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@Fishman asked me if I could do a quick mock-up to see how the rest of it looks with this stain. Seems mean to keep you all from a gratuitous mock-up Going to look alright, I reckon

A couple of hours sanding this morning and ready for the second reveal stain. The small dark patch is a stained fill of a small insect exit hole - the stain is sanded off before the full re-stain trial. Figuring-wise, there are allsorts going on with this timber. There have been a couple of times I have been convinced there's a dirt mark or old stain only to find, after rigorous further sanding, that it's in the timber! Here's pre-stain : And here it is with a first reveal coat of both the stain and tru-oil. Ignore the surface texture - that will be quite different once I've 'done the stuff' - but the colour is probably representative:

Ashdown 12 band I recently took delivery of the new Ashdown 12 band amps, Since building a music room on the top floor of my house I decided I needed a second amp as I have two 2x10’s, one is in the longue for convenient practice and the other is in the new room I initially looked for a small class D amp, Markbass etc, then decided to pursue an MK500 that came up for sale, but that fell through due to the seller being vague about the condition. In hindsight, I should have bought it and got it serviced by those nice people at Ashdown, but I didn’t. Some background, I don’t change amps very often, several years ago I was running an EBS TD 650, then had a Matamp 200w all valve monster (big sound) then came a JJ500 (one of JJ’s actual amps, all black without the rat logo, was sold to a Stranglers fan, which made me happy) The JJ500 made way for an Aguilar DB750, which is an amazing amp when paired with two 4x10’s. That worked for me at the time as I was playing decent gigs in an originals band. Fast forward to becoming 50 and I went for two lightweight 2x10’s and a class D amp, decided it was time to look after my back! I was running a Genzbenz streamliner, great little amp, had a sound that some would call “vintage” I guess, lacked a bit of top end “zing” So I replaced that with Mr Genzlers latest offering, the 800w Magellan. A great little amp, which I still have. With this set up, I could walk into a venue with a double bass bag on my back, a holdall with my amp, leads and effects in, over my shoulder and a cab in each hand, result! In the quest for a second amp, I went for one of new 12 band amps, which arrived this week. So far I have only tried it with my MM sterling and a Sire fretless, I will endeavour to try my Sei jazz and MM caprice over the weekend My opinion, it just does what I expect it to do and very well! I had found with my Class D amp that I was forever playing around with settings such as Drive, contour etc, all the wonderful options that these digital boxes offer up, it worked fine, but depending on what I was playing, I had to make an adjustment at the amp. This is where the 12 band is different, with a slight boost in the lower and upper end of the graphic (it’s actually almost flat) I get a sound where I can make changes on my bass (i.e. 3 position switch on the sterling) with tone and p/up selector and get what I want. Yes, there is the harmonic emphasis, which gives another option, but without that, it just works, nice clean tone, you can really hear the sound of the bass. My sterling has a really low action and the slap tone was mazing with the pickup selector in the rear position, in the front position, where the tone is more classic MM, the slap tone is nice and with the treble rolled off, fingerstyle funk is punchy. The sire fretless has too many knobs for my liking, so I don’t fiddle with it much apart from pickup blend and up and down on the treble pot. It sounds great, nice full fretless tone from the same setting where the sterling produced a great slap tone. I’ve not really had it at any volume and suspect it will be a while before I can do that but based on previous experience when I gigged the JJ for a while (see photo- was running two 4x10’s), I know it’s going to be a “big” sound Build quality is as you would expect, looks great in “ashdown blue” which I thought was a nice touch for this amp. I’ve had black and red and seen gold and silver in pictures, but the blue looks cool with the blue LD around the power button. If the Sei and MM caprice make me smile as much as my Sterling and Sire have when played through this amp, I can see the Genzler going and another 12 band coming in, it’s worth the extra weight over a class D IMHO, so far! Tony

Tonight (Friday) at 8.00pm. Back to basics pub rock movement that emerged in the South of England in the 1970’s.

I've been after an unlined fretless since selling my Ibanez Portamento a couple of years ago. Every once in a while I'll look on here and a few shops to see whats around, but nothing really grabbed me, until last week. I just happened to look on The Bass Gallery and saw The One!! A Fender body with a Status neck, EMGs and a Hipshot KickAss bridge. It needs a couple of tweaks and such but it's bloody lovely! I may refinish the body black to have an evil looking stealth machine...

Got the lockdown blues,so what better way to treat myself than a new bass?! It’s a Cort gb 64jj has an ash body and roasted maple neck,2 jazz pups and a two band eq. Plus push/pull active passive on the vol pot. Just beautiful! Since the pic I have replaced the bridge with a Fender hi-mass jobby.

