Leaderboard

I wish Fender would do a 1951 reissue Precision again. I've owned 3 and it's the only bass I regret selling. Don't know how well they sell but it's long overdue a reissue.

Like this?

Hi all, the business is technically still ‘active’ but the web site needed a complete overhaul and I simply haven’t had time to complete it. Unfortunately/fortunately my private marketing consultancy business has really taken off and I can earn more from this in 2-3 days than bass retail can generate in a month! I’ve been mostly working in movie marketing for about 18 months with a good friend who’s a producer and we have 10 films out this year. Current project is working on one with a Biffy Clyro soundtrack so that’s been a lot of fun. I have maybe 25-30 basses stashed away to relaunch with including Ritter, Fodera, Alleva Coppolo, Atelier Z, Suhr and a string of vintage Fenders and some JVs as well. Just need to find some time to get them all photographed and the site finished. . .

I would probably go with 45-105, because I've played everything from heavy Rock to pop and soul on them. It's important that the instrument is set up properly and also that you know how to get the best out of your amp/cab.

Herebe our latest offering, from our 4th album which will be released on 01 Aug 2019:

I’m a huge fan of this series, but I only just came across this episode and it blew me away. Such a lovely groove.

Do Fender make a P with Jazz neck? If not, that.

I had over 100 new kitchen tiles " go missing " from Ebay. I paid for the goods via PP. I was told by PP that they had proof of delivery from the courier. Trackable doesnt always mean a signature is required. The courier hits a few buttons on his courier pad to say the item has been delivered. Thats all PP / Ebay need. After a few weeks of messing around with messaging ( had to do it on Facebook with My hermes ) who denied everything. They dont have a customer line anymore ( no surprise ) so FB is the only way. In the end, i found out the courier had delivered the tiles to the Chinese Takeaway 30 yards away, who in fact never received the goods. I got so hacked off with the courier ( who probably stole them ) and the seller, who didnt give a hoot. and Ebay and PP who didnt a give a hoot either, so after about 7 weeks or so, i contacted my bank and got them to reverse the payment. Suddenly, PP took notice ... i paid twice because he only sold in bundles, and i needed 2 bundles to complete the job, but for some reason, PP only reversed one of the payments, and that caused more mayhem. But the bank of HSBC helped and i got all the money back, but only because i got my teeth sunk in like a Jack Russell with a rat. Bar stewards, the lot of 'em.

@wateroftyne

In all honesty, for me, one great tone that mixes perfectly with the drums is much better all round than changing patches all the time. Give the sound guy a good chance of getting the rhythm section mixed perfectly by giving him a consistent sound and let him worry about vocals, guitars and keys the rest of the gig.

A few more little jobs done today. I'm just finishing anything that may cause scratches etc. before I get round to the final sanding on the neck. Drilled the holes for the neck and cut the neck screws down in length as they were long enough to go all the way through the fretboard. No idea why but one of the screws decided to snap! I was quite lucky as there was enough showing in the neck that I could remove it carefully with pliers. Any less showing and it would have been a nightmare of having to drill it out..... The screw came out without too much fuss and, most importantly, without causing any damage or scratches. I had another screw which I trimmed then fitted the neck. I've also made the cavity cover template a little tighter fitting so there is a little less gap around it (wasn't masses around the original, I'm just being picky!!) so I'll make the new cover tomorrow.

I was looking for a good Music Man for a while, that needed to have a lacquered neck. I don't like the oiled ones as much.. Today I went for a drive to pick up this 30th anniversary model! Its such a beautiful bass... Tommorow I'll be done with the set up and give it a spin. I haven't heard it with proper fresh strings yet, but it sounded great already with dead rounds. So I guess flats would sound great too. First I'll mount a set of fat beams for full Stingray aggression

Alan’s almost finished, and he’s done a stupendous job as always. Stunning

Oh wow! It's no consolation, but it is VERY rare for that to happen just with tensioning up. On the positive side, that is a very clean break. If you want to post the neck to me, more than happy to see if I can fix it...

