Leaderboard

Greatest Live album of all time (arguably)

And tada! Survived the journey across the ocean... my first Smith after 33 years of playing! What an awesome beast, absolutely lives up to expectation in tone and playability 🤩

And to the neck carve. Although I use a spokeshave and microplane to get much of the bulk out of the way, I do most of my neck carving with a humble cabinet scraper: It is very controllable, it is gradual - and with neck carves it is very easy to end up with a dip or a thin bit where you didn't intend one to be! And - while there is a lot of confusion about scrapers and they are only a couple of £'s each - they are planes in their own right. Here are the shavings: I had sent P a profile gauge to take the neck profiles from his present bouzouki. While I can't replicate these exactly because he has asked for the fingerboard to be wider and shallower than his present one, I will be replicating the 'soft V' at the lower frets (still a bit more to do here!)... : ...progressing to a more 'C' shape further down (a lot more to do here!): Ah - that's a bit better... : Now I'm a bit odd. I always have to 'air guitar' a build to see if the profile is right - even if I've never played a particular instrument. While I have never played a bouzouki, I can tell if it feels as I would expect based on P's profile measurements. Besides...it gives me an excuse to do a quick gratuitous mockup with the 2-coats-done-2ish-to do-body Bear in mind that the neck will darken and amber up a touch when the finish is put on: The neck actually feels great even though it is significantly deeper than a guitar or bass. The relative slimness and that V at the lower frets makes fretboard access a breeze. So, so far so good....

BB1600/714/424

Sexy tops, exotic woods, high end mega money basses I would like to see, the flashier the better. Here is mine. Not super high end but a full fat cherry burst Lakland 5594..

Or this 😁

My latest.

After 4 coats of Tung, I had left it for a day extra to cure and am now slowly but surely putting it together. Also had the control cavity cover split on me along the grain whilst drilling holes for the pots. Ah well, I will have to redo it (and redo 4 coats of Tung) and it will be fine. Some selected pics for you to look at whilst I have a little cry in the corner

What Quatschmacher doesn’t know about this stuff ain’t worth knowing. I keep telling him to offer bespoke patches online for a fee.

Tomato plant thing £9.99 from ebay. Rotating holder. 3M of poly pipe (£2.19), compression Tee piece (£2.47). Body is fixed to the arm by a plate, bit smaller than the pocket, arm rests on the middle frame support. Long pipe slips over the base of a guitar tripod stand, tool bag is used for ballast. Drape a dust sheet over the top and you're good to go.

@MattiZ and @gobasserk some great BBs there. Here's my not-quite-matching BB pair to put alongside yours!

There's a handful of bass players out there that indirectly owe Pete Way a huge debt of gratitude, Nikki Sixx top of that list. And yes, Strangers In The Night is certainly one of the greatest live albums ever released.

I would buy a Harley Benton and with the rest I would spend it on cheap hookers, coke and bottles of JD so I could be the proper rock star I should have always been. If I can't play Paranoid properly on that , I'm not going to play it properly on a multi thousand pound coffee table bass either.

I know it doesn't appeal (or even make sense) to everybody, and I can see why, but there's something about these lay by/service station/dodgy car park meetings that many of us enjoy. I saw @Frank Blank today, very briefly, very socially distant, but it was lovely to put a face to the name. Basschatters become more real, more 3 dimensional once you've actually met them. So not only is this a bit of a giggle, it's also a great way to bring folk together.

Well said, that's exactly how I feel about my L5500! I wasn't aware of the existence of the MJ5 at all.

