Genesis/ Renaissance etc. It was the obvious choice. Also everybody else I liked could be seen playing them- McCartney, Lynott, Graham Gouldman, Dave Paton etc.etc.etc. At the time also, everyone had fallen out of love with Fender. The ‘70s baseball bat production were scorned so unless you could pick up a “pre CBS”, nobody wanted them. That bass had a great neck and sound and was soon joined by a ‘72 4001 and briefly a 4080 double neck! At that point, I was starting to play fingerstyle instead of plectrum and many different genres of music and I felt the Ricks didn’t work as well so they all went over the next few years. The thing is though, if you’ve had that connection with Ricks, I don’t think you ever lose it. So many years later when my mum died, she left me a modest inheritance and I figured a nice way to honour her memory would be to use some of it to get an old 4001 again- after all, she had signed as guarantor for the hire-purchase on the original one! I knew I would be unlikely to play it out much but hey, I like them. So for the last 20 years, I’ve had a ‘72 checker bound 4001. It has been on one! gig in all that time but I love it all the same. It’s also a thing of great beauty!

Good work. And that, folks, is why you should never screw around with a Scottish bassist.

Egads, there’s a big hole in the middle?!

I don’t think beat it would have been anywhere near as good or as successful without Van Halen’s solo. Often it’s down not so much to the producer but to him pandering to the A&R people who want it to sound like something it’s probably not written to sound like, just so that it sells more, which I guess is the point.

............that's when you go to 11, of course.

Utterly brilliant !! I want one, mum.

Ha, I went for something very similar ...

I just listened to the above under headphones, and it was pretty good for live. Nice to see talented musos like Finn and ex Petty gitwrist Mike Cambell still working

Very nice, I love an ACG, I've had a few 4 string ACGs in the past and they were great, missed out on a great 6 string ACG that was for sale at a very keen price on here last year, unfortunately it was bought and then instantly resold by the buyer at twice the price! The 9 string I have really is a masterpiece and will never be sold! Alan knows how to build a great bass, and better yet, knows how to build a great ERB!

Yep, pipe lagging. That’s what we used on ours at the rehearsal room when the original stuff perished. Still going strong many years later!

I would have started packing up my gear with no explanation at that point. Blue

You should really be blindfolded too, to reduce unconcious bias......how recognisable that will make the bass riffs is unclear 😆

Here's my 3. I was trying to get a nice shot of them, but my son decided he had a better arrangement for them... All ACGs, all 6 strings, all 31.5" scale. Left to right: Salace SC E Type Headless, Finn SC Classic, Krell SC E Type Headless Fretless It's not really a secret that I'm a massive fan of Alan's work, and I am one happy/lucky bunny to have such amazing instruments at my disposable. Eude

Check this thread - the OP had the same Q:

With your username I'd expect an entry from you this month 😁

Dear UPS. Read and learn! So pleased to read that this one arrived safely!

A lot of the 80s! Reverb on snare drums, chorus on bass - a lot of great stuff sounds very dated now and not in a good way like some of those earlier recordings. I think the 80s was responsible for a huge leap in technical advances but sometimes the kit was used as overkill and hadn't fully developed its potential.

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Thats a beauty. I love a fretless P. I can see the little flaw on the pickguard when I zoom in 😳

I think the very worst case of overplaying on bass is when the lead guitarist "has a go"

Curvy like a sucked boiled sweet. In a good way.

You are displaying one of the most interesting bottoms I have seen on the 'net for some time my friend. Heeheehee, it's a cracker!

And I’m very happy to say that I’m the very happy new owner. I’ve just given it a blast in the practice room, and it is A-MAZ-ING! It grinds my Genz Benz ShuttleMax 12.2 into the dust. It just has an authority that that the GB cannot get close to. It sounds so alive and the GB just sounds sterile in comparison. And it is loud, I mean really loud, and when I tried to get the same volume and depth out of the GB, it caused the output to clip. The EQ is simple but very usable. The build quality is absolutely impeccable. It looks fantastic, it’s compact, and whilst it isn’t light, it’s certainly very manageable. If this amp wasn’t actually mine, and I’d just borrowed it for the night, I’d be ordering one tomorrow. It might sound ridiculous to say that an amp that probably costs the best part of a grand is bargain, but it’s hand-made, hand-wired by someone who really knows what he’s doing. I cannot speak highly enough of this amp. Anyway, I’ve got a gig on Saturday, and maybe I should’ve waited until after that before I posted this but I’m just gushing! Thanks again Michael for meeting up, really appreciated, and I can so understand why you were sad to see it go. Anyway, here’s a pic:

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I'm not playing!!! It will only end in tears, remembering what I shouldn't have sold and what I shouldn't have bought in the first place...

