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my rig

Not forgetting Episode 4 (string) - A New Hope. The one where everyone realises they should have just stuck with that P bass in the first place and saved themselves a fortune.

Good evening all. After a long wait this finally showed up today. A brand new Fender Deluxe Jazz Bass Special Duff McKagan signature bass in black! I've only had an hour or so play time but first impressions are it's bloody gorgeous! Out of the box it plays well but I will probably lower the action to my personal preference and the Hipshot D-tuner needs some adjustment. Neck pocket is tight with no visible gap, paintwork is flawless on both the body and back of the neck. Fretwork is superb with no sharp ends. The nut width is definitely P Bass width 42mm and the thickness of the neck front to back feels deeper than my (now sold) 2017 MIM P Bass. Soundwise, loving the pickup switch and TBX tone circuit. It seems very versatile and just has so much grunt when you push the tone past the centre detent and engage the TBX circuit. With my EBS Multicomp and Darkglass B7K V2 it's all I need to give me the bass sound that I had in my head for so long! The only downside is that whilst everything is black...the side input jack is chrome..but that's just nitpicking. So if you're still reading..here are a couple of pictures.

Probably done the rounds before, but really enjoyed this and comparing the different instruments.

The originals band I'm in, Gasfoodlodging, released a CD a couple of weeks back. It's just had a review by Ryan's Gig Guide, a Birmingham/Black Country monthly that has replaced Brum Beat. Modesty forbids me from quoting it but it can be found here: https://ryansgigguide.com/2019/June/8-9/ No bribes were involved in the production of this review, and the reviewer is not known to any member of the band.

Some updates! Th700 for small clubs

My early 80s 62RI in uber-rare surf green

Last nights offering... 😃

The good people at Ishibashi sent me this old Bacchus Grooveline. I reckon it’s early to mid-2000’s. I’ve been looking for a Stingray with a J neck size for a while and this really fits the bill. It’s a dinky J ash body, weight is a sweet 3.5kg. Maple neck with with blocks and binding is always a winner. It’s a fixer upper and that was reflected in the price, but these Handmade logo’d Bacchii are always superbly built and the pickups are amazing. Such is the case here, it’s a really good player, even with a duff fret job, old strings and that criminal bbot bridge in place of the Deviser Tune-o-matic. What were they thinking? I will sort out that crack and replace the bridge and broken tuner. I’m thinking of stripping what is left of the finish and refinishing in an emerald green stain. The previous owner had fingernails like Wolverine, by the looks of it. I’ll also sort out the frets, a level, crown and dress awaits. Anyone know where a man can buy Gotoh tuner buttons?

Just ordered a set - at £13 a set it's got to be worth a go. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SPECIAL-OFFER-EBS-TN-ML4-Guitar-Strings-Set-of-4/183549306999?epid=11026285892&hash=item2abc642877:g:ZtUAAOSwDsZcRcdu

Status Graphite Energy. Breathed on by Bernie Goodfellow who re vamped the pots and wiring and added an EBS preamp.. Clean crisp and deep. This one is a keeper.

XR16 - 4 auxes. Into 4 Behringer P2s. Into 4 ZS10s

Norman bought the Alembic from John Entwhistle, IIRC. Love Norm's P Bass tone on New Boots and Panties. That is one of the benchmarks for me.

A small update to the board 🙂

I do the same with my basses, pop my head into the room where they’re hanging on the wall just to have a look 😂

I had my Excess 4 up FS at Bassdirect for quite a while & reduced by couple of hundred as I wasn’t getting much interest, after they asked me to reduce again I decided to get it back as I’d take too much of a hit .. when it arrived I noticed it had a bit of condensation on it & felt cold like it had been stored overnight in a cold warehouse .. started playing it & the (low) action was just perfect, like it had just been set up ! What a neck ! So that made me change my mind & keep it, I only (foolishly) tried selling as I was so used to jazz bass length & initially struggled with the extra frets etc I have taken the preamp out as I felt it was a bit noisy (never gelled with preamps) & just wired in parallel with vol pot, perfect for me same as my two jazz basses. Have now gigged it & just love it, so glad I came to my sense lol Love the fret dots on your 5 btw .. I went back to 4 strings a couple of years ago & think the Vigier has an even better neck than my previous Dingwall ABZ5 ..... kinda don’t wanna try an Excess 5 just in case I like it too much lol

I'm pretty sure the veneer will stay that colour. On the other hand, Mick and I still have to decide whether the underlying wood at the edges and back would look best stained or left natural and there are still some options of how much to cut in the veneer into the body wood and where. Whatever, I have a good feeling about how this will look when its finished.

