Leaderboard

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Played at The Great British Rock and Blues last night, Skeggy, with Stray. It was a late one, 1115 to 1215 pm on the main stage. Sadly we were a man down due to illness. The supplied rig was an SVT Classic and 8x10 which was nice. For some reason, I couldn't get what I wanted out of it and have had better with my old Eden 4x10 and Bugera!! Sacrilege? 😂 Any was we had a great gig and went down well. Accomodation was decent, a massive rider and the food was blooming good. We ate in an onsite Italian restaurant and had an epic buffet breakfast this morning all thrown in. On the bus home now cream crackered!!

I found a great condition Mu-Tron III recently. I’ve been interested to try one for a very long time but never quite got round to it. This one has just had a full service and calibration. It’s all original except the power input has been changed to a UK three pin custom made adapter which is super neat and convenient. Though of course it takes batteries too. I saw a few that had been modified to true bypass but I read that this can alter the way the gain control behaves so I wanted it standard. The bypass does take some very top end out of your signal but it’s by no means a bad sound and in fact as the gain control works with the pedal ‘off’ you can use it to get some grit if you like. When it arrived I left the parcel to acclimatise for a while before opening it up and I realised how nervous I was to try it. Partly I wanted to discover it doesn’t live up to the hype as I’ve found with so many pedals of late. In such case I was able to send it back and chalk it up to experience but the only way to know for certain was to try one. So I put my sensible hat on, picked up my Stingray and plugged everything in (backwards at first, as the input is on the other side) The feeling of playing the pedal was akin to playing a new instrument entirely. The second I turned it on everything sounded perfect. I didn’t even touch any knobs or switches, just started with everything on 5. I have many filters and have tried a lot over the years. Favourites of mine really squelch when pushed rather than ‘whistle’ and remain responsive when playing finger or slap. In ‘high range’ The Mutron is very interesting in that you can play softly and it’ll sound almost like your normal sound, and when you dig in the depth and squelch becomes apparent, making any toppy clank go all gloopy. It’s like your clean sound with a seriously funky topping. It never sounds harsh even with the peak on 10, it just sounds wetter and more sparkly. I feel like when you dig in, rather than sending the top end into harsh zone it deepens the background of the note. In low range you get the seriously warm depth with a quickness of decay that means your next note is always a surprise, catching the filter at some point along its bouncy journey. Again the clean sound and the character of the bass always feels present without sounding separate, but the effect is very obvious and all encompassing. It sounds cliche but it just sounds ‘musical’ and makes you want to dig in and be inside your bass in a fully sexual way. With a big smile on my face I took my five fingered hand on the end of my right arm and selected my index finger to push the ‘down’ mode switch which clacked agreeably over on its axis like a mad one way see saw. I’ve never really liked down mode sounds before, and haven’t really experimented much as a result. Normally I find when the filter closes the note becomes a bit muddy and therefore you don’t get much time to identify the note clearly before you go too subby, if you see what I mean. But this gives a really nice growl that goes down to your rubbery note below with some extra stank. I’ll definitely use that. I was fully prepared to not like this pedal; even hoping not to - the prices they go for are getting silly but this is one time that the hype really is deserved. It has so much character in build and sound; it’ll probably only go up in value and after all it’s the pedal everything since is based upon. I’m really happy with it, as you can tell. My wife said it looks like R2D2 which is cool too. A couple of pics. I think mines quite an early one, 1974 ish, ‘pat pending’.

And here you go. Rough and ready but hopefully enough of an idea of what's going on.

They want to eat your brains? 🧟‍♂️

Ha, yeah, it's funny when the solution hits you. Even though I've no metal fabrication skills, I just started drawing the ideal bit of hardware for what I needed, and then eventually realised I'd drawn a plug pin 😁

Video of me from a recent recording with my Fender Pawn Shop Mustang.

Oh FFS really?... One with Flats... one with rounds... I'm hooked!

