Leaderboard

Would love to hear your thoughts about guys showing up for auditions unprepared. A few weeks ago I referred an opportunity to a friend. This was a legit opportunity with top notch guys with an agent and ready to go out make money and gig. This is not a start up band. This was an opportunity for guys that want and need money from playing. Not for the " I don't need the money I just want to play" guys. It's an oldies act and they needed a bass player that could harmonize. My friend was given 4 songs to audition and he shows up for the audition unprepared. If it was a a start up or questionable opportunity I somewhat get why a guy would limit the effort put forth. This was " money in the bank" You've all heard this question before. Why do guys do this? Me, if I commit to an audition I'll show up owning those 4 songs. If I don't own them I'll cancel the audition. Doesn't that make more sense than showing up not knowing the material? Blue

SWR T/O/P + Goliath III. Also posted in the SWR section. I like the punchy hi-fi quality to it, reminds me of my old Trace gear. Not had chance to play with it much so far, though I think it has the potential to knock walls down.

First proper outing for my mini rig at a coronation street party gig this afternoon. Nordstrand Acinonyx short scale bass into a GR Mini One amp and matching 2x8 cabinet. Out of shot is a Helix Stomp set up as a pre-amp along with chorus and synth effects.

Interesting discussion. I bought my first bass in 1977 for £35 from Minns Music in Brighton. As I recall I had a choice of precisely one bass, a Zenta EB copy which I purchased. That £35 is worth around £280 today for which there is a great selection of some really decent instruments which are perfectly giggable and would blow my old Zenta out of the water. Kids today don’t know how lucky they are 🙄

None better.

Last nights gig. Mini stereo rig.

To catch all those up who need it (which I hope is ok?) - our wonderful friend @Dood put a message on Facebook that he’s thinking the unthinkable due to the current state of affairs and his monetary situation. His Shuker 7 string is synonymous with him, was entirely conceived by him and built to his specs by Mr Shuker. It’s a true one off for a one-off lovely guy. I for one am happy to help out a brother in need.

After (mostly) putting together a cheap jazz bass kit from eBay the bug has bitten... I decided to put together something a bit custom that would hopefully get me the sound I'm looking for in a package that would be doable for a newbie. I have no real woodworking skills, no proper place to work and no tools (apart from a drill and a chisel...). Enter guitarbuild.co.uk - discovered whilst looking for kits that might get me heading in the right direction. So, then a question of whether to just buy "off the shelf" or go a bit wild. Went a bit wild. The spec I put together: Body: 2-piece walnut P-bass with rear-routed control cavity. Battery box routing. And custom routing for a Stingray pickup. Quite a lot of research, including some very useful posts on this very site led to deciding to put the pickup as near as possible to the proper Stingray spot. Neck: walnut with 38.8mm nut, maple fretboard, medium jumbo frets and abalone dot markers front and side. Headstock shape was going to be my own design, but ended up going for the "house" style as it was pretty much what I had ended up with anyway with my own design and I figured they had already got it right. Jasmine from Guitarbuild looked after the process from beginning to end with some very helpful advice about what would actually work and what was possible. For basses the choice is between p-bass and j-bass bodies in a variety of woods and for the necks you can choose one-piece or two-piece, woods and dots. Then it's just a case of communicating what you want in the way of custom routs. I found an outline of a p-bass body in a usable format for the graphic design program I often use for work. Adding the Stingray pickup outline was easy enough and putting writing on the picture to explain exactly what I wanted did the job. Only thing you can't change on the neck is that it has to be a four in-line headstock, which suited me fine anyway. I went for the option whereby they put together three body blanks and I got to choose one (though would have happily bought at least two of them... just couldn't afford to). One body was a definite "no" - just wasn't what I was looking for but it was a hard choice between the other two. Neck blanks was also choice of three and, again, it was hard to choose between them. From first email to the boxes arriving was just over two months and that included me faffing around some... Quality is excellent - the neck in particularly is very nicely made. The neck is made for the body and is a tight fit with holes pre-drilled. All that remains is finishing it, possibly a bit of light sanding on the body in a couple of places. The plan is to finish it using a Wudtone transparent finishing kit. I recently used a "Dark Tease" to finish the "zebrawood" composite body of the cheap jazz in order to dull down the stripes - was very easy to apply and gave a very nice result. I used Danish Oil on the jazz bass neck and didn't like so much how it yellowed the maple a bit much. Hardware is going to be EMG MMCS pup, with volume and EMG BTC Control for treble and bass, Hipshot Vintage bass bridge in black - all bought second hand. Machineheads will be Hipshot Licensed Lollipop Ultralites in black - special order from the US via BTN Music and a Hipshot 3-way string tree. Other bits and pieces will be from the parts bin. So far the whole process has been a lot of fun. Guitarbuild were (are) fantastic to work with - quick replies to emails and seemed to be happy to answer all my "I don't really know what I'm doing" type questions. Photos are below. And I'll add more as things progress. As browsing this particular part of BC was what got me thinking I might be able to do this, you all get to see the results

