Leaderboard

Drop my bass at home after playing two small festivals in one day, then head off for the pub my missus is working in for what feels like a well-earned pint. There’s a lady sat at the bar and she starts talking to me about what a hard day I must have had, playing two gigs in one afternoon. I tell her it was a bit hectic, but worth it. She tells me her brother plays in a band and works really hard at it, but it’s worth the effort. I ask her what band he plays in, just in case I’ve heard of them or even shared a bill with them. “Oh” she says, “they’re called Iron Maiden”.

I visited an old buddy today. In the early eighties I sold him my first ever bass - a Westone Thunder II. I regretted it ever since, but at least it quickly found it's forever home. Sadly he doesn't play anymore but won't sell it back to me. I visited him today and played it for the first time in 30 odd years! That's him in the pic, not me!

Just a thought, but I wonder what the total asking price of gear for sale on here is at any given time. For example, at 9pm tonight (1st of August 2019) the total asking price value of basses for sale on page 1 of the ‘basses for sale’ forum totalled £38,000 and included some real high end exotic basses. I believe that accepted logic is a preowned bass sells for around 2/3 of original purchase price (subject to condition of course) so just how much money are we ‘wasting’ in depreciation in pursuit of our hobby? Please note: if anyone has the answer to this question, please do not share the results with my wife 😂

Wasting money on guitars ? I'm sorry, I understand each word, but when you put them together like that...you've lost me.

Joined 4 hours ago, drags a dead thread up 1 hour later. As WOT said, move on

The real reason for this nonsense is to keep prices high. A lot of companies do it - destroying last year's stock, less popular models and so on - because people won't buy current stuff if they can pick up older stuff at a bargain price. "Unsafe" my foot. Unsafe for Gibson's margins is what it is.

They couldn't have salvaged anything? Necks? Bridges? Tuners? Knobs? Nothing?

Gibson no-longer make guitars. They now just make gaffes. Anyway, I'm surprised that they needed that machine to destroy those guitars - normally you just have to look at the neck on a Gibson & the head voluntarily separates from the neck...

Kryptonite trussrod, atomic capacitors

Finally someone has pointed out the pointlessness of having a forum, on any subject. Moderators, shut down Basschat immediately! 😁

I wanted to just say publicly how much I enjoy this forum. I may not be a very active member at the moment, but I thoroughly enjoy the content on here, and especially the people. Indeed, a huge thank you to forum member Raymundo who, about 18 months ago now, saw my post on here that, due to financial difficulties, I had to sell my beloved Brook acoustic bass. Ray immediately got in touch and offered to lend me an acoustic bass to tide me over. I have just given the bass back to Ray (I still hope to be able to buy back my Brook shortly) but this lovely act of kindness will never be forgotten. I truly think bass players are the loveliest of musicians- humble, extremely musical, empathetic, and without any delusions of grandeur! An example of this is the thread on Depression. Such a thread is unheard of on other forums. Indeed, on a guitar forum I belong to, discussions of people’s mental health is positively frowned upon! The way people help and support each other in that thread is really quite beautiful. Anyway, just wanted to get that all off my chest. Hopefully, at some stage in the next few months I will have my bass back and continue with my project of exploring solo folk bass!! Robbie

Shim shimmery, shim shimmery, shim shim sheroo.......

Hardware update, Installed new tailpiece and bridge assembly from Winfield. Looks 1000% better, corrected the string spacing as well.

In the greater scheme of things that people spend vast amounts of money on, bass gear is definitely towards the more harmless end of the spectrum.

That non-slip rubber grip mat stuff would do it. I had a similar problem with some of those very light D class heads, this solved it.

To be fair to Bass Direct, at the time of my order, they did tell me that the Hipshot bridge I had ordered wasn't in stock and they would need to order it for me from Hipshot in the US, as it would be build to order. They gave me a delivery estimate of around 10 weeks from the date of order, which was 30th April - which took us up to 09th July. I have emailed them today again, the 3rd consecutive Thursday in three weeks, for an update and been told they reckon another three weeks from now...which, if is indeed the date, will take the delivery up to week 16...!! It's a "Hipshot B-Style Bridge, Aluminium, Chrome, 19mm spacing - FM2 American Delux String Thru" I've ordered, which is clearly labelled on the BD website for sale, retailing at £70.00, and even today it is still not saying they are out of stock. It could be ordered directly from the US, however the average starting cost I've found so far is around £80.00 and that's before postage and customs costs are added. I'm thon way, that I feel I've waited so long, I think to cancel now would just be cutting my nose off to spite my face...!

