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I just had a chance to have all of these beautiful basses at the same time in my studio for a weekend. I used it to make a sound comparison video of 6 Precision type bass guitars, 5 Fender and an alien - Maruszczyk. Always wanted to test different eras and different price range P basses. All the info about the basses and the recording is under the video at YT. Hope You will enjoy and let me know what You think about it ☺️.

There has been some development since my last post in this thread. Another three vantages and a fake mockingbird 😀

I'll do a proper build diary when I've finished, but progress up to now...

We did 2 gigs over the weekend at The Newt in Somerset, which is a visitor destination near me in Bruton. It was billed as a 'Deep South BBQ and Broil' and the place was decorated with gourds and pumkins, you can see some on the barrel, front left of the photo. Saturday saw a small rain shower when we were playing which meant moving our PA speakers under the tent but Sunday was beautiful and we had the added bonus of a PA provided (unknown to us). The band who followed us were a trio and their Bass player could not travel: I only found out after we had stripped down and my backline had been taken away in the van, I would have been happy to help out. The photo is from Sunday and our singer/harmonica player has gone on walk-about and banjo player has his back turned!

Not an early April Fool... As some of you may know I have been cursed when trying to sell a particular bass. I've had offers from credible people who disappear in to thin air as soon as it's time for payment, I've sold it posted it spent the proceeds on a new bass and then found its lost in DPDs system only to appear a month later and after a refund with the original buyer who nicked the knobs off it and sent it back.... Anyhow, I discounted it to below the amount of money the bass and all its new parts and work cost me and sold it to a nice chap in Scotland. I found UPS via a parcel price comparison company but went direct to them for the order having had only bad experiences with intermediary companies booking the courier if things go wrong. So UPS collects from me on Monday and yesterday notified me they had delivered. Then late evening the buyer notified me he hasn't had the parcel. Panic. Here we go again. I called UPS and a helpful person sent me the confirmation of delivery, copy of signature and promised the depot would call me within an hour. Just over an hour later I got a voicemail from a lovely lady at ups who had tracked the drivers route, spoken to him and got a full description of where he delivered the package. I phoned the buyer, relayed the info, then phoned UPS back and said "wrong delivery address" to which they said "ok, we will send a driver back out right now to get the package!". This morning the package is with the buyer. Ok, the driver should not have gone to the wrong address and left the parcel there, but what impressed me was not only being able to talk to an actual person, not just an actual person who actually cared, but an actual person who cared AND immediately had a plan to do something about it. It all sounds so simple, but I've never had that from a courier company before. I know a lot will have horror stories from ups but in the Glasgow area at least they seem to have some good eggs working there.

You could try one of these.

Two shows over the weekend, followed by two studio days which limited my time on Basschat (hence the midweek update). We headlined the Betsey Trotwood in London on Friday and followed it up with an appearance at the Lexington as part of the Power Pop festival. Both were really solid performances, marred slightly by the train out of London being cancelled. 4am before I got to sleep on my singer's floor! Despite that it was a totally awesome weekend and the studio was great fun too.

I’ve finished the aluminium profile on the lower grill. It needs the corners tightening up (it’s all one piece of aluminium like the original) so I’ve given it to a blacksmith friend who’s got a very sharp 90° angle on his vice. Mine has wooden jaws so the angle and alignment is a touch vague and I want it spot in before the corners are soldered up. The preamp has also had a service and a coupe of minor issues sorted out.

Just a few experiences in favour of amps and volume... I'm playing drums in a 2 piece band. The guitarist uses a submarine pickup through an octaver for the bass sound. He always struggles to hear his own vocals, so I set us up a "silent" rehearsal rig. Both of us used in-ears for vocals, bass and guitar, with only the drums making any real noise. We thought it was brilliant. One day, when setting up a big rig to record his guitars for the album (stereo guitar rig, full stack for the bass sound), we thought it'd be good to have a jam with it. The vocals went back through the PA, our ear plugs went back in, and F*&K ME we both said, this is awesome. We've not gone back to the in-ears My main band have an Xair-18 which we bought to record our album in a bigger, more covid-secure room. Our guitarist has always used his POD and recently bought a fancy new modelling pedal. He's really into the idea of a quiet stage. Again, the singer struggles to hear himself on stage sometimes. The bassist always used a small TC combo. He's been talking about getting a new amp all year, and at first I was trying to convince him to go ampless, but there was no way. We played a festival where they had an Ashdown Rootmaster into an 8x10 on stage, and it had us grinning at each other the whole set. So, he bought a Rootmaster, and a Barefaced 4 x 10. We had our first rehearsal with it last night and F&(K ME we both said. Maybe this is just the drummer's point of view, but with a great big bass sound, everything is grooving better

Jah Wobble in January, looking forward to some of this

I recently acquired this on here. It's a bitsa and swapped out the pickups and electronics and fitted a set of EMG Geezers instead. It's a sweet instrument. Just need some flat topped knobs to finish it off now.

Just goes to show that you really can't beat moving a bit of air.