In my mind episode III - Revenge of the Sixth (string) was the best followed by episode V - The U-Bass Strikes back with episode II - Attack of the (Rickenbacker) Clones a close third. Don’t bother with episode I - The Phantom (power) Menace. (Sorry, very bored on a train)

With the glue now touch dry, I can begin the veneering itself: The advantage of the glue being dry is that you can spend as much time as you like positioning it because it barely grabs. Then with a hot (dry) iron (as I said above I happen to use an old heat-shrink iron, but a standard ironing iron works fine), I start in the middle and progressively radiate outwards, making sure the veneer gets hot and applying firm pressure, but moving it in circles so I don't scorch the veneer in one spot: Once the main flat areas are stuck flat (this only takes a few minutes) I start applying firm pressure round the outside of the body shape, starting to seal what will become the edges: To allow the veneer to bend round the edge better, I then remove some of the bulk excess with scissors, keeping an eye on the grain direction to avoid a grain-following split heading towards the body: I then work round the edges with the iron again, peening the veneer over the curve by a mm or two. The glue, once cool grabs in seconds - but it is fully repeatable. Just heat up an area and the glue will remelt and then grab again as soon as you lift the iron and let it cool for a few seconds. If it's a tight curve and a stiff veneer, you can hold the area down firmly with a cloth (to prevent burning yourself) while it cools and grabs. Once all of the flat areas are glued and the edges defined and secure, you can start trimming just past the flat surfaces. I find the easiest way to do this is use a disposable Stanley knife (Swann Morton do them too) and use the body itself as my blade guide, holding the blade at about 45 degrees to vertical: I use a sawing motion. If you are careful, you follow the outline without the risk of cutting into it. BUT - always, always, think of where the grain is going and make sure any split will go away from the body and not towards it. In the above example, I will stop around here and then cut the bottom overhang in the other direction - the grain then naturally pulls the blade (and any split) towards the left and not to the right and into the body. For the chambers, I get my template out and cut a small hole in the middle so I can see where the chamber edges are. Again, I use the chamber sides themselves as the blade guide, this time with the blade vertical: So eventually, you have trimmed it just round the edge of the flat areas, but with no unglued overhang of veneer: Then simply sand with a sanding block along the line of the join. There will be a bit of tidying up to do to sort the edges properly and make sure there is no PVA line or - in the case of the tissue backed veneer, fuzziness - at the edges...and I also need to know from Mick how 'sharp' or 'blunt' he wants the tips of the veneer at the ends of the two horns...but this is broadly done

I missed bass sounds part I so i struggled to follow the plot with the sequel.

I use a Hercules stand for mine - one of the ones that grab the neck as you place it on

This is sadly not a full review but the HEDRA is out and I had a quick play today. Impressive tracking. Really good. This won’t replace all the fat analogue octaver pedals already there. They do what they do. HEDRA is different. The polyrhythmic delay possibilities make it something new. But the option of three sub octaves at once is pretty great. It’s a digital pitch shifter, obviously. Very similar to my eventide pitchfactor with many of the same features but in a smaller box. Tap tempo is there but quite short delays available but that’s because you have three , YES THREE pitch channels. Lots of scale settings and various delay settings with stereo, crosstalk, etc it gets pretty wild but even on simple octave up settings it’s a great thickener for the bass for two piece, three piece bands . 12 string tones are easy and you can even detune the pitch of the octaves slightly for a natural chorus. also, there’s a cool function when you hold the tap tempo footswitch down you get a nice pick dynamic based volume swell on your notes . I’m sure lots of YouTube clips will start to appear soon but in the meantime it’s worth a play on one if you’re curious .

Somebody must want this - series 5 AH500w head - start your own nuclear war - £150 at the time of posting. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Trace-Elliot-AH500X-GP-11-Series-V-Bass-Guitar-Amplifier/352677241076?hash=item521d33a0f4:g:~OoAAOSwxjdc74nj

If you ever sell the orange Yam' let me know Andy....