OK - so onto JIGS AND FIXTURES NEEDED BUT WHICH CAN EASILY BE MADE 1 Top and Back Radius Dishes Messy job, but relatively easily made with a couple of MDF or plywood boards, a router and a swan-neck scraper: Bit of schoolboy maths will allow calculation of the depths of the routed steps. Usually the back is dished to around 15 feet and the top to around 25 feet 2 Go-bar rig Easy to make with a couple of stout boards (I used chipboard but it's not really strong enough - 20mm ply would be better). 4 threaded rods, some nuts and wingnuts and you have the rig, then dowels or fibreglass rods to apply the pressure. I think I got the fibreglass rods from a kite parts supplier. 3 Mould Various ways of making these from solid wood sections to this lightweight 'does-the-job' version 4 Routing rig for tenon and mortice or dovetails I modded an old workmate and fitted it with some G&W templates 5 Jig for applying pressure to bridge wings when clamping I'm sure there's stuff I've forgotten. I'll highlight if I come across more in the build

That'll be just their normal quality control procedure before they get sent out surely? 😏

How exactly could a guitar be unsafe unless that was the special edition with the hidden bear trap and headstock that shoots poisoned darts at the audience?

Gibson have made a statement: “The Firebird X destruction video was an isolated batch of Firebird X models built in 2009-2011 which were unsalvageable and damaged with unsafe components. This isolated group of Firebird X models were unable to be donated for any purpose and were destroyed accordingly.” If the components were unsafe, what about the components in the ones that suckers people actually shelled out $3K for?

Sure there are plenty of music schools who would have been grateful if Gibson (or whoever mashed them up) donated them instead. Better publicity too.

By the way , I’m not a full time musician . I’m actually a plumber

The PJ pickups still look comically large against the smaller body The smaller, original sized pickups look more natural. It's like the bass version of this:

I'm sure there's been a few threads about this but oh my god, this kind of hyperactive attention whore-ishness represents everything I hate about the internet. I see that annoying face and the awful clickbait every time I look at YouTube, there is just no getting away from it. You search for anything to do with bass, and bang, there he is, with 4 thousand novelty party trick videos, pulling stupid YouTube faces and pointing at 12 string novelty basses. "Finally, a funky fretless 19 string slap bass jam! Leave a comment, like and subscribe LOL etc smiley face" ad infinitum. Jesus christ. Yes I'm sure these guys are all very talented and special, but when I see this stuff, all I see is a bunch of ballerinas prancing around for attention. Anyone remember a time when people got laughed at for being attention-seeking show-offs? Those days are long gone. Now I know this is a rant and I'm being rude, and I'm obviously in the minority, because 1 million followers blah blah, and I know it's a 'business model' blah blah.. but it annoys the living crap out of me personally. Stock Aitken Waterman was also a business model, and their pinnacle was 'The Reynolds Girls'. Just because something is a 'business model' it does not mean it's good. There are people like Adam Neely out there who also have a trillion followers, and they're not resorting to this stuff. No disrespect to anyone who loves it obvs, just my personal view. /end rant (I also hate 'Remco Hendrix', and that german guy with the ridiculous massive beard, and every other o.c.d. novelty internet show-off out there).

I didn't know that Chief Ten Bears out of the motion picture The Outlaw Josey Wales was Welsh. I did - however - think that Josey Wales was Welsh, because obvs. How odd that two characters in a Western movie would both be Welsh. Bears, Wales, Wales, Bears* * Copyright: The Estate of the late Mr Tommy Cooper

Utter, shameless pack of lies. Completely despicable behaviour simply because to sell off an unsuccesful model cheap - indeed to admit to having an unsuccesful model - somehow devalues their brand. Oblivious to the reality that their brand is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.

I'm packing up to go on holiday, guys. So we'll have to discuss speaker power handling another time. And I'm not saying those of you who are using this combination are not getting a good sound. Just that if you have a 400W cab like the OP, it's not a great idea to buy a 200W cab to run it with. Better to get a (matching) 400W cab.

There's a very steep learning curve involved but, as the saying goes, if I can do it, anybody can do it

Paddy McAloon is a genius.

