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My partner was feeling a bit rough this afternoon so we decided not to go out. An hour or so later, a band I'm going to dep for in late January got in touch - could I help them out tonight. With the warning that I'd be busking a lot I decided to go for it. Got to the basement club. First hour super loud dj playing rock music with awful disco beats over the top. Later he just played very loud rock. We went on at 9:30 and finished at 11:30 with a brief break. Straight in with Psycho Killer - a nice gentle start fortunately I know it well! Audience was mostly young, enthusiastic and enjoyed a mix of standard covers plus paranoid, queen, jeff beck. Go Ypur Own Way went down particularly well, I've always wanted to play it and enjoyed blasting away at that great chorus. Had a request for metallica so 'learned' Enter Sandman in the break. Mostly went well, lot of rough edges and a few pink torpedo ups. They were grateful as it saved the gig. Downside- an hour's drive each way... that's me wound down. Goodnight owls!

Last night was a new venue for us with our BLOCKBUSTARZ Xmas show and WOW what a fantastic night in Cambusnethan Miners Social Club in Wishaw. Its where we had our wedding reception in 1995. 200 tickets sold and a sell out. Dance floor was busy from the word go. The organiser came backstage before we started and said he was going to pay us £50 more than agreed because the tickets sold so fast without them getting a chance to advertise the gig and they were so surprised and never seen that kind of response before. At the half time break he paid us another £25 on top of that as he said the feedback was unbelievable. Everyone was talking about the band. Apparently someone said to him that this was a proper band where everything was played live with no backing tracks (i think they normally get singers in with backing tracks) They want us back next year but are fully booked on Sat nights and asked if we could do a Fri night and another Sun afternoon for same money. Lots of photos at the end too. NOW THE NEGATIVES. An a**h**e decided to go onto the stage after we finished and getting changed when we heard my wife throwing a rage and shouting at him to get off the stage so our singer was fully clothed ran thru and the guy had staggered and knocked my bass over and he dragged him off the stage by and he then fell across 2-3 tables. Committee members then grabbed him and told him to leave. Luckily my wife who is normally very very shy and quiet was ok and when i checked the bass at home there was no damage. When the committee guy came backstage to talk to us i angrily explained that particular bass is worth approx £2k and if its damaged i wont be covering the cost of repairs or replacement and he agreed and said to let him know if any damage and the club would cover all costs. I was fuming the rest of the night and struggled to get to sleep last night. Told him the guy should be barred and if we come back he better not be in or the band would pack up and leave. They are checking to see if he's a club member and if he is they will remove his membership. He had been trying to lift props off the stage thru the night and kept shouting for Gary Glitter until guitarist said over the mic that this was an Adults Only show and maybe he should be at a different show. Our guitarist is an ex Royal Marine Instructor and generally doesn't get phased by anyone for obvious reasons. Always one TW*T and the club have been very apologetic and embarrassed that they weren't aware he had been heckling the band all night. Anyways tonight is our last Xmas show at our fav venue in The Dreadnought in Bathgate. Fantastic venue, great staff, great owner and just a venue that knows what they are doing when it comes to organising bands. This is the highlight of our year as singer lives in Bathgate and its her local venue for all sorts of bands. At least PA and lights are all supplied with a great Sound guy too. Dave

My tribute band has it's debut gig tonight. I'm just about to set off for a last minute rehearsal/soundcheck at the venue our manager owns. It's an unusual one, we're a tribute act to Post Malone called 'Almost Malone'. Not something I ever thought I'd get involved in but, judging by ticket sales, we reckon we may have discovered a niche. Just hope the stormy weather doesn't put people off! Will let ya know how it goes later. It's the first time for all of us using iems to a click track live. My part is easy, the bass is ridiculously simple. Just gotta hope our Post Malone can remember the lyrics to 21 rap songs! Haha