Yes. He played an Alembic when my band supported Wilko back in the 80's. I believe the Alembic was used for the sample used for Relax.

There are good tales around that, whether true or not. Apparently they were mid-tour and he just went out one day and got pliers and epoxy and did it. I suspect there's a bit more to it than that, maybe. Re flats, I am actually som knocked out with the EB Cobalts on my P that I may well put them on my Jazz as well some time. My idea was keep rounds on the Jazz (D'Addario 45-100s) but the cobalts are bright enough, don't get the full 'ring' of rounds, but you lose the pronounced slide noise, and I do slide up n down quite a bit. The EBs were recommended to me by a few here, and for anyone who still thinks flats are all low-end thump, you're in for a pleasant surprise. Not cheap but really good.

Well, wipe your muddy paws @ped Get what you're saying but I'll be OK with it I think, so long as it's reasonably stable. Should be able to fold it and take it places as I often have one fretted and the fretless on the go.May end up getting a neck-grab type also. This one will be way better than what I have at the mo. though. Thanks for the tip, I don't mean tip like falls over...

Yes I am wondering this myself but I suppose it's modelled on Duff' s Jazz Bass Special from the 80's. But to me it's a Precision bass no doubt! 🤣

Gotta love a Vigier neck. My friend has an Excalibur guitar and even that feels perfect in my hand and I can’t play guitar. Nearly bought an Excess 5 like your amber one a few years ago but couldn’t afford it - think I’ll get one eventually. Never say never!

Thank you @ped I’ve been playing it constantly. Vigier set it up with my choose of strings and it is perfect, right out if the box. Very, very happy 😊

Very true. We all go on about Norman Watt Roy's bass playing, and rightly so, but the entire band really were a cut above, extremely creative and Ian Dury's lyrics were just sublime, poetic and beautiful, yet slightly seedy with some market trader swagger.

On the wall...it’s diddy

Blummin eck...is a bit small

True bypass, top mounted jacks, omitting/deleting controls that usually remain fixed, adding expression functionality, going to a smaller enclosure, adding a blend, clipping mods... I could go on... I don't think the OP was specifically targeting Boss btw although the OC2 is the most rehoused pedal I've seen, usually (as previously mentioned) to delete the -2 octave control.

this is one of my favorite part of being in a band !!!! enjoy and have fun until it last

I do think flats have come on miles in the past 10 years or so - I recently asked for advice here about 'bright' flats and was recommended EB Cobalts or D'Addario chromes. I got a set of the EBs - amazing, the full-fat flat sound but with more than enough top - Ok not the ringy top of new rounds, but a crisp controllable crunch on the top... tasty. I'd used a set of Fenders recently and whilst many here like them, to me they are the old-school flats, not only devoid of top but no high-mids either. Depends what you want but sounds to me you would like the EBs (or Chromes maybe) a lot.

@EBS_freak, getting that way too. If, in 2019 he's still publishing articles advocating practices that caused his own ear damage, and he learned about it in 2013, this is not good. The guy appears to be dangerously duplicitous.

Hi all, our marketing campaign starts at the end of May which is why we are still a little quiet! It's all happening behind the scenes, we promise As a heads up, we will be redirecting londonbassguitarshow.com to ukguitarshow.com, and using this site for both shows. This is to make it easier to find everything about the shows in one place. We trialled two separate websites for other co-located events we run (The Photography Show and The Video Show) and it just didn't work for a variety of reasons. The current exhibitor list is now live on ukguitarshow.com, and artists will be revealed throughout the campaign period as usual. We can't wait to show you what we have in store! The LBGS Team x

