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I have literally joined this forum because of this thread, shared on the Facebook group. Sorry I haven't been here before! You bunch of legends! I have also fallen to this scammer for the classic Sans Amp caper. I have created a file with Leicestershire police (ref: 291220211) and with Action Fraud: NFRC201204132835 Can I please urge anyone who has been scammed by him to create a report with Action Fraud and quote this number. So far I've managed to link mine to 4 other cases. Perhaps we need a centralised place for all our reference numbers that we can all refer to?

So - scary day. Attaching the new fretboard. First job was to make sure that the mating surfaces were absolutely flat. When you are making a neck from scratch, generally you leave the neck as a rectangular section until after the fretboard has been fitted - that way you can clamp firmly along each of the sides of the fretboard to avoid any gaps. But with a finished neck, you can't do that. You can only clamp along the spine of the profiled neck and therefore you are relying on the flatness of the fretboard itself - and the neck mating surface - to fully squeeze out the glue and close the gap at either side of the fretboard. So both the bottom of the fretboard and the neck itself has to be completely flat. I used a scraper to make sure all of the glue residue from the old fretboard was gone and then ran a straight edge all the way along the neck - with its graphite/carbon core - to ensure absolute flatness all the way up. And it wasn't quite. The graphite/carbon (I say that because I don't actually know what the fibres are) was just a teeny bit raised one side. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because the clamping would just force the side gap closed. But with the replacement that wasn't going to be good enough. So some very careful scraping and sanding (I made a small sanding block for the job) ensured that it was made flat. And for this job - with the very fine graphite/carbon/whatever dust - it was the full A1/P2 spec respirator...this is no time at all to end up at A&E with a severe respiratory problem! The neck was masked off to keep the glue off the original finish, the truss-rod adjuster was protected from glue squeeze-out and a clearance channel in the fretboard added to ensure no binding: Then the Titebond, spool clamps, cauls and G-clamps: Note that all of the clamps are running down the centre. This is different to how I will do @Jus Lukin 's where I will have the luxury of being able to clamp along each edge. So in this case, it is the fretboard stiffness that is applying the clamping pressure across the width, and itself protected by the caul on top. The result was better than I expected and as good as I could have hoped: This will now sit at least 24 hours for the glue to fully harden before I do anything with it

And they wisely left the 'rape, murder' bit out of the lyrics! 👍

Having flown the flag for vinyl even well into the CD age, I appear to have inadvertently become fashionable by default. I would wager a fair few of those vinyl sales during lockdown can be traced directly to my house. I like all the formats and find streaming good during exercise and CDs are okay in the car but I do love the ritual of putting on a record.

I've had a look at the side dots for this and I want to keep the colour simple. White obviously doesn't go on maple, black dots just don't look right and I don't think alabone would look right either. I decided to make some dowels from an offcut of the neck wood. I used a piece of metal sheet with a 2.5mm hole drilled in it then cut some wooden rods to roughly the right size. The wooden sticks are then hammered through the hole in the metal sheet to make them round. These are then fitted into the holes drilled in the neck and sanded flush.

Here’s the back...

I have booked a rehearsal room for Thursday and will report back after then.

Most of my best paid work in the last 10 years has taken place in the EU, probably by pure luck more than anything else, and I think it would be a massive shame if UK acts were priced / carnet-ed / visa’d out of doing a run of European gigs. Apart from function gigs in the UK, it was always the European ones where me and the guys would get paid decent money and get really well looked after. Audiences round Europe have often been great as well, really up for it. We’ve got to at least get visa-free travel for UK artists to make it worthwhile. Unless you actually are an established top tier act, but even so...

A little bit early maybe , but it is just possible there are a few of you sitting around full of minces pies, chocolate and cake just needing an excuse to get creative. Have a look at this picture from last months winner @Doctor J and let's hear what sort of toonage it inspires e Usual rules apply. You know the drill: ✔️ Entries must be <5 minutes and written/recorded this month. ❌ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on ❌ Bagpipes. ( Christmas truce now expired) . Also on thin ice with panpipes, to be perfectly honest. ❌ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you. Deadline for entries is midnight on Burns Night *, Monday 25th January Enjoy * this does not constitute or indicate bagpipe tolerance , it is a mere coincidence.

