Leaderboard

Yep. Royal Mail has been asset stripped. Many main post offices have been closed and replaced with mini post offices in supermarkets, etc. Those post office buildings, which are often in prime high street locations, can now be sold off. Staffing levels are being slashed and pay and working conditions for staff are under the hammer. Hardly surprising those staff are not happy.

My blues rock trio Toredown is going to have a track played on Radio Caroline! Stephen Foster's slot, just before he packs in at 13:40hrs. Must be from one of our recent gigs, some of which was recorded on the desk. No idea which track or what it sounds like so should be interesting! Hope it isn't The Stumble 'cos that's what I did in one section http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/radioplayer4/index.html?v=1671535956338

It may well be a different story, there. Pretty much all the post these days has to be entered into and checked off on 'phone app thingies; our own postie (a lovely bright spark of a lady...) has to sit in the van scanning stuff, and sending out 'Your parcel is arriving..!' and 'Your parcel has been delivered..!' nonsense. They're not playing Tetris, nor chatting on-line; just filling the ether with 'information', imposed upon them by 'Those That Know'. S'not an easy job, I'd say.

After chatting to my postman I discovered the PO wants to switch all deliveries to van owning contractors, who will undoubtedly be on minimum hourly wage. I can sympathize with the guys who are striking for their jobs.

I've gone off Gary Glitter in recent years...

Indeed, he should be flogged... What a level of petty mindedness you have there.

A variety of factors aligned today (not least of all it's my Birthday today ... no longer a 50 something 👵😱) and I pushed the button on a TMB-35, which should arrive tomorrow. To be treated with kid gloves until I decide if it's a keeper or not. It seems just spot on from a size perspective, I gather it is not light and tends to neck dive ... but if I do hang onto it then I am pondering a headless conversion which would help both ... it might end up looking more like its ehb1005sms sibling (which is well outside my price bracket). But, I've till mid Jan (so long as I am careful with it) to return it if I want. S'manth x

Hurtsfall played on Sunday in Sheffield on the final day of the "In The Black Midwint2r" festival. We were on first in the evening after a short break from the afternoon bands, which mean that we got a proper sound check which definitely helped with getting the mix right. Second outing for our new and improved backing control which allows me to run everything from a foot pedal which is used to start each song and then run a macro which closes the current song and loads the next one in the set. Now I'm satisfied that it works as intended we'll probably shift the computer to a less obtrusive place on stage for subsequent gigs. Also I've now got all my Helix Preset and Snapshot changes controlled by the backing track which means I can concentrate on playing without needing to worry about hitting the correct footswitch at the correct time in order to change sounds, which has resulted in a significant improvement in my on-stage performance. There was a proper photographer in attendance so there should be some decent photos up later on, but in the mean time here's something taken by an audience member...

The "Jaco-alike" Harley Benton, in left handed! I wanted the Fender MIJ one but the cost of those is ridiculous and this Harley was obtainable and priced at the amount I received for selling off some pedals. Opinion... Well, I wasn't expecting much. Though these get rave reviews I'd heard good things about Westfield basses and when buying one thought it was awful. This is an excellent bass "for the money" though. My number 1 bass is a US Stingray. It's not as good as that, but it's not 12x worse either. I'm very pleased. My nearest reference points are a 90s MIM Fender jazz I owned for years and possibly one of my Sire basses (I owned a V7 Vintage and now have a V9). The body is not very well matched in terms of woodgrain, you can clearly see the three pieces when up close but gigging I don't expect this to be obvious. The neck feels lovely, I don't know if it's unfinished, but if it's finished it's finished very nicely with satin rather than sticky gloss. The neck is quite chunky, which I like, it is solid and resonant. The finger board is laurel and I want to see what it's like after a bit of oil, at the moment it's a bit dry looking and there's patches that look like wear but could just be how the grain is. Hardware-wise the tuners are functional, I'm not keen on plastic nuts but not offended either, everything seems ok. The electronics are better than expected but if course not to the standard of a Sire or MIM Fender, maybe not far off though. Soundwise this does what I want: jazz fretless sounds! I own a five string fretless but it sounds very dark, this bass has more brightness and natural mwah to it. It feels good to play, not super light but I wouldn't call it a heavy instrument, and the fingerboard is nice and smooth. The bass arrived set up with a decent low action and I haven't checked but to my ear I'm not picking up on any intonation issues. I've only played it through a Positive Grid Spark practice amp and not my ABM rig but amplified it makes the expected sounds! It doesn't scream "premium, complex tones" but it's unmistakably a fretless jazz bass. I'm going to gig this sucker next year. My band mates had never encountered a fretless bass before until I brought mine out on a few gigs and now they're seeing the benefits and understanding it more. This is more a "play at home" tool for me though to explore stuff I do t usually do in the band. I'm very pleased with it. If it cost three times as much I don't think I'd have been disappointed. While I could work through some upgrades to everything except the body and neck, right now I just don't see the need. This bass is likely to be played with not-so-subtle EQ shifts, reverb and frequent chorus, maybe even octaver, so the amount of processing it goes through means I don't think I'll hear much benefit from hundreds of pounds worth of upgrades. Overall a very good use of money if you're after a first fretless, or a backup for gigging.

