Leaderboard

Its okay, you don't need to report me to the elders of the 2023 bass aquisiton abstinence thread I actually bought this mid-November last year, and it has been sitting in its case unloved and forgotten as I bought it with the intention to sell it. The story is that I got a lowball offer accepted on package which was listed for local pickup only consisting of a Fender Vintera Mustang bass, A Fender mustang Hard Case, and a Fender Rumble 40 amp. I worked out that I should be able to sell the bass and the amp for more than the price I paid and essentially get to keep the case for free as I was after a case for my black JMJ (which cost exactly double what I paid for the vintera, case & amp.) I had forgotten about it until last week when I got it out to set it up before putting it up for sale. I made a big mistake plugging it into an amp, it sounds great and I decided to keep it even though it brings my tally of mustangs up to four (or six if you count the Fender & Squier mustang guitars) I've now made a few minor mods: The previous owner had a tug bar installed. I've got used to the thumbrest on my JMJs so I had to move that to to the other side. I like the 70s look of a black pickguard on a sunburst mustang. so I ordered a pickguard from Brian Pillans on ebay (top bloke - fantastic pickguards) I also swapped out the LaBellas which were on it for Chromes which are currently my strings of choice for mustangs, darkened the Pau Ferro fretboard with Dunlop 65 and rolled the fingerboard edges with a Bosch extra fine foam sanding block. I think the vintera has been somewhat overshadowed by the JMJ due to the JMJ being such a phenomenal bass, but the vintera is pretty good in its own right at a lower cost. The pickup is voiced differently to the JMJ's Seymour Duncan. It seems to be a more modern tone with a crisper top end. The neck profile is its more of a U than the C of the JMJ but I think it is slightly slimmer at the nut. The fretboard radius is different according to the specs, but I don't really notice a difference.

Prepare yourselves...

Picking up tomorrow morning, barring disaster.

I have searched for ages for a portable, EUB type upright that sounded and felt like an acoustic upright for ages. I've been round the houses, and had settled on my Ibanez Upswing.... although it doesn't sound that much like an acoustic upright, and didn't feel like one either. Interestingly though, I quite like the way it sounds, and band mates and punters alike have said the same... I've really enjoyed playing it, and it certainly has been portable. Funnily enough, I've always had questions, comments and compliments whenever I've gigged it. Last Friday, 6 or 7 people in the audience came to chat to me afterwards. But just the other day, this bass came up - and they don't turn up 2nd hand very often. So I took the trip and tried it. Straight away I could tell I was going to like it, and now, at last, I have a portable upright which sounds and feels like a true acoustic DB. The controls are good, and make the sounds from it really flexible - volume, treble, middle and bass. And I'm liking what I get at home through a small amp or headphones. Can't wait to put it through a big amp, at a venue. Unplugged, it's loud enough to practice along to a youtube video. My only decision now is whether to keep the Ibanez Upswing - because I've rather grown to like it.... doh!

1981? An unspecified pub in London, I was much refreshed when I got in the van, so I have no idea where I got out, Peckham came to mind so I'll go with that. Arrived to find we were the third band to play on a bill of three so I had time for more snakebite. I remember lots of people arriving who had come to see us from my home town, by gig time the place was rammed. I sat down behind my drums (yes, I was drumming in this band), counted the first song in with drumstick clicks and, on the third click, I vomited profusely over my entire kit. When I say vomited, I mean gushing geyser-type, dam busting style, a proper outpouring tinged pink from the blackcurrant in the snakebite. I managed, somehow, to complete the count in and begin the song which was mostly a floor tom/snare pattern and, as both drum heads were just lakes of pink sick, this first song was very splashy indeed. The throwing up cleared my head a bit and I got through the song, some kind soul took pity on me and brought me over a pint of what I thought was water which I downed before song two, it was actually lemonade and, half way through song two, the fizzing lemonade decided it didn't like my insides so it flew out spectacularly all over the back of the singer. Still, managed to finish the gig somehow, can't remember getting home nor how my kit got back but it did. We were finding little dried lumps of pink puke everywhere for weeks. Luckily for me everyone, including the singer and the people from home, seemed to find the whole thing hilarious so I counted myself lucky and did another years worth of gigs with them. I still have the t-shirt I was wearing that night that which I obviously used to wipe down the drums with, it is streaked like it's been bleached. Excellent.