This project was touched upon in another thread. We're designing a bass guitar speaker cab that literally anyone can build. Cabinet assembly is based on Phil's easy-build 12" cab, which some of you have already built. This time, we're going to show you how to build a compact bass cab that you can use at home or for smaller gigs. It uses a 10" driver plus a compression driver and horn. It will be designed to be as easy as possible to build. It will also be surprisingly inexpensive, considering that we're using good quality components. Those of you who built the BC112 Mk3 will know that Celestion were very supportive of the project. They are helping out again by providing engineering samples of the drivers. So, thanks once again to Aiden McFall, Celestion's European sales manager. And they've arrived. Edit: Drawings now added here as requested. Please note that you will need to fit an additional batten vertically between the cutouts for the horn and port. This is not shown in the drawing but proved to be needed after testing. BC 110T v1.2.pdf

The 70’s were a wonderful period for the electric bass, especially in funky and disco music, where our instrument excelled and was the absolute protagonist. As in the case of a classic of those years such as Last Train to London by Electric Light Orchestra, shown here and played with my trusty Fender Precision American Performer in single coil mode... enjoy!

Cheers. Yes, I know, it will be different from the Stingray but that's ok as I can then still get the Stingray Classic for my Funk and Disco stuff. I am always surprising my wife with all these new music genres that I am somehow getting interested in (Motown, Funk, Disco, Classic Rock, Hard Rock, Prog, Metal, Grunge) 😎 Anyway, I hope the L2K will be my Prog bass (esp. for Rush, Riverside, Karnivool and Tool. With regard to the latter, I've read somewhere that the L2K is the poor man's Wal. Well, there you go ; -). I also got this pedal to go with it. Hope to check it all out over the coming weekend:

I recognise greatness when I see it. The king is dead. Long live the king.

My new one: It is a Traynor Mono Block II Preamp in pedal format.

@skelf has had to put up with a lot from me over the years, all my commissions have had that slightly irritating “Martin” quirk, not to mention my excellent ability to turn on a sixpence and change my mind. That’s meant a lot of back and forth over specs - I think there are at least two Finns I’ve shelved for something else (the Skelf, for example, was originally going to be a Finn). Whilst my basses may have quirks, until now none have been a “first” in the ACG book (except possibly the reverse headstock on the Skelf?) Last year, however, I think I broke Alan when I flipped what was going to be a black Finn into a completely different shape and a colour not yet seen on an ACG. He’s nearly finished it, and oh my word has he excelled himself (as always). The crayon colouring in particular is in the realms of “quite good”. Here are a few in progress shots for your delectation; I think you’ll all agree it’s going to be quite the special bass 😎

I don't know if anyone had put this up here before, but it's an incredible watch. Found it today and I think I have watched it atleast 10 times already.

You may remember my NBD a week ago with the red Adam Nittie Ibanez. Well, that went back to the store. It sounded epic, but there were so many little build issues I couldn't live with. So, here's what caught my eye. Elrick Evolution Gold 5 with Buckeye Burl top. I like the fact that it has dual coil Barts and three band Bart preamp.

The answer is in part that "it depends", but in practice far field cabinets that are designed to work together (reasonably similar math and phase response) generally will not have any more negative impact on the audience sound than "perfectly matched" speakers as these differences are WAY too far to the right of the decimal point to be a significant factor. I'm sure somebody could dream up some wild combination that would be a factor, but I'm talking about REASONABLE choices here.

Well I’ve only just stumbled across this thread. Fantastic! To be honest, having owned 2 Wals (one of which had a non-level fingerboard fitted from birth), I’d say you seem to be taking even more care than the ‘original’ Wal (i.e. Wal & Fish) did. One thing I’ve noticed with some busy luthiers - even the best ones - doing loads of repairs is sometimes they don’t (or can’t, due to timescales and workload) go that extra mile, which you appear to be doing.

Good day today! Took a day off from work to get a few things sorted (and have a lie in ). - Pickup and control cavity painted with conductive paint - Nut sorted - Tuners sorted - Prepped fretboard for fretting - Settled on where I am going to put the Infinite Bass logo