I've had parcels sent on 2nd December that only arrived yesterday but I expected it. The mail system is in chaos, your postie is just the tip of a very large iceberg which cannot cope with the demands placed on it.

AsI mentioned earlier in the thread, one of my bands has been playing our cover of "I Believe In Father Christmas" and this year we've released it as a single. The video has just been released too:

Saturday night at a pub in Staffordshire, upstairs dedicated to live music. We'd sold 75 tickets in advance so that was decent. Tight stage but big enough, took the full rig and needed it as monitor sound was devoid of any bottom end through DI so needed something to flap my trousers. Note the wall near to my headstock, managed to whack my headstock off it and detune the A string just before I needed it, had to just go silent for a couple of bars and quickly sort 🙄.

My year-end board iteration

Hasn't arrived yet but here's a taster...

Patty is here! (And I am in love) Patty is my new peppermint green Ibanez TMB35. For those of us who prefer short scale five stringers ... there is not a lot of choice out there (certainly not in the affordable end of the spectrum). The TMB35 is a bass that has had fairly good reviews and does not break the bank. I finally pushed the button yesterday (birthday treat for myself) and Patty arrived this afternoon. Finish - Generally very tidy, the smallest of chips around the perimeter of the headstock (only visible from up close). Body finish is uniformly smooth, neck is nice and smooth. Frets seem to be level, no buzzing notes and their edges are clean with no sharp/jaggy bits. Weight - Not as bad as I was expecting (but definitively heavier than one might expect from a bass of this size). Neck weigh however ... argh!!! Maybe as it is the first bass I've ever had with neck dive I am sensitive to it, but it is ... not nice! (But I have a plan) Tuners - Seem OK, turn easily and gearing is acceptable. Strings - Ruff! I need to get some some flatwound (or ideally tapewound) on ASAP! Action and intonation not too bad for now, will tweak when I get new strings on. Tuning is BEADG ... the low B is not too bad not floppy, but does rattle a bit if I pluck it with any wellie. It's a 0.130, I might replace with a 0.135 which I've found to be great on a 760mm scale. Pickups+Wiring - PJ passive pair. The Neck P Type seems an OK middle of the road pup. The bridge J type is on the shrill side, hum noise is apparent. The controls are Vol/Vol/Tone ... not a huge fan, but easy enough to change to Vol/Blend/Tone (The tone control crackles). Jack socket is a bit wobbly, and some of my plugins ... won't! Feel - I like the feel of the neck and the width of the fingerboard. When sitting, with Patty on my left thigh (in a high neck classical position) I can comfortably reach the full extent of the fingerboard. When positioned on my right thigh or on a strap the head definitely wants to ostrich. Overall, given the price point, I am very pleased with Patty and I would be very surprised if she is not with me for many years to come. Whilst it would be possible to gig with her (once I've got some new strings on) I see her more as a strong foundation of a project bass ... I've already got some copper tape on the way from Amazon to line the cavities, I can definitely see myself changing out the pups and electronics ... most likely passive, not sure if I will stick with PJ or go another route, either way some channeling and probably a new pickguard will be called for. I've read reports of others putting on lighter tuners to help reduce neck dive, but I am seriously considering if I can go headless ... this would totally resolve neck dive (and might even let me pop a cavity or two in the body to reduce overall weight even further). But most importantly ... loads of playing TL;DR Patty is a keeper. For size comparison, here is Patty next to my Hohner Fiver 34inch scale The Hohner (and a couple of other long scalers) are likely to appear in the Marketplace ... I am now totally convinced that a scale length over 30 inch is just too long for me! S'manth x

Stunning example, congratulations. Looks like a late 80’s/early 90’s Series 2 to me with the original 2 band eq, by which time the cricket bat neck had been slimmed down and set into the body and the brass hardware was gold ‘painted’ (don’t know the correct terminology) rather than clear lacquered brass. My 30th Anniversary Series 2 for retro comparison.

It should never have been privatised in the first place.

"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital." Noam Chomsky. British Rail The Royal Mail Now the NHS.

Honestly - If I had the money there, and I really wanted something, and felt it was priced realistically, I'd buy it. No limit.

Saturday's gig, all good.

I think you will find that the smaller the box and the greater the expectations, the more difficult and expensive the project will be. The advantage of buying already well designed speakers is that the while you are paying for the designer's experience and knowledge, you are also indirectly paying for a number of prototype builds that may have been much poorer and "scrap worthy" than the finished product. Respectfully, I understand the desire to build your own, but you are comparing to a very high quality and expensive speaker. As a professional designer, I know how hard it is to get results like that without churning through 6 or 8 prototypes, and the cost of custom drivers also. Stock drivers are not intended for this type of product, which is why custom drivers are used. My coworker is the engineer who designed the entire KRK monitor line, I know how much work that was to extract that much performance in such a small, reasonably cost effective package.

Theoretically about £13,000-£15,000. Realistically about £0 in the current economic climate and my current actual need for a new bass.

