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You know I'm born to sweep, and Housework is for fools But that's the way I Hoover baby I don't wanna clean for ever... ... and don't forget the Dyson.

Dear Bass lovers, clear grain filler applied #EVO-FX5

I love this hobby! Unlike, say, hang-gliding or mountain climbing or white-water rapids rafting, you can try new and different things in relative safety First - and it is related - if you want to see something that holds me personally in awe and makes me weep in my beer in equal measure, then spend an hour watching this video. And if you are a guitar builder or woodworker or craftsman or anyone who likes seeing someone at the top of their game, it is well worth the hour: Deep inside the video the guy said something that sent firecrackers off. He epoxies his fretboards. And he does that because epoxy doesn't wet the board and make it expand. Ever had a new guitar where the fret ends start getting sharp after a few months? The reason is that the fretboard is shrinking in width. And often, this is because the moisture from the wood glue made them expand in the first place. And they can carry on shrinking for YEARS. Almost immeasurable, but enough for the sharp ends of the frets to re-emerge. So why do most of us use woodglue? Because then - if you have to - you can remove the fretboard intact by applying heat. I've been asked to do that a few times - generally to replace broken trussrods. If it's expoxied, then generally the only way is to plane off the old fretboard altogether and start again. So what is the new thing I'm going to try? Well - this fretboard is going to have the maple veneer demarcation to give me the fine white line between the board and the neck. So the plan is: - epoxy the board to the veneer = no shrinkage of the fretboard - then Titebond wood-glue the veneered board to the neck = the ability, if ever necessary, to remove the fretboard in the future. Who knows if it will make a difference, but it won't do any harm as both methods are perfectly sound in their own right. Here is the veneer being applied to the back of the fretboard: Meanwhile, the headstock plate has been cut from a super piece of jet black ebony from David Dyke: And that, too will have a veneer demarcation. For this one, I am reverting to good old Titebond. And no - an upside down radius block to use as a clamping caul isn't the best way to treat a wooden radius block... : All the rest of the bits (trussrod, tuners, stoptail, pickup rings, electrics, etc) arrive sometime today, and another room has been decorated so I will soon have no excuses but to just crack on

Yup...

I am very disappointed that not one person so far has made the obvious comment about how much this product sucks. edit: ubit kind of went there but took a slightly different and more risqué direction.

Only one thing worse than a Longhorn bass...

I was trying to explain the genius of Jamerson to my non-bass playing friends, ended up coming across this great visual representation of his playing which communicated it much better than my words.

@Al Krow --- So good they thank him twice! 👍 Actually, I might need to be thanking you when I start my thread: 'Giant Steps -- One massive idiot's first fumblings with the Zoom B3n Multi-Effects Processor' Subtitle: 'If it's on fire -- is it likely a hardware problem?' 😃

The (non-stock) pickup in my '73 P always felt a little bland. I had a Limelight pickup knocking about, so I thought I'd drop it in. It's very nice.

Good for metal?

It’s the cumulative latency of both the interface and the wireless unit that is getting you. A cheap USB interface is found to be introducing 7 or 8 ms of latency... so as soon as you go over 10ms, as you notice, things start to go a little wrong...

I spent £85 on an Encore double cutaway shortscale. Body was extremely lightweight and neck was ok but nothing special. Then spent £90 on a Hondo II medium scale with a fantastic maple neck but boat anchor body. Sold pups for £20, bridge for £15, body for £10 so neck cost me £45. My local go-to luthier joined these two together in a feat of wizardry and charged me £80 Wilkinson bridge, £20(?) Entwistle pup £30-ish Kiogon loom £25-ish. I changed the Entwistle for a Fender CS 60s reissue model but will change back to an Entwistle as I prefer the attack . My maths makes that around £285 and I love it. 3.1kg of rock machine

I could make you a black walnut one. Cover postage you can have it for free

Got the templates cut out ok ready for the router work later on. Spending ages on getting all the detail and slight lumps out of the edges was well worth it at this stage, so there was no extra 'shaping' required once the body and neck blanks had been cut out. Pile of wood ready for gluing together - beech and an old hardwood plinth/shelf (still not sure if its mahogany or not.....)

Re picks, you need to buy a bunch and experiment. What works for others may not work for you, and there are many, many different types. Most will sound and feel different. I generally use Dunlop Jazz but sometimes I’ll use others for a different sound. And yes......practice! And you can always study guitarists. The principal is the same and often their picking is more advanced.

Absolutely no shame in playing these songs. You can be in a hip cover band playing songs folk don't know if you want. See how long the bookings keep coming in.

I took a first stab at Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick last night. Its been on my bucket list for many a year now. Might as well make the most of this lock down. Just the verse riff to sort out. Can play it slowly but struggling with the speed and trying to remember it all. Needs more work. After 15 mins my left hand is killing me tho. After i can sort that out i'll just polish it off and try to make it sound like Norman. That's the hard part. It takes a lot of speed and stamina to play that full song. I need to work on my fretting hand stamina. Ouch !!! Dave

All 25 for me, honest! Has been over a period of 45 years of gigging though, and Red House was in one of my first bands (who had a Hendrix obsessed guitarist ) along with Black Night too .Most of the rest I still play now and then when doing request gigs in my acoustic duo. The shame.......

Just had this delivered.