I may be able to offer some insight on this as I am something of an obsessive on the Jeff Berlin sound. It's always been a sound that I loved and since returning to bass full time in 2015 after a couple of years off, it has been the sound that I craved and sought to recreate in my playing. Of course, there are different eras of Jeff's sound but the key ingredients in getting his basic tone remain the same. Essentially, it's 15" cabs with no tweeters, an alder bodied bass with Bartolini pickups and a high mass bridge. Sometimes, but not always using a bit of chorus and almost exclusively using the bridge pickup with the tone rolled slightly back (it's worth noting that his 'blonde' bass had the neck pickup disconnected for many years before it was stolen). For reference, my rig is the Markbass CMD151P Jeff Berlin combo, with a Cort Rithimic 4 string and Peavey Palaedium in amber, as per what Jeff played from the early 90's until he signed with Dean Guitars. I also use a TC Electronic Corona Chorus pedal, I am reliably informed that this was Jeff's chorus pedal for years, although Jeff now uses an EBS Unichorus. You can read interviews where Jeff talks about why he no longer endorses the brand, though he never names TC Electronic directly. It boils down to a dispute over loaning a pedal at a trade show where Jeff was demonstrating for them, and I do not propose to expand on this matter here. I will note the varying eras by which I define Jeff's tone: Bruford era - black Jazz bass and 'Blonde' bass. Due to the production techniques of the late 70's, the early Bruford tones aren't massively defined. The black jazz bass was retired at some stage and by the early 80's Jeff was recording almost exclusively with what I call the 'blonde' bass. This was an alder precision body with two Bartolini humbuckers. The neck pickup became static at some point and was disconnected and in later years, the control knobs for this pickup were removed from the bass. The neck was a Fender Jazz neck reprofiled by Michael Tobias (Jeff used a Tobias bass for the live shows with AWBH band). The Bartolini humbuckers were wound by Bill Bartolini to Jeff's specification and sounded tremendous. The tone was middy, but the recordings of the day don't capture the 'nasal' upper mid quality which later records did. This same bass was used on Jeff's first two solo records. Around this time, Jeff was playing Yamaha amps and appeared in some promotional material with Billy Sheehan. The 90's - Peavey years - Jeff signed with Peavey and had the Palaedium signature bass made. The earlier basses used a different logo to the later instrument - look for the difference in a cursive, scrolled 'Palaedium' script against a more angular font. it is still unclear as to whether or not the pickups inside the basses are Bartolini. It is my belief that they are Peavey pickups. They are rather brighter and clearer than the Barts, with a little less warmth and a bump in the upper-mid character. For 1997's 'Taking Notes', Jeff noted that the bridge pickup was a little too close to the strings and created some interference on the record, though this is barely perceptible. By the end of this era, Jeff was getting more heavily into chorus. For whatever reason, by the end of 90's his Peavey basses had black tape over the Peavey logo. The 00's - Dean Guitars - The Dean instruments sounded very bight and nasally. They had an ebony board (like the Palaedium) but also Bartolini pickups. They had a beautiful singing quality to them. I understand that Jeff's instruments were made at Dean Guitars in Florida by someone called 'Mike', but I have been unable to find further info on this to date. There was a 'Grinch' bass, which had a slightly thicker than normal body. This had a top compromised of many different exotic woods. One ended up being sold to a TB'er in Florida (this was an early prototype) and another was sold by Jeff as part of his fundraising for the Jack Bruce project. Current day - Jeff now uses the Cort Rithimic. This includes Bartolini pickups wound to the original specifications of the pickup he designed with Bill Bartolini, after the original schematic for the pickups was recovered after many years being lost. The BadAss II bridge was replaced with a Babicz. It hangs on the body more like a traditonal jazz bass whereas the Palaedium and Dean tend to sit a little more in-board on the body. If you listen to 'Joe Frazier Round 3' you'll note that the bass sound is a little darker and punchier in the low mids. The Cort sound has serious balls, with a little more 'thump' than the earlier Palaedium and Dean. I think it sounds more like the 'blonde' bass and so it suits me to have both. One notes that Jeff does set his tone rolled back slightly, as in the instructional videos for his reading course, he has purple tape on the bass to keep the tone knob in the right place (ie, neither fully open nor closed). Over years of owning many, many basses, I am convinced that the Rithimic and the Palaedium are the best basses I have ever played and I would struggle to choose a favourite between the two. The trick is to use hand positioning to modulate your sound. When Jeff walks, he plays closer to the neck and returns to the bridge for superior control over the length and tone of the note. Jeff has always played with a low action and light strings (DR DDT .40 - .100). I recall a post from a Talkbass user who had played one of Jeff's Palaediums at a trade show and recalled that the action was so low he struggled to get a clean note out of it, but Jeff was able to make it sing with his controlled touch. I note that his touch these days is more refined than it has ever been. The bridge pickup is absolutely key.