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Forgive the indulgence...but it's time for the final shots I'm pleased how this has come out

I used to be pretty active around here some years ago and ran a blog about effects etc... but I stepped away from bass after getting divorced and life getting messy. At that time, I sold my entire library of effects, including the WMD stuff (I used a Super FatMan from them as well). This very thread will have more pedalboards of mine in it than I care to remember, but here is the big touring board I used with Our Helical Mind, and where the WMD stuff was a pretty critical part of the sound... It's a 2-tier board, so there are a load of other pedals you can't see that were controlled by the GigRig Quarter Master, or in the loop of other effects. It looks cool, but try taking it on tour - it took 2 people to lift it (that board is 1.4m wide). I ended up refining this set up and stripping it down to two smaller Diago boards that I linked together, which revolved around making due with fewer tones and using an Eventide Pitchfacter to replace a LOT of the pedals (that thing is insanely good). Good times!

It’s well known that all Jamerson’s bass parts were actually played by Carole King. But what’s less well known is that all Mark King’s bass parts were actually played by Danny Kaye.

I've had a look around and I'm struggling to find many pictures of Jamerson with a strap on, I'll let you know when I do edit: Never mind, the library have asked me not to come back

oh, this is my first post! hi! so anyway, a couple of months ago i decided to start playing some bass again. i played a little bit a few years back, but never really got into it properly, but i decided to try again and take it more seriously this time around. i bought an Ibanez SR300E, which i've been pretty happy with: it has strings on it and makes bass noises when you pluck them, which is really the main thing i look for in a bass. but then i started looking around at other people's basses, and i thought: hmm... i'd sort of like to try having a fifth string. and then i thought (because this is the kind of thing you think after playing fiddle for 15 years): hmm, i'd also like to try something fretless. obviously, the only possible outcome of all that thinking was "why not both?", so i threw some money at Mr. Thomann, and yesterday this turned up at my door: it's an LTD B-205SM FL. we're still on our honeymoon right now, but i'm pretty sure this is my new favourite bass, and i'm already wondering how much i can sell the Ibby for. the extra string feels so right that i don't think i could ever go back to only having four of them, and being able to do proper slides and vibrato without the frets getting in the way is wonderful. i'm having to readjust a bit - it's easy to get lost on the fingerboard with so many strings, and shifting without staring intently at my hand is a bit of a crapshoot as far as ending up on the right note goes - but hopefully a bit of practice will sort that out. now i'm just thinking: hmm, i'd kind of like something with an unlined fingerboard...

I had my first gig in 15 months at the weekend and decided to use my short scale Atelier Z. It was a blast!

No mention of New Model Army yet, some fantastic bass playing on the first 2 albums, Vengeance and No rest for the wicked. Check out the title track of the second album;

Here is my 32 inches scale translucent blue Alembic Elan IV, but I won't keep it. I'm definitely a 34 inches scale (6 strings fretless) bass player. And it looks like a banjo on me. 🤣

Did my first gig this year last night. Just my acoustic duo at a local pub, but nevertheless a landmark event for me - I was actually beginning to wonder if I would ever get out there again. The gig went well, good well behaved crowd and brilliantly organised staff sorting out table service - a buzzer to the bar on each table was available to order drinks. I was initially worried about the drunks left over from the England match, but fortunately they drifted off once we started , funny that! Worries about my hands still being able to do 3 x 40 min sets were unfounded, although my voice only just survived. You forget about rehearsing vocals, well I did anyway. Got home at round 12.30am, absolutely knackered today though.

No, but it is the currently fastest growing disease because once again we have failed to sufficiently control it. Given a few more weeks of inaction it will be back at the top, clogging up hospitals again. This constant stop start is destroying more jobs than actual proper hygiene measures would. There's a new study reported in this weeks New Scientist that shows that countries like Australia that have pursued an elimination strategy have lost far fewer jobs. Their entertainment and arts industries are in far better shape than ours and over the last 15 months our liberties have been far more restricted than those who take much stronger measures earlier. I'm happy to re-run well worn arguments but I'm afraid by confusing Australia's 25 a day outbreak for our 20,000 a day steadily growing infection rate you are spreading disinformation put out to be fair in the national media and fuelled by politicians who have failed at any stage to fully understand the situation they have failed to manage. Not a party political point by the way but a comment upon competence. I'm sure you are as frustrated as I am about what is happening but If we had taken the action New Zealand and others have taken whilst developing the vaccines we would have suffered less and had a lot more normal including live music in the meantime.

Reverend Thundergun. Passive, pure and potent!

