Leaderboard

I've been using my homemade bitsa "Jazz with a P body" for about 3 years. Its got a lovely walnut body which was never massively heavy but I have been wanting a slightly lighter bass recently as I have a back problem. I toyed with getting a new body, or a new bass but I love my bass - everything is exactly as I want it. So a few jumbo forstner drill bits were acquired and drilling began on monday. As well as the holes you see there are also a few more under the scratchplate. It went surprisingly well and I produced a vast amount of walnut shavings. Finished off with a dremel and sandpaper. A quick oil and beeswax finish to the new holes and by tuesday evening I was back in business. Only a 0.2 kg saving, but it all helps and its a manageable 4.0kg now. Personally I think it now looks awesome too !

Not mine, but just back from an Open Mic night with the kids... Eldest (18) has played a couple of times, singing and acoustic guitar. This eve they were joined by my youngest, (14, but passes for 16...) on the Fretless Bass that i got him just last Saturday, 5 Days ago, on which he's has a noodle for an hour or so each day. Proud Dad.

This is my newly acquired Vigier Arpège Delta Metal Fretless from 1981 and bearing number 005. It weights 4.670 kilos, which is quite heavy for my broken back, but I will never sell it as it took me more than 20 years to find one in such a good condition... I bought it from the original owner who acquired it on the 2nd of September 1981 for 6417 French Francs, so the equivalent of todays 2806 Euros, but the official retailing price was 7130 French Francs, so the equivalent of todays 3118 Euros. I received the original invoice, the original user manual in French and the rare charger as these basses were intended to be used with 2 rechargeable 9 Volts batteries, way back in 1981! For those not aware of these Delta Metal fretless basses, the fingerboard is made out of a brass alloy consisting of copper (55%), zinc (41-43%) and iron (1-3%), with the balance consisting of various other metals, called ... Delta Metal and these very early fretless models had factory lines as well as a truss rod! So better photos to come next week... And with all the papers.

Understandable as Ronnie Pou was a made up name of a bass player in a made up band, purely for the purposes of pointing out that saying bassist a. is better or worse than bassist b. is subjective. You may think Gary Willis is a better bassist than Ronnie Pou, I may think Ronnie Pou is a better bassist than Gary Willis, what we are saying is neither of us is right per se. It is only, at best, a subjective expressed opinion and therefore, in analysis, as utterly pointless as any other unmeasurable unquantifiable opinion.

Many years ago when I was a trainee sound recordist I was on "Keeping Up Appearances" for a month as boomswinger. In the evenings in true BBC style everyone would meet up in the bar and get p1ssed up. I got chatting to Geoffrey Hughes (of Eddie Yeats fame) and we discovered a mutual love of whisky, and he'd also brought 2 guitars. So we spent many an evening jammin' away, me on "bass" (i.e. bottom 4 strings of an acoustic) and him strumming drunkenly, there may have been singing involved... Not a bass hero, but a hero nonetheless!

You know, they moved the bridges just for the videos and then moved them back 😝

Prog - oh yes! Long improvs, multiple themes, quiet bits with poetry competing with my baritone sax (sounding like a rhinoceros having an enema) and a cymbal tinkling away- they lapped it up at the jazz club I ran in Oxford at the Cape of Good Hope pub... but no money in it, of course and not popular at the local Working Man's Club More recently I was delighted to find that the guitarist in my current band has solid platinum Prog form - Francis Lickerish was a founder member of The Enid, an ironic symphonic prog band from the early 80s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enid Since then he's composed two epic symphonic/prog rock albums ('To Wake the King' and 'Far and Forgot') in the Arthurian vein (on YouTube). I asked him why he was in now our covers band. "Keep the fingers flexible, have a bit of a laugh while I complete the third album!" seemed to be a very reasonable explanation...

Music is absolutely, definitely, categorically not a competition. Anyone who thinks so is not a real musician. Anyway, can't chat here all day, need to work on my entry for this months Basschat composition competition.

So rewire number umpteenth has resulted in a board that’ll work for gigs where I’m doubling on fretless bass and EUB. As an aside, the SansAmp is now in the effects loop of the EBS and it sounds mighty!

BassBros just got a 67 P bass, one owner and with unusual factory fitted Mustang tuners https://bassbros.co.uk/product/1967-fender-precision-bass/

I remember that article - it also had a wing mirror mounted on the side so you could watch the drummer for cues.

The rigid tear drop case has a V inside. Easy to recognize.

This won't hurt a bit...

Here was mine. I'm not sure when the teardrop shaped soft zip cases started but I think a bit later. Great cases though, super secure (bit not much lighter than a full hard case!)

I am pleased that the current management of Epiphone are recreating basses and guitars from their own past catalogues instead of imitations of the Gibson models and a couple of Hofners. Even though they were owned by Gibson since the dawn of time or at least Rock n roll time, they have a heritage of their own which is well worth recreation.

Just put some Elixir rounds on the Squier. They fit fine, no problem winding the E string around the post. I really like my 'stangs. Notice how the body shape has changed over time - the Squier has a more rounded bottom. I think the JMJ is the same; more body behind the bridge. For £300 the Squier is great, the fretwork is fine and needed only a slight fettle, and the tuners are ok, a bit rough but they hold tune well.