Apologies if this has been posted before, but I was looking at guitars on the Gordon Smith and came across this - https://www.gordonsmithguitars.com/shop/guitars/gs-bass/

After a few weeks off due to band members illness, covid and what have you it was nice to be back on stage. A nice sized bikers rally just outside Knutsford, first one of the season for us. We were opening on this one, the organisers know we can generally get a crowd up and ready for the night...and we did. Next outdoors one is the Farmyard rally in Helmsley in June, always a laugh that one.

Dirty Love - Frank Zappa

King Billy Rock Bar in Northampton last night. Split the bill with Voodoo Radio. Played with my full rig, Orange Bass Butler through Orange LBT and Orange 2x10 and 2x12 cabs. Crowd wasn't as big as we hoped, but we went down well and Landlady said we'd be welcome back next year. Managed to race through 16 tracks in 50 mins. Bloody knackered today.

Unfortunately, our set has stagnated over 31 years as our guitar player only knows about a dozen numbers and they're all in 'E'. 😁 We have over one hundred numbers in the set. What he does for the other 88, God knows.

Progress Report The neck is defretted and slots filled with plasticard as recommended by Manson guitars in another thread. I found the top 3 inches of the neck was falling away on the E string side making a level neck for fretless impossible. So much for me thinking it was a nice neck just shows how wrong you can be. (Wipes egg off face and moves on) From a Google search I found a thread on Talkbass about neck levelling which included input from Bruce Johnson amongst others explaining the need and processes for conical levelling and hour glass levelling. Enter the need for a levelling beam. Ebay alloy rectangular tube 20mm x 50mm by 50cm long collected in person for less than £10 from a supplier about 19 miles from me. Wicks on the way home. Oakley Superflex cloth backed sandpaper Fine 120 grit. Shockingly more than the alloy tube but necessary. Cut the tape to fit the tube one length for 20mm one for 50mm. Upholstery spray contact adhesive and carefully apply the tape to the beam job done. Follow the methods and advice from Bruce Johnson. Neck is now sorted and very accurate.. Smoothed off with 240 sanding followed by 2000, 2500, 5000, wet and dry the last 3 with finishing oil applied a few drops at a time with an industrial syringe. Neck is now nice and smooth and shiny.

Little confession time: I've been wanting to love my Spector Euro 5LX bass for a long while, because it's such a good bass - it's got such a meaty Spector EMG growl and punchy low end which immediately announces you're there to an audience and cuts through the mix effortlessly, but it's played second fiddle to my lighter Elrick for some while (also a great bass) and I've had it up for sale on and off for 6 months as it wasn't getting used. My particular issue has I've just not been able to find a way wear it comfortably - it's felt a bit too heavy and the fretboard extension was at a tiring angle for my left arm. Fortunately I managed to resist near offers and gave it another go with a wide padded Minotaur strap tonight combined with slightly shortening the strap length. Bingo!! 2 hour gig tonight it felt just fine, well actually more than fine. Singer commented on what a great looking bass it was (it is!) and drummer loved the tone. I'm not disagreeing with either of them 😊

The original version of this song always makes me happy and playing it even more so. It was a privilege to be asked to play on this and a delight to record and film. It’s not a hard line, but that doesn’t matter to me.

