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This post will come as a surprise to Andy, as he does not know me. But I owe him. A couple of weeks ago, Andy sold a Yamaha BB1500A and described it as doing the Marcus Miller thing. This came as a surprise to me, as my 1500 had never come close to that sound. But after absorbing that ad, it now does it very well, better I’d say than the MM signature Fender I once had. It’s true that I tinkered with the mid-cut preset to good effect, but I can’t believe that alone could have made all the difference. Is it all in my head? Or is my playing style now inspired by the faith that we CAN do the Marcus sound? Or when Andy Travis speaks, do all bass guitars obey? Perhaps he would say something encouraging about the Squier Jaguar?

I was at the last Stonehenge free festival in 1984 (rather aptly). I remember seeing burnt out cars. I remember seeing The Poison Girls I remember seeing this tent I remember nothing after that.. 😁

I wish basses would obey me 🤣

Justice must be, not only done, but seen to be done. A bit late, but here's your Certificates ... BC_Chal_Cert_2022_06_1.pdf ... which look like this (but bigger, of course...)...

Random course correction image.

I saw Chic in Cork on Tuesday, excellent as always. A staggering setlist delivered immaculately.

From "Bacon Sanwiches and Salvation", by Adrian Plass.

My Barefaced ST and ABM500 rig

I’ve slowed down now… oh, no…no I bought one last week….

Welcome to the real world.

He shall henceforth be known as "The Bass Whisperer".

Played a beer festival in Llanmaes. Bloody awesome, went down a storm.

4x1300 watt should have tipped you off. Yes, such amps exist, but only from the likes of Powersoft, and only for mucho dinero.

There's a lot of talk about boutique amps and a lot of money that can be spent on tubey stuff, but despite owning at one time or another the most expensive all-tube amps that both Mesa and Ampeg produce - silly money in the case of the former (north of £3000) - as well as loads of top end hybrid/non-tube gear by Aguilar, Mesa, PJB, Markbass etc (and don;t get me started on how many expensive cabs I've owned), without doubt the best bass tone I ever had was from an early 70's WEM 15" combo that cost me £300 🤔

mrs nekomatic once got the kids a pBone for a bit of fun (as they already both played piano and violin) and for a further bit of fun got someone she knows to give them a couple of lessons. Somehow a couple of lessons turned into a full on third instrument, kid 1 let it drop after a while but kid 2 recently got his grade 7, on a King we inherited from my late uncle who used to play in an amateur orchestra in Belgium. Kid 2’s teacher is now trying him out on some jazz, much to his initial reluctance but last lesson while I was working upstairs I could overhear him taking solos on Watermelon Man to a Jamey Aebersold backing track, and I may coincidentally have got something in my eye.

my glass is full , never mind half full 😁

Garibaldi anyone?

Loud as flip

The Portamento isn't truly unlined, it has stub lines. Which is really handy above the 12 fret, but slightly defeats the object of being unlined.... whatever that is

FYI, I got a refund from the seller. And he's getting a refund off his seller.

They do… you just say “pssst … hey fender/Yamaha/Gibson/rickenbacker bass … wanna come and live at my house ?”

I thought this was going to be a Mister Mister thread.

Interesting thread... I'm looking forward to the 'How Andy Travis changed the s/h bass economy' thread, with a special foreword by ped.

I used to gig my T&B 50 with a homemade (well, actually made in the school woodwork shop) 2x15 cab. I remember taking the bus to Wilmslow Audio to collect the speakers. I used to gang the treble and bass channels together, probably sounded terrible by today's standards but I thought it was great back then.

My ABM combos are supposed to weigh about 35-40 kg but I reckon they're snacking between gigs as I am sure they're putting weight on!

Dunlop’s possibly

I like it when the technical side backs up the circumstantial or qualitative. We knew something unique was happening with the electronics and it seems that this is indeed the case.