This guy could have any bass in the world – but he opts to play the ‘cheap’ one he has had since 1963. https://www.guitarworld.com/features/paul-mccartney-hofner-bass

I’ve done it myself, I replied to a 10 year old thread without noticing the date, and yes the bass was sold 😁

Probably new folks signing up and reading old threads, then commenting on them. Perhaps they searched for something, found their result and commented on it, rather than start a new thread to ask their question and then be told to 'do a search', then search, find their answer and comment on it, resulting in a zombie thread revival anyway.

I’m not sure why you feel so aggrieved? You asked what the purpose of a broker like Parcel2Go was and got a response. They are convenient and can offer a cheaper service. The pitfalls are you have another link in the chain when things go wrong and they have a somewhat nefarious system of insurance against damages and loss. If you operate a small business sending hundreds or even thousands of parcels each year the cheaper cost and convenience of multiple couriers at the click of the button will probably offset the setbacks and costs associated with missing and damaged parcels and insurance is probably not worth taking. For your average punter don’t use them if the loss or damage is more than you are prepared to put up with. I don’t think Kev was insulting you. I have no idea what consumer rights are in Belgium and he was only trying to explain the set up here in the UK he understood them.

I don’t mean clothes for the undead, but honestly…what is it with all of the zombie threads lately?!? P.S. I have only posted this so someone can resurrect the thread in 11 or 12 years to ask the same question…

In my experience plateau is the way it works for me. I stumble about for a while (several months), struggling with stuff which I know is too ambitious, get depressed and leave it for three or four days, and discover that while the stuff is still too ambitious, I can suddenly do something else vaguely related. That's happened several times now.

It’s come in handy once or twice 😆

That, and he has to play three more notes: A,B,C,CH,D,DD,E,FF,G. *Welsh joke, feel free to google or just move along.

Current state of the infamous pedal shelf (tm)

This is precisely my experience with them.

Well it's a sliding scale isn't it. TI flats are brighter and more punchy than the majority of flatwounds. They're certainly closer to rounds than something like Labella Deep Talking flats or Olympias. TI flats are lower tension than something like Labella Low Tension flats and they're more roundwound-like as well. You can't expect that roundwound zing from them but they're a great string.

That was my thoughts re the thumb rest too. Good price though I have just spent around 3 months tinkering with my BB714 to get the action right. Initially thought there was a bow in the neck but there is more than enough movement in the truss rod to rectify that aspect so, put a shim across the two screws closest the neck pocket heel to change the geometry and have to add, worked a treat after all the tinkering was done.

Ah, Prince Andrew!

Thx. It's Thomann's responsibility now. Watch this space.

So here's a local band from somewhere in the US doing an incredible cover of 'Elephant Talk' - bass player on a fretless fiver has to put himself into contortions to reproduce Tony Levin's Chapman Stick lines, but it's all good. Anyone else like to suggest other amazing covers they've found of nigh on impossible to play numbers ?

Mine was a mid-‘60’s Kalamazoo KB-1, bought in 1977 (when I was 16) for £25. Like in the pic below, but mine was rather badly sprayed black and previous owner had added a Hofner mini-humbucker in the bridge position. Kakamazoo was Gibson’s US based budget brand in the 1960’s. The KB-1 was a short scale budget model in 2 body styles; one like an EB-0 / SG, the other vaguely like a Fender Mustang (as mine). Body was made of a kind of compressed MDF (subcontracted to a manufacturer of toilet seats), neck was very decent maple / rosewood, and the hardware (except for the Japanese tuners) was Gibson, exactly the same as on the EB-0. So not a bad starter bass, and being in a punk band it really looked the part too. The hot output and low frequencies from the mudbucker blew the driver in my puny first amp the first time I used it. Dismantled when I acquired my first long scale bass a couple of years later (a vile Columbus Jazz bass copy), with a kind of notion to lake a custom out of it with a Ric shaped wood body - I really wanted a Ric. I put the big mudbucker on the Jazz copy in the neck position to make a kind of dub-monster (which got swapped for a bike). The rest stayed in my parts drawer until very recently; mini-humbucker went on a bitsa fretless, neck and bridge went on BC, still got a few bits and bobs from it all these years later.

