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Managed to persuade our very own Beedster to part with his gorgeous Japanese fretless P bass. It's even more lush in the flesh.

A week or two ago I took a drive north to pick up a bass I bought from the BC marketplace. I kept looking at it, passing it by, thinking about it, not thinking about it, continuing with my macrame antimacassars, essentially I was curious but not gassing. I sent a message asking if it was still available and the buying process began. Anyway, the seller was far enough away that after driving up I booked a hotel and we arranged to meet the next morning. On seeing the bass in the flesh so to speak, I was struck by how beautifully made it was, how light it was and yet I remained stoically underwhelmed by it. I paid up, put it on the back seat and set off home. Arriving back I stuck the bass in the rack and left it there to languish, I'm not sure I played it for a couple of days, when I finally did I was, again, just south of whelmed. Another bass bought on a whim that I'm going to lose money on I thought. A few days later I had a jam with a friend of mine, just some songs he's learning with his guitar tutor, some Beatles, Neil Young etc, I plugged the Acinonyx in and kind of forgot about it, and that's the whole point. I have gassed after some lovely basses and, more often than not, I've bought them purely on the basis of aesthetics, not ergonomics, not sound/tone, and, I shouldn't be surprised should I? That a huge percentage of these basses didn't suit me or my needs, they simply satisfied my desire to own something a) because I could and b) because I liked the look of it. Rarely (if ever) did I take my needs as a band member into account. To be honest that was exactly what I did again with the Acinonyx, only this time I wasn't even sure I liked the look of it, after all, it's a funny looking f***er innit. That whole point I was on about. When I was rehearsing with it I forgot about the instrument, how it looks, how it feels, entirely, I just played it. It was supremely comfortable, ergonomically right for a change and, so comfortable, so 'right' that, well, we just got on. It has a limited range of tones and yet play it in a band setting and those tones are the right ones. Given my druthers I would never set my bass to any of those tones, which is obviously why I've never been satisfied with my tone! The Acinonyx doesn't give you room to fånny about tweaking stuff for ages until you tweak yourself into a sonic corner. I play through an FRFR powered speaker so I just set that to 'default' and then pressed a couple of these crazy buttons... ...I can't even remember which, and I forgot the bass and just played music. If you push all four pickup buttons down at the same time (easier said than done!) it switches the pickups into series mode. Anyway, I'm no good at technical stuff, it was more how, for some reason, I was almost totally indifferent about this bass until I plugged it in and loved it. We are always looking for something perfect, exactly the right tone, exactly the right look, essentially we are looking for something that probably only exists in our heads and that no physical bass can actually live up to. Inevitably I'll buy a bass, clearly for all the wrong reasons, rush home, plug it in, declare it to be the best bass I've ever had and invariably sell it a fortnight later at a loss because there's a lot more stupid stuff going on in our heads psychologically than any of us is prepared to admit to. I should, at this point tell you all that the Acinonyx is the best thing since sliced Fodera but I'm going to stick with underwhelmed because underwhelming is clearly what I should have been looking for all this time, I'm not even going to say this is a keeper, I'm just going to stop typing and play it.

A German Streamer, from 2000, this thing needed some love. I picked it up for an absolute steal, because of the condition, and spent today cleaning, oiling, waxing and setting it up with a new set of TI flats. The word on the street with these, is that the pickups are weak and uninspiring. Cobblers. Yes it’s not as high an output as some of my basses, but so what?? turn up the amp?? These pickups sound beautifully honky and funky with flats. The TIs have a nice brightness to them which helps cut through. Absolutely lovely tone, comfortable to play, nice action (after a LOT of truss rod work), it’s a truly fabulous thing, quality German build and parts. Absolutely love it, very happy.

I returned to the pub I had my wedding reception in for the first time since 2018 last night. It was a lowkey acoustic set as the main part of a newly establishing open mic night (we had the long main set). As with a lot of Wiltshire pubs, a couple of all day drinkers in there who had long gone beyond the point that they should have stopped. I replicated my bass parts on a mandocello and took some lead on the mandolin too. I sung some lead lines and did a lot of the onstage banter. It was just a fun evening. My missus came down to support us and I was amazed how many people remembered me from 5 years back. The pub has a Dr. Who theme due an old John Pertwee episode being filmed locally in 1971. Here we are just before going on. The Dalek didn't come in. There are steps! Some of the locals...

Ah, the Imprecision Bass 😃

Does she sing or play the guitar, or what..?

also, just found this on YT....

Finally back out there again. Acoustic gig with "She's Right I'm Left" Saturday 4/25 Reveres Restaurant Delafield WI *8:00 - 11:00 * This a late night for me. I won't get home until 1:30.

Just swopped the stock Pups from the Player Series and added the Dimarzio PBass pickup These are a bargain at present and for anyone liking rock these Pups work well More mids and growl ( fairly hot pups ) and for finger playing they are an improvement I feel

Lol cheers🤣 He made one for My BB1024

Coo for cats - squeeze

Sound And Pigeon ～ David Bowie

Bought an Aguilar OBP2 & PJ set from @cetera & fitted them last night/this morning. A good upgrade from the IBZ C4 pickups (as good as they are too). The amount of low end it is now able to produce is phenomenal! Should be able to go well with my synth bass stuff.

Spotted these on a surf-by. Bought a B-Stock one for £95 inc. postage. Result.