One thing I should have mentioned about the NE is that it delivers thunderous, bone rattling LOWS!! Very probably the deepest, meatiest low end of any bass I've come across. Great review, Dan...and don't worry about forgetting to mention the B string - I think I've covered that off in my comment immediately above! 😂

I did exactly the same thing. Pay Pal didn't want to know until my bank reversed payment. Suddenly I started getting phone calls from them at 0800 everyday asking for their money. Now they were calling me, I got my point across. I got my money back from a vendor who I'd returned goods too (not as described). Pay Pal are tu7ds of the first order.

It’s mostly going back to my roots Dave - I worked in big studio movie promotion for several years and really enjoyed it. Now working with some of the same people but on purely independently produced and financed films. Way smaller budgets but also without all the politics of big Hollywood studio productions. The biggest bonus is that I can work almost exclusively from home and only have to travel into London about once every 2-3 months instead of every day. We have a very experienced team of people working together and we can short-cut all the time-wasting meetings and ridiculously long conference calls. All our materials sit in a central cloud based storage system and we chat via Skype and WhatsApp Makes it much more relaxing but still fun and, mostly, rewarding as we all deal direct with producers, writers, cast etc - I was most impressed to get Suki Waterhouse asking for my WhatsApp details last week and sending me little messages and requests for help in stuff, lol.

A quick Google search implies that a gift can be disputed. It looks like some forms of funding e.g. credit cards, then the rules change and PayPal have to abide by credit card regulations which are different! Some folking twits must lie awake at night thinking of how to scam others. Grrrrr.

All I’m going to say is everything affects the tone. Try some lighter strings and see how you get on. Your playing will have the biggest influence on your sound (ruling out effects and extreme eq settings)

I know this sounds whack but I used to have really light gauge strings (don’t know the exact sizes but they were the lightest they had in stock at The Bass Centre when I bought the bass) on a Jaydee Supernatural. I used this inappropriate bass with it’s inappropriately light gauge strings to play in a heavy goth band and subsequently a really heavy and fast thrash metal band. It sounded great though, drop D in the thrash band, real clarity but still plenty of depth. I find the lighter gauges easier to play (small fingers here). Latterly I was convinced to use a different bass with heavier strings but I was never really happy, that initial setup was ideal for me. No doubt my experience is a freaky outlier but there you go.

I won't be able to do one until Monday anyway, I have a summer fair gig this afternoon so I'll not have time to record anything beforehand.

30th anni.....one of the best rays ever made.

Great weather, grreat crowd. It was a good gig. It's so nice when you only have to play an hour. I had a blast! Blue

If you didn’t type that on an electronic device made in an Asian sweat shop where worker’s rights are essentially non-existant, well done you!

Hey Guys! Joe Hubbard here. I wanted to start a new thread where people can ask me anything that's bass related. I've been teaching for 38 years and have come up with many concepts which have been tested in many high-level professional scenarios- including studio work, tours and gigs while working with major artists and producers on both sides of the Atlantic. All my concepts have been created with one goal- to be able to function at high levels musically regardless of style. I'll do my best to answer as many questions that I can...so fire away! All the Bass! Joe

My new custom made medium scale 4 string P type bass. Built by Robin Manton of http://mantoncustoms.co.uk with a 1 piece ash body, maple neck, hipshot tuners, gotoh bridge, cts pots. The pickups is hand wound by http://www.catswhiskerpickups.co.uk who I also can't recommend highly enough. The build quality is impeccable and the 6 bolt neck, solid bridge, great wood, gives it fabulous sustain and combined with the pickup, great tone. 2 companies I highly recommend for excellent work at very reasonable prices. John.

I don't often comment on the quality of particular cabs, I prefer the safer objectivity of technical issues to the subjective judgement of what sounds best/suits my needs. However I've heard Jim's cab a few times now at the SW Bass Bash and we had a chance to compare it with the new 1x12 design Stevie is doing on Basschat. In fact Jim spent some time playing through both. I love the sound of Jim's Greenboy/Fearless cab but I felt the Basschat design matched it fairly well, one edged the other in some areas but I don't think one cab had a clear advantage. Both are exceptionally good IMO. I'd be interested if Jim came on here to give what he felt about the comparison between the two. Of course you'd have to build the Basschat Mk2 but if the kits work out that won't be such a difficult option.