Here's an update. Mike aka Chimike has now produced some really nice CNC drawings for us. I used these to approach a number of suppliers for quotes (again). I've now selected a company and ordered a single cab, which I'll check thoroughly before ordering the first batch ot ten. I'm not expecting any problems, as Mike has managed to produce a cab from the drawings on his own mini-CNC machine and tells me it goes together perfectly. If he sees this, perhaps he'll post a few photos on the thread. I'm about to go on holiday for ten days, but the cab will be delivered when I get back, i.e. around 12 August. I'm therefore expecting to send the first cab kit, complete with all the parts that I can supply, to Funkle by the end of week beginning 12 August. If everything goes to plan, I'll be sending the first batch of ten out at the beginning of September. Orders for a second batch are building up, and I'd expect those to go out at the beginning of October. I've spent some time trying to sort a grille out for everyone. I managed to find some very nice expanded metal, which is fairly lightweight, but I've been struggling to cut it to size. My tin snips aren't good enough and a jigsaw proved useless. So my next step is either to get a local engineering company to cut them up, or to do the job myself with an angle grinder. I'm not a big fan of angle grinders, as I value my body parts, but I'll be looking into it when I get back from my hols. I really appreciate everyone's patience.

I Second That Emotion. Nicely done.

Satisfied my unhealthy semi-acoustic urges with an Ibanez, cheap as chips, but souped up with a Gretsch bridge pickup, DiMarzio neck pickup (with covers), genuine ex-Gibson small head Klusons (after this pic) and £3.50 scratchplate of the 'bay 🙂 One day I will end up getting a Gretsch White Falcon...

Suck on that, John Hall.

Yes - one of the few things that makes my blood boil. In my case, a different but equally well-known supplier - gave the misleading implication that they stock the products, but they only order from their own UK non-stocking supply chain partner for them to order from the States once they receive your paid order. 5 weeks later, after many phone calls and emails it arrives, States to handler, handler to well-known UK supplier, UK supplier to me. Had I known, I would have ordered direct and got it cheaper and in less than a week, including customs clearance. When I was in the supply industries, I'm sure there was a name for this type of business model. Oh yes, I remember now...."shoddy"

I made several deals with Mr Hellzero Mr Hellzero? Ah Ah ah !!! He is a monument, recommend him ? No ? I just would say that whoever has the chance to deal with him, if he behaves properly, will never regret it, it is a certainty, Mr. Hellzero is a Cathedral !!! Thank you Mr and BiG UP !!!

Exactly. Complete cobblers. A lame excuse following a stupid publicity stunt gone wrong.

Very nice bass - and obviously well treated over those 30-odd years. That looks like a Westone case too if I'm not mistaken? Still loving my modded '84 Thunder III, - it was just a slightly younger version of the Thunder II when in original spec. Only difference from the T-II was black pickup and truss rod covers.

My Cliff Bordwell 32" 'Ball bass' plus short scale dog

Thanks in no small part to Tom's advice to ditch tabs and learn music notation, I've just started reading and transcribing too... At least for me starting out, the free "Sibelius First" is doing the trick, along with usage tutorial videos e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrPvjCknrPM . The playback feature really helps learn the acccidentals. Very pleased to be finally learning notation. Seems the best thing about tabs - that they tell you where to put your fingers - is also the worst thing about tabs!

I had my Gibson Thunderbird out at rehearsal last night and that video makes me not want to use it. If parts were unsafe they could have salvaged / recycled something from all of that.

It's a visual metaphor for what they're doing to their reputation currently. Twerps!

Adding a late comment to an old thread...Swoon and Steve Mcqueen are amazing albums. The bass and drum tracks on Steve Mcqueen are fantastic in their funky simplicity... Paddy is a wonderful songwriter.

It's not the surface area, it's the volume. That is, the area multiplied by the cone excursion (Xmax). So a 12" with a big Xmax could be louder than a 15" with a smaller Xmax. Any advance on volume? We'd have to go to four dimensions...

We are blessed in the UK with some great bass builders. Makes me wonder why people buy mass produced instruments from the big companies.... Support the little man and get something unique....

I’d make him an offer he couldn’t refuse if I was you, that’s lovely, and it’s aged really nicely 🙂

I think modern amps tend to have a cleaner sound with more headroom and they allow people to hear their flats better than ever - they don't/shouldn't sound just like 'dead' strings, they have a rich and deep sound that is better reproduced by a modern HiFi amp in my experience. I actually find the treble component essential in making a great flat sound because the strings produce some bright clank which gives some definition, if you let it.

.