Leaderboard

(I offer this without further comment) We’re getting rid. Doesn’t help load in. Doesn’t help load out. Applies minimal effort to something he’s “passionate” about. Never responds to urgent gig related messages. Can’t drive. Never, ever, ever buys his round. Ever. Never offers petrol money. Writes questionable lyrics about his man parts. Cannot remember the practise schedule (same place, same time, fortnightly). Zero ability to think for himself. Has less game than a three-legged badger with a heroin problem. Get the idea? We’re an established, gigging originals band around Bristol, Swindon and beyond. Influences: From Alice in Chains to Meshuggah, Pink Floyd to Kyuss, Metallica to RATM and anywhere in between. Will send over tracks to genuine enquiries. If you’re a relatively normal functioning human being who can sing and wants to be in a band, please drop me a message. Previous work/tracks required please. Profile

Musicman Bongo 6 HH in Candy Apple Red. A six to replace a Streamer LX6 that was sold to cover legal fees. Arrived 43 hours after I ordered it from Bass Direct, securely packed and delivered on time (DHL) Lovely neck. Weighs 9lb 6oz, so not too bad. I thought the 18mm string spacing might prove problematic, but it's not. It's very "polite" sounding, but in the context of the other instruments I own, that's not a problem. Issues? Fingerprints show up really badly! If you rest your forearm against the body, it damps a smidge of the resonance out of the sound. Everything else is either fine or not a issue for me, so it's all good so far.

But back to @Stub Mandrel's topic. The first bass I bought myself was this lovely red Ibanez I bought for a song from a guy in Gloucester: And my first pimp-yer-bass attempt was on this one and was also my first attempt at veneering. Admittedly, beginners' luck! And it was this that led to me having a go at all the other stuff As a post-script, I eventually sold this to a Nepalese Buddhist who played in a Heavy Metal band in Luton and who was 'spiritually drawn' to the bass. A niche market, admittedly

I think we all know him, or his sister...

Paso Doble Pon De Left Hand Side - Musical Youth

I must have watched the film a dozen times in my late teens and early 20’s. Me and my mates were real devotees, and used to quote lines from the film all the time. I later went on to form a soul band in the 90’s and we did quite a few of their tunes, Shake a Tail Feather, Gimme Some Lovin, Hey Bartender, Messin with the kid, and I’m sure there a couple more. In 2013, in a pinch myself to see if it’s real moment, I was lucky enough to be in the support band for a tour with Steve Cropper with The Animals, starting in Paris. I couldn’t believe it when we got the gig, I was beside myself with excitement. We often shared a dressing room, and I became his wine gopher and had to pop out to local shops to keep the dressing room stocked up. He is a lovely guy, very open, loves a good conversation, and has some great tales to tell. I still have his number in my mobile! On a separate occasion, we were on before Booker T at The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival and again shared a dressing room. His guitarist borrowed a guitar off us and used my amp. Looking back, I have been incredibly fortunate to meet these guys. Rob

More of a makeover!

Tonight's colour coordinated rig .. kind of ..

For interest. @Chopthebasshas kindly agreed to take on building a custom body for me, after we chatted when I clocked his Wal Mk3 clone build in the ‘Build Diaries’ section. He’s rather good with the CAD software, and we have a final design. Mahogany core, flame maple facings front and back. I think it looks rather good! You may observe I have moved away from the Precision body design to a refined Jazz shape that is ‘reminiscent’ of a Celinder. After a decade with various Celinders I decided it’s probably my most comfortable body shape.

Another head added on the closet!

Took a standard Squier CV 70s bass, changed the scratch plate to plain black (ie no white middle), changed the control plate to black with black screws all round. Added a black bridge, black strap locks and changed the pickups to Augilia. Finally changed the knobs to more modern ones. I've also taken off the gloss finish on the body, plus I sanded back the neck and oiled with burnt linseed oil.

Don't be daft, in the 22nd century they'll look like this....

Sometimes less is more.. Note how it defies gravity....

He owns his own microphone? 😳

Here’s my set up… Bass>Tuner>HPF>Basswitch (drive and comp in the fxloop)>Drive pedal >Filter>Omni IR cab sim The Basswitch is the ‘the brain’ and has the TRex (set to low gain) and the HL compressor in the ‘always on’ parallel loop. The other effects come after the Basswitch. It does have another fx loop but I prefer the sound of the drive and filter after the eq. This feeds into the Omni cab sim with DI out to the desk and I can run a line ‘Thru’ to an amp if I’m using one. On occasion I might run all this into my tube DI and send that to the desk. More recently I’ve been experimenting running the out of the tube DI to my amp as it has a really positive effect on the tone on account of the tubes and transformer. I’d best describe it as sounding like increasing the ‘bandwidth’ what one might hear using a pedal in 18v mode as opposed to 9v if you’ve ever compared those option in a preamp or drive unit. If I’m feeling lazy I’ll just use my DITTO tube DI box!