Just picked this up in a less than salubrious location in response to a FB advert. It produces a bunch of sounds not dissimilar to those I can already produce on various of my pedals. But that hardly seems important. Review: I like it.

Just took delivery of a pretty rare beast these days, an Ibby mc 2924. Absolutely thrilled with it! I’ve a mc 924 ‘85 I’ve owned since new, bit battered but still fantastic. This thing is…. Well, a bit my ‘refined’ I’d say. Loving the smaller body shape and like my old one a neck to die for. I’ve Wals, smith’s and stingrays but keep coming back to the humble musician. Appy days! Thanks to biscuity Boyle ( Steve) for a really pleasant transaction. Will try to post some pics

Hmm. May I suggest re-reading posts before committing them..? Are they so urgent as to not be worth the time to be sure that they are correct in all respects..? Hmm...

A covers band I was in way back was booked to play at the nearby Conservative club (yes, I know, but a gig’s a gig!) but only when we’d set up did the chairman tell us that the committee had unfortunately forgotten to advertise the gig to the members, so no-one would be coming; however, the committee wanted us to play the 3 hour gig anyway, to just the four of them. At at the break I begged them to let us pack up and go, just give us some petrol money, but they refused, making us play until 11pm or no money at all. I’ve never played another Con club... Then for political balance there was the gig at the local Labour club where they’d hired in not only our band, but one of those electric rodeo bull things that drunken wazzocks try to ride but fall off. The first we knew of this was when the bull boss started inflating a massive bouncy castle sort of safety wall thing right in front of the band on the dance floor, then set up the bull inside it. As the inflation proceeded the walls got higher and higher (nice number, that) until our singer had to stand on a chair to see and warble to the utterly indifferent punters at the bar and the bull. The rest of the band was invisible. I’ve never played another Labour club...

I played a gig which started with the guitarist coming up to me, let's say somewhat "medicated", and told me he couldn't feel his hands. With his feet quite numb, too, he had to play slouched over on a stool. Halfway through the gig the singer left the stage, the venue and the band. We finished the set, though. That was painful. I've also played to the barman and then, when he left, to an empty pub. That was fairly excruciating, too, but I think when the drummer decided, mid-set, he needed to pee and, with the jacks being a couple of floors up, took about 5 minutes to do the round trip, that was a notch up from excruciating. It wasn't finally until my amp, an old Peavey MkII, make the sound of a sick whale and then went permanently silent, that I thought "This is really crap."

At present it me and a strings player/singer. Current candidate list will be trimmed down from ... ABBA, ‘Dancing Queen’ Aretha Franklin, ‘Respect’ Beach Boys, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ Ben E. King, ‘Stand by Me’ Beyoncé, ‘Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)’ Big Mama Thornton, ‘Hound Dog’ Bill Withers, ‘Lovely Day’ Blondie, ‘Dreaming’ Britney Spears, ‘Toxic’ Buzzcocks, ‘Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)’ Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Call Me Maybe’ Chic, ‘Good Times’ Chuck Berry, ‘Johnny B. Goode’ Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams, ‘Get Lucky’ Dolly Parton, ‘Jolene’ Don Henley, ‘Boys of Summer’ Elvis Presley, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ Gloria Gaynor, ‘I Will Survive’ Green Day, ‘Basket Case’ Jet Are you gonna be my girl Joni Mitchell, ‘Both Sides Now’ Leonard Cohen, ‘Hallelujah’ Madonna, ‘Into the Groove’ Madonna, ‘Vogue’ Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, ‘Uptown Funk’ Michael Jackson, ‘Beat It’ Michael Jackson, ‘Billie Jean’ Paul Simon, ‘American Tune’ Prince, ‘Kiss’ Sugar Hill Gang, ‘Rapper’s Delight’ The Beach Boys, ‘Good Vibrations’ The Beatles 8 days a week The Beatles, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ The Beatles, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ The Beatles, ‘Let It Be’ The Beatles, ‘Penny Lane’ The Beatles, ‘She Loves You’ The Beatles, ‘Yesterday’ The Crystals, ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ The Eagles, ‘Hotel California’ The Jackson 5, ‘I Want You Back’ The Kinks, ‘Lola’ The Kinks, ‘You Really Got Me’ The Monkees, ‘I’m a Believer’ The Police, ‘Every Breath You Take’ The Rolling Stones, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ The Rolling Stones, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ The Rolling Stones, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ The Ronettes, ‘Be My Baby’ Thin Lizzy, ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ U2, ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ Ukulele Lady The Jacksons - Blame It On the Boogie

A good hack that I sussed out for myself, that works for me at least, is to listen to the drum track and have a bop around whilst scatting/singing the bass part I have in mind without my bass in hand. It really helped to teach my brain where my beat should be without much thought required as I'm literally engaging as a listener first before I start playing. Might work for you too.

