Leaderboard

Maybe they no cry?

I buy on looks alone - I can make anything sound dreadful 😁

Doesn’t matter. Rotatable logo!! 😆

So I took this today as part for a deal from one of my favourite independent guitar shops for my Thunderbird, Geddy Lee Jazz and some guitar bits I moved on. It's a new 2021 American Pro ii Jazz Bass in Dark Night but as it has a rosewood fingerboard rather than the standard maple board, it's a limited edition run. I much prefer rosewood boards on Jazz basses, so it suits me just fine. It's a lovely weight (8lbs 14oz) and plays really well. I'm not really a Jazz Bass fan as the ergonomics don't work for me but it was a compelling deal. I won't unwrap it as such as I may well move it on imminently. It's a very striking colour scheme and the built quality is excellent as it has been on the other American Pro II's I've seen.

And here she is…..effortlessly smooth transaction with Will. Well wort the longer than expected journey 🤣. Will give the amp a thread of its own shortly

I'm not a woman and already think he's a d1ck.

That's because they don't want to show us up as the rank amateurs we are. If Mrs Rich set fire to some of hers, we'd have no windows. @Witters, please don't tell her I said that.

Two out of my 8/9 piece ska band are female. Two out of my 12 piece soul/party band are, with another 4 in our regular dep roster. They're musicians, that's all that matters. What they keep in their trousers is neither here nor there. And as for that ridiculous M'boro venue... anyone who says women can't sing rock needs a.) their ears cleaning out and b.) a slap.

Well, here's an interesting little piece - Thundercat's appearance will confuse your Mum, but here he talks eloquently about the role of bass within a band and chooses some favourite influential bass lines. Enjoy.

There are plenty of ads for “female-only punk band” etc on JMB. I don’t sit and boil my head over it. I just move on. Maybe the person posting has had a rough experience with female band members, maybe he’s uncomfortable around women…there could be loads of reasons. Same if it was posted from a female to male perspective.

Have to say, he seems like a complete asshat. But that aside, I see far more adverts for all female band seeking another female than I do all male seeking male. I'm not offended by it, I'd just steer well clear as clearly its not the gig for me. If he'd said no women because they are crap at guitar, whole different situation, but from the looks of it, he has a set image of what he wants the band to be, and I guess for him thats all male.

Many years ago I worked in a bookmaker's and the female manager would have made Lemmy sound like a soprano 😆

Apparently the official announcement will be made this week

I the other thread on this subject I mentioned that Leicestershire Trading Standards supported the 2020 prosecution of this chap which resulted in him being convicted of five charges of fraud by false representation and two of falsifying articles for the purpose of fraud. It might be worth also contacting Trading Standards to bring him to their attention again.

My little boy really wants a bass so I've decided to try and build him one! Being only 7yrs old he struggles with a standard short scale so I got given a crappy Burswood 3/4 sized guitar that in going to convert into a 24" scale bass So I started off with a template of a standard sized P bass then scaled it down till it looked right also making sure the neck pocket size is correct and the scale length will work out right too..... It did come out quite a bit smaller...... Here's the donor guitar And here's what it will hopefully look like? The body blank is gluing up at the moment so hopefully I'll get started cutting the body tomorrow........ 👍🏻

I have a Super Vintage coming. Will report back once it arrives and I’ve had a play.

Update : taking stock of the "don't defile the family heirloom" vibe from you good people, I've sourced the donor bass elsewhere! A Highway One Precision - currently sunburst but hopefully won't cause too much consternation here with a black respray.l! Still now to get all the gold bits but it's a TV logo with the truss adjustment at the body end. Also I'm never going to be passing it off as something it isnt (e.g an Encore with a Fender Logo) - something that never sat well with me. Further updates to follow...

It's not the sentiment here but the delivery, it wreaks of the 'NO IRISH' signs in UK pubs of old. In this situation, i'd quite likely leave them looking for a bassist too.

dont see the problem if i dont want women in MY band then i wouldnt same visa versa for poeple to say its breaking the law is quite frankly hilarious

She doesn't like the sound of most women singers - a bit odd as she is a singer but that is her preference. She has nothing against groups with women in them, or even backing singers, just female main vocals that she just doesn't like There are no bands with female singers she likes. A few she respects, but none she actually likes. And yes, the last touring groups I saw (apart from Gary Numan) were Wolf Alice and Within Temptation, so she wouldn't go to those.

I’ve only ever owned one PJ, which was an ‘88 (IIRC) Pedulla MVP. It was one of the best-sounding basses I’ve ever owned. And it had Barts in, which I normally hate!