I have already signed this in the hope that it might at least get well debated in parliament... Before then being completely ignored by this hapless government, as is their usual way of responding to any other point of view outside of their own, very narrow one. The creative arts in the UK are being destroyed through things like this and Covid whilst BoJo murders a few Vera Lynn tunes on his fiddle (emphasis on the word fiddle of course)..

Oops..late again, Merry Buffday chap, hope the intimate dinner was nice! Very thoughtful of Bluejay to buy you a box to stand on, I never knew you were that short!! 😋

Just have to post this as these two basses are rare. So for all you Fender lovers, here is some history unknown to most of you, at least it was to me. I actually managed to get both the US (2002 -figured maple over alder) and Mexican version (2006 - Sienna sunburst) of this bass. Picked up the US-one for about £ 625 and the Mexican one for about £380. And I managed to find Fenders own words from a Siamese(?) site. A right out steal for the US one (I hope the previous owner does not read this...), the Mexican one perhaps not so much. Both in very good condition, no scratches or dents. I just had to get the Mexican one once I had the US-version. Just to compare... What is there to say, both are tone monsters. The US version a bit heavier, has a far better neck with better fretwork, but other than that they are pretty equal. Soundwise they are pretty close to each other, even though they have different pickup-configurations. The US version came with a really nice G&C Deluxe hardcase. Both necks were lacquered, to a degree that you get stuck the minute your hands start to sweat. So I sanded down both necks and made a nice smooth satin finish. Maybe I should not have done that in terms of value, but now they are so much better to play! Too bad I messed up the picture with the backside of the headstock, but the tuners are Gotoh crome on the Mexican one and the US version got Hipshot Fender Lite weight tuners. Fender Enters the "Zone" American Deluxe Zone Bass Deluxe Zone Bass July 23, 2001 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC) will release two edgy new basses this summer with the introduction of the American Deluxe Zone Bass and the Deluxe Zone Bass at the 2001 Nashville NAMM show. Both of the new Zones Basses offer cutting edge features including newly designed pickups and electronics, and in the case of the American Deluxe version, a choice of exotic woods. "This is a very ambitious step for Fender basses," says Richard McDonald, vice president of electric guitars for Fender. "We’ve put a great deal of effort over the past few years in finding out exactly what players want in a contemporary bass. What we’ve come up with is this new line of Zone basses, and we are very proud of the results." The American Deluxe Zone Bass is one of Fender's first ventures into the realm of exotic wood basses, offering a choice of either a highly figured maple top over alder, or a walnut top over mahogany. Engineers in Fenders Research and Development have spent the last two years designing an entirely new electronic platform to match and maximize the tonal characteristics of each of the options, including new hum canceling pickups designed to increase the low frequency response and extend the upper frequency range. Both neck and bridge pickups are designed with ferrous steel pole pieces contained within the core of each bobbin. They are driven with low-profile, wide area ceramic magnets located at the base of each pickup, with the ceramic magnets offering optimal strength and excellent string transfer characteristics that result in incredible clarity and articulation. The unique sonic nature of the exotic woods and their body mass require electronics that can bring the most out of these instruments. To accommodate this, the new American Deluxe Bass circuit is tweaked at the input stage - pre-shape, boost and EQ settings - to match and compliment the instruments characteristics. The Bass frequencies are centered at 40Hz± 12db with a 4db per octave slope, while the Treble is centered at 8 kHz± 10db with a 2db per octave slope, with the Treble cut working as a more passive control for warm, organic tones. The Mid control is centered at 500Hz± 10db and -15db, with a wide-band slope to bring out the growl and new distinctive voices of the electronics. The circuit is powered by a new 18 Volt supply. The bridge on the American Deluxe Zone Bass is deluxe chrome plated steel. The maple neck is C-shaped has a 34" scale, 9.5" radius with a rosewood fingerboard and 22 frets. This bass is made at Fenders state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Corona, California. US MSRP is $1,949.99. The Deluxe Zone Bass is styled after the American Deluxe version, offering straight ahead, professional features and the signature value that is associated with products made at Fender’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. The Deluxe Zone Bass features two new pickups designed specifically for this instrument, with the popular American P-Bass“ serves as a starting point for the neck position pickup. Fender has added more of a top end response to the flush mounted Alnico magnets, brining more top end definition to the full bodied nature of this pickup. The bridge position pickup is a fully customized version of Fender’s Active Deluxe Jazz Bass pickup, with quarter-inch Alnico magnets and end-to-end hum canceling vintage style construction. The new active EQ circuit is controlled by Volume, Blend/Pan, Treble, Mid and Bass Controls. The solid alder body features a contoured top. The maple neck is C-shaped with a 34" scale and 9.5" radius, rosewood fingerboard and 22 frets. As with the American Deluxe version, the bridge is deluxe chrome plated steel. Available colors are Sage, Pewter, Black and Sienna Burst. Made at Fender’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. US MSRP is $849.99.