When I first moved to Warsaw I only knew a couple of musicians, so asked them to put me in touch with anyone who they heard might need a bass player. So, a week or so later I get a call and ask if I want to go and rehearse with a band. Sure! I arrive at the given address and it turns out to be a semi-derelict factory. Okay. There's a youngish bloke waiting outside for me and he helps me lug my amp out of the car and inside - it looks like a squat. After wending our way through a veritable labyrinth of dark corridors I find myself in a darkened room with a surly looking, multi-pierced person behind a 1000 piece drumkit and another guy with a BC Rich guitar and a full-on Marshall stack. This is gonna get loud, methinks. First up, they ask me to detune my 5 string down to a low G. Alarm bells! Then they give me a quick rendition of one of their 'songs': a 600bpm deathcore number, with the chap who helped me load in jumping around shouting "WOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" into his microphone. Hmmmmm. I think I'm at the wrong gig here, but hey whatever I should be able to keep up with them. We thrash around for 5 minutes or so and they ask me what I think, to which I reply that I don't really think I'm the right man for the job. Shouty bloke assures me that I should hang around as their second vocalist will be along shortly and he is a much better singer. OK. Second vocalist arrives, we start another 'song', now there are 2 variations on the "WOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" theme. Enough is enough for me, so I start to make my excuses and leave. On the way out, they ask if I'd like to join them for their next rehearsal - I politely decline, but being British say that whenever they are planning to gig let me know and I'll come along (as if). I enquire as to the name of their ensemble to which I get a reply of indecipherable Polish. How does that translate into English, I enquire, 'Nun's C*nt' they reply.

Rather than do the documentary-makers favourite ploy of artificially creating drama with the 'and all was going well....and then they hit a serious problem!' yawn approach, let's just say: It worked The snakewood was fine There were, however, a couple of builder and user errors in the live trial. As a precaution, I worked out that with the thickness of the snakewood I would be able to try two or even three passes, so I deliberately started on the thickish side rather than trying for finished thickness first go. Good job I did! First I tried routing lengthways and indexing at each pass. Very easy VERY quick But unexpected groove steps at the edge of two of three of the passes (didn't take a photo!! ) Wasn't sure why that was happening. Second go, I changed to routing the radius and indexing manually each pass along the length. Took a bit longer but still very easy But.... "Hmmm...that's odd" : Perfect at the sides but digging in in the middle?? Then realised that the two unexpected results were linked:- Basically, the two radius templates are probably not quite identical. One of them is higher in the portion at the top of the radius. Result - the carriage will therefore tip and so the router bit is now angled and hence it digs in along one edge. It's easily fixed and was acually less serious than it looked - 10 mins with the sanding block gave me this: The second issue was pure rooky operator error. Once I got into the joy of each of the 100 passes of 'zip, index, zip' I forgot. I forgot that this, of course, is still a satanic router! And instead of slowing my cut feed right down at the far end (which normally I would do) - I just zapped past the finish mark at the same speed as the previous 100 passes. And *PING* ...the very last cut of the very last edge pinged off a 15cm sliver of snakewood off the side. Luckily , this was an un-slotted fingerboard and so this became the nut end. Could have been a disaster and I should have known better! But, with a couple of tweaks of the jig itself on the radius templates and some self-flagellation for being an idiot, I declared the rig a success! And a couple of days later, this was what the fretboard blank looked like - whereas, before, I would have still been sanding! :

So - before subjecting my beautiful and eye-wateringly expensive piece of snakewood to the devilish and destructive router bit - I thought I'd better try it out on some scrap maple. It seemed to work! And the radius did, indeed, seem to be correct One challenge was that I would need a decent selection of flat spacer lengths to raise the blank to pretty much the exact height...because lowering or raising the router bit will, of course, change the radius. The other thing noted was that the visibility was pretty limited. I used one of the spare Bosch palm router holders that comes with the kit - it's the one that nobody uses that can hold the router at an angle (does ANYONE use that one?????) and maybe the standard base would give a bit more visibility. Anyway - it worked So...onto the eyewateringly expensive snakewood!