As an active, five string version of the full fat USA JB-2 basses I think they look bang on the money and no doubt sound and feel fantastic too. Was it the blue one with the empress body? Only thing I can guess at re the MJ-5 is that it likely wasn’t selling given that most G&L five strings ordered will be L-2500 or JB-5 models. I see that the passive JB-2 bass is discontinued from the USA line too after over twenty years or so in production. Still love the Tribute versions of those and will buy another soon! Incidentally I exchanged a couple of emails too with another basschatter today about another seemingly unloved and forgotten G&L five string - the L-5500. He just picked one up, his is a ‘95 and mine is a ‘96. Not for everyone with EMG pickups and preamp but a seriously well made G&L with its own vibe. Definitely good to have something familiar yet little known and/or under appreciated imo Keir

Don't cry. It's probably your higher power trying to tell you that a nice shiny metal one will look better. 😉

It's a fair cop!

Another consideration is if you’re using a DI out from your amp to the PA most amps send the DI after gain so having the gain low and the master high will raise the noise floor on the DI signal.

Hello everyone! For the new cover played with the new Harley Benton PB20 satin black, I chose a song by The Smiths with a very original bassline by Andy Rourke: a single and articulated riff repeated in a loop throughout the song... a real endurance test lasting almost seven minutes. What to say? I hope I made it! 😅

Updates! So In my sheer joy to finish work and start on the build I completely forgot to take photos of the neck routing, I was obviously too concerned with not completely ballsing it up that taking photos wasn't on my mind! I got the truss rod slot routed and got the carbon rods slotted in nicely. No photo's however please believe me it's true! Once the neck was routed I cut the neck angles down to rough size and glued the fingerboard in place. I then took a plane to the sides of the fingerboard to level it up to the neck and planed everything flat to the desired angle. The woods look great together in my opinion, the scarf joint and fingerboard blend nicely and the wenge looks so so nice. I had an idea while planing the fingerboard down that it would be nice to cover the truss rod access with an extension of the fingerboard. Now one thing I have to think about here is I want to use magnets to hold the block in place but I'm not sure how the magnets will effect the strings... I installed two magnets in to the neck and two in to the underside of the cover... I I planed the edges down to match the fingerboard and matched the radius with my router jig and sanded flush... Once the finishes are all matched I think it'll look just how I'd hoped... The magnetic pull through the wenge is very minimal, it can't hold a 6 inch steel rule so I'm wondering now will these effect the strings or will it be ok... If the magnets are going to ruin the strings / intonation and tuning then I can easily replace with screws... but visually it wont be what I want. From a usability point of view I'm worried that if a user was slapping they might accidentally popping the cover off! I cut as much of the neck thickness down as I could leaving the body blends and volute areas alone so I can shape later on, The fingerboard is 6.5mm so 20mm of neck wood, feels nice in my hands before shaping not too chunky at all. Then the headstock wings are glued in place... Next: I've got to glue the wenge headstock cap on and then cut the headstock shape out and drill the tuner holes. I've got to start shaping the neck and start cutting the volute, I'm also thinking about routing the back of the neck flat so I can plan the curve properly, In the prototypes sometimes I blended the curve around too much and I like to have a flat on my necks, they just feel more comfortable in my hands. Thanks!

Probably not.

Victor has got a fabulous outlook on playing bass and is always an interesting guy to listen to. Sadly, I can't stand his actual music 😂

+1 and indeed, so much quicker than a radius block. @spacecowboy, is there a built in stop to prevent rolling off the side? I made a similar radius jig a few years ago that I made quite wide to prevent mistakes from the router sled rolling off the side. Your is much more compact so keen to learn how you tackled it.

I've just looked at some of the links, the gov't guidelines are still that the volume shouldn't be loud enough for people to have to raise their voices and full social distancing so that's us out then. Pretty much people's movements have to be controlled by the venue and nothing that could lead to bunching so dancing is out I guess. To be honest I don't really want to be part of an event which becomes a super-spreading incident. Potentially killing the elderly and infirm relatives of our audience isn't something i really want to be doing, even though I'm probably personally immune having recovered from Covid. Opening pubs when the numbers are edging up is the act of imbeciles. Doing so when you know track ad trace isn't working and your scientists are telling you there is a second wave in a few weeks time when the weather turns and you want to open up the schools is fatal negligence. It's great that the government is finally moving the tracing services to local control and that they are ordering up all the differing vaccines and have almost sorted PPE and spreading by care workers but until we do tackle the disease we aren't going to get back to regular gigging. Rant over