Still waiting for the pickups! But found time to sand and buff. I’m loving the flame!

A Trace Elliot you can use but not have to move?! I’d just use it, myself.

Time for one of my favourite tracks of all time, on the Take A Ride riddim. Very rare on LP and I finally bought it last year. For a teensy weensy bit too much money. But still. I have it.

bottom is still not decided yet, the nomad and seamoon might change for something else.

Euphemism right there...

I swapped the neck from my Ibanez GSRM20 Mikro Bass to the body of my GSRM20B Mikro Bass, pulled out the stock pickups, and installed just a single EMG Geezer Butler P pickup, wired directly to the output jack socket, filling out the empty bridge J pickup cavity with a folded piece of black cardboard, removed the barrel type side mounted output jack socket, installing a regular front mounted jack socket in one of the redundant pot holes instead, and added some transparent and black lampshade knobs to the 2 remaining pots for shows, though I later cut out pieces of green electrical tape to size and stuck it to the top of those knobs, the pickup top getting red electrical tape applied, as well as I applied some small Sherman Filterbank 2 stickers to the headstock, and a Jack Skellington skull sticker to the upper left (right I guess from the perspective of the bass) corner of the bass body : I do ponder on swapping out the stock bridge for 4 milled out solid brass mono rail bridge pieces as well, maybe in the same instance narrow in the string spacing slightly, from the current standard 19mm, to perhaps 17.5mm. The name is "Bottomfeeder", by the way, "Dud Bottomfeeder", secret agent 666.

I tend to remove (rip 'extraneous' stuff off) rather than add things tbh...

Shorthand for can’t be bothered to learn and thinks himself above the rest. What a tosspot.

It's all to do with what we are used to. Had the first popular bass guitar been headless, we be wondering why there's any need to have excess material beyond the nut.

I read somewhere about his approach to recording bass lines. I can’t remember exactly but he used to pare back and pare back until he was left with just the minimum notes to carry it. I’ll have to try and find the info. Yes, awesome player, saw him with Clapton in 1983 at Edinburgh Playhouse.

Looks like Danny's now extending his internet presence https://www.youtube.com/@OfficialDannyThompson

Having said all that I just looked up a video of me playing the VT and it does sound pretty good, and man it was nice looking. 😂 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRrLGJrCewa/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Sometimes I worry about how my mind works. I love this sort of discussion I don't think there is a problem free way of fixing a speaker to a cab. All the regular methods are problematic in some way. You start with fixing holes which are often around 6mm from the speaker cutout with a 5mm hole drilled to take the fixing. that leaves you 3.5mm of 'wood' to prevent any sideways movement. Less unless you've cut both your cutout and drilled your screwhole perfectly. After you drill a hole the wood fibres, released of pressure are going to expand a little and close the hole, that's why you can't just slide the T-nuts in or why your Rawlplug needs hammering in. If you are using plywood you will have unseen voids which will mean some of your screw is going into air, not wood. Not all timbers are equal, some species are a lot harder than others. Fast grown poplar is softer than many timbers, oak famously hardens with age, the moisture content affects hardness as does the part of the tree the wood is taken from and so on. If you are dealing with plywood most of the time you have no idea what the inner plies are. A lot of 'poplar' ply is actually Eucalyptus internally and even the outer veneer is a Chinese poplar. Baltic birch is often only birch on the outer layers and if it comes from Kaliningrad it is probably from trees grown in Russia (which may be fine of course, it's a big country) I quite like t-nuts, you are pulling them up towards the speaker frame with the baffle sandwiched in between The shape of them spreads the load a little and if you have a weaker piece of wood underneath it is still going to hold. Your bolt is in a metal thread so it's way stronger than it needs to be and you are going to have no problem removing the bolts unless it all rusts. The downsides are the appalling quality of most T-nuts with poorly sharpened prongs at well off 90 degrees and poor thread cutting. They can be quite big so the diameter takes them right to the edge of the cutout and the prongs break the edge or even stick out past the edge. After losing one or two by pushing too hard on the bolt I now don't push too hard and I don't cross thread then because if they are tight with my fingers I stop and investigate. I don't hammer them in either, not on a speaker mounting I use a washer and tighten the bolt against it and pull them in, Screws are great in that they are quick and easy. you need a pilot hole if they are close to that fragile edge, even if they say they are self drilling you are going to get some expansion when they go in and a couple of mm of ply won't take that. Every now and then one will slip and pull out when you tighten it, all that variable wood or lack of wood. I just drill out a bigger hole and use a Rawlplug. I've never used a threaded insert, though I've come across them in commercial cabs. They seem to work. The biggest lesson I've learned is that you need to drill the right sized hole, at right angles with the right drill bit and properly centred. Use a brad point bit They are much easier to centre and they are self guiding , cut a much cleaner edge and clean out the sawdust effectively. Ordinary twist drills are much harder to centre and often wander off when you start to cut, in something as soft as timber it's really hard to stay square and you can easily end up with a slightly oval hole with rough edges. Don't pooh pooh the speaker clamps either, the metal L shaped brackets. Ugly as sin but that's not a problem if they are under the speaker grille and are painted black. By moving the fixing point away from that soft edge you have a much better chance of a nice firm fixing. I use them a lot when developing a new speaker as getting the speaker back out is simple with less chance of sticking a screwdriver though a nice new speaker That all makes it sound difficult but it really isn't, just take a little care and it'll be fine.