AIC, Queensryche, Pantera, Cameo and Living Colour, all in one video, featuring a white Euro 4 Classic (and a black Euro 5). Cool stuff. Check it out 😍

Stupid.. and disrespectful.. Learning 4 ( presumably "oldie" ) songs isn't going to be that taxing is it..

I haven’t done this for years, and I was bored, SO… Top left to right: 2 x Sunn Mustangs, Epiphone Embassy, Squier Frank Bello. Lay down: Reverend Justice Bottom left to right: Ibanez Jet Star, Epiphone Newport, Warwick Streamer Standard (German) and an Aria IGB68. The only one missing is an incoming Thunderbird.

I ordered a Klos Apollo Standard in the aqua finish earlier today from the very helpful customer services at Klos HQ in Utah, USA. Now just the wait for it. (Not my bass but no doubt looks the same)

To a bass player no two basses sound the same, to an audience all basses sound the same. Anyone who gets into the tone wood argument needs to accept that it’s equivalent to the ‘eskimos have 13 different types of snow’ argument. Possibly true, but either way, it’s all snow.

Zero shame in seeking comfort. Zero shame in making your instrument work for you. I know for a fact that other people pick up my basses and think "yeah, not for me". Do I care? Not even a little bit.

Indeed - there is no time advantage doing a hardware debounce, you still need to wait for a stable state however it is done.

We'd perhaps better not persue the "bear" too much further, but leave old nilo to his fate..

I'm a Scatman ～ Scatman John Nothing if not tasteful 🙇🏼‍♂️

If he's sitting there, it'll have really bad neck dive...

True, but if they don't my brain doesn't work properly 😂

I’m in, Dan’s a long time member here and top guy.

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/even-fretless-fingerboard-levelling-tips.905673/

That misalignment of the strings over the bridge pickup is something which could not be lived with in the world of bass, nor in the world of soft furnishings.

I've got a lot of Danny Thompson on Alexis Korner records. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sreIXSY6Qk Fantastic player. I learnt electric bass copying DT's bass lines. Here's a more recent session with Eric Bibb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds1faZB4QSc

Oh no, not this again...