I could understand a band specifying a male or female singer. You're very unlikely to find a lady who could imitate Lemmy's vocals for example. Maybe even if it's a band member who would do backing vocals and you want a female backing vocal behind a male lead. The rest of the band, I'd just want to play with the most competent players no matter what sex, race, religion etc. Just as long as they're not heavy stoner, I can't be dealing with them again.

I think the stand out is that it has a Pre-Shape button. 🙂

But...there are bands that are all female and don't want male musicians and would not hire one. Is that the same thing?🤔

Look at it this way. If you are female and they don't want any females in the band ( and vice versa...I saw an ad recently for a female bassist wanted for an all woman band),, at least you are aware "up front" and don't waste your time applying. If they go by societies' rules and speak to everyone, they will just not ask you to audition, nobody is any the wiser and you still don't get in the band. Or worse, give you an audition and having spent ages learning the songs, they were just "going through the motions" with no intention of hiring you.

I think the main point of the law is that there has to be a good reason for excluding one or more sections of the population from applying for a certain job. It works across the board, with race, gender, sexuality etc. I can live with that, without necessarily crying "woke".

Are they a Village People tribute band?

I'm about to do this very thing to get some ancient recordings from my 80s synth band digitised along with any of the local band demos that have IMO stood the test of time. 1. Use a good quality cassette player. Ideally one with dual capstans and separate motors for the capstans and tape tension. Nakamichi, and the high end Aiwa or Sony decks should be suitable. (I've got an Aiwa F660.) 2. Play the tapes as little as possible. Once to set the levels and then once to actually record the contents. If you can set the levels so that you are just under 0dB in your DAW for the hottest off-tape signal then you can just get on and play them all once. Be aware that the tapes may have been recorded at up to +10dB for a good quality Chrome or Metal tape so attenuate the signal at the interface appropriately. 3. For leads, I can't help you. I have phono to just about everything leads so I'll be experimenting to see which gives the best match. I'd probably start a phono to jack line level and take it from there. 4. If the tapes have been recorded with Dolby B, turn it off for playback and use EQ in the DAW to re-balance the bass and treble. However, if they have been recorded with Dolby C or S then you will need to have it activated on playback. Make sure your cassette deck has the appropriate NR. 5. There are all sorts of tape enhancement/restoration plug-ins available. Start by having a look at the mastering tools available in Logic. You shouldn't need any compression as the recording process should have already taken care of this for you with tape saturation. Certainly all the analogue tapes I've digitised in the past have already had plenty of tape compression on them, and apart form hard limiting some very excessive peaks I've not had to used any compression at all.

You could try and get some media attention... That programme 'Rip Off Britain' is still about, you can contact them on the below email address, they might have an interest in this scam as its been going on for years and nothing has been done. [email protected]

This isn't a build diary, or even about basses per se, but I saw a very neat idea this evening which could make a very interesting top or body for a bass. At a restaurant in Bowness on Windermer (Boardwalk bar and grill, very nice), I was distracted by the tables. Talking to the owner, he and one of the waitresses had made them during lockdown. The wood was cut rectangular on three edges, planed and thicknessed. Then the centre was filled with the coloured resin, and when that was hardened the whole lot encased in clear resin. Looks cool in the restaurant, could look very cool on a bass body. I won't be doing this any time soon, but I'll post it here for anyone else to maybe pick up.

I have. Gawd I miss her!

Trouser rubbing motion... https://bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Spector_USA_Forte_4.html

Phew! Well done.

Video..

Vague at this point. Plenty of women out there that can fill a spot in that type of band, but we dont know why the ' no women ' as yet. It's certainly nothing to do with touring, going by his ad. Bedroom musician right now, so it seems, till he has more members. I'm guessing he's old school attitude at this point, and simply wont entertain a female in his supergroup. Bit myopic to say the least, if indeed that is his reasoning

Old tapes shed oxide like a b*st*rd, some are better than others, the "metal" formulation being the best, you'd be advised to get a pack of cotton buds and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, then clean the heads very regularly, check for deposits on the heads and guide posts after each playback, I've had tapes dump oxide all over the shop. Don't apply isopropyl to the rubber parts, which are the capstan roller or rollers, depending on the mechanism.

You haven't lived!

So many factors affecting tone that are simply not down to the shape of the pickups alone; avoiding to go down the route of everything sounds more or less the same anyway, I can hear subtleties in the P/J sets on the four basses I own that have them - all have different characteristics (for the record, a pair of Hamers (one with EMG GZRs and the other with the stock 80s DiMarzios), a Spector (Barts) and my Ibanez project (Warmans)). I don't like an isolated P pickup tone (nor for that matter the ponky tone of a Jazz pickup in the bridge position), but both on at the same time just seems to work. I suppose I'm a two pickup bloke. Always have been.