Horses for courses. If you want that tic-tac sound, for example, you need a pick. If you play reggae, you need fingers and/or thumb. No point in struggling to make a less than ideal method work.

Can I join your club? Although I generally like a snappy tone, I don't like it to come from my nails. I have a pair of nail clippers as a permanent passenger in my gig bag, having been caught out too many times and resorted to teeth.

Woodpeckers 😁

Well Sterling is almost worthless compared to a full blooded Musicman anyway....?

By the way, for what kind of birds is it intended @Teebs ?

When I got my vinyl out one day my little boy asked what it was, when I explained he said, ah, so it’s a big CD then 😁

A request from the website, this is Walter Becker's bass part from the tune 'Florida Room' from the Donald Fagan 1993 album, 'Kamakiriad'. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/florida-room-donald-fagan/

I did the holes shielding method once on a Jazz Bass, took ages, but it's working as good as a wire soldered. Furthermore, the grounding plate of the pickups will be "earthed" too, so it's more than enough. You should invest in a cheap multimeter, after all, all you need is being able to check continuity, pickups impedance, pots, a few tensions here and there and maybe check a capacitor or diode. It's only a few quids well spent.

Mine also arrived today, thanks! Have tried it on and already my playing has improved... 😎

And here it is with its Jazz cousin:

Long(ish) mix but worth it -

At the PPA-meeting (PP Anonymous): Hi, my name is Baa, and I have a PProblem... 🤣

Good Times! I love this song - forgive me if I mentioned it before in the last 22 pgs but I can play the guitar parts too, on the Stick! CoolCoolCool...

Sadly had to part with the one decent HiFi I ever owned and could never really justify the cost of replacing it. Only have an old Kenwood system with some reasonable speakers. Still have a hundred odd Vinyl record’s left but mostly use an Amazon echo dot streaming from Spotify. Convenient but does suck the soul right out of music. Like talking a Japanese tea ceremony and replacing it with a vending machine.

And we're back to the Fender Turntable!

Tinseltown Rebellion - Zappa (you knew it was coming)

Looks like there's a Stingray type on the way...

I preferred the sunburst too but don't want to admit that till @Clarky's '71 is back under his bed.....!

if it's just to make it more saleable then i'd go for the D'addario (i'm guessing these are the cheapest option?), any buyer that has preferences will be looking to change the strings anyway to their preferred ones and for those that don't have any preference all they'll see is that it has fresh strings. To me it sounds like Mr Shopman is just trying to upsell you some expensive strings that you'll never get to enjoy yourself, if it were my bass i'd probably fit some cheap stainless strings to it myself (most likely would have done this before taking it to the shop so i could keep the flats for another bass). i did use DR's for quite a few years back on my first bass ( Yamaha RBX765) always the Fat beams, they really worked with that bass. Matt

Sorry, I meant apart from me and @AndyTravis

We bought the XR18. £425 from Amazon, and the ability to split the bill in to 5 payments with no interest It’s a great device and just works. I’ve dedicated an old laptop to controlling it. I was a bit concerned about how using a computer as a remote control would hold up live, compared to just being able to quickly grab a fader - but it’s great. I’ve set keyboard player and I up with IEM and the rest with their own wedge. A huge difference - the vocalist has mostly himself and a tiny bit of band in his monitor and no longer constantly asking to be turned up. He did miss a cue once because he had the keyboards down a bit too low… so still a little work to do. We’re still running without amps, which is great - especially in space restricted venues. The guitarist still makes the occasional comment that he thinks we’d sound better with cabs on stage, but he’s otherwise behaving!

Welcome to Basschat This is my practice set up too, I use a Zoom B1ON which has been updated and is now the B1-Four Zoom B1 FOUR Bass Multi-Effects Pedal at Gear4music It has many amp emulations and bass effects, metronome and drum machine, an input for audio devices so you can play along and a decent headphone amp all for £65. A lot of people here use the same set up of Zoom+Headphones. I find the drum machine particularly useful for tightening up my playing and learning tricky pieces. You can play it slowly and speed it up gradually but mainly it sounds great and that makes me want to practice. Some things are just 'right' and this is one of them. I'm not a big fan of practice amps, it's quite hard to make a tiny speaker sound really good for bass and 'proper' bass amps can always be turned down. There are things like the Phil Jones amps but they are really proper gear miniaturised and are really quite pricey. If you want to save space and money and also have a great sound go for the Zoom.

Lol. You probably think it's foggy all the time here too, eh?

Silent stage, once you have experienced it its difficult to argue with the benefits ...individual mix control...clarity and separation..easier to singing in tune & balance BV's...hear the good, improving & mistakes...lower volume in ear therefore reduced damage...less tired after gig...and the audience will notice the tightness & ballance! Yes it takes commitment and time to get used to the new sound....often band members hide in the stage noise, so feel insecure without the volume, so all have to support. We did it in stages with a short term goal and review after each stage, it took 4 months 10 rehearsals 8 gigs

I’ve been lucky enough to play with 3 very talented keys players, one of whom has become a very close friend. However, he had to be ‘told’ a few times in our early days…