Leaderboard

I've had over 50 basses in my life, from Dingwall to Mustang and I keep coming back to Jazz Basses. So, after selling my upright and my Dingwall, why not get another one? I found this beautiful Custom Shop '64 Limited Edition Jazz in Germany. The seller was in NL yesterday so that was a perfect opportunity to pick it up. Lovely rosewood fretboard, Abigail Ybarra pickups, shoreline gold finish. Very happy with Jazz number seven in my collection.

I’ve been slowly lurking to find an older Warwick Thumb NT to add to my stable. I had one many (Blue) moons ago, but let in go in a moment of temporary insanity. Finally found this beauty in Stockholm. I’ve dealt with this seller before, so I took a punt. Rather glad I did!

Ey Up Mi Duck festival near Doncaster on Friday night (late, I know). We were last on and the tent was absolutely packed. I'd guess around 800 people or so. We played an hour and 15 minutes and they went absolutely mad for it. Ace gig. Here's a photo of the rest of the band as it's all I could find. Credit to Martin Borrett Photography https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087496146690

No frets here and what a gorgeous bass. I got this from @jhk at the weekend and I’m very happy. It weighs just under 10 lbs and sounds huge!! It’s a 1992 bass, so over 30 yrs old. The neck has a lot of Birds Eye and the fretboard also has figuring. Altogether a very pretty (imho) and great sounding bass.

It’s been a while, as I’ve been patiently waiting for the pickups to be made and delivered. ! they are finally here, so the project continues!

According to the stories he healed the sick, fed the hungry and helped the poor so basically another socialist woke lunatic. Apparently rewrote the rules of the old testament as well WHICH IS YET MORE CANCEL CULTURE, WHY DO THE WOKES EDIT AND ERASE ARE HISTORY?!!?!?!!

well ill be dammed, this bass doesnt neck dive at all!!! first full practice last night! the sound is killer !

Final got the neck in to finish this bass, it’s a standard burst squier vm jazz, but I fitted a Avedissian T bird pickup in the bridge, even added some black pickguard screws! And the standard for me upgrade to a high mass bridge. obviously the main change is the aluminium neck from Baguley, custom spec’d to have reverse headstock and block inlays!!

Its a ultra bitza! Warmoth slab 72 body (with belly cut), moses graphite neck, original 2Tek and bartolinis.

Nope. Day in day out we have "those who know better" telling all of us what we can and cannot read, for eg altering classic literature cause it doesn't "FIT" the WOKE agenda, as well as other stuff. Blimey, your not even allowed to be upset anymore in case you "hurt" someones feelings. Jeez..; what a woke nightmare we are all sinking into.

You're probably expecting to be asked why, I won't bother. If you want a bass with 4 strings buy a 4 strings and put all this nonsense aside

I bought a drum stool with backrest and replaced the base with one from an old office chair. It's perfect for me. https://www.thomann.de/gb/millenium_dtrab1118_drummer_sitz_pneu.htm

I had to play much of our last gig sitting down due to the 1st bad back I've had in more than 10 years... I couldn't find a handy stool, but I discovered that my Marshall Jubilee amp on top of Markbass 2x10 worked perfectly.

My '99 5H 3eq arrived last week

Just picked up an EHB1005sms in Emerald. Needed something lightweight with a shorter scale, to ease shoulder pain that's started to become a bit more prevalent of late. When I first saw these I thought they were absolutely *horrendous* looking, but slowly over time, they've grown on me, and now I love the Cyberpunk aesthetic. It's striking if nothing else! I was super dubious about the B-String being 32 inch, as we're conditioned to believe scale length is everything when it comes to a good B. However, bar the MTD KZ5 I had, this has the best B I've used! No flubby-ness and it speaks clearly. The general hardware/finishing is of extremely high quality and it's nice to have a bass, like my old Modulus, that you trust to take a beating and deliver. And finally, I don't get the whole thing of 'the Bartolinis are dark and crap, you must switch to Aguilars or Nordstrands' - I have never been the biggest Bart fan, but in this instance, the standard pickups are genuinely very good - some real depth and punch to them, and decent treble. If anything, sound-wise I'd say it's the preamp that's the issue. The treble frequency and highs are more 'hi-mids' to my ears and don't quite cut in the way I like. All in all though, an absolutely stellar machine- can't wait to get it out on the road this weekend.

This is quite long running but iirc there was evidence that people within his band(s) knew full well what he was up to. Not saying all of them but I can't believe you'd not have got a whiff of what he is up to. Were it me I'd be very publicly and through every possible avenue available, be letting folk knew what he'd done; which might include buying a ticket to a show and voicing my displeasure while he was on stage... but that's just me. In fact someone tried to scam me on ebay and I very easily established who they were and their band. I'm just waiting my opportunity to catch up with the gent and let him know what I thought of his stunt!