I did indeed thanks. Collecting this weekend so I’ll post an update 😊

This really caught my interest. I was hoping it was another affordable British made hybrid amp to consider. However, I am sure Fenn says that the “tube” circuit is actually emulation, rather than real tube(s). Disappointing. Like others have said, I want more than grit/distortion. I love the clean sound you can get from a valve amp. I have yet to hear tube emulation that does a clean warm valve sound convincingly. Shame: with the choice of FET and “tube” channels, plus the ability to blend them, it would be a real winner… if it really was a tube channel. i checked the spec on the Laney website but it is pretty vague. Normally manufacturers list what valves they use. I assume the absence of this information confirms that there aren’t any actual valves involved. All that weight (7KG) and no valves?

Had these bands actually existed I thinks a fair few would have had a deserved place in this thread:

I saw JJ Cale when he came over to the UK in (I think) 1995. (actually, checking the dates it was October 1994) He was very modest and unassuming, but the music spoke for itself. A venue full of eager JJ Cale fans waiting for him, and a slight figure who looked like part of the road crew ambled on, picked up a guitar and started tuning it. No one took much notice. It was only when the noodling started to resemble After Midnight that we realised this was JJ, he'd just wandering on stage completely unannounced.

Oof! 😍 That purple heart is to die for. Hopefully @Matt P will provide us with some sound clips once he's taken possession. 🤞

Add this to your list of fantastic basses... Forwarded to the NoTreble Bass of the Month?

What this is still going on? NOT OILED: OILED: Same bass, same camera (samsung phone) before and after. Dunlop 65 lemon oil on fretboard and headstock. Keep oiling your fretboards people, it helps. Just not when the board is Maple. Maple should be left alone.

Ring the alarm

Since getting the amps and installing them in the rack and wiring them in, a bit of covid GAS descended. That and a bit of an unexpected financial bonus. I was interested in the continued controversy surrounding different cables and any effect they may have on sound. Our mutual friend @rumblefish has demonstrated an Evidence Audio Lyric cable before and we both heard a clear difference with that cable. So, after some email correspondence with Tony at Evidence, I ordered some Monorail cable and solderless plugs to rewire the rack and to run from the pedalboard to the rack input. I then ordered three of the EA Reveal cables for the three basses going through the switcher. With Tony's help I had decided that the Forte was too much of an outlay, the Lyric was a little 'stiff' for my purpose and the Reveal had the flexibility I wanted and (to quote Tony) 99% of the performance of the Forte. To complete the package, I ordered Siren speaker cables. All this was done through Custom Pedal Boards here in the UK (thanks to Chris Ryan for his assistance). Just to go completely barmy (and because the amps can be left on without a speaker load) I ordered a Mike Hill mini isolator. This means that I have split the output from the tuner and both TT-800s are being fed. Having got an order for a 2 x 12 in the pipeline I will be able to run the cabs from an amp each (who knows when Wembley beckons!!). We also took the opportunity to do a side by side comparison with his M-Pulse 600 through his Berg 2 x 12 which is a great cab in itself). At the same time comparing a number of cables to see what difference there was. With regard to the amps, we concluded there was a minor difference but certainly not enough to worry about. The amps 'work' in different ways and so I would chalk this up as a draw. To me this just underlined the fact that the choice of the TT-800 was spot on. Again, a sizeable difference in volume with the two channels set with the same eq and switched. There will some reason for that (and I'd never do it live anyway). Just needs some tweaking to level them up so no issue. What of the cables? We had EA Lyric and Reveal cables, a Lava cable and another (which I forget). Using the same bass and the same settings the differences were obvious. As we went up the price chain, the level of detail and balance was clear and improved with each step. Very pleasing for me, having drank heavily from the snake oil jar. We concluded that the Lyric would be your studio cable (it's not as flexible as the Reveal), the Reveal would be your live cable. Overall, the Reveal was the winner due to it's closeness to the Lyric and the fact that it was going to be longer lasting in a stage environment. It was the better value option by a way, in my view. I am not going to suggest the snake oil argument is dead but it is to my ears. I firmly believe that I have reached tone nirvana and all my bum notes have been freed to be heard as never before!! Rats!

That much Moog makes me sweaty in a somewhat embarrassing way 😍

You're talking about my Pensa bass I bought it two weeks ago. Of course it's a unique instrument and it sounds great, but I'm considering selling it because I'm a vintage passive player.