After seeing the graphic pictures here on BC and hearing how UPS managed to destroy yet another valuable instrument my heart sank. Not just because Andy Travis’ dreams that were unfolding on his NBD thread were crushed.. a bit like what UPS did to said instrument, but because at the same time UPS were handling the shipment of something valuable for me too. Even feeling huge sympathy for a fellow bassist and BC family member, you still don’t think that it will happen to you. Well, unless the parcel you are expecting doesn’t turn up on the promised day. And so, the story begins... Back to Wednesday last week, time was getting a little late, so I thought I’d drop a call to my local UPS depot. “The parcel wasn’t scanned in. That means it wasn’t ready for collection. It wasn’t picked up.” Odd, considering how good the shop I was in contact with had been. I’ll give them a bell. The parcel was definitely collected. Much head scratching ensued. Thursday, lots of telephone calls and emails back and forth to the shop trying to get through to UPS customer services, who didn’t really seem that bothered. We did manage to get a request raised to investigate a lost parcel though... eventually. Maybe they see this happening so often, it’s not really deemed as important anymore? Well the good news via the shop is that the driver on the route that day remembers the collection and should have scanned the item on to his van. As I now understand it from UPS “customer services”, parcels should have also been scanned off the vehicles in to the depot. Which appears to have not happened on both occasions. It’s all a bit... well, odd. “So what of a parcel that hasn’t been scanned going through the UPS system” you ask? UPS don’t know. Over to those helpful tikes at UPS for an answer to that one.. Where do packages that “haven’t” been scanned end up? Are they stopped in their tracks by some sort of clever sorting process? I asked. You wouldn’t want anything dangerous accidentally going through right? You could hear the look of confusion over the ‘phone line. In fact, if you took the word of the chap I spoke to, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the staff who work at UPS lived in Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom. Magic spells making things seemingly disappear? .. well, the possibilities are endless. Friday I think came and went.. Monday, and Tuesday and communication is made, but to be honest it all still felt a bit like, “we’re telling you we are looking in to it, but no one is.” - because how long does it actually take to search a local depot? Surely a large box without a shipping label isn’t that difficult to miss? It wouldn’t have been allowed to leave a depot unmarked surely? UPS don’t have a solid answer for those questions either. Today, this morning we had a message saying a parcel that possibly matches the description has been found. Yet as I type this late in to the evening, have they possibly managed to look at the parcel? Or are they possibly still doing flip all? I wonder where they found it too? I’d love to have an answer to that question. I would love to know. If it’s even the right parcel! So here we are. UPS don’t know their derrière from their elbow and are fast demonstrating a level of incompetence that is practically unmatched in all the years I’ve been sending kit using any courier. (Save for the last time they messed up) The shop have had problems before with them and are moving to a new courier too.

I mentioned this jig in my 'Piccolo gains two strings' thread and a couple of you were interested in a bit more detail. I have come to the conclusion that life is too short to hand sand fretboards. Challenges include: It's bloody hard work Even with all of the precautions, tips and tricks employed, it is still too easy to end up with a board that is either thinner one side than the other or uneven or dipping at one end or another The Alembic-esque 6 string electric recently completed nearly did for it and me! A brittle figured ebony bond. Took my time (did it over 3 days!), used chalk to ensure evenness, used a guide rail for the radius block, regular checks. And it STILL ended up a mm slimmer on the treble side than the bass!!! And it absolutely killed my increasingly arthritic hands. So I shamelessly stole and modified a design I'd seen a photo on Google Images by LedBelliBass, originally posted on the HomemadeTools.net website. This is the finished article in use: Basically, the router is bolted to a ball-bearing fitted tray, which itself sits on a simple carrier - which has radius templates either side. Here's the router tray: As you can see, the radius templates are detachable, making it easy to fit alternative templates with alternative radii on. For those with good eyesite, the template fitted is 11" radius but - because the router bit is going to be an inch lower than this - it will actually rout a 10" radius on the fretboard. Similarly, the second set you see on the right of the picture is radiussed at 13" to produce a 12" fretboard curve. Now - on LedBelliBass's original, the bottom carriage also ran on ball bearings, to to me, that seems to be too free moving...and I hate routers to be too free moving! Next post, I'll show the simple rig I used for the lengthways movement

What a nightmare, thanks for sharing. I'll certainly never use them for anything in the future.

I love the theatre pit work that I’ve done. I hated the cruise ship jobs though, it wasn’t long hours, just three 40 minute sets 5 times a week, I just like to be a little more free than the job allowed, I also like being home.

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Isn't Math Metal the definition of overplaying?

Put some side dots on the neck as I forgot to do that earlier. Much more difficult to get them aligned after radiusing the fretboard. Won't make that mistake again....(famous last words!!). I got the chance to fit the frets this evening. I've used thin frets for this just because it is such a short scale and I thought they might work better (not sure why!!). I've not filed the fret end or filled the ends of the fret slots, that'll be a job for tomorrow. I've also stuck some strings on it just to get an idea of angles, action etc. Needs a little bit of adjustment, probably need to drop the bridge down 1-1.5mm, but that's about it. I'll also try some different strings; my original idea with this was to use the bottom four strings from a five string set and (hopefully) that should allow me to tune it EADG. Again, another job for tomorrow.

Or Allen keys.

Dear Basschat, meet Thunderblackstone.....