Leaderboard

And - other than a bit of invisible fill of one of the knot holes (easy with ebony), the carve is pretty much done on the half fitted so far. It's a very subtle curve but, certainly in real life, transforms it from the 'slab topped' look previously. I'm happy with this. I also drilled the bridge earth wire hole while I could see what I was doing. Oh, and the ebony fretboard blank arrived this morning!

Can't understand why someone would do that and then not put chewing gum in the holes. Amateurs.....

Someone once said to me “keep it simple, stupid.” so I do.

More like a "Good bass for fire" thread 😉

Mulletravox

Mother board and baby board all set

Go on , laugh it up. Not everyone has superb DIY skills. At least i had a go

Mine’s nothing fancy. Two/three simple signal paths. The zoom is my primary sound. Each bank (a-J) has my basic clean sound in position 1 with the relevant EQ, NR compression etc. Then the remaining three are used for other effects. It mostly stays on bank A where chorus, drive and synth are located as my most used sounds. Everything is then duplicated on the next set of user banks (0-9) but with amp sim for headphone practise. Live I mostly just go from the zoom headphone out to the rolls for my IEMs, taking an aux feed from the desk. This way I have a ‘more me’ control. If I’m using my headrush cabs I go to the eq to cut the very low and very highs, to the preamp strip for volume control and minor tone shaping. (None usually) and then the A/B/Y pedal sends the signal to both cabs. (If I daisy chain them, the second one is noticeably quieter, so this way is better) Finally, if I’m in a rehearsal studio using an amp, or recording, then it’s just straight out the zoom’s L mono out. Simple and not fancy, but I like it.

Should be picking up a VM5 as a trade tomorrow. Super excited. Natural body, pau ferro fingerboard, maple neck. From what I've heard these sound immense and is hopefully a step up from my Cort.

Hopefully this link works for all? Sold prices https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/search/?au=45 Notable items

Congratulation but you should know the rules by now: no picture, no brass fireside companion set 😉

This is the best argument I think I have ever seen for the reintroduction of public flogging.

I've seen a bass, where the owner had moved the bridge further down, to make the longer strings fit better 😖

A couple of friends of mine used to be in a (now defunct) 80s covers band doing synth and new-wave stuff. They were called Kevin 17. Maybe nick it...?

Kill it with fire!!

The Number of the Beast ～ Iron Maiden

...between musical instrument and firewood?

The Walkmen

Here is my Sandberg with the flush mount locks:

Maybe it was "customised" for some bizarre quiz show - "Now it's time for the 'Tune this bass in less than 30 seconds' round".

Nicked this from that other site... Embassy with ultralites - looks ok to me, but each to his own...

No oven gloves?

Pick something up with your wrist bent, now do the same with your wrist straight.... my first lesson with Joe Hubbard many years ago. Starting with the basics of posture, Hubbard, quite rightly, had a thing about keeping the wrist of your right hand (plucking/picking/slapping hand) straight. This means not resting your arm on the body of your bass, so does look a bit strange but ultimately gives you more strength, less fatigue on those long gigs and stops repetitive strain injury. My latest discovery, Gwizdala, is very much into correct postures, as is Scott Devine (great lessons!), Jeff Berlin and of course Hubbard but else where, particularly out in YouTube land, it seems to vary a lot. When people talk about the right hand they focus on finger technique (important) but not so much wrist posture (also just as important). The result of being taught this way is that when I play sitting down I put my bass on my left leg, more classical guitar style, which feels more natural to keeping the wrist straight. Short(ish) story about the bass player from The Hamsters, a band famous for the prodigious amount of gigs they did each year, as a result developed RSI, and went from fingers to pick to eventually having to stop playing for a while, then relearnt with a special thumb pick. Although brought on by the relentless gig schedule I'm sure, not helped by the right hand technique (I'm sure he mentions this in an interview but happy to hear more if he's out there!)