Swap the nut and bridge to make a wide-neck 4? I guess if you omit the G you'll have plenty of space to bend the D. And while you did ask for relevance, I feel the need to post this:

Carpenter Séx Perience? Is that a deviant site for woodworkers or summat?

I bet they rattle the parcel shelf when you crank them up....!

Maple is definitely brighter. The inherent tone of any bass is attributable to neck/fingerboard material.

This is my setup. If I'm transcribing or working on finicky stuff, I'll sit on the bar stool and concentrate on the fingering. Thank you, that's quite enough from the cheap seats. Once I've got something nailed, I'll either perch on the edge of the bar stool or stand to practise it. If I have to sing as well, I'll always stand to practise.

I've got a gig in Amsterdam in a few weeks and my pedalboard is impractical to take with me, so I bought a small Harley Benton board and put this "essentials" board together. The good: small, light, fits enough pedals on to keep things interesting. The bad: I bought a Boss daisy-chain to power them all but some of these pedals have their power inputs on the side, which is annoying. I will have to power it with a Caline power supply... And it doesn't fit under the board... Going to have to find a way of extending the front feet but keeping it all stable. What's on the board? Boss wireless, HB tuner/ mute, Behringer Limiter/Enhancer which may get sacrificed, Darkglass Duality Fuzz, TC Corona Chorus and a Marshall Guvnor overdrive. What got left behind? Boss OC-2 which doesn't get enough use sadly and isn't an integral sound in the set at the moment, AMT Bass Wah which gets occasional use but not enough to justify a spot on this board, TC HOF reverb which is always on for fretless and gets use in the middle 8 of one song only on fretted bass, MXR M80 preamp and distortion which I'm kinda thinking I should keep but just can't quite bring myself to yet...

It's the same sized cab as the BC110T (which if people aren't familiar is a home build design by Stevie which we published on Bass Chat during lockdown here) I have to confess that despite having better cabs it's my go to for rehearsals and small gigs. It's a really nice little cab and weighs nothing. The Celestion bass driver in it is a little gem which doesn't have the lumpy response peak that most bass speakers have, that lets you get away with a simple high pass filter for the horn driver which basically takes over where the bass unit starts to roll off. The crossover point is higher and the 10" Celestion has fairly modest power handling. It sounds great but won't go so loud. Fortunately our recent drummers are very controlled. The Monza is a very different beast, it goes lower than the 110T and the bass is much tighter and more controlled due to the much more powerful motor system in the bass driver. It is also a 600W speaker. You are going to get some of the slam you get from a much bigger speaker. The crossover point is nearly an octave lower (I think) so the midrange is sweeter and the dispersion of the Monza much better. We didn't spend much time comparing the BC110T with the Monza, it was just idle curiosity on my part to hear my own cab and we were surprised that it wasn't disgraced at that sort of volume. The sort of clarity from the Monza is at another level though.

Wow! I can't top that from down here in Dorset... I won't even try! Anyway, down here in West Bay (Dorset) I'm a member of a committee that arranges several mini-festivals every year to raise money for local good causes. We held our first one yesterday (Pirates' Day) in that one-day nice weather window that made it possible; the fact that we have a vicar on the committee seems to have helped many times - rumour has it that he has a quiet word beforehand with his CEO on our behalf! I look after the band bookings as well as being the treasurer, so I can make sure that everyone gets paid a fair fee on the day. We featured six bands; Nina Garcia (ultra-talented local singer/fiddle-player with backing tracks) Howling at the Moon - Pop-Rock Folk outfit Turnette Doone - Amazing pop/Rock trio (I've never before heard a rocked up version of Andy Williams' 'Can't take my Eyes Off of You' segued with a full Bohemian Rhapsody cover!) Ironhide - very popular metal band from Weymouth Mustang Sally - my lot, 5-piece with soul/pop/rock covers What the Phunk - seven-piece funk outfit So we had two stages, six great sets from 14:00-23:00, many hundreds of punters, raised a lot of money for those good causes nd had a good time. Had the pleasure of meeting a Basschatter in person for the first time - Turnette Doone's Phil, aka Alfie Noakes, so as a thank-you here's a pic of his outfit in action:

Just back home for a few days after the first 4 magical dates of our 'Bootleg Rock Show feat. Leather & Lace' tour..... great venues, enthusiastic audiences and a wonderful atmosphere throughout! Stevenage Gordon Craig Theatre, East Grinstead Chequer Mead, Epsom Playhouse and Weston Super Mare Playhouse....

No1 song in Heaven, Sparks

Also - if you want BEAD can you not just ignore the G? If it's ringing when you don't want it to, either learn to mute properly or put a bit of foam under that string only at the bridge.

Just like that. I play a Mustang while wearing a Precision T Shirt sometimes.

