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I’m a day late on this one - sorry - but on Thursday night I played Rebellion in Manchester with Stray. We were supporting British Lion, what with Del being good mates with Steve Harris. Bit of a hero moment for me. It was a bit nerve wracking as we had to pull in a sound engineer to take with us who fortunately did a sterling job. I gigged my Epi Thunderbird Classic 4 Pro for the first time. Loved it except for the fact that the side markers disappeared on the dark stage. It’s now been tastefully modded with electrical tape for the next gig! Also got Steve to sign the back of it for me. Anyway, we played well and the crowd were really receptive. The British Lion guys were all really helpful and welcoming and we all had a splendid time. Shall be repeating the experience in Nottingham tomorrow! Steve and I Steve’s Basses One bit of our two vehicle convoy with Maiden’s tour bus in the background!

Dutifully went to Mrs Gasman’s Rotary party tonight as her guest. Live band was setting up for after-meal dancing. I escaped the table chat and went to ogle the bass player’s gear, particularly the metallic red go-faster striped Mustang, rare beast down here in Dorset. The owner then appeared and we got chatting, she was about 4’ 11” hence the short scale bass, and a sh*t-hot player. I was then most unexpectedly invited to sit in and play a couple of numbers, as we know it’s unheard of normally, I didn’t ask, she just took a gamble on me after a ten minute chat and anyway if a bloke from a band called Mustang Sally can’t play Mustang Sally on a Fender Mustang it’s a poor show! It went fine, but the real revelation was how good that Mustang sounded, and how smooth and easy it was to play despite it being my first short scale dabble for 50 years; I know it was fate, I must get one!

Maple Road This Saturday 7/1 @ The Baree 7:00 Thiensville Very cool upscale outdoor venue. Probably the most important gig of the summer. Blue

Line 6 released the Variax bass (700 & 705) in 2005 which emulated 24 basses including solid, semi, hollow and synth. Lots of folks don't like them but I really like mine. Rather than thinking of the settings as actual basses I just consider it to have a huge range of tones. As well as different tones the sustain and attack is different on different models. In a band setting they can sound great, especially a covers band if you want to try to copy original tones.

Today:

Thanks! Alex picked it up yesterday...he pretty much said the very same thing

Plate done, actually done two…one using a 4mm strip of pine & stuck the veneer on using an iron, the other some UHU glue onto the aluminium plate & clamped it up. Roasted a 10mm drill shank up and fired it thru the holes.

Gigged last night and used my Player Series Jazz bass which is now back to stop pickups and Nickel Roundwounds. In the past I ran it to try and mimic a PBass ( neck pup on full, bridge in 50%, tone full on ) but last night .., I used it with both pickups on full, tone on full and then used my EQ pedal to boost 400-800hz. It sounded amazing in the rock band with gut rumbling lows ( deeper than a PBass ) and using the MXR 6 band EQ pedal I could put back some mids that get scooped with both pups in together. It fitted every song very well and it’s the first time I think I understood what a Jazz bass can really sound like. With EQ adjustment it sounded really good and different to the PBass thump. Better ?? Not sure but I like it and it’s worked out well.

Congrats to @AndyTravis on last month's success. We start the second half of the year with a reminder of some of the weather that broke after the lovely June sunshine. "Taken a good few years ago, walking home from the pub in a storm. Lightning and Street Lighting…" Simple rules ✔️ Entries must be <5 minutes and recorded between now and the deadline. ✖️ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on ✖️ Bagpipes. please no bagpipes, there wasn't a truce worth noting this month, and if there was, we probably missed it! ✖️ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you.. Deadline wise , we will go for midnight on the 24th which means you'll probably have till tea-time on the 25th A line or two of blurb as well for the vote thread will be lovely. Have fun

Rather than list what's wrong about this bass, its easier to list what's right about it. A list of everything that confirms this bass as being a 2007 USA Fender:

I have had a think and attached pics of the worse and best changing rooms we had over the years - A muddy horse box in a farm yard at a private event, and the best was the main ball room at the Cafe Royal over looking Regent St. as it was empty and we were playing in the small room next door. No M&M's but we did get Champagne and pistachios.

Yup he just loves it. I saw them last year at The Craufurd in MK. When Maiden have a couple of night at a town on the current tour, he’s scheduling in a BL gig at a nearby venue, and using some of Maidens support band as their techs!