This months photo got the creative juices flowing very well... In fact I had to concentrate very hard putting this thread together, I normally listen through again as I am collating it, but I got drawn in to all the tunes far too much The choice of photo was by @Wolfram who, most impressively, took the win with his debut entry. "I created this image with DALL-E, a natural language artificial intelligence image generation system, from the prompt: "a photograph of two convertible red Ferraris racing through a dystopian city at night with lens flare and atmospheric neon lighting". Take inspiration from the subject of the photo, or from the transformational impact AI is about to have across the creative industries - good or bad? " Have a listen through these and some will amaze you, really! As usual , vote for your 3 favourites before midnight on 28th Feb 1 @Dad3353 There are those that praise highly the musicality of the Ferrari exhaust notes; there are even specialists whose sole task is to tune the beggars. I'll let you judge as to the success of their labours... A collection of sound samples, carefully crafted into a short symphony, with some pertinent tyre squeals for good measure. 2 @NickD The picture evoked memories of the computer games of my youth, so I tried to cast my mind back to the kinds of soundtracks those primitive programs would have. 3 @Leonard Smalls When I was a kid in a small village in Cheshire AI meant a chap with a rubber glove impregnating livestock... And if we're talking about gettin' jiggy with the Artificial Insemination Man there's only one choice, Funk! 4 Lurksalot Quite often you hear a song about cars that sounds a bit cheesy. so here is a proper cheesy one, Ferraris with cheese, Italian cheese. 5 @Doctor J Driving Ferraris around a dystopian city cost me a lots of 10p pieces in the 80's. Beating the clock, getting time bonuses and moving to the next stage were all that mattered, accompanied by 8-bit hard rock. 6 @upside downer A late night cruise by two artificial Ferraris through the mean streets of Artificial City to an artificial electro-synthpop soundtrack. No strings were plucked in the making of this melodic, mood music. 7 @Nail Soup I've gone for the boy racer angle, although with a punky sound not traditionally heard from such a vehicle..... so I present "Ford Cortina with a Home Made Flame Job". 8 @SH73 Here is my entry, Instrumental song recorded Tuesday morning, bass recorded Tuesday evening, mixed and mastered Tuesday evening. 9 @Wolfram Two harmonised guitars race bumper to bumper in a high-octane charge, wrapped around a song musing on the imminent demise of this breed of vehicle.... and perhaps their human drivers too? I present "Endangered Species". 10 @AndyTravis A tension between rhythms, like tension between how much technology takes over, a constant push and pull… That is a fantastic set of tunes, you may well find 3 votes insufficient , but that's just the way it rolls Get those 3 votes in before midnight on 28th February folks

Hi All, Just to let you know that my new Warwick Gnome PRO CAB 12/4 arrived yesterday. It is perfect for my purpose and sounds even better than I thought it would. A lot easier to man-handle too than the one I currently have. I'm well happy with my purchase. My thanks to you all for your postings. Roger

Every Day I Bite The Rook ～ Elvis Costello

I like it as it is, save yourself the work and just use it and enjoy!

These are the sort of things that keep me up at night, Ped.

You'll inevitably get advice on what colour to change the scratchplate to - may I suggest a tan/ coffee colour

Lovely I recently moved mine on. Iconic looking things aren't they

Just got this sire Great Basses love the maple fingerboard 👌👌

I actually received this bass at the beginning of the year but I had some plans for it, so it has taken a while to get around to photographing it. Please keep in mind that I bought this for a Hair Metal (mostly Motley Crue if the drummer has his way) style covers band... When I play, you can see on my picking forearm tattoos of a Mudflap Girl, playing cards and flaming dice. I have represented these on the bass. I have also made a truss rod cover in the shape of tribal style flames (the photo of it didn't come out very well). Also, my lair and PC are themed in black with red accents. I am thinking of making a t-shirt (probably a vest) with "I Ate Vince Neil" on it, because I ain't no Nikki Sixx!

That is a particularly nice looking sunburst. If it was mine, I wouldn't change it.

What's The Tory, Morning Glory - Oasis

Aw considering the crap he comes out with, particularly about women, I thought he was very respectful with her as he gets schooled! Video link added:

She isn't Spartacus but she knows a man who is.

My cittern is a 650mm/25.6" scale, similar to standard long scale on guitars. I've settled on CGDAD with unison pairs, and also spend a fair bit of time capoed at the 7th fret giving me GDAEA for melody playing. The JJB gives surprisingly deep bass on the low C string, actually rather more than a body that size can project acoustically. That can be useful for solo song accompaniment, but rolling off a touch of bass at the preamp gets it a little closer to the balance it has unplugged.

Well you're not far away and you are more than welcome to come and have a noodle if you would like to.

How about a bit of a warm orange or mustard vibe... would go nice with the plate

I'm not 100% sold on either tbh. And I'd have to put crown inlay stickers on it otherwise it looks like a W*****k copy 🤣

The tobaccoburst we got made looks nicer than this new run. But the Pulse II is an awesome bass.... I'd venture to even say it's the best value for money Spector out there...

I'm currently lusting after a Pulse II in Black Cherry (best Spector finish evaahhhh - along with the natural look).

If you have a roof box, put all the crap you'd usually put on the boot in there, and then put your bass on the boot? However, when our kids were little, and we had dogs in the boot, our roof box was always full of all sorts of family holiday detritus, securely strapped down, but just normal family luggage. We could lock it (which we did) but there was no real reason why anyone would target a roof box full of dirty laundry (basically) over some of the more easy targets.

So I made a 1ft long mild steel lolly stick of the (approx) appropriate with for the slots. .. this was incidentally made from a piece cut off the side of an old road sign, so by sheer coincidence the bass will have some literal "Street credibility " Anyway this will be chopped into 4 pieces for the slots, 2 of which seen here, I'll have to round off the ends for the next 2 obviously. When these are done I'll mark and drill the holes, and hopefully they'll raise the bridge units by a suitable amount ( you never know your luck..) I've hacked a bit more wood out to try and level the slots, this I'll have to persevere with until I'm happy with them

Well, drilling and screwing done. What a pair…