The HB B45FL is decent. There may well be better or equivalent ones for more money or around that price point, but I don't think you can go wrong with it for the price. I would also go along with the unlined because the only visual clue that is important are the side dots rather than craning his neck over the fretboard. If anything, my lined fretless requires extra and unnecessary mental processing when I look down at the side dots because I then have to do some spatial calculations to work out where the actual fret should be, whereas on the unlined this isn't the case. The only practical advantage(IMO) of the lined is that there is far more choice, so if he wants to go the 5 string route the lined may be the better option.

Unlined look so cool... he idealy wants 2 octave... Harley Benton B-450FL is looking like a contender... He likes a 'lead bass' higher strings and up the fretboard sound so might consider a 5 tuned EADGC for fun!

This is going to create mixed reactions but my advice is to get him an unlined fretless if he's young and starting out. In the long run it will teach him better technique, better ear and more creativity. Others will say otherwise but my personal opinion, as a fretless bassist, as he is young and starting out, this would be my advice. Of course there is nothing wrong with choosing a lined fretless and there are more choices available from Squire, Cort and Ibanez so the choice is yours. The Squire Vintage Jazz lined fretless is an excellent starting bass.

Picked one of these up and it arrived today. Firstly, it's gorgeous and I love the neck. Really light weight, and well balanced. On the downside, the E string appears to be gubbed (does anyone know what these strings are? Red silks), so tonight I need to change the strings and set it up again before I can comment further. But I think it's going to be a keeper.

Ownage is relative. Does 'I swear I'll start paying you for it next month' count? 😬

These look better as a headed bass. Like, a million times better.

I may very well go the the Warman route myself pick up wise, are they difficult to fit? took my bass out to a gig on Saturday - straight to FOH via my Two Notes Le Bass Pre with bass boosted a touch and cab sim on. Guy comes up and first words are "Muddy that, mate". I did have the tone rolled back around 3/4" to be fair, and he did say it was better after a bit of adjustment (he did ask if it was an EBMM which surprised me). After having a conversation with him, turns out he plays bass and had 3 Bongo basses. If that's what he was comparing it to then I think "a bit muddy" is more than acceptable given the price difference!

I am loving the early 70s font used for the "PRECISION BASS" decal. I don't care that it technically predates Squier's existence (as an instrument brand) - the fact that they've taken the time to replicate that detail instead of using any old Letraset they had lying around is evidence to me that someone put some thought and care into these basses.

Turn into? It's literally how the thread began

Hipshot O Ring knobs Fnarrr Frank Blank. Purveyor of schoolboy innuendo smut since last Michaelmas.

I feel your pain too. I now have colour zones on my pedal board. Black pedals/psu along the top, gold/brown pedals on the bottom left and white pedals on the right with a white lead into a white P bass I even have a short white lead between the tuner and the Wah!

Dance me to the end of love. Leonard Cohen

Wild is the wind - David Bowie

Acoustic gig. She's Right I'm Left This Saturday 1/14 @The Harley Motor Milwaukee WI 5:30 Blue

Steinberger talked about his findings back then (ghost note issues etc.) but I do not find it anywhere. Someone could be brave enough and do some excavation. His comments were very interesting, not only because his background was design and furniture.

When I read posts like this I feel blessed to belong to a music group (and wider church) who just seem to get on with each other. We have a team of singers and musicians who play on a rota basis. I play bass on average about once every three weeks with different personnel each time. We do not have set teams and it makes for interesting sessions. Cliques cannot form and we get to know a wider group of people. Most of us only play at church and run through the songs about an hour before the morning service. At 72 I'm one of the oldest members of the music team and we have secondary school students contributing too. It is a great mix and the Sunday morning run through can be good fun. We try to play well but don't get hung up if anyone makes a mistake. Our thinking is that when the 120+ congregation start singing they won't hear our fluffs anyway! That doesn't mean we don't care about the standard of playing but we accept that we are human and things can go wrong. We mix outside of band duties at other church activities and tend to enjoy being around each other. The main thing is giving our best for God and we park any egos at the door.

It’s really easy to add shielding to your current instruments. Go on YouTube to see how it’s done, and have a go!