So yeah, playing around with this today... It’s lacking a few inches off my other basses (feels really tiny!), but not missing any bottom end! I’m not big fan of signature instruments, or ‘relic’d’ basses really, but this one has excellent specs that I believe outweigh its price tag. Plus, Fender and Justin Meldal-Johnsen haven’t done any silly faffing with the concept. JMJ’s just got a really nice Mustang that they’ve cloned... Bit of a nervous wait for delivery (have always picked out an instrument in person before, but that’s really not an option right now...), but no major issues identified from its transit! Will need to have a look into some shielding paint/foil to counter 60-cycle hum at some point, but that seems to be fairly typical of these instruments.

I thought I'd done a family portrait recently but it was way back in 2017 according to my search. Here's the gang in all their glory (missing my upright and uke bass - not pictured, with all my amps in the kitchen). My kit (l-r) front Gibson Thunderbird, Eastwood EEB-1, Burns 6 strong bass, 51 bitsa, Rickenbacker 4003s, middle Fender Precision & Fender Jazz, back Eastwood BV, Gretsch G5440LSB, cheap Acoustic Bass and Hofner Verythin long scale bass.

Just picked up this trans white Valenti which was for sale local to me. I owned the Basschat candy apple red #42 for around a year more than a decade ago now, so I know just how good Nino’s basses are. The seller was a guitarist and couldn’t tell me what preamp it has. A check on the Valenti archive doesn’t list the circuit either. Wondering if anyone can shed light on what it is before I have a look inside? Front to back it has volume/mids/passive tone (pull up for passive)/concentric bass and treble. Pickups are Aguilars according to the archive. Both pickup covers have hairline cracks running across the middle so guessing someone maybe over tightened them in the past. Otherwise the bass has no issues at all. Truss rod has the MM wheel and works fine. Very light on the shoulder too. Wondering too if any basschatters owned this bass previously? Anyway here are the pics

They wrote it wrong on the packet as well???!!

And the holes drilled for the tuners. I'm using a set of Schaller tuners I was given on this build - (sorry, can't remember who it was on here but thanks again!). The holes are in a slightly different position to the Gotoh ones I've generally used with this shape of headstock as the string posts are different diameters.

Some people have been known to fuss over having to have audiophile type quality. Above an mp3 of 320bps(some people say 192), very few people can tell the difference in the quality anyway. A lot of people have vivid imaginations. Just enjoy the music.

I had the nad back in the day . Brilliant amps !👍

The main thing that would prevent me from returning to vinyl is the cost. With albums anywhere from a shade under £20 each to £30 +, it's enough to make me stick with the CD format for now. As mentioned above, apparently a growing number of people are buying the vinyl issues from bands they like as a sort of collectors item, and probably won't ever be playing them. Must admit that whilst I've always had okay hi-fi set ups, I've never gone down the audiophile route and spent eye watering amounts on gold plated mains leads and speaker cables spun by unicorns etc. For me the music has always been the important bit, and how you get to hear it less so. From my experience in record retail in the 70's, most people who bought expensive Japanese pressings and quadrophonic recordings (remember those?) tended to like music which suited that level of investment in the first place - ambient trippy stuff or the more obscure classical / avant garde material. We dreaded selling to these folk as they invariably came back to query the quality or even recording of their (expensive) purchases. All I needed then (and come to think of it now really..) for playing my music collection is something that sounds good to my ears and will last a long time. I've used NAD stuff for ages now, and only needed two CD players in nearly 30 years so quite happy with it. Also got my NAD3020 amp my dear old Mum bought me in the 80's too, and it still sounds great.

Signed and shared with all musician friends.