The old Bull: And the young calf... (snapshot taken from the Status website for comparison - i don't own this bass)

I believe that Lakland have the same business approach as Sadowsky. If you want the special options, a hand made instrument or just a bass made in the US then they do that. If you don't want those things the Asian basses are made on a production line from the same components and built to the same high standard, with the price reflecting the lower costs of building in the Far East. My Japanese made Sadowsky Metro is a fantastic instrument. I have no interest in the US version at all.

Re-named. I suspect it'll get locked and that'll be for the best.

You mean you were on Garry at some point?!?

I've been a member here since, I think, 2016. Pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen someone challenge someone else to a 'Bass Off'. This is surreal. As you were.

I still like all the music I liked from when I was younger, but like much more now including a lot of stuff I didn’t like back when I was younger.

New short scale bass to the fold, been looking for one of these for a while!

The Piano Has Been Drinking - Tom Waits

The bass pictured in the facebook post, and here, is the bass I received, there's a couple of tell tale bits, but it is most definitely 34" scale. I'm actually happy as I'd rather it be full scale but I don't know why Mark Gooday was saying it was a shorty. I'll report back when I had a proper play. It's a fantastic colour though.

Despite laughing boy’s best efforts to make it seem as unappealing as possible, you really should learn a decent technique allow you to play as efficiently as possible. Once you have a reasonable mastery of technique, you no longer have to be a slave to it! It really doesn't matter too much if you use a pick or play fingerstyle, as long as you can do so efficiently. It is much easier to make people dance and sing if you can play the music with ease and can then concentrate on actually entertaining the audience.

Most of my basses are HB. Happy customer.

I love basses, I love talking basses, I love checking them out, all the types, but for me the bass is a tool I use to make music. I'm not a collector and am not after exotic woods, particular designs and exclusive features. That makes it easier for me to stay in the ~1k range. I wouldn't be able to justify anything more expensive, considering my needs and the music I make. Also, I wouldn't like to have a bass I can't take outside because I'm concerned it might get scratched. This is all subjective though, I perfectly understand other people have totally different needs.

Night Club ～ The Specials 🙇🏼‍♂️ just heard. Thanks to Terry Hall for all he gave us 🙏🏻

RIP Terry Hall...

It's not terrible, decent amateur attempt where nothing has gone badly wrong and nothing more really. We've all seen worse on this particular part of the forum but conversely there's also a lot of far more polished, accurate and skilled work from members on here who build instruments to a very high standard in their spare time. I don't think you're going to have much luck passing it off as a pro luthier job because, well... look at it. As already mentioned it's a niche within a niche within a niche - how many people will want a headless Bongo 6er? Single digits probably. Now from that number think how many people will want to part with £2k for an instrument that needs a full refin. The potential customer base is probably zero unfortunately. I'd take the body off, sand it back and stain it to at least get it saleable for a little bit of elbow grease and minimal cost. Maybe introduce some softer lines in the headstock part too, for all its inherent ugliness the Bongo is a bass with some nicely flowing lines, those harsh angles look out of place.

With the massive rises in prices in recent years on basses across the board, I don't buy new anymore - it's not financially viable. I'd do it for a new Wal, but that's a one-off, very special instrument. I guess, at a push, maybe £1000-1200 at the absolute max, if something came along that I *had* to have new, but I'd probably just still wait to find one used. I think pricing within the industry is rising at an completely unsustainable rate (in line with the average wage and what people can afford). A Musicman Stingray is a shade off £3000 now. Boggo Warwick GPS series (that are nothing like the OG ones) are £2000+. An American Jazz bass is knocking on for £2000. People just don't have this kind of money to spare in today's climate. I know there's the argument to be had for import lines, but even then, for example, Sterling by Musicman are over £1000, Mexican Fenders are now going for over £1000. Conversely, though, budget instruments nowadays, are phenomenal in quality, playability and sound, so I guess there's still a lot of value to be had in that sense - but if you want 'the real deal' going forward, the prices will be laughably astronomic within 5 years, and closed to all but the most wealthy of us.

Well, it sounded pretty good! First time I have had radio play in a band and I am indeed chuffed, Loz. Jeff Healey Band's 'See The Light'. On catch up later on. I might have another listen

No case = 45 year free relic service. Premium £££.

I hope your bass doesn't have a flat battery.

Thanks for the reassurance! Mines just arrived, haven't plugged it in yet but initial impressions are aside from some sharp fretwork, it genuinely feels like a solid instrument and I can't work out how they've produced this at this price point! Can't wait to get her plugged in!

Played a private party on Saturday in a barn in Somerset. They had somehow created enough heat in there to keep us from freezing and despite a coughing singer and flu ridden drummer we kept them up and dancing. Then last night had a Bandeoke in Wantage which was loud, fun and occasionally hilarious with some excruciating 'singers' who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket nor could they remain in time. At present I only have three more gigs this year but so many bands are cancelling due to the lurgy we may get lucky and pick up some more.

You're too tall for the Vaults @Cat Burrito 🤣🤣