Amazing, what an opportunity! I saw British Lion last year in a tiny pub in Gravesend, they were really good. I find it amazing that Steve Harris happily goes from playing huge arenas to small bars because he loves playing so much

I've mentioned this one before in a similar thread, but the Behringer BX4500H deserves another nomination. I gigged mine again on Thursday and was reminded just how solid it is. Incredibly flexible, every tonal configuration imaginable, loud and clear. I've been underwhelmed by other Behringer heads, but not by this one. It's easily one of my all time favourites.

Nearly there!!

I love these old designs dating back to before research and science caught up with cab designs and building cabs was as much an art as a science. The scoop horn on the back was really too small to make much impact upon the bass and the 'sound' of this speaker would have been dominated by the direct radiation of the speaker but we tried everything to lift the sound output of the cabs. Everything was suck and see, build a cab and listen, swap speakers around and try again. I still hanker after designing and building some of the more ambitious and impractical folded horns and hybrid monstrosities I dreamed of back then. Thanks for reminding me of where I came from and well done with this refurb. Please don't try to carry it on your own

First of 3 this week for us at Bournemouth Pavilion theatre. Grand old place, with a very interesting room backstage (see below). Good to meet up with @Mickeyboro and his wife before the gig too.

We just got a couple of videos sent through from a recent gig. The audio is a bit 'quick 'n' dirty straight off the desk, (had to tweak the bass in post a bit cause of tech issues caused by monitor spill). But anyway, here's a 'Royal Blood' cover. Its almost all bass from my Zoom B9.1ut with a bit of help from a sparrow Di and a graphic EQ pedal. The guitarist does play a few quiet bits, but otherwise its just me doing what I could fuddle together without spending any money when the band said they wanted to cover Royal Blood! 😂😂

The massive, weighty cab quest/collecting is at an end. I think I’ve finally scratched the itch. This cab was the final ‘must have/try’ cab that I’d lusted after as a young player. It took me 35 years to find one of them. I drove to London to collect it in December. It came with a blown driver and missing one piece of plastic trim. Thankfully this one didn’t need re tolexing. Only a couple of small nicks which I was able to glue down. the plastic trim was impossible to find. A very flat ‘h’ shape with a coloured insert. I had to create the profile with 3 separate pieces of plastic trim and then get the colour matched and ended up painting both trims so the matched. The colour is remarkably close but the remaining trim had been non uniformly faded/stained with nicotine. the grill frame had cracked but only required gluing. I added some wooden fillets to the baffle as the grill and whole front is angled back and was Probably the cause of the crack as it wasn’t supported and difference of about 20mm between the top and bottom. Baffle painted, new 600w eminence installed and the Badge attached, I’d bought the badge around 15 years ago ’just in case’. These cab restorations often end in great disappointment when I play them in a band context. This wasn’t the case with this. Very loud and consistent timbre. It’s a great cab and now Part of the ‘keepers’. There is no other cab I fancy and I’m no longer searching. That said, if a second one came along or a second peavey 3620? 🤣

Back at the scene of the crime last night, where the ABM500 I'd borrowed from @merton decided that power amps were passé and decided to blow its one, taking down some other bits with it. I only had two people ask me if I was going to blow an amp this time... Fortunately the new ABM600 held up nicely and sounded amazing, let down only by its operator missing a cue and coming in half a bar too late on one song, causing us to have to stop and start again, but other than that everything went well. Apparently I was too loud, but oh well 🤣 I even managed in this unlikeliest of venues to find a kindred spirit with whom I reminisced about 80s kids TV shows, and agreeing that excluding Tom Bombadil from the LOTR trilogy was a good decision. The band's tab was also comped by the guy whose 65th birthday party it was, which is a great thing in a brewery tap! Back rehearsing tomorrow before the next gig Saturday week.

Oh if only we had a drummer. Trying to form a relationship with someone else's recorded drum tracks is an impossibility. ☹️

I think he realises that somebody turned him over following numerous messages. "Okay thank you, we’ll be ending this listing, have had a few of these messages, thanks for your help."

you’re missing a lot of fun

At my current band, the drummer, at our first rehearsal, told everyone, that he plays each song everytime a bit different (rhytmical). So i thought - dahh, i'll play what ever i like and try to fast combine it with the drummer dreams. No problemo!

Thanks for all the replies. I bought the bass grom Thomann and they saidxit might be covered under warranty! I doubt it asit was my fault and I bought it about 3 years ago. They did say they will get the part for me though so fingers crossed.

None of the above? I store them like rope. In half, in half again and tie them in a bow. Never had any cable failures, so I guess it's ok?