Go on then! might have missed a few, will edit and add photos when I get time 1. No name P bass – sunburst, my first bass, bought from a scruffy shop in Farnworth in 1977 ish 2. 1972 Fender Telecaster bass – bought from Salford Jets bass player 3. JD supernatural 4 – it was an 80’s thing 4. No name defretted P bass 5. Warwick Fortress 4 – honey violin 6. Warwick Jazzman 4 – blue 7. Warwick Jazzman4 – honey violin 8. Warwick Jazzman 5- honey violin 9. Warwick streamer stage 1 4 – blue 10. Warwick streamer stage 1 5 - natural 11. Warwick Streamer stage 2 4 - red 12. Warwick corvette 4 – natural 13. Warwick dolphin pro 1 5, but might have been a 4, can’t remember 14. Warwick dolphin pro 2 4 – blue 15. Conklin Bill dickens 7 – Natural, seemed like a good idea at the time 16. Alembic Epic 4 – imported from USA when exchange rate was good 17. Alembic Mark king 4 – serious neck dive 18. Musicman stingray 2005 limited edition buttercream 4 – lovely! 19. Musicman stingray 2005 limited edition buttercream 4 – #2 20. Musicman stingray NAMM special – damn! 21. Musicman stingray 20th anniversary 4 22. Musicman stingray 4 – teal green 23. Musicman stingray 4 – was white, refinished in VW niagra blue 24. Musicman stingray 5 HH – white with white p/up covers, very white! 25. Musicman sterling 4 – sunburst 26. Musicman sterling 4 HH – sunburst 27. Musicman sterling 4 – was blue, refinished in sonic blue nitro 28. Musicman caprice 4 – sunburst, I would like to find a diamond blue and do a neck swap, will create sunburst with maple and diamond blue with rosewood, neither was an option from EB 29. Fender deluxe jazz fretless 4 (USA) – lake placid blue 30. Fender custom classic jazz 4 – blue 31. Fender custom classic jazz 4 – seafoam green 32. Fender custom shop 64 limited edition 4 – pale sonic blue 33. Fender FMT 4 (USA) – red sort of colour 34. Fender victor bailey 4 – natural 35. Fender Jazz MIJ 4 – black 36. Modulus Jazz 4 - sunburst 37. Sandberg cali ‘ VM4 - sunburst 38. Lakland DJ4 – silver, I think 39. Lakland hollow body with fretless and fretted necks – red 40. Lakland Duck Dunne P bass 4 - Red 41. Italia Maranello 4 – blue / green (I’m colour blind) 42. Pedulla pentabuzz fretless 4 – red, perfection 43. G&L fretless 5 – green 44. Bass collection (japan) fretless 5 – natural, exceptional quality 45. Gretch hollow boby 4 – red 46. Gibson midtown hollow body 4 – black, the only Gibson bass I’ve ever owned 47. Aria acoustic 4 – blue 48. Sei jazz 4 – natural coffee table type wood 49. Sei Jazz 4 – seafoam green, made for Randy hope Taylor 50. Sei jazz 5 – white, made for Paul Turner – trying to retrieve this one 51. Overwater fretless 6 52. Status series 2000 – black 53. Iceni fretless 4 – sunburst 54. NS wav 4 - brown 55. NS wav4 – black 56. NS WAV omni 4 – brown 57. GB spitfire 4 – red 58. GB rumour 4 – natural 59. Sire jazz fretless 4 – black 60. Sire Jazz fretless 4 – black, sold #53 and bought this one last week (Feb 2021)

I completely understand those of us who see the bass as a tool - precisely as @TheLowDown articulates it. After all I'm the same with cars. Do not care how it looks, neither shape nor colour matter one bit to me. I can't imagine ever wanting to own more than one vehicle unless the 2nd one had a specific purpose not fulfilled by the 1st. Like a camper van for example. All that matters is I can get my gear in, it goes and is as cheap as possible to maintain, tax, insure and put fuel into. Other people adore cars, would own a stable if them if they could afford to, and wouldn't touch my battered kia with a barge pole. None of us is all one thing, we all share sone traits they just get expressed differently. A bass is a poetic tool to me. A thing of aesthetic potential used to create art with others. I take pleasure looking at it. A different pleasure setting the action and a particular thrill just holding it, before I even play a note. Having one television seems crazy to me. Having one in each room beggars belief. But I have no objection to anyone else having them in all shapes and sizes anywhere they like.

Have you checked the intonation ? Check the open G with a tuner, and then fret the G at the 12th fret. The tuner should show no difference. If there is, you need to adjust the intonation at the bridge. The adjustment screw can move the saddle forwards or backwards depending on whether the string is sharp or flat

Try comparing the 5th fret harmonic of the D-string to the 7th fret harmonic on the G-string. When tuned correctly, they should sound the same. You can play these harmonics by just lightly touching the strings above the fret (don't actually fret the note) and plucking the string like you normally would when playing.

Well....its just arrived! Came with a customs paperwork attached, but nothing to pay (under £130).

Many have run aground after making such a declaration 😂.

They did a good version on Duran's Rio in North Korea though ....