Amazing how quickly the time flies round every year, so again last night was the first of a double header we always do with the Phil Collins tribute ‘NO JACKET REQUIRED’ at a place called TRADING BOUNDARIES in Sussex just before Christmas. Very nice venue, punters have a sit down meal then we come on afterwards and do two sets.Always sells out for us and a very receptive audience albeit generally older (like us🤣) Decided to use my Wal Mach ll that I’ve had since new, brought from Wapping years ago. She’s a boat anchor for sure but THAT SOUND!! creamy, fat, and the ‘weight’ behind every note you play, and using a wide strap I find it absolutely fine really. So, yes a great gig and a luxury to be able to leave all the back line/drums etc set up for tonight’s show,(certainly don’t leave my basses there) too. Looking forward to more of the same tonight, hopefully!! Merry Crimbo everyone and my best wishes, Jeff x

As you'll have no doubt seen from this thread, Andertons are currently selling a Roscoe Beck-eqsue 4-string bass called an MJ-1 for a very reasonable 250 quid. As you may have seen from this thread, it looks very nice in black sparkle. But the question you're all asking is - what does it look like in Lake Placid Blue? It looks like this: Nice, eh? Lake placid blue's a bit of a difficult colour to get right, but this is a good one - nice sparkle to the finish, and the colour shifts with the light, deep blue at some angles, hint of turquoise in there at others. Everything my old Fender MIM tele's LPB finish wasn't. Although I've kept @Geek99 waiting a bit, I've finally had a chance to sit down with it: The bass came double-boxed from Andertons. No gig-bag included (fair enough at this price), but there is a small pack of goodies - Allen keys, truss rod adjuster, Soloking-branded polishing cloth and picks, and a cable. The neck is roasted maple, my first experience with the technique, and feels very nice - slim, satin-y, smooth and shallow. Jazz bass string spacing, 21 frets. The fretwork is pretty well done. There's a matching headstock, wheel truss rod adjuster, decent enough tuners. The fretboard overhangs the neck to get the 21st fret in, which makes me wonder if the neck pocket is Fender-standard size (haven't checked yet, but I know it's the kind of thing Team Bitza will want to know, so I may report back on that later). The body is made of *checks Andertons website* alder, and feels reasonably resonant. This particular bass weighs in at just over 9lb/4Kg on my kitchen scales. It certainly feels like a reasonably lightweight jass bass. Electronics - there's two double-jazz humbuckers with coil taps (just on or off, the original RBIV had three way switches for single coil/series/parallel mode), with a 3-way switch, volume and tone. For anyone interested in the guts, here they are: I was hoping to put some tone clips in here, but they'll have to wait. As @neepheid pointed out his review, the cup-style jack socket is a bit too deep for Neutrik angled jacks, and guess what I've got on my recording rig? I know that I can just go and find another cable, but that's a bit much effort for this very instant. I've not played with the band yet, but have given it a blast through my practice amp. The set-up out the box is decent enough - the action is perhaps a touch high, and the nut could be filed down a touch, but I'm not rushing it straight out for a pro set-up. Tone-wise, the humbuckers are deep and bassy, but quite articulate. The various switching options offer a good variety of tones, but if I was being picky, I can't get a P-bass style growl out of it. But then, that's what I've got a p-bass for... All in all, a very good bass for the money. I'm planning on a few mods: I've got a Hipshot Bass Extender I think will fit it. Might speak to Earlpilanz about getting a white pearloid pickguard made to replace the cream one. I'm planning on replacing the cup jack socket with a surface-mounted plate one. I'll maybe replace the 2-way coil tap switches with 3 way ones and try to replicate the Roscoe Beck IV switching. With the 3-way pickup selector switch, tempted to go for a 4 way one for further series/parallel fun, but tne other thing I was thinking with the pickup selector - on Jass basses, the tones I prefer tend to be one pickup on full, the other knocked back slightly to open up the sound. With this, the middle switch position has both on full. I wonder if I could do something clever with a 5-way switch to get: Neck only, neck and a bit of bridge, both on full, bridge and a bit of neck, bridge only? One final thing to mention, with the headstock design, it's slightly longer than a Jazz Bass, which may be a consideration for cases, gig-bags and car boots.