Yesterday Australia had 25 new cases which they see as a major outbreak worth controlling. the UK has 20,479 confirmed new cases. Over the past year we have been in full lockdown (but poorly done) for a lot longer than they have and for most of the time for example have had a country completely untouched by Covid, crucially for basschatters we would all have still been able to gig. In fact countries who have seriously followed an elimination policy have lost far fewer days have had their liberties less curtailed and their economies more or less unaffected. If they get this lock down right then next week they will have fewer than 25 infections and be able shortly to go back to normal (not new normal) living. We are seeing the infections double every few days so in just over a week expect 40,000 new infections, then 80,000 until we are forced once again to go into what may be more months of lockdown. The trick is to react quickly with the aim of elimination, you won't keep the whole world out but you limit the damage and it's far easier to contain an outbreak of 25 people ant their contacts than 20,000+. You can track and trace a few thousand people a day but we've never managed to get the numbers low enough for track and trace to work. If only we too lived on an island

Yup, that's what happens - I'm existing with a 300watt Matamp slave for bass (google images, the one with the Iron Crosses) & a 120 Ormat for mid.top, in my lounge................ 😎

I was just having a flick through U Roy tracks and came across this, I’ve never heard it before

Got to have Barrington, wedding ring

A couple of tracks here from a lesser known reggae band Midnite .

Pitza Kustom.....I like it 🙂 Thanks all for your comments. I'll drop a few "in progress" pics in here showing where and how it came together. @itu well spotted! I did think of changing the end of the neck / fretboard to help disguise it but yes the body and neck started as an Ibanez SRX 305. Some subtle (and not so subtle) reshaping here and there and voila the Pitza Kustom 🙂 Theres a photo which, with the sun shining, accentuates what I call the "Pickup Hiccup", where I moved the pickups but didn't finish the top off as well as I could. It looks much worse in the pic than it actually is.

New Squier medium scale, Quite like the grey one with Laurel fingerboard. https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2021/04/06/squier-unveils-the-affinity-series-jaguar-bass-h/

Here's the extension cab!

Not enough neck screws Turned out cool!

Touched By Your Presents Dear - Blondie !!

Nice. For a period of time, he sold the regular (larger) GC in a 'bass version' too, and would even take back regular ones and mod them for bass. I understand that it just let a little clean through the signal. The GC regular and civi were never kind to low end, but then it's a bit crusher! It never bothered me as I ran mine (along with all the dirt effects) is an parallel loop along either a clean signal, or a sub octave. That said, as I prefer to play in projects without guitar etc. it's no issue to me to not always have huge low end.

Pitza, then !

Does anyone know what kind of foam was on the beer?

He even specifically mentions us bass-players in his NAMM 2018 launch of the Pro - by virtue of having a clean blend.

That is amazing.

good point! I'm getting to play bass at church on Sunday! Can't wait.

It looks to have just about the right amount of mojo too, a few scars, but not too beaten up. As long as you're happy with it when you pick it up then I think it's safe to say it's a really nice bass. I'm with you on the neck and it's often the fat necks that put me off, but the necks on these are sublime. I really like gloss/finished necks and these aren't too sticky, so perfect for me

There was a clear sonic difference. No lack of 'heft' but a clear difference. Of course the modus operandi of each amp is different. In some senses a comparison with a WD-800 would have been expected to be a better comparison. The TT sets out to emulate a different tone stack. Both amps sounded great though. I was perfectly happy with my M-Pulses and would have continued to be so, had I kept them. In my post I proclaimed the comparison to be a draw and I think that's a fair result and a huge thumbs up to Andy and the guys at Mesa. The ability to get a genuinely vintage sound out of state of the art package (valves notwithstanding). The tonal difference in the cables was probably the bigger surprise. I had experienced it with Robs' Lyric cable but the clarity was very evident and unmistakable. The same with the balance across the fingerboard. I can hear a lot of people thinking it's cobblers but I have to disagree. Whether or not you feel you can justify the expense is another matter but I figured if people who could afford to use anything chose that then there must be something in it. I am firmly in that camp now.

Shame he's turned the finger cutouts into ... erm ... knuckle cutouts.

who knows recommended something like 50 years by alembic I've always used my finger to rub it in. Guess I'll get some terrible reaction some day. anything for the music🙃

Picked up a 2014 deluxe in the limited edition rootbeer finish. I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for these basses - they’re really very good! Going to try and source an H with rosewood fingerboard next. Specific I know but I want it sufficiently different from the one I have on all counts

Our first indoor gig and it was pretty well done. 150 tickets, table service and loud music. For a gig with restrictions it was pretty good! 2 plus hours and I was canny knackered, a bit outta practice 😂 Roll on Friday and Sat this week 🤞

You shouldn't oil Maple anyway.