Chaps, not only did I have a fine birthday but (if you're really unlucky) I might even share with you soem video of the preparation of the Chinese Banquet that occupied a fair proportion of the day. 😉

Had to nip out for this earlier, what a beauty!! Thanks @PKeri much appreciated........got my eyes on another as well....GAS

I'm sticking with CD's. I bought 7 overall for Christmas, of which 5 were for Mrs B and two for both of us. Three of the 7 were classical and the other 2 were past rock-pop classics. Music-Magpie was good for 4 of the discs. No point in having a good hi-fi if you don't feed it with quality. If we then want to rip to mp3 for the car then it's all possible; the car also still has a CD/mp3 player & a wacky SD card slot. Old laptop & this new desktop both with DVD/re-writers. Vinyl was the quality of it's time, that time has now past. Sure, mp3's, Spotify and assorted download sources are OK for general listening, as has been said, but when I want to bathe in the best classical or jazz then only CD's do the job. Vinyl buys are reserved for feeding to my grandson on his birthday & Christmas.

A bit of Gregory today ☝️

You were a busy boy in 1972 then 😁

Well...from initial destination to dealer.

I just received my new Metro Express 5 string jazz bass. I have the same horrible noise problems as everyone noticed. Being an electronics geek I had to look in to the problem and stared poking around inside the electronics compartment. I noticed that if I touched the blue or green wire going from the treble control to the input of the preamp the noise would increase. It looked like the problem was at the input of the preamp. I went to my electronics parts bin and found a .01uf bypass capacitor. The type used in most circuits to suppress (bypass) RF signals to ground. I placed it between the blue wire (lug) and ground (lug) on the bass control. Amazingly this fixed the problem and now I have a very quite Metro Express. One thing that is notable. Sadowsky already has a bypass capacitor between the blue wire and ground. So adding my capacitor placed it in parallel to the stock one. The fact that adding my capacitor fixed the problem tells me that either the stock capacitor was defective or it was not large enough to suppress the noise. Also, adding only .01uf on the treble control will not roll off audio frequencies.

There is a petition that aims to get this debated in Parliament. I don't expect that the over-privileged toffs in power give two hoots about this issue, but at least this might put some pressure on. Seek Europe-wide Visa-free work permit for Touring professionals and Artists We would like the UK Govt to negotiate a free cultural work permit that gives us visa free travel throughout the 27 EU states for music touring professionals, bands, musicians, artists, TV and sports celebrities that tour the EU to perform shows and events & Carnet exception for touring equipment. More details The UK has a huge music / event touring industry which has suffered immensely due to Covid. After the end of the transition period, we face further hardship when trying to tour the EU on a professional basis, with potentially each country asking for its own visa, that would be valid only for one trip, As a freelancer I and many like me travel through the EU countless times a year on different tours and events, this will become impossible due to cost and time if we do not have visa free travel. To sign up, you can go here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563294

And as someone who has had an album released on both CD and vinyl, the CD version is noticeably closer to what we were hearing in the studio during mixing, and what we want our audience to hear.

So long.... and thanks for all the fish! (Not!)

Considering we're only 2 days away from this kicking in. There seems to be little to no real information around as to what the new rules will entail. I've still no idea what I would be expected to pay shipping goods out of the UK into the EU. Or the other way around. My wife who runs a small Etsy business has now taken the UK off her shipping list altogether. I will never understand how anybody ever thought this was a good idea. How are business supposed to deal with all this cr@p with less than a weeks notice. Another appalling mess from Boris and his chums.

I only made one bass gear purchase this year. A new build Smith Black Tiger BSR 6 ordered Christmas last year. Couldn’t be happier with it

Hope that’s not the only finish available “post sprout toilet bowl” isn’t that appealing...

Indeed - still got it. And it came from Denmark St, memory's a bit vague but I think it was Roka's. Casting's not perfect on mine but it was a bit of a bargain & sort of had to come home with me! There were some of the painted body ones there too, the blue was quite pretty. Nice bass but only ever gigged it once - the hollow metal body is very microphonic, and to get it to not squeal like a piggy meant I had to seriously cut the top/high mids & couldn't get a tone I was happy with. Nearly sold on here a few years back (unforseen cash emergency) but if I remember right I was talked out of it! However seeing the £1200 tag on this (whether or not it actually exists!) and the fact mine's basically unmarked does mean I could possibly be persuaded... Look. Look at the shiny...