I might be wrong, but I get the impression having DI XLR on pedals is a feature that isn't actually needed in real life very often, at least it hasn't been for me. Music venue, Festival, Studio: They have their own DI, mixer etc. Home use: Unncessary unless you somehow have a massive home studio with long cable runs. And worth considering that "when the cord length is under 10 feet, unbalanced cables actually have a stronger signal than balanced cables. This is because at this length, any distortion is unlikely, and the simplicity of unbalanced cables can work wonders when there’s no detriment coming from potential distortion. For instance, mastering studios typically use unbalanced cables ranging between three and ten feet in length." https://www.epiphan.com/blog/audio-cables-balanced-vs-unbalanced/ ) Gigging band: Most players use Amps/Cabs that you wouldn't have any benefit sending a balanced signal to, if also going to a mixer/PA then the most Amps have pre/post DI with XLR . If going to a mixing desk with a low impedence signal (mic level) then balanced cable is pretty much essential as a lot of gain is applied in the pre-amp which highlights unwanted interferance noise, but for a Bass guitar, modern mixers can take instrument (or line) level inputs so it isn't such an issue. The only situation where I think I could need it is if I was in a band that used its own mixing desk/PA that is over 6m away and I didn't have my Amp to use for its DI XLR (Edit, on second thoughts - it could also be useful if wanting to send a balanced signal with Amp/Cab sim direct from the pedal to the mixer/PA >6m away, and different clean signal to the real Amp/Cab) but that's only needed if there are long cable runs and noticable interferance. Even then, the Stomp has balanced cables (just they don't have XLR connectors), and the Core is buffered so noticable interferance is less likely. I dunno, it just hasn't ever seemed like an issue to me, perhaps it is for others though. I can see it would be needed if playing stadiums with a mixing desk a long way away, I'm not at that level quite yet though! If it turned into an issue fo me then I'd buy a cheap passive DI.

I got this bass with the bridge cover screwed on and the original screws seem a teeny weeny bit longer than pickguard screws. I do use pickguard screws on my '71 Precision, though, and they work just fine. Well, it sounds very Acoustic-like. They have this very typical solid state growl to them, very middy. They immediately give you that Jaco feel with a fretless, or that JPJ growl with a fretted Jazz. I really like it, although I'm planning on selling it as it is very heavy. Lucky for me this is a bass from 2011

Yes, a good office type chair, without arms, is great for both practice and PC/DAW work. I splashed out on an Orangebox Eva chair 'cos Covid / WFH and it's perfect .

This is what I do - I also play in the classical position when seated.

toe —> furry butt —> learning experience

Thanks for the ideas. The bridge has been swapped back and forth with a couple of different saddles, to no avail. Now back to the original (plus original saddles). It's a MIJ P bass and I'll try it next to a Squier/Fender P when I next get to a Guitar Shop - maybe well be that I'm just being "picky"! .... I'm sure most folks wouldn't notice, particularly those in the Pub audience!!

Here are a couple of quick pics. The more glamorous ones will take a bit longer.

Vids starting to come in from our 'Bootleg Rock Show feat. Leather & Lace' tour..... Here's Extreme's 'Get The Funk Out'...

1989 EBMM Stingray5. I've owned this since 1998 when it immediately became, and still is, my main go to bass.

Coronation gig Chippenham with dep singer Stevie McStevie.

Friday night at The Old Star, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, with Night Shift the covers band. The pub has a nicely set-up stage with plenty of power sockets and lights in-situ. The disadvantage is that it’s in an outside courtyard area which means it can get chilly plus there’s a 10.30 noise curfew to keep the neighbours sweet. We went down well, with plenty of good feedback even though the hard-drinking audience were slow to get going. On the photo you can’t see the left-side guitarist’s instrument. He has a lovely Vigier that he’s totally obsessed with keeping in mint condition. The only time it comes out if its hard case is when he’s going to play. Between sets - back in the case. I dread to think what he’s going to be like when it gets the, inevitable, first ding.

A good one last night with a very appreciative and engaging crowd. We secured another booking later on this summer and a further booking for another club as one of their bookers was visiting friends. I gigged my Sandberg for the first time and loved it, especially the weight!

Counter point to the argument: I’ve done a lot of auditions in the past and usually take it very seriously with my preparation. However, there has been loads of times I’ve turned up to audition and I’ve been the most competent and knowledgable musician in the room by a mile. It can be quite disheartening to put over a weeks worth of practicing in to find out the band just aren’t very good. Thankfully I’m in a great band and have personally built up a good reputation as a musician. It’s a lot nicer being the one you gets to choose now.

Just adding these pics to keep the story going. Just playing ahead of us now

How dare you tell 'ME' what to read. Who the hell do you think you are mate. I rest my case. Im done.