Has your wife hacked your account??

We have a turd in the punch bowl. I repeat, we have a turd in the punch bowl.

Hit An' Run, from Come An' Get It (1981). Hit An' Run.pdf

You mean like somewhere that you're not allowed to do certain things, like mix with other people, travel to other countries, perform live music or entertainment, criticise the authorities, go shopping for pleasure, visit other parts of your own country, spend time with family, protest against perceived injustice etc. ? Ah! It's hard to imagine somewhere like that from our privileged position.

Back in 1970 myself and two mates had give up motorbikes and bought instruments. Two of us playing guitars and the other of flute. We were big Tull fans. We were learning as we went along, as was the way back then, if we found a new chord we tried to write a song around it, none of your cover version tosh for us. One night in my parents living room the other guitarist began playing a chord sequence he had come up with so I joined in. After a few measures of this the flautist started playing over our sequence, then the other guitarist played something different over my chords. I followed them and began to listen for patterns to enhance or to subdue, and soon they followed my lead and we ebbed and flowed for about 15 minutes. When we finished we just looked at each other in shock and excitement. We knew bugger all about our instruments but we could improvise on the hoof, we could play off one another, we were musicians and the World was ours to conquer.

A guitar amp for a 12-year-old sounds like a fair swop. I'd say go with it.

... then you'd be living in North Korea.

Bad jokes thread? See fryer

IIRC The funk face sounds very like the EHX Bassballs but with a tube drive, rather than a fuzz. Maybe the tube will give it a richer voice, but the Bassballs will give you that sound for a lot less Shackles.

Does it come with a telescopic case? 😕

. . . and when BP puts the shuffle together, the bassist plays everything but a shuffle!! Forget the shuffle, this is a promo for the bass player. Not necessarily a bad thing, just not the Purdy Shuffle on bass.

Bought one of Johns excellent P Bass looms with an 'Old School' Cap and now my AVRI sounds even more like a '62 than before. Superb quality and incredibly easy to fit - even for a fossilised old fart like me, plus speedy delivery. Thanks John 👍👍

I see the bass as a tool to achieve something. While I can't understand the point of owning lots of different brands with the same number of strings, I wouldn't have "just one" bass because the basses that I have serve different purposes. I currently have 8 basses, but one is old and senile, one is back in its packaging to be sold in the future because it weighs more than a house, and the other is an unsellable 5 string fretless that has no use (I have a 6 string and a 4 string fretless, so the 5 string is no use). The 5 basses I have and need are a 6 string fretted and fretless, a 5 string fretted, and a 4 string fretted and fretless. The policy is one in one out. They have different needs and they're the minimum that I need. I use a 4 because that's a standard bass, but on rare occasions I need a C or a B string, but it's a bad idea to use more strings than you have to so I only use what is necessary. I'm not a collector and I don't believe in pretty things. Basses are tools like a hammer or a wrench, but I don't see myself supercharging any of my hammers or buying a screwdriver in blue any time soon.

Hallo @inthefields und herzlichen Willkommen. For your fretless, with the active preamp if it's a 3 bands model, choose the bridge pickup, put the mids almost to the max, add a bit of bass (just after the center click) and remove a bit more of highs thanyou did with the bass. You'll start to have that mwah growling, slightly adjust to your taste all 3 bands. If you can choose between full humbucker or single coil, opt for single coil. If your preamp is a 2 bands, slightly boost the bass and roll back the highs. That said a mid control is almost mandatory on a fretless as it's the mwah control. Roundwounds also sound à la Jaco, when flatwounds have a great tendency to kill that mwah. Other tricks next time. 😉 By the way, I'll turn 56 this year, so you're not old.

Just lifted the scratchplate a little and there is indeed a battery under there. I've also reseated the neck and the string alignment is much better. When I saw it this morning the thoughts of spraying it black have been removed. It looks too bloody nice as it is, Although the scratchplate may have to be changed to a plain black one. The carbon fibre is a bit flashy for me... 😁

Clearly to check the effect of the angled pickup 'scientifically' you would need to do a V rout and an A / B comparison. But, on my less scientific measure of the sound of Jazz type basses with the angle and without, then yes - for the bridge pickup - it makes a tangible difference. To my ear, the top G on many basses is noticably more trebly than the other strings. With this change, that effect goes away and sounds much more balaced across the strings. On the other hand, the same angle on the neck pickup makes no tonal difference to my ear.

I love the look of these! Beautiful.

I have to walk past the bassgallery with my eyes shut, or it costs me money 😂

I didn't originally because I was a kid and only had one guitar. But the first time I was left high and dry at a gig by faulty gear was the last time.