This is aforementioned Jaydee neck of my current fretless, bought from @greenoliveof this very parish this was a WIP photo from when I was putting it together, you'll be glad to know that that gap twixt neck and scratchplate has been closed as described in the post above, the fingerboard is the 2nd hardest piece of ebony I have ever seen in my life, and whilst it is unlined (the look I prefer) it does have little cheat-lines on the edge of the neck -- you can just make them out in the pic. This combination means that for me, this is the perfect fretless neck. All I need now is a gig where I can actually use it.

For some reason bass lines seems to come over better on Radio 6, almost like the whole station in better EQ'd than the rest? Anyway, until this morning i'd never picked up what an extraordinary bit of playing this is

We were booked to play a caravan park. Turned up a bit early to an empty backstage area and what sounded like a school full of kids beyond the curtains out front. We set up behind the curtains and waited for someone to tell us when we were due on. The compare eventually turned up with about 30 minutes to go, a young chap completely hung over following an all night party the night before. He was struggling to get into his bear outfit to entertain the kids while trying to talk to them using a radio mic from back stage. He went out and wound them up to fever pitch before announcing us. We played the first fifteen minutes to about 50 3-5 year olds. Another holiday park gig and this time a full house of adults. The singer decided just before we went on that he would start the set with a solo rendition of Knocking on Heaven's Door (see my previous post - we checked to make sure it wasn't a wake this time) and the drummer and I were to come on for 2nd verse. We tried to dissuade him but he knew best. He went on, started the song and we very soon realised he was singing the verse much too quickly. We could tell the chorus was going to be even faster and we decided to let him have the whole car crash song to himself. We watched, giggling, as he realised his error, then joined him for the second song.

I think about the first ever 'proper' gig I did in front of a reasonably substantial paying audience, had a very youthful me speeding and absolutely off my face, I just about remember being on the stage, and a lot of very loud noise, I have no memory of what I actually played, or indeed how I would've remembered what I was supposed to be playing.. I do remember coming off stage afterwards and people saying "that was brilliant mate" and all that kind of guff.. No idea how I got away with that, I can only assume I did it on brain "auto-pilot" or something.. Tbh I've probably been "winging it" ever since 😁 Another one, and most embarrassing, was loading out at a gig up north somewhere, it was very cold and had been snowing earlier, ( this was the punk era BTW, and note I was wearing a very tatty pair of trousers) anyway outside dragging some gear about I happen to look down and to my horror see that the zip on the above trousers had failed and the "Old Chap" was hanging out for all to see!.. now being very cold it was not nearly as impressive as I'd like to generally advertise it.. No one actually said anything and "it" was swiftly and discreetly returned to it's rightful place. i have a nasty suspicion it may well have been the topic of much hilarity I was not party to...

Many years ago I played a farewell gig with a covers band I used to do sound for in London, the bass player refused to do the gig so the band asked me to play, I agreed as I had some time available to rehearse the set, the vocalist sent me through a list of 20 rock classics we were going to play....now for my first mistake, I checked with the vocalist that everything was being played in the original key...yes was the response! I turned up to the gig confident that I knew the songs well enough to do them justice but I had scored out a basic tab for any of the more complex songs...as they say "job's a good un!" It very quickly turned out that pretty much none of the songs were played in the original key with everything being somewhere between a tone up or down! I managed to muddle through most of it without making a complete fool of myself...the crowd seemed to be enjoying it so the band decided they would play some of the other songs from their set...songs I had never learned...I remember playing Queen's One Vision and I am looking at the guitarist waiting for a specific light to go out so I could see what chord he was playing....I enjoyed the gig and learnt a lot about being prepared and not relying on the vocalist to tell me whether it is in the original key or not!

Our current crowd pleasers that are super fun to play; Chip : The Real McKenzies I'm Shipping up to Boston : Dropkick Murphys Drunken Lazy Bastard : The Mahones I like the last one just for the song title, but all the Boston punk numbers go down well.