Some early thoughts on the short SBMM Stingray. . . I am still yet to plug it in, so these are just first impressions / observations from playing it on my lap: Firstly, whilst I expected this with the Ray being in a different price range, it just seems like a real quality bass, and a big step up from the only other 2 short scale basses I've tried (Squier VM Jaguar & Squier VM Mustang), and feels like it will be a lot of FUN to play. Let me say that at this moment in time I am considering going short scale more out of necessity than actually wanting to. . . as much as I love my P bass, my back always aches after playing & carting it about, and my left hand aches going from G# to F. So the lighter weight (I mean playing and load in/out too), lesser stretch, and fun factor of short scale is starting to appeal more and more. The Stingray weighs in on my digital luggage scales at a manageable 3.3Kg / 7lbs 8oz, almost a pound lighter than my Player P bass (which itself is light-ish for a P). I just realised that using the weight conversion, the 2 are slightly out of kilter, but that's what the scale read for both after several goes. Always nice to get a sub 8 pounds bass anyway. I've never had a Stingray before but own a fair bit of music that features one, so have always been curious. I've had it in my head that they are heavy and expensive, also I prefer a passive bass and to my knowledge they are generally active. So I've always passed on them, until now. I wanted to try another shorty for the above reasons, so getting a short Stingray was a 2 birds with 1 stone thing. Visually it's quite a departure for someone who is more used to Fenders. I still need to get used to the sight of the huge banana control plate. I guess this is just part of the quirky nature of a Ray, speaking of which I quite like the 3+1 headstock. I've only ever had 4 inline tuners before, and I like this headstock more than I thought I would. Also the string tree notches are a nice touch, never seen those before. Soon I will actually plug it in and play it, then will have to get my head around the controls - the somewhat bizarre push/push volume boost/cut thing, and the series / single coil / parallel selector knob. I'm normally a tone wide open guy, but I've read where some roll this off a little to take a touch of the zing / brightness off if needed. Interested in thoughts on the different modes. . . It feels well balanced, and the very cool looking quality bridge is very close to the end of the body, the 1st fret does not feel far away at all. The body doesn't feel particularly small resting on my knee, but it does look it in the mirror when standing. The cutaway seems to offer decent reach to the upper frets, though I doubt I'll be going above the 15th anyway. Not sure I've ever had 2 full octaves before - the shortest bass ever but with the most frets! It's a real joy to play on my lap, and nice to have a good body contour, which I missed when trying a Mustang. I must say that white on white isn't my first choice of colours, but the creamy white finish is very nice indeed. For sure looks better in person than in photos. Also I like that white doesn't show up every scratch & bit of dust that black does. I can live with the white pickguard for now, but may look into other options. That said, I'm not sure there are many outside of importing from the USA. Has anyone here got a replacement 7 hole guard for their short Ray, and if so where was it from? I do like some contrast, so quite fancy a black or black pearloid plate, I think those would look better against the white body. This may sound odd, but I've always like the pickups to be 'hidden' against a darker plate rather than standing out on a white one. That said, the big fat humbucker with its large pole pieces does look rather badass! Also I'm normally a maple guy, but when I saw this, GAS got the better of me. It's a lovely dark rosewood board, a world away from the indian laurel board that was on the short Jaguar I had briefly, and the 'dry cardboard' Pau Ferro boards I've seen. I like the big dot inlays too. The neck is an absolute delight - fast, smooth, looks & feels great. It seems a tad chunkier than what I'm used to, but the slim nut & obviously shorter finger stretches make it so easy and fun to play. It came to me with Ernie Ball Super Slinky 40-100 nickel rounds on - they feel & sound good enough to me acoustically anyway. I don't think I will be fiddling about with setup - there's no buzz or rattle, it just feels great. It came with a well padded matching gig bag, which was a lot better than I'd expected. From reading a ton about these basses on TB, it seems pot luck whether a gig bag was sent out with these, so I guess it's good to have one anyway, especially if I want to shed even more load in/out weight. But I'd already ordered a Gator ELEC XL hard case, which is awesome, and a perfect fit for the short Ray. The combined weight of bass & case is 1.5Kg down from the cased P bass. A bonus is that the hard case fits in the boot of the car, a long scale case never did. Now, I just need to plug it in, get my head around the controls, and get over the 'big guy/small bass' / 'this is a toy' / 'this is not a proper instrument' thing in my head. Given how much fun this is to play, that shouldn't be too hard.

Oh thank goodness it's not just me! If it's something I haven't had a chance to practice recently I always panic that I'll have forgotten a song, but so far (touch wood) as soon as we start I suddenly remember I'm not a complete numpty and do actually know how to play it.

G&L Tribute LB-100 G&L Tribute JB-2 G&L Tribute Kiloton (B-stock) All £299 at Andertons right now. The LB-100 does P, the JB-2 does J, the Kiloton (sorta) does passive SR. All done with aplomb. Very happy with my Tribute LB-100.

I don't get it - I am not a guy who needs the money, but if I am going to show up at an audition and I have to learn 4 songs you can be sure I will have learned those 4 songs. And probably checked them out on line and learned a couple of the others too. Because if I didn't want it, I wouldn't be going, which means I obviously do want it, so I am going to make sure that I have every chance that I can have.