Me too, going to the Manchester show.

My latest iteration. The HX Stomp replaces four discrete pedals. The two footswitch unit is preset up/down for the HX Stomp; it's temporarily housed in a 3-button case, but I have a blank one I need to drill the holes in and shift the innards across. The MC6 is due to connect to the C4, when I get the MIDI interface box and re-program it, but in the interim the DMC micro is filling in. The Signal Blender merges multiple inputs from a GigRig CincoCinco. I'm now only using 4 of the QM 6's loops, so I may downsize to a 4; however, that would then potentially free up space for another pedal, so I'd need to go back to the 6!

I feel like I've had the opposite epiphany! I didn't like a p bass on its own or a jazz bass on its own. The Revelation PJ I picked up the other day is an experiment that's really paying off for me. I'm loving the P full on with a bit of J rolled in. Gives it a bit more clarity to my ears.

True enough that all-in-one multi-fx pedals do present challenges for quick live adjustments on-the-fly...even with the high ticket items. Certainly there are a slew of guitarists and bassists who can make this work, myself included. When I use my B3n or G5n (done hundreds of gigs with them), or BassBox running into my stage rig (bass head & cab), I utilize the bass amp head EQ to address stage/room EQ issues. The multi-fx/amp modeling feed to FOH (when used) is taken PRE stage rig. This eliminates most of my live tweaking issues since I've sorted out my effects/balance and core tones in my multi-fx at home & rehearsals. Any individual gig tweaks are just fine tuning that can be done during sound check, and I'm probably the only one who knows or cares. The B6 does have the optional Bluetooth dongle which allows for pairing with an ipad/iphone, which would be convenient for on-the-fly adjustment. Circling back to the Atomic BassBox, I can understand why getting one - even at a great blowout price - would be a little scary, being across the pond from a very small manufacturer such as Atomic. I'm in the US (Boston) and only a couple hours drive from Atomic's facility in Connecticut, so it was an easy decision for me to buy at the pre-sale discount (for being on the BassBox wait list). Beyond that, feature-wise, I wouldn't say that the BassBox is trying to mimic the DarkGlass B7k (or the like) or Tech 21 Sans Amp BDDI (or the like). I'd classify it as a 'tweener' to both of these, and tonally it I find it has a broader range of excellent sounding tone possibilities due to its flexible options: choose from 3 types of each Drive (OD pedal, tube, FET) dynamics (comp, limiter, leveler) Amp/Cab (factory default solid state amp+12" cab IR, tube amp+15"IR, SVT amp+SVT 8x10 IR) all programmable via editor software EQ (4 band fixed a la API module, 3 band w/mid sweep, 3 band 'state variable' Bass/freq/Q/Treble). The computer editor is basic, but most importantly allows you to change the 3 amps & cab combinations available via the hardware amp switch, and add 3rd party IRs. Dr. Bonkers supplied the stock IRs, and they're excellent quality IMO. For me, the benefit of the BassBox is for WYSIWYG old-school knobs and switches with immediate control of core tone and switched overdrive/boost, without the bells-and-whistles of ear candy effects. It is limited in this respect, but far more flexible and programmable than most stand-alone hardware preamp pedals (BDDI, B7K, etc.) of this format/footprint. From my use of it (and all JMHO, YMMV), the BassBox can easily cover a wide range of bass tone styles (I do everything from old-school R&B, classic hard rock & metal, and modern metal) and sound excellent doing it. The BassBox is, physically and sonically a QUALITY device. Though technically a digital box, it holds up under scrutiny in a way that many low-to-midrange digital multi-fx might not. BTW, the compressor/limiter/leveler is GOOD, which you can't always say about a lot of 2-knob compressors. For me, this is critical, and I'm very picky about compression/limiting. EQ section is also excellent. Where the B6 comes into play with the BassBox will be, for me, if the B6 is improved enough to really, truly compete with the BassBox for CORE functions (described above) and possibly replace it. That would impress, but not banking on it. I may find the B6 to be markedly improved (specifically how TBD), but still not up to snuff with the BassBox core tone aspects. In this case, I'll have to decide if it can be justified for use as ear candy special fx only, or as a B-rig all-in-one to include amp modeling. A looming question is whether it has enough available DSP to handle all effects and amp modeling duties, which may force the issue one way or another. Will know more in a couple days.