Oblivious - Aztec Camera

Here is the BSX alongside a standard P bass. What I forgot to mention earlier, is a real boon - I can play this upright while sat in comfort on the sofa. It's just the right height with endpin retracted and the bottom of the body doesn't get in the way....

That's never stopped most of us; do as Lenny and I do, and just 'roll it in glitter'.

Daddario must be reading the thread they sent me TWO replacement strings and a new set!

I've not had a problem with fret wear since I had the depleted Uranium ones fitted.

Bear in mind the hypocrisy here - in that I have pretty much modded every bass and guitar I've ever owned BUT: If it was a bass you already had, I would be inclined to suggest to try to learn to love the maple. If it was a consideration of buying one and the look is more important than the playability or sound, I would suggest buying a different bass. Yes, it's doable, but it is quite likely to end up looking like a dog's dinner. As folks above have said, the surface at each fret position would need to be scraped or sanded down to the wood and, even then, there is no guarantee that the stain would soak in evenly. And it would always look like rosewood-stained maple. Replacing a fretboard is quite expensive. Having it done can be very expensive. Decent rosewood is expensive in itself and then there is the fret slotting, fitting, levelling, recrowning and polishing and final full set-up (it is likely that the sit of the frets would be different). I think I would be surprised if a commercial luthier would consider it for less than £300 and quite probably a fair bit more. And it might not sound the same, and it might not play the same. And it would decimate the re-sale value.

Just because the drums were recorded with the drummer listening to the click track does not mean that they will be exactly on the beat unless they have been edited afterwards to make them so. Unless you are planning to lots of editing and moving of song sections as part of the production process it really doesn't matter where the actual notes land so long as all the different instruments are in time with each other. I have a sneaking suspicion that this problem may be down to "listening with your eyes and not with your ears", in which case you probably don't need to worry.

Playing to an empty room is probably the worst thing I've had to do. Well, it wasn't empty, there were two bar staff. No promotion done, but being a football supporters club it's rather worrying that they had no-one just go there out of habit. At least we still got paid. I've been a wee bit embarrassed by some band members being a bit too drunk. An example: having to tell them which key the next song is in, followed by them playing the wrong note back at us, about six times before the fingers finally caught up with what we were screaming at him.

Alas and alack; I rue the day (well, it was night, actually..) that this burden was laid upon me by The Seeker, cursed to roam the pages of forums (fora..?) to mete out retribution to those defaulting on the use of apostro... Ooo look..! A bee..!

Playing at the local blues dive downtown , after eating a boiled dinner , I was a bit gassy. Cleared the dance floor.

OK, Here is my entry. I went through several genres but ended up going back to my initial idea which was to do something befitting a Tarantino sound track because the photo reminded me of his films. Not sure if I got there - its somewhere between the Shadows and a Spaghetti Western but that's the right ballpark. Recorded in Cubase 7 Elements. A Fender Telecaster was used for all guitars because I don't have a Jazzmaster (a Trem would have been handy though) and the guitars are through Amplitube using Fender Amp simulations with loads of reverb. The lead guitar also has a bit of tape echo. Bass is my usual Squier 70s CV through a Amplitude Ameg SVX 15 simulator. Drums are MT Power Drums.

I tried Flats on two basses and just didn’t get on with the smooth finish in regards to my plucking hand and the different sound / tone On a PBass for rock I find Roundwounds in the main just sound better even though Steve Harris plays flats on his PBass !! I love the fresh chime of new roundwounds and the rougher string feel just suits my rough old hands !!