As someone who plays originals and who is most happy when the response/reaction from an audience is a collective exclamation mark rising above their heads I’d say I’m a baked spud full of jelly.

What a top bloke Mick is... I can’t say anything that’s not been said already. Mick is posting me a spare fret wrap for nowt...he won’t accept any payment. You will go to heaven mate! Thank you 🙏🏻

...and one of the tuners looks like it's been set at the wrong angle like one or two others which have featured in these hallowed halls...

And so to the swifts! They haven't arrived yet in real life but should be here in a couple to three weeks. So in the meantime, I'll have to make do with Mother of Pearl ones. Normal stuff - cut out with a jewellers saw: Then outlined on the plate in pencil and the chambers cut out with the same Dremel + precision router base as with the fretboard crowns: Glued in with the c**k up-hiding ebony dust/epoxy mix. Sanded off and done: Next job - before gluing the fretboard on once the truss rod has arrived (which was supposed to have been today) - is to cut the pickup chambers while I still have a flat-top to the body. But that job is also waiting for the pickup rings that were also due today. Maybe tomorrow Ditto, I will rout the recess for the back cover, again, while I have a flat top to be able to clamp to the workbench. And then, I reckon the fretboard is ready to glue on. So, it all depends on the postie from now on...

Some great things up for grabs and I bagged the Nate CTM300 thanks to Andy 😁 Can’t wait, even ordering a matching cab in same tolex😂 Means my CTM100 is up for grabs now though. Bloody good amps and derive is excellent too!

Not quite the suction that Lemmy was used to!

They did the conveyancing on my last house purchase.

Hmmm, not sure about that rule. I avoid open strings in general unless I specifically want their sound (open strings sound different) or it's integral to the feel, like on Slither by Velvet Revolver, for example. Playing a note on the 5th fret, you have two ways to mute it, and they all sound slightly different. You only have one way with an open string. Use each position of any given note depending on the context. Open strings have their uses, but so do their equivalent on the 5th fret of the previous string.

Took the plunge on the LB550 rather than the tweed CTM30 I was mulling over.

I can’t believe no ones posted these yet!?! 🤮🤮🤮

I often think I'll be able to play this one day.......one day!

You’re starting to sound like my wife.

Well, I'm moved a few things on, and reshuffled a good few things and managed to snare an ashdown ctm300 for a fantastic deal. Hopefully itll give me everything I need for this type of role.

I'm not at all surprised to find Merton sitting pretty in this thread 😅 I was very tempted by the LB30, but sadly it sold before I could decide. It would have looked lovely next to my chrome ABM600 and chrome CTM300, but sadly the LB30 I think will always be ''the one that got away'' for me and my Ashdown collection. The 427 would be a lovely rare beast to have, but something with that much grunt is just too much for me. Now... if a Spyder 550 head was to emerge from the shadows, I would jump on it in a heartbeat.

Surely the quality of the instrument is the important bit rather than some ill-conceived negative bias against far-Eastern manufacture? Remember when Japanese instruments were looked down upon? I’m sure even Indonesians can build high quality instruments given the appropriate platform to do so.

Totally get both your points, and the potential replacements all look like mouthwatering prospects. I am interested how this turns out as I am very into idiosyncratic passive pickups. Keep us posted.

Yeah.... it learns what speed the drummer is fluctuating between and allows you to keep up. 😂 * disclaimer. My drummer is very good at keeping time and not speeding up or slowing down. 😃

I always used to hit a brick wall as soon as I picked up a bass in a shop. I always dreamed of being able to just play an impressive bass line that encompassed the whole neck. Now I don't give a toss. I just noodle to hear how a bass sounds everywhere on the neck that I am likely to visit.

Good girl! ... Not meaning to be patronising if you know this stuff already -- but watching Tina, you'll see she plays the line with open strings where possible. i.e. she starts off with the open A, while this person: (and many other players I might add) -- Plays it WRONG, by starting on the 5th fret of the E. Using your open strings is important... yes, it might be 'easier' to get it sounding cleaner to begin with by always playing fretted notes (except the low E of course), but that's not the point... Tina plays it like that because it's 'proper'. And it sounds different. And she still plays it that way all these years later - even when she's drunk! The genius James Jamerson used lots of opens too... well, he would do coming from playing the double bass in jazz bands... for one thing, fretless players use the open notes to check their intonation while they play... it's one of the reasons why 'fretters' respect them so much... So, ideally, as you progress on the bass, we should get regular pictures of your 5th fret having no string marks on it (except for where the skinny G string goes, as playing that C is fine!). 😄 As I've nearly bored myself to death with all that -- I'll stop now... but will just add that it's difficult to know what your level is, musically... if you're already proficient on the piano and guitar, and a reader, you probably don't need any of my 'educational' posts! 😃 Always a pleasure 👍

I bought a Farida FPB-08M around 4 years ago for £150. Pretty decent P bass TBH and got gigged a lot in the blues band I was in at the time. I made a few upgrades too. Some preloved US pickups from this site, a custom B/W/B scratch plate from Jack's Instrument Services and a Kiogon loom also from here. Upgrades cost around £100 or so. Mandatory before and after pics for your delectation.

Think you'd struggle to get all that on a headstock mind....

Or take up a more interesting instrument 😂

Cover Band Bingo must have most of them listed......😂😂