I've not posted much on here for some while but I recently acquired a new pedal board and I thought I'd share it. I have a pedaltrain jnr, now redundant, which is a great little board but it was getting a bit cramped. So after looking around I came across the Nux Bumblebee Boards which, with a upper and lower deck, fitted my needs perfectly so in the best BC traditions here a pic. It's about the same width as the jnr but not as deep but as you can see I can place the psu nicely out of the way and should I need to, I can relocate the wireless rx under there too and have room for more pedals. I have to say the Nux is very well made and come in 3 sizes, this one is the middle size. I can throughly recommend them. In conclusion, it's smaller and for what I need I can do more with it..win-win 😊

After not being decisive enough to spend a relatively small amount on one pedal, I got something that will probably replace everything on my board 😅 It is an ex-demo unit I found on Reverb that I offered a bit under the asking price on, so I feel like I got a good deal. Plus they are an authorised seller, so the warranty is still valid in case something happens to it! I've only had an hour or so playing it through headphones, but it sounds huge! It also hasn't left me with option paralysis (yet). It's fairly easy to work out how to make it do my bidding and I've not referred to the manual yet. I've got a working patch that I can take to practice on Sunday and see how it pans out. There will undoubtedly be some tweaks required, but it seems to sound great on its own and I think it'll work pretty well into my amp. I've not even tried any parallel processing yet. All of the ods/distortions/fuzzes have got a clean blend plus an extra bass boost/cut, so it's pretty easy to dial in something very useable there quickly. We're going to be putting a demo together soon and I think this will be amazing for getting a solid bass sound for that. The only niggle I had found was that the tuner couldn't handle a low B. Turns out I needed to turn up the input gain and it was all fine. Not quite as accurate as my Polytune, but good enough. Also when I tried one out in PMT, the touchscreen must have been turned off because it definitely does do what I expect it to do. XLR or balanced jack outputs are the main omission on the hardware side. Still not really sure why they were left out, but I decided it was a compromise I could live with. I can always get a DI box to put on my board.

I can pop round and do it for you, I have no soul…

Make a cardboard box the same size as the cab to test it.

Fixed

Drat, Beat me to it , you won that one 😁

I dunno. I think I might enjoy having reproduction equipment that is the shape of a Hofner. It'd be a great ice breaker at parties.

Ah, so it's a Holy Bass?? Sorry, but surely you expected that...

What do you do when you want to make one of your G&L's even more brutal? String it BEAD 🤣 If you couldn't use all its power before you certainly can't afterwards. Wimpish rubbish of course you can. I have wanted to experiment with bead for some while because I don't tend to use the g string on my 5 strings very much. So I've been looking for a cheap victim bass to do it to. Yesterday I woke up to the fact that I don't need another bass for this but what can I use. Something strong and powerful with big tone. It took me a long time to decide between my Blueburst and my clear coat orange. Blueburst is I believe ash over alder and weighs about 9lb 5 oz. Clear coat orange is solid ash and weighs 10lb 7 oz Not that heavy once you are wearing it on a 4 1/2 " Lekato strap. My 5 string clear coat is 12 lbs 2ozs including its strap. Anyway orange won and is so strong it didn't even need a setup afterwards. Lovely great big noise. I'm back in love with it.

Haven't read through the thread as yet but just noticed Tim Quy from Cardiacs passed away yesterday. Such a shame about both Tims (band leader Tim Smith died in 2020 after a long illness). I saw them in the tiny Herne Hill Half Moon as a kid in 86/88 and they blew my brains out. Such an incredible band and probably my preferred variant in the prog rock arena. Amazing.

So there is an upside then! lol.

He was a regular at Cropredy Festival for many years too as he was a good friend of the Fairport Convention guys. I was lucky enough to join them all in their backstage trailer post headline show one year with much drink and many songs. He was a lovely chap and a huge music lover. RIP.

Tonight on Sky Arts at 7pm there is a Sheryl Crow gig from 2020. ‘Live from the Artist’s Den’ is small gig at The Plaza in New York. Later on the same channel at 12.15am there is a repeat of ‘Jeff Beck Live at the Hollywood Bowl’ from 2016. BBC4 have a load of Sting / Police related stuff starting tonight at 9pm.

The manner of his death was enough to earn him a million accolades.

The other less destructive way to the body would be to pots with a longer threaded part. That way you could still mount them through the body without widening the holes, then put the retaining nuts on the outside of the chrome control plate. If you can find the right length pots, and are happy soldering.

@GisserDis.

So this is the board currently. A lot of new pedals I haven't tried in the rehearsal room yet: the OC5, MBD2, 420 Fuzz, BF2 and DD3 (so nearly all of them then...) Had most of the Darkglass preamps (B7K, ADAM, AOU, Photon) before, then got the Bass Butler. Sold it, tried a few more (including multifx) and realised that the Bass Butler really is the sound I was looking for. Just sounds brilliant, and the extra distortion stage comes in handy. I also just like buying and trying different pedals. 😅 Had an HX Stomp and just got frustrated with the menus, didn't have the patience for it. Love the simplicity of the BB. Really looking forward to pairing it with the MBD2 and the 420. I kind of know what to expect from the BF2 and the delay, but interested to hear how the MBD2 and 420 work in a real space.

String holder is nearly ready. Some more shaping is still required. Alumec is one good material: threads are a breeze to make. Next big problem is the bridge, because the body is curved.