Vincent. I had it built by my specs. Passive, bridge pickup is switched single/single/parallel/series with the three jaguar style switches. Slanted neck pickup for more even bottom end across the strings. Lacquered bubinga fretboard because I love Rics. Meanwhile I received the new amp for this stack. It sounds very tight, solid and warm. "Tube tone" on the amp is a bs dial though, I see no use for that. The Spectracomp on the other hand is really nice. Here's some closeup pics of that Vincent bass:

. . . . but we shouldn't have to. You'd have expected Warwick to have fixed this issue (now seen in the UK and US) in the testing phase!! Sadowsky quality control was legendary. Maybe these could be called teething problems, but how did Warwick let basses with such problems "escape".

We had a similar thread on this not that long ago...so I may be repeating myself here My mates in signed bands tell me that they are selling huge amounts of vinyl at gigs (well, they were when gigs were still a thing) because people want the artefact - vinyl is much nicer to have and hold than a CD, and feels more collectable than CDs I've slightly fallen for the hipster side of it - having the album being the main motivation, rather than playing the music (although I do listen to vinyl regularly). I sold off most of my enormous vinyl collection some years ago, once I'd replaced most of it with CDs (with vinyl having previously replaced the cassette versions that I had as a teenager), I'm now buying vinyl of the same albums. It is simply much nicer to have an album, to look at the artwork, etc. And there are some tracks which only appear on vinyl - for instance some of the live albums in the Metallica box sets are only on vinyl, as is one of the two live albums and the disc of alternate takes, etc in the recent Ace Of Spades box set. And Nine Inch Nails has done specific mixes of their old albums for vinyl, which sound stunning, and deliberately different to some of the mixes on CD I have to say, the quality of a good modern remastered repressing is way ahead in quality than some of the old vinyl that I held on to, albeit that it now costs more than a CD, whereas back in the day CDs cost loads more than vinyl. 180g is being used as a proxy for good sounding vinyl, but it's the mastering that is key, not the weight In terms of quality, and having checked both on a pretty decent system, CDs probably have the edge, and some vinyl can sound noticeably different, whether deliberately or not, but for a good pressing of newly mastered vinyl you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference. For one of my favourite albums, on CD one track goes straight into a drum fill that starts the next track - a brilliant transition between songs. On vinyl this is completely lost as the two tracks are on different sides of the disc. But more tellingly, the vinyl mix sounds different, and I prefer the CD for this particular album (but annoyingly the vinyl has two extra songs) Working from home has made a difference to me - I typically buy CDs and then put them on to my iTunes, and until lockdown did most of my music listening on the way to and from work. I now do most of it while on my daily walks, but I can now sit in the front room and work with vinyl on the stereo I note from recent media coverage that the top ten vinyl sales for the year are mainly old "classic" albums - Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, etc, whereas CDs (which still sell much more than vinyl) are current and re-releases, and cassettes are largely new releases. There's an article on the BBC website which includes an interview with a record label that releases everything on cassette (I'm not sure if they were saying they only release on tape, or if all their releases are available on tape as well as other mediums) which stressed that the quality of cassettes is higher than in the old days, but admitted that "hipster" explains most of the sales, with people wanting to post pictures of their cassettes on Instagram more than they actually want to play the cassette itself. I guess that anything which increases sales of music and thus payments to musicians is a good thing, regardless of why people are buying it or whether they are playing them I will be buying my first tape in about 35 years in the New Year - part of a bulk package for the new Gang of Four album, which works out cheaper than buying all the other items without the cassette. AC/DC had a pretty strong push on cassette sales for their latest album too, and seem to recognise that people weren't necessarily buying them to play, as you could get sets of four in different colours Having seen the price of vinyl that I sold off a couple of decades ago increase to amazing levels (seriously - stuff I sold for a couple of quid would now fetch a couple of hundred quid) I'm hoping that the cassette revival will increase the box full of tapes in my loft from zero to, well, anything more than zero would be an improvement...can't see it though...

The last time I looked, the total was well over the number required to trigger a parliamentary debate

Oh. Hadn't expected anyone would think that of me. No, of course it was immaculate conception in each case: no girl would ever look at me and my four strings.

I sit corrected!!

I really like my Walkabout and was the same with the M-Pulse (pretty much the same in terms of preamp) but always really loved the sound of my 400. The fact that the TT used more valves in the path (and aimed to replicate the 400) was the clincher for me. I can rig up the amps tomorrow (at some point) with one driving a 1x15 on Boogie and the other driving the other (1x15) on Subway and see what I get.