That’s essentially true. Gear is just a part of how you sound, but it all starts with your fingers and if you haven’t got that bit right then it doesn’t matter what gear you have. I would always suggest that people get as good a bass as they can afford that feels right in their hands and is credible for the genres that they are going to play. As far as amps go, a lot of pros use gear like Hartke, nothing esoteric at all, because its reliable / does a job and the company give deals to pros like them. Audiences only care what the band as a whole sounds like (and what instruments look like to an extent). They will compare your band to the one they saw a couple of weeks ago, as well as the major acts they’ve seen over the years. No one comes up to me after a gig to say they liked how I subtly used compression to get the bass to sit in the mix – to them if it sounds good then job done, they don’t care about why it sounds like that. If you’re not playing Muse covers, then its pretty safe to say they don’t care what effects you’re using, just if it sounds right. Having said that, Guy Pratt has just posted pictures of his current live pedalboard on Facebook. I counted 17 pedals and not a MFX among them…!

Sadly yes... No packaging means no insurance.

Somehow this reminded me of this Danish bloke who got money from a museum to create a piece of art with that money and then just he delivered an empty frame, saying that "he had no intention of complying with his contract. “The work is that I have taken their money,” he told Danish radio. “It’s not theft. It is breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work.” Genius. That's proper (post)punk art! https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/28/danish-artist-delivers-empty-frames-for-84k-fee-as-low-pay-protest

This was today's pick of the bunch.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that now where’s my drill 😁

This is what happens when you drill in the dark and fit the tuners when drunk. Or maybe it's a new MDP prototype ?

OK, this is the last thing, I promise the kill switch is now a pushbutton, and I've added a Trojan decal to the top bout. Felt like it needed something in that big expanse of white. I really am going to leave it alone now, honest.

True, but what if you're "just" a bass player and literally 90% of the fx on the unit is aimed at guitars? Personally I find it a chore to have to wade through stuff and audition it on the off chance it might also work well on bass. I love the fact that Zoom are prepared to make some of their pedals tailored to bass with ALL the fx being potentially suitable. Horses for courses, I guess? Both Helix and Zoom sell well, so there's clearly a market for both approaches as we seem to be demonstrating!

Bass Preamp by Ronald Passion is great too but unfortunately it's 32 bits only, if your DAW can handle 32 bits plugins then download it here. https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2171/ Here's another favourite of mine, unfortunately 32 bits too but works very well. https://plugins4free.com/plugin/2255/ Here's the link to the B.O.D https://plugins4free.com/plugin/1321/ And here's a link to Tonelib, this is the last free version they released before going comercial. It has tons of guitar amps and effects and a very nice Ampeg SVT with a couple of cabs. https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3003/ Hope you find something you like and can use.

Cheers!! Nope, not one of mine. Got to love spalted wood though!

Caravan update from last night: turns out the Union Chapel sent out duff info re timing, so thanks to @Mickeyboro for the heads up for actual set times. Excellent show, well surpassing the last time I saw them at the QEH a few years ago. Of course the Pomeroy chap played a blinder, turns out the lad can sing as well! His spot in 9FU was a delight. But it highlights how much I miss Richard Sinclair from the band, so today I'm spinning those awesome pre-Plump albums.

I think part of the problem for me was around the time Stuart Zender left, Jamiroquai seemed to head towards a more clinical, clean crisp dance/disco vibe. Before that (and this is all IMHO) they had been a little bit rougher around the edges, a bit dirtier, a bit funkier. I don't know if that was due to the loss of Mr Zender's feel and tone, or a coincidence of the route they decided to take, but it is all too clean for me whenever I see footage of them playing now. I loved Acid Jazz music at the time but always hated that over-produced, sterile pop sound they always seemed to get (i.e. Brand New Heavies, Young Disciples etc). It is probably why I was such a Mother Earth fan...

It arrived yesterday. Took all of 20 minutes to install. Had my first rehearsal last night and the tone is superb.

My better half suggest "Electric Mullet'.

Johnny Hates Jazz, Immigration & the Metric System.

Nice. Cort make excellent basses - got a 5 string jazz that I really enjoy. Much advice on here about playing fivers. I did it by starting off playing around the 5th fret. All seemed to fall into place after that (makes playing in F, EB and D an absolute breeze).