One night I went to a gig at a local pub, the band being known to me. The vocalist said shortly before the gig started "our trombonist's trombone has arrived but he hasn't. Does anyone want to play the trombone?". Well, I'd had a couple of pints by then, and I knew what embouchure meant, so I volunteered. I think I played brilliantly (I'm sure I hit at least one note spot on). Since then, I have had occasional thoughts of trying playing trombone again. Maybe even doing an interesting recording of trombone and fretless bass (definition of a minor second: a trombone and fretless bass playing in unison).

I had a Selmer T&B 50 valve amp from the mid 70s until the mid 80s - never left me down and always sounded great.

Got it!

I don't think Turner and Drinkstable are necessarily comparable - Turner was far more impressionist and Constibule more idealised. Neither of which apply to Mrs Moloko. Dali, however, was surrealist in a "that's fookin' mad, that!" sort of way, whereas Ms. Murphy was only surreal in the same way that someone might say "that's surreal" when actually they meant something else entirely. In her case, the sort of art I'd compare her to is this amazing restoration:

I did already know about this - and I envy the lives, free from related mental and emotional scarring, of those who do not.

Here is my Epiphone classic pro that I had changed to a single pickup. The wiring is obviously different to a 2 pickup thunderbird so turning down the bridge pickup on a 2 pickup model doesn't give you the same sound as the one pickup does. Overend Watts used to have a shop in Hereford and I spent many hours talking to him about music and basses. He always said he felt the single pickup Thunderbirds cut through better than the twin pickup models. That to me sums up the difference perfectly.

When you are trying to sell some otherwise terribly put together piece of crap.

Beautiful!! Almost a roasted look, I love that. I can’t wait to hear if it makes a difference to the sound of the build, as I hope. @Bass Culture’s build was fascinating to see and the sound clips/videos he did recently were interesting to me. Mainly because I still thought the sound he got out of his Wal clone was cleaner/less low mid heavy than I expected, even with all of the attention to Wal-like detail. (Sounds great BTW) This raises the possibility again of the sound mostly being the pickups/preamp, as alluded to by many on this thread. Alan @skelfwas clear to me that he thought the Wal sound mostly was in the preamp. I guess this is how R&D goes. At least I can share what I find publicly…my successes and failures… The chaps working back a Wal Custom preamp schematic from my photos tell me the topology is different to what has been generally thought. I quote them directly from a recent message: ’The thing that struck me the most was the filter topology used in the original. Most people on the net assume that the Wal uses a "state variable filter" topology. This type of filter is a bit more complicated (more components), but can easily change cut off frequency and Q factor (boost at the cutt off freq) independent of each other. From what I can see, the original uses a Sallen-Key topology - which isn't that flexible at all. It has fewer components, but gain, freq and Q can't really be adjusted independently, maybe to a degree and with some wild twists. And the original Wal is using all those wild twists. The Attack function is also very interesting - a signal is taken from one of the pickups (I think it's the bridge pickup) and passed through a high pass filter, leaving only the high end of the raw pickup signal. Then later at the end of the signal chain, that signal is added to the total mix for the attack effect. Really clever idea!!!’ I briefly note in passing Alan’s use of a similar idea for adding treble back in for the ACG EQ-01. Though his lets you pick which pickup to take the signal from. I attach a draft very early version of a preamp schematic, though without values or second pickup yet added, for your pleasure.

When I was in school, probably about 9 in 1979, I wanted to play trombone and spoke to my parents and music teacher about it. Music teacher told my parents I'll never make a musician as I don't have a musical bone in my body. Quite pleased that I proved him very wrong.

I think it's the right way round. If a foot has a top and bottom in the flat plane then the toes are at the top. So moving "upwards" to the toes has more treble. Seems right to me.

Any shim that raises the neck enough to give you access to the truss rod adjustment will require you to also raise the bridge by an unfeasible amount. You are much better off routing a slot in the body at the end of the neck pocket to give you access. And TBH unless you live somewhere with extremes of weather (I don't think Croydon is quite there yet), or you regularly change the makes and gauges of the strings you fit, once you've got the relief right you should never need to touch the truss rod again.