I get the feeling that at the lower end of the model range (for example, the entry level Mexican Fenders, whatever they're called today) they definitely restrict the colour/neck combinations a little bit. Spend a bit more on an American, and there's more combinations available. I guess at the upper end, there are at least a few custom shop Fenders which are sold, and they're pretty much the same spec as a non-custom shop but in an otherwise unavailable colour combination.

I played a gig last night. Yes, I'll give you a few moments to compose yourselves...I do actually gig Bit of a special occasion - an old friend of mine from university days reformed our old band for his 50th birthday party. I'd lost touch with him until about 2 years ago and I'd not seen the other guys at all for about 30 years. No one could locate the drummer so the birthday boy's brother was sitting in. We did two practices with drum machine tracks over the last year or so as the drummer's been away...drumming. So Saturday afternoon's rehearsal was the first time we'd all played together properly, which went very well...thankfully ! As did the gig, absolute blinder, everyone played fantastically, the crowd loved it (and I got to play through my big rig, which hasn't ever actually been gigged so far...it sounded awesome) I loved every second of it, especially playing with a really good drummer, which I've not done in far too long. He was very complimentary about my playing, which was very sweet of him...it's not often I get told by a Mercury Prize-nominated jazz drummer that I'm doing the right thing

With you on that brother. When first introduced, they were passive but soon morphed into the active model for some reason. Still see the odd one come up s/h occasionally, looks like I may be racing you for one when they do. 😄

Right. I think I need this.

Is he? I'm not so sure! 🙂

I played a gig last night and didn't "need" to bring my rig (F112/GBMB800/HXStomp) Using their Ampeg SVT PR4/HLF410, it was instant regret not having my setup. The Ampeg was so mucky and booming sounding on stage, with no end of twiddling, and I couldn't hear myself all night until I asked the sound man to put some bass in my monitor...lol. If I had my rig it would have been full, clear bass all night.

I knew from the thread title who this would be. And I wasn't disappointed!

That's good enough for me.

^^ Thanks! Yes, that 70s vibe ticks all the boxes for me and you're right, it really is well made.. I think the body is actually one piece of Ash as well which is something I particularly like.. Since posting this thread, I've now had this bass properly set up (fret dress, new strings etc) and it's playing beautifully; the intonation is spot on and the action is set at a nice comfortable medium height. Mike Bosley (of Mike's Music in Bognor) did a great job on it for me and what's interesting is that he put a small shim in the neck pocket to rake the neck back a little so that the bridge saddles are set at their maximum height. Apparently - so Mike tells me - this is how a lot of players liked their basses set up back in the day but its the first time I've ever had one of mine set up this way. I like the fact that this set up provides a great break angle for the strings over the bridge and it does seem to make a difference.. Could just be of course that I still have that 'new bass syndrome' going on whereby everything about a newly acquired bass seems to be the best of any bass I've had ever had.. You know the thing, right - it's got the best sustain, best tone, best action, best balance blah, blah, blah.. and the ability to create world peace just from playing the opening riff to Stand By Me blah, blah, blah... 😁 But, blow me down with a feather, this one really does seem to 'sing' and the sustain and harmonics are amazing! So, happy days. 😊 Mind you, having said all that (and knowing me), it'll probably be for sale on here in a few weeks time with the obligatory 'Up for sale is my beloved MIJ P Bass... ' opening line. 😁

Nice to see things are progressing, it must be frustrating having to wait months for the weather to improve enough to spray again. (Having been born in Durham I can remember real winters, but here on the south coast of Australia I reckon I'm hard done by if I loose a week to cold and rainy weather. Today is 17 degrees C and down to 7 overnight, though we do get a few cold fronts with overnights of 4 or 5 and days that only reach 11 or 12 during winter.) Anyway nice to see things happening, your work is so very top class.

I would hazard a guess that it isn't a Legend.

In an alternative universe, I wonder whether the guitars and basses procured by Mr Phillips have a consciousness and when they wend their way to his workshop/kitchen table for necessary upgrades and modernisations, their heartwood is actually screaming for mercy.

How British are they though? Does the British built bass or amp have any non-British components?

Mine

Superthunderstingcar