A nice thing about the passive Starstreams is that they are quite easy to modify. The bridge is standard 5 hole Fender style and at least on the 1H, the pickup standard MM. The machine heads are Gotoh style, so I should imagine an easy swap: the OEM ones on mine are fine so I haven’t tried to change them. I am an inveterate tinkerer, so immediately replaced the bridge with a Fender high mass unit. The OEM was fine and in fact was more solid than the units they use on Squiers. After a while, I decided the Fender unit just didn’t look right: it came too close to the bottom of the body and having Fender stamped on it confused the hell out of fellow bassists. I replaced it with a more discreet but still chunky unit: there are so many 5 hole units out there. I also replaced the pickup with a Kent Armstrong. Again nothing wrong with the OEM unit but I prefer covered poles on MMs because I tend to anchor my thumb on the pickup and it buzzes if you touch a pole piece. It turns out the Kent Armstrong casing is a few millimetres bigger all round and the Starstream has a very tight route. I had to ease it a bit by sanding the casing. Incidentally, all the cavities are shielded with graphite paint. In the process of wiring in the new pickup, I replaced the mini OEM pots with full sized CTS. There is plenty of space in the control cavity but the through body mounting does cause challenges. At the time the only long shaft push/pull CTS pot I could find was a 500K. Ditto standard pot. This made it very loud but too bright as well. I eventually found a full sized non-CTS 250K pot for the tone that had a long enough shaft to fit. This plus a 0.1 oil in paper capacitor calmed the brightness down. I have since seen long shaft CTS 250K pots are back in stock with some dealers. I had to keep the original jack socket because it is quite unusual, in that it has to go through both the body and the outer plastic moulding. Fortunately, it is a good unit but could prove tricky to replace if it fails. As I said previously, the control cavity has plenty of space in it, so I imagine it would easily accommodate a preamp and battery, if there is a two knob unit out there. There might be enough room to drill a mounting hole for a third pot too. The jack socket might be an issue though.

Depends on how your recording system is set up. In the days when I had my own full-blown home studio, all recording and monitoring was done via the desk. Since none of the audio was making the complete round trip to the computer and back out again, there were no latency issues to contend with. IME it's simply a question of finding the right thing to play to, and then practice. When working with live drums and a click you need to have something that the drummer is comfortable playing along to. That might be a click or it might be a loop or rhythm pattern with some element of "groove" to it. Most of the drummers I've worked with prefer a regular click so they can create their own "groove" around that. The problem that most drummers have is that when they are exactly on the click they can't hear it because the drums obscure the sound, which is why a regular click with the drums woven around it works best. The rest of the band play to the drums and should never listen to the click unless there are sections without drums that they need timing information for, in which case I would provide a click for those sections only (and I would try both a regular click and one "quantised" to the main drum "groove" to see which produces the best performance). If I'm doing a song with programmed drums, I'll always get at least a basic drum pattern going first before I try recording any other instruments.

"Oof!, Ouch!, Yaroo!" and other such comment from the Beano.

johnny got a boom boom - imelda may

So was Bernard Edwards, but he didn't sound too shabby😉

This is a path I walked before. To cut a very long story short, Josh Gemmell is the sales manager, a top man, and seems to be the only person on Earth capable of sourcing the pearloid buttons. In my case, I had Gotoh GB720W tuners but Gotoh Japan sent me to him. Send him pics in jpg format (well done Bassassin) and he should be able to sort you out. http://www.japarts.ca/

Actually the vinyls are now being superceded by acetates at 78rpm. They just have so much more atmosphere about them, especially once they've been played a few times.

You say the timing isn't "overtly wrong", so would you have noticed anything if you hadn't looked at the waveforms in your DAW? If it sounds fine then it is fine and stop worrying. However if you want to change this and you are playing consistently ahead of the beat you could simply pull the bass part back until you are happy with the synchronisation between the bass and the other instruments. TBH it can't be that far out or surely one of the other band members would have said something by now. And remember that there is a big difference in what works live and what makes a great recording. IMO the is nothing inherently wrong or right about playing to a click track, provided that you use the right type of click and you also know when it's not appropriate. With the Terrortones before we went into the studio we'd try all the songs we intended to record with and without a click. Some benefited from the extra tightness that a constant tempo brought, some needed a variable tempo click so that each section has the right feel, and some just sounded best without. No overall right answer just a matter of picking the right solution for each song. Also the type of music being played/recorded will have an influence on how tight the all the parts should be. And this IMO is where home recording tends to fall down, because we spend too much time being over-analytical about individual aspects of the performance and not look at the whole recoding/arrangement/production, which ultimately is what counts. Having an objective 3rd party (a producer) is always a good idea.

Could you 'screenshot' this, please..? It's possibly just a matter of degree; half a bar ahead is obviously a tad 'too much', but bass notes have a certain build-up to them, so it's not always the peak of the note that one hears first. If we could see how far away from the beat you are, we could maybe advise a bit better..? Another point is that it's Music, not Mathematics, and often enough, too 'mechanical' doesn't cut the mustard. Let's see, first, though (and maybe a quick sonic extract, so as to hear what's what..?). If you can. Douglas

Heard the song a thousand times but never really heard the bassline? Absolutely, I own several Metallica albums.

I love the look of these. Did anyone else think they were Jean-Michel Jarre signature instruments at first?