Hi all, I thought you'd enjoy some pics of two basses that arrived to me from a very loving home :). I originally had my eye on the Squier Musicmaster as I'd never owned a short scale before. Apparently only produced for one year in 1997 but please correct me if I'm wrong. All I can say is that I now completely understand why people adore short scale basses. Even without the beautiful thump from the single coil, it's just fantastic to play. It's in good condition considering it's age and it's even got a bit of birdseye in the neck! The second bass is a Fender Modern Player Telecaster. They're fairly new (as far as Fenders go) but it's really quite nice. The pickups really standout and they're super versatile. The mudbucker by itself is my favoruite though. I may be tempted to sell them at some point but for now, enjoy the pics!

-

I love Bowie and try to see a.n.other Bowie tribute every year they come to Scotland. I'm still waiting on you guys coming up here too so come on extract the digit and make the effort............PLEASE. I had never heard Slip Away to be honest till it was mentioned here and really enjoyed it. I tend to get lost in Bowie once i start. His back catalogue is tremendous and so much to listen to. Anyway !!!!! what's wrong with The Laughing Gnome ? Its a brilliant comical wee song and also very popular with Bowie fans. There are probably several others i would love to hear a Bowie tribute play but i'd be here all day listing them. Have to say your existing set list covers most of what i'd be happy listening to. Have you tried doing what some tribute acts do successfully and cover a full album either in first set or 2nd set and vary the other set. Aladdin Sane would be my choice album of course. Or cover the Live Ziggy album would be interesting. As a 70's Glam Rock covers band we cover Jean Genie, Rebel Rebel, Ziggy Stardust and considering Hang on to Yourself Anyway i'm sure you have already considered or already done these things so i'll head off now and listen to some more Bowie. Dave

-

+1 for the "jinwan" necks. I've had 2 Tele Bass necks and one Jazz neck and they've been great. All three had the MoP block inlays on maple boards with gloss finish and are great. As @RichardH points out the headstock is not quite 100% but 98% in my veiw and a man on a galloping horse is not going to notice!

I'm a big fan of the "this isn't how they say to do it but it's how I do it" explanations.

If you're referring to the Status pickups the coils were parallel with each other as in a humbucker not as in a split coil.

RIP but in some ways it's a surprise he lived as long as he did, certainly lived life to the full.

Svirfneblin ?

Sandberg Superlight. 6.5 lb jazz. Wonderful. Things.

It's been a little while since I did anything to this but whilst I continue playing my mini bass instead of finishing off completely, I decided to get on with a couple of jobs on this. FIrstly, I needed to decide on what the front of this should look like. I opted for the flamed maple veneer so I can also do a matching headstock - this build is also about re-using and the maple veneer can from my dad who had this knocking around for years so sort of fits into this as it wasn't bought specifically for this build and was potentially destined for the bin as there are a few cracks in it. I cut the cracked sections away which left me just enough width for the top. I then glued the two pieces of veneer together along the straight line I just cut. I know this sounds a bit odd as the veneer is only 0.6mm thick but I wanted to do this to give me a singe sheet to glue onto the body. I glued along the edge of the veneer and held them with masking tape until dry. Net up I sanded the top of the body flat ready to accept the veneer and drew the centre line. Using a gloss paint roller and wood glue I put an even coat on both the bbody and veneer them stuck them together, holding them in place with plenty of clamps!! So this is how the tope now looks - not perfectly book matched but is fine for this project. I'm planning on having a black scratch plate on this, only because I got given one and I want to re-use that too!! Here's a mack-up of how that might look: But I also tried it without the scratch plate and that looks kind of nice too!! Decision, decisions,...

Fresh from the garden: