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Hi, I posted a thread several months ago asking for views of Shuker's bass/guitar building course. I've spend last week doing this and thought I should let you all know how it went. The short answer - it was great and I'd recommend it to anyone. I went in to this course with almost zero woodworking experience. I can build a flatpack or put up a shelf, but that's about it. I know my way around basic guitar maintenance – I can do a setup, electronics work or a swap out a bridge for example. But I had never used a bandsaw or router before! Jon Shuker is extremely knowledgeable and patient. Nothing seems to phase him – he’s a great teacher! He was assisted by Tim, who is also very good. They were both happy to help resolve any shoddy workmanship, ensuring you come away with a quality end result. It was a very busy week. Within minutes of arriving, we were selecting our body wood – alder or mahogany – swamp ash is impossible to get at the moment. By the end of the first day, I had something resembling a bass body. The next three days, the focus was mostly the neck – which really is a huge amount of work. Cutting the basic maple shape and rough fingerboard, routing a truss rod channel. Sawing the fret-slots was far less daunting than I thought it’d be, aided by a nice tool that ensures it’s done precisely. Adding dot inlays is quite a fun job – although one ended up marginally off-centre due to my inability to mark a centre point! It definitely felt rewarding to spend time sanding the fingerboard until it was shiny smooth – it seems a much better finish than any bass I’ve owned. Between neck jobs, we were sanding the body, which seemed to be the one job that was never finished! The final day was mostly fretwork, soldering and assembly – and was definitely the busiest day, we were finally done by about 6pm. It's worth noting that all the hardware is top quality - Seymour Duncan pickups, Gotoh bridge, Schaller tuners. Jon even ordered some straplocks for me, rather than have me get home and replace the normal ones. The only job we couldn't do was spraying - apparently he's not insured for it. Given the short time, the choices of finish are quite limited anyway - I just opted for clear lacquer as I quite liked the grain. This is the final result – I’ve very pleased!

For info Dave, this is the one that escaped my cull. It’s been modded with a Jon Shuker neck gloss makeover and stainless frets. Plays very nice and not stupidly heavy.

All is right in the world…

I have a 2017 USA EBMM Sterling 4HH It has the slim neck and smaller body and a 5 way switching of the HH ceramic pickups. It totally killed my GAS

More pics !

Just soldering, intonation, setup and usual tinkering needed…

Inspired by the discussion on the thread about hilariously bad songs, can I invite you all to submit your nominations? Here's mine: The Flying Lizards - Money - YouTube

My latest

Deep breath’s everyone. Keep calm. Talk to someone if needs be but please try not to overwhelm the Samaritans. There could be a guitarist trying to get through admitting that he doesn’t know everything….. about everything 😂

In recent years i limit to circa £1k for gigging basses. My Warwick ive had since 89 and Overwater was for my 50th 11yrs ago. Those 2 never leave the house these days. Warwick was my only bass back in 89 and gigged a few times until work got in the way. I started playing again circa 2009 and never been busier. Dave

I can’t comment on the current Sterling series basses and neck widths but I have a Sterling SB14 which I think would have been a forerunner of them. If you can find one they’re an absolute bargain but you don’t see them often. It’s an Indonesian built Sterling with the smaller body, headstock, pickup switching options and jazz neck from a few years back which I believe were sent to the USA factory for final set up and QC control. Having previously owned and sold a ‘proper’ USA Sterling (amongst various other USA Stingrays) I much prefer my little SB14. Sound wise and quality wise I can’t tell the difference between it and it’s expensive USA big brother but I much prefer the neck. It’s still jazz width but it’s less full in the hand and has a satin finish rather than the waxed MM one. I used to cramp up on the old one but I don’t with this.

Sure - it's difficult to photo as it kinda wraps around my wrist...but here's my attempt.

One of my fave post punk toons evah

Oooo, never rush that sort of thing, for as we all know, 'Fender Precision' is an anagram of 'Reinforced Penis'... 😐🙂

I have removed the nylon tapewounds and installed an old well-worn in set of TI Jazz Flats off my Fender Jazz bass. Wow! They speak with more authority than the original Chromes and the tapes. Do they sound like an acoustic bass? No. Do I care? No. I have an acoustic bass for jazz and rockabilly gigs. The UB804 is just the beez kneez for my blues, americana and latin/gypsy gigs. Tinyd: I play a lot lighter on the Upswing than I do on the acoustic. It's a natural thing for me as the Upswing doesn't actually physically allow me to "dig in."

If I could go back in time to the mid 80's and give myself some advice when I first started playing that would be invaluable as a bass player, it would include but not necessarily be limited to; Pick up a short scale and stick with it. You're a short arse and 34" scale basses are way to big and cumbersome so don't waste the next 25-30 years fannying about with them. A 30" P or PJ is all you'll ever need. Do not - under any circumstances - buy that Trace Elliot SMX rig in the early 90's. Just don't. It's a gutless, one trick pony that will do your head in for years to come. Stick with the Marshall Jubilee rig instead. Or a Peavey of some sort. Learn some theory sooner rather than later. A little goes a long way. Don't play with loads of crap drummers, your timing is bad enough without those idiots hindering you. Learn more covers even if you don't like them. It will push your playing more than doing your own thing ever will. Don't gig on opium. Ever. I repeat, DO NOT buy that f@cking Trace rig no matter how cool it looks.

I’m in Dallas with work for the next 3 months and spotted a Guitar Center on my drive back from the supermarket today, so thought I’d pop in. They didn’t have a huge selection of new basses (although there were a couple of nice vintage P and J basses high up out of reach in their Premium section), but I sat down and grabbed a few to try. First one was a Yamaha BBP34. I’m a big fan of Yamaha basses and this is one of their relatively high end models (I think it was $1499). Played it for a couple of mins and it did absolutely nothing for me - I was quite disappointed. I couldn’t have told the difference between it and a $250 bass to be honest. Finish was fine but the setup was lousy, and it just felt disappointing. Next up was a Fender American Professional II Precision. This I absolutely loved, and it instantly felt comfortable. Great sounding too. Neck was very comfy - slim front to back but traditional P bass but width. Setup nicely straight out of the box and surprisingly light. This was up for $1500, and if I was in the market for a P bass (haha, which is pretty much all the time!), I’d definitely be considering one of these. Finally, and probably the most surprising to me, was a cheapo Sterling by Stingray SUB. Sticker price was $299, and I had very low expectations from it. Bear in mind that I’ve owned a couple of “proper” Stingrays in the past and have never really got on with them. Well, I plugged this in and was blown away. Build quality was great, it was setup nicely and neck was slim and frets were very well finished. No dead spots, 2 band eq worked perfectly, and it sounded great! All for the equivalent of £218, in a choice of a few colours (including a really nice powder blue which is actually called chopping blue for some reason). Quite taken with it, and I think I might grab one for the time that I’m out here for, and then donate it at the end of the trip to a local music group or something. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have given a cheapo bass like that a second look. Just goes to prove something we probably all know - you don’t have to pay a fortune to get a decent bass.

My latest attempt at home made video production. This is one of the projects I'm regularly involved in and we were doing a wee gig for a venue we have performed at several times over the past few years. Easy listening, it would be fair to say.

No, bought it with the standard ‘oil-wax’ neck but I’ve never been keen on that finish (grew up on a 1990 Ray with a gloss neck) so I had it refinished with a vintage tint. As it’s a maple board this meant the frets had to come out so I had stainless replacements.

One of the best, yes that's what I said, live albums ever.... You know what "Live and Direct" means?

Here it is. Just looks like a white P bass. It has a Tonerider pickup, Gotoh tuners and bridge and a Kiogon loom. It was the original red, then black, natural, white, black and white again. Never again! It`s nothing special apart from the neck but for some reason it`s like putting on your favourite pair of slippers

I'm gonna have to start talking to the people I live in a house with 🤯

I've been dabbling with the post-reunion albums over the last few days but, today, went with SIT and SSOASS. Two mighty albums. I love the production of SIT.

I’m gonna need a helpline of some description 😥

First time at this so this time next year I might have built a Chunk Systems 00Funk Envelope Filter clone (JedsPeds 'Funkin for Ja Morton' kit).

Nellie the Elephant ～ Mandy Miller

The only neck type on the US Sterling is the narrow version. As that bass also has a 5 bolt neck joint and one extra fret (goes to high F - 22 frets), it was completely different from the Stingray with 21 frets, 6 bolt neck joint and wider profile. There was a narrower SLO Special neck available on a Stingray but also 6 bolt and 21 frets (as opposed to the version on the US Sub). The Stingray Special has 22 frets, a 5 bolt neck joint and the wider profile. All that said, I don’t know how Musicman achieve what they do with their necks but they are simply incredibly playable, slick and have a profile which is, IMO, a combination of a flat curve (11 in radius except the Classic series at 7.5 in) with (on the Stingray 4), a 43 mm width at the nut and rolled edges - the latest Specials have the added roasted maple and the slickest finish you could imagine - a lot of this is down to the level of hand finishing applied in the build. The main differences with the SBMM models is standard of hardware (which is different for the higher priced ones compared with the Subs). In terms of sound, because they’re all covering the same design concept, there are similarities, but like with a comparison of P or J basses across a vast range of price, there are differences. I think some of the SBMMs have ceramic pick ups (but I’m not up on the differences). The SBMM models provide great basses at the price points. The US basses these days are into the exquisite sort of playing experience. It’s also worth bearing in mind the US Sterling is essentially a 4 string version of the 1992-2008 SR5 - my 2003 SR5 remains my favourite 5 string - part of that is to do with the sound available, which is influenced by the ceramic pick up and series/parallel /single coil switchability. @dmccombe7 the SBMM SB14 is, as has been indicated, an offshore version of the US Sterling - been out of production for some time but do pop up used occasionally. The main difference (apart from hardware) is the body is, IIRC basswood (it is normally ash on the US Sterling). However that’s no bad thing, the Bongo bass normally has a basswood body and sounds great. These are worth looking at if you find one. That said, US Sterlings pop up used quite regularly.

KiOgon loom will be a good improvement, much better quality parts. That’s one area where Squier keep costs down, whereas the new loom will most likely be same parts as what go in US Fenders.

Therse are thought to have probably been Matsumoku - there's a Vox Standard guitar which is near-identical to the Matsumoku-built Westbury Standard, so that provides a link. Pickups were definitely DiMarzios: I should say there's a tendency for people to assume all late 70s/early 80s through-neck or laminated body stripey guitars were Matsumoku, so it's good to remember that was a period in time when everyone was ripping off Alembic!

I should have started with 5-string fretted and fretless as well as a double bass right away in my teens. 19 mm string spacing (fits my fingers), less slap, more analyzing, less flashy stuff. Some learning with effects (fuzz, comp, envelope, x-over). I would have had to learn meat and potatoes so well that everybody would have wanted me to play exactly that. Amps, a GK micro combo for double bass and a Glockenklang Soul and a lightweight 2 x 12" for electrics. Listening to Marc Johnson, NHØP, Edgar Meyer, Tom Kennedy, Pekka Pohjola, and Abraham Laboriel for flashy stuff and numerous no named heros for the functional and important meat and potatoes. Learning from BASSCHAT decades ago! This is so good place, Thank You All! I still try to grab ideas from you, although I learn slowly. It is never too late.

Yeah - I did qualify it as "apparently" "inspired by", because there looks to have been a lot of assumptions about it (which are not in MXR's interest to correct!). Ovnilabs describes it like this: "People who want minimal coloration will be pleased, but people who want "tone magic" will be disappointed. Because of the claims about the M87 being "based on" the Urei 1176, consumers may assume or wish that the M87 will give them a famous vintage tone quality. It will not. It's a great-sounding pedal, it's better than a good percentage of the other pedals out there, but it is not a magic vintage recording-studio tone box. It's just a good, clean compressor with some useful features, that happens to use a circuit and control layout similar to the basic concept of the Urei." -- http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/mxrbass.shtml How important is "magic" to you, @SteveXFR? 🎩 DryBell Unit67 is another option btw. They describe it as an "an 1176 type of compressor" - interpret that as you will! 🙂

I totally understand those who find P's kinda clunky , flat and horrible....but its in that awkward simplicity where the gold lies. Fresh rounds and a pick with the tone rolled off a hair you get that beautiful archetyple punky/metal clang. Sling on a set of old flats and then play fingers with a light touch a hair south of the PU and you've got that low mid punchy tone that fits a million tunes. But play it like your not sure whats going on and it will sound lifeless and dead.

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Maybe the new Trace cabs will suit… hope they’re lightweight as (for me) a lighter cab is more importanterer than a light amp. What’s the point of a lightweight head if the cabs are heavier than the sun?

Good luck everyone

This stunning cover has got to be on this list, although not quite as good as Manowar's I'd grant you @Barking Spiders

I had the M87 I couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Very transparent, attack/release controls seemed to have very little effect and by far the noisiest comp I've ever had. All purely IMO of course as the pedal has its fans. It sounded nothing like the Cali76 which adds a nice subtle sheen to your tone, (as described in ovnilab like adding a high quality preamp) its just light years ahead of the MXR in every way. I think the MXRS control set is similar to the 1176 and that's it.

I'm surprised its into 4 ohms. I assume it won't go down to 2 or 2.67 ohms, which is surprising as they will be competing with the likes of Bergantino, mesa Boogie and Gallien-Krueger, who all do amps of 800-1200 watts into 2 and 2.67 ohms. Still, the TE 1200 through a super compact should mean 600 watts through the 8 ohm load so still lots to be excited about.

That's so cool I'd have it on stage even if it weren't plugged into anything!

Received, many thanks!

In spite of everything suggesting that I would probably prefer the US Sterling to the US Stingray, I don’t. But if you liked your mate’s, that what matters. I happily defer to DrT above in matters Musicman, but of course only you can decide which you like best. FWIW, Sterling by Musicman are all Indonesian, as opposed to Musicman basses, which are built in the USA. Also FWIW, I haven’t liked the ones I’ve played any less than the majority of the full fat US MusicMan basses I’ve played. In fact I like the US Classics I’ve played quite a bit less. Of course YMMV. If you want a Jazz nut width, just make sure that’s what you get. I think most of the necessary info is actually on the individual sites, it just takes a bit of wading through. https://intl.sterlingbymusicman.com/pages/about Maybe somebody should do a potted Musicman history/primer for MM newbies.

despite not being the biggest fan of this track, I'm still looking forward to the album. I've always been a maiden fan since the 80's and I thank them for putting the fire in my heart to become a professional musician. Even though I have a slightly more 'tenuous' relationship with them these days, I have found myself in the position of knowing several ex members as friends as well as band mates. Some of the past events/ business dealings have left a slightly sour taste in my mouth, but I still metaphorically worship at Harris' feet as a player and performer. I'm trusting that there will be some fresh and amazing music forthcoming, and even if it takes me a few listens, I will still try to appreciate it for what it and they are now, not what they were back in the day.

Employers are reporting Thursday as the most productive day in years....

Body taken to 600 grit, cavity painted with conductive shielding paint, first layer of tru oil applied. Have read many different accounts on how many coats of tru oil people use. I'll try and be patient and see how far I get. Latest plans looking like chrome hardware, hopefully a roasted maple neck and then pickguard dilemma's!!!