Good gives me time to save for a T47 mini 😁 Now a mini T70 would rule the planet.

The decals say 'Made in USA' on both the front and the back of the headstock so it must be true. 🤣

I didn't say which way the band was heading when we got the horse box gig. Just look at Glastonbury a few acts there all back on the farm after a glittering career 😆

Of the cabs I've used in the last 30 years, the best is Barefaced, followed by Bergantino and Mesa Boogie, with Ampeg a long way in the distance. I've heard others playing Aguilar cabs, and while they sound great, they are way too heavy to be of interest to me. If you can find a used Barefaced Super Compact in good condition I'd grab it. IMO these cabs can redefine your experience of playing bass. Only an hour away? Go and listen to it. Take the cash because it will be coming home with you.

Similarly and a bit more specific: Royal Blue Fender Steve Harris with new D'Addario pro steels, straight into an Ashdown CTM300 (the CTM30 is pretty perfect too) and 2 1x15" cabs. Absolutely my favourite sounding set up. Is it what I use in the, very slowly, developing band? Nope. 😄

Houston we no longer have a problem! Gigged last night and I went belt/braces and took EVERYTHING; IEM, monitor, backline, Rolls PM351, Behringer P2... you name it. Intent on having bass through backline regardless of IE. Bass > pedals (ditched digital Plethora just in case it caused cumulative latency) > amp amp tuner send > Rolls amp DI > desk desk Aux send (vocals/guitar/bass) > Rolls Rolls mix desk + amp > IEM Initially all of this was hooked up with cables so that I could have no potential for digital issues etc. Amp into Rolls was fine in my IE. Desk into Rolls into IE 'awful' as before. I then swapped to wireless so that I could easier get around out front and to the main desk interface; sound with wireless bass and wireless IE was the same as wired, no change in signal or tone. I plugged my IE into the guitarists Aux channel and his bass feed was fine ergo the issue was something on my Aux feed. I then had to do a quick vocal line check and the vocal sound was equally as bad on the FOH as there was IE. My vocal mic was swapped (assumption being it was my mic), just the same! A minute of messing with the desk interface and clarity, vocal mic OK.... within seconds my bass is clear through IEM! I queried what had changed as I needed to be sure it didn't happen again and it transpires that it could have been a combination of a guitar amp patch/setting/template that was applied to my channel (my words/definition) and a noise gate kicking in/out. Apparently because the room we were playing was significantly smaller/different to any other + we were using a sub with a full range signal sent to it, we didn't use a previous saved board. I now have to ensure that when we play on Sunday (different band but same PA/guitarist), whatever was applied/disapplied to the desk is done on a saved board. Genuine heartfelt thanks to anyone who has given me pointers, tips or suggestions. Cheers folks.

It's either A or D for me. Figure of 8 gives me the creeps somehow and anyone doing the elbow/hand wrap should have all their cables confiscated.

It's a bit random at the moment as to how expeditiously items get through customs. I've had things sail through in no time at all and others go nowhere for a week. Unfortunately, things are not as seamless as they were...

A Message To You Judy - The Specials

I’m out, surprisingly a lot later than I thought I’d be at the beginning of the year. I bought myself a Backbeat purely because my gig tonight has a stupid 75dB limit (honestly what are these guys smoking…?) so we are strictly on IEMs without anything onstage. So a sort-of necessary purchase but still it stops me from making the cut this year sadly. Maybe next!

Adolescent Sex ～ Japan

We used MU contracts but would also have a conditions of contract that went with it stating key points. Just a one side of bullet points will do. As well as electrical issues, If outside, cover to protect band from the elements should be provided, The Band requires hard surface to perform on e.g extended dance floor, or staging We reserve the right to terminate the performance should a guest or guests behavior threaten the safety of the band or equipment. A room is required for the band to change and leave personal belongings, this should be secure dry and well lit, toilets are not acceptable. etc etc. And I haven't mentioned blue M&Ms once yet. 😆

Someone I haven’t got around to seeing yet is Stephen Marley, really tight band and he’s put out some great tunes

Current line-up (left to right). SQ Squier Precision (about '84), Tokai Jazz Sound (about '82), '66, SVL Reserve, 72/68 'The Wreck', SVL Reserve, '71, Japanese A/E fretless, Greco Spacy Sound (about 1982)

Antidote to big rigs...my humble set-up for our Cuban Jazz outdoor last night. Note Noble and Cali Compressor on the floor. Also DI'd through the PA