Honestly, many couriers are really delayed at the moment, absences from COVID are nightmare. Many couriers are stating clearly on their websites now that they cannot guarantee their usual service. Hermes Next Day is dodgy at the best of times, absolutely NO chance at the moment. A delay of 3 days is common. I posted something first class signed for last Friday, and it is yet to have arrived.

Congrats! I took one of these a few months ago (albeit in the VERY fetching white!) and I am now a full blown Squier convert. Hands down one of the best P basses I've played at any price point, sounds killer and looks amazing. Here he is alongside my new CV 70's Jazz bass V, another Squier purchase inspired by the P!

Dads a professional musician great friends with victor Wooten. She played on victors spirit of music audio book. Sponsored by mark bass after playing for 10 months. Of course she’s had to put in the hours of practice but she wasn’t exactly starting at the same level as the rest of us 😂🤣 I’m sure we’ll see a lot more of her in the future she has a great team behind her.

The Spy Who Loved Me ～ Carly Simon Coincidental but true. Now in my local in Osaka and fifteen minutes back this song played. My Wolverhampton mate asked "Who's this by again?". I replied "Carly Simon". His reply; "Oh yeah, that's her.... (Thinks hard for a minute) ...but which movie was it from?" This after only 5 beers 🤦🏼‍♂️

And that, my friend, is called GASlighting.

It’s a 42mm nut width, so, perfect! What else could I do, I’m helpless when all the ingredients are there: Maple top Y Unlined. Y P width. Y Body P shaped. Y(practically) Decent P pup. Y(definitely) Abstinence? Me? After that list? What were they thinking?

I have the Forte HP which I use with a variety of Barefaced cabs, among them a big baby and six 10. Heaps of power and tonal variety available. The downloadable firmware is excellent and easy to use. The compression is subtle and natural, and having both hpf and lpf is icing on the cake. I find having the extra power on tap seems to add control at loud volumes, as might be expected. A great match for Barefaced cabs ime.

Loosefish Scapegrace - Cardiacs

I absolutely love the repurposing of the mains plug pins! That and @Dom in Dorset's idea of using earing studs as fretboard markers are just genius ideas.

This is my CLF L-2000 that I bought last year for a steal from PMT in Cardiff. It's a super bass and superbly built.

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My passive Corvette Standards The honey violin ash 4 string has an ovankol neck and the bubinga(?) 5 has a wenge neck without volute and the original just a nut. It’s also got a truss rod cover that reads ‘Corvette Proline’ possibly a mix up or mistake at the factory? Quite a change from the earlier 5 to the 4 in the contouring etc……. Really taken with both. Especially the passive growl and the necks/playability of both which are really fantastic.

Mid 90s Streamer stage 1 fretless, customer order for a German music shop Musik Productiv. Great feels, amazing neck profile, ebony board, slim and wide nyom nyom.

Before I bought my first bass, my band which was a writing and recording only project would borrow one of the two bass guitars owned by people we knew at school. One of these was a home-made thing put together by someone who'd seen a photo of a P-Bass once and then had tried to make their own from memory using only what was available from the parts box at our local musical instrument store. The other was Mosrite-influenced "Woolies Special". Neither were really worthy of the description "musical instrument". We'd got by with these for about 4 years until I actually went out and bought one myself in 1981 - a very battered and heavily modified Burns Sonic Bass which had appeared in the afore-mentioned musical instrument store. It cost me £60 including the OHC and the shop chucked me in a Fender-branded strap. For a while I wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't also home-made as there were no logos on it other than on the Tri-Sonic pickups. However I was able to get hold of "The Burns Book" by Paul Day which confirmed it was actually a proper Burns Bass guitar made in either 1961 or 1962. And that's what I used in my first two bands and on the demos my second band recorded that got CBS records interested in signing us (they decided to go with Wham! in the end), and them for writing bass lines in my synth band, until I bought my Overwater Original 5-string in the early 90s. I still had the Burns Sonic bass until 2 years ago when I had a ruthless pruning of my musical instrument "collection" and got rid of everything I wasn't using. Here's photo of me playing it live in 1982...