Hello! Picked this Japanese beaut up on a whim the other day, because you can't have too many Sunburst Precisions.... right? Spec... Jazz neck, oval tuners, light weight (8½lbs, thanks to the basswood body, which is surprisingly pretty). So far, the usual cliches apply. It's very resonant, balances well, feels great, it's rich and punchy... I'm gigging it on Boxing Day, and as ever the proof will be in the (Christmas) pudding. I'll report back..

I needed a very compact board which would fit in my backpack with my class D head, cuz I normally have to lug gear everywhere on public transport. Thought about a chopping board, but in the end I went with a small tea tray! 😅

If it's got a scratch It goes back to their patch If it's got a ding Send back that thing

GYOW is in our set an is a great gun to play. The chorus is a fantastic bassline.

Nice one. I've always wanted to play GYOW with a live band, that chorus is still my all time favourite bassline to play.

They offered me a £30 gift card or a return, so I opted for the return. They said that as it had £400 off it already there was nothing else they could do. I think this was £400 off the list price though, as i had bought it at the advertised online price which was £1,099. it had been delivered directly from the distributor and it looked like some of the Ibanez tape on the box had already been opened and resealed whether this was for a final QC inspection or a return I don’t know. It’s being collected next week for a refund. thanks all for the replies, it’s interesting to see other people’s perspectives on the issue. It would have been the most expensive bass I had ever bought, and I needed to be 100% happy with it. I have noticed that QC across all consumer goods is terrible these days. The amount of things (not just bass related) that I have to return due to poor manufacturing or damage on delivery is terrible.

I used to play GYOW in a band too and 100% on that amazing bassline. Dave

If you can feel the ding on the back of the neck have it repaired . If the bass is dynamite and feels good keep it. Daryl

Two amps. Guitar amps, though. The first, we stumbled across in the mid-90's. My mate Big Al was looking for an amp and we came across an Ampeg guitar amp, a 2x12 combo, in a shop. Neither of us had heard of an Ampeg guitar amp but tried it out anyway. Within seconds, we knew there was some kind of witchcraft going on and Big Al told me to stand guard over it while he legged it to try to find an ATM to get the cash. Years later, after he had stopped playing, I bought it from him for 50 quid more than his asking price and still have it to this day. When I was gigging as a guitarist, I used it at a couple of gigs. Combos are not the done thing in the world of Metal. One sound engineer was particularly sniffy when he saw me lugging all 35+kg of it in. "Don't worry" I told him, "it's nice." When it was soundcheck time he spoke to me through the montor, very mockingly "Well... let's hear this nice amp then." After the gig he came up and asked me what the model number was so he could try to get one himself 😆 I've never seen another one. The second was the head I bought to save me getting a hernia from carrying the Ampeg. I bought a Fryette Deliverance, based on a few sound samples but mostly because it had sacrificed features for pure, delicious tonal goodness, and a switch which offered you a simple choice. More or less? I always want more. I gigged for a few years with it, always getting compliments from lads carting the obvious Mesa Rectifiers, Peavey 5150s and Marshalls around. When that band split, I figured my guitarist gigging days were behind me and would have no use for an excruciatingly loud 60W amp, so I put it up for sale. The guitarist in a band we had done a few gigs with over the years offered me asking price and I was happy for him to have it. A few years later, I got a call from the singer of that band. They had split up a while before and he was putting that band back together but without that guitarist and wanted to know if I would be interested. Life is more interesting when you say yes, so that's what I did. Shortly afterwards, we were offered a gig supporting COC. I would need an amp. I checked the local ads but nothing really appealed. The week before the COC gig what should I see but an ad for the Fryette. Yer man would never have sold it to me, things being sa they were, so I had to ask a friend of mine to buy it on my behalf. I used it for the next couple of years with that band before I quit gigging for good after I used it at Bloodstock. I see it as providence that I got it back, so have invested in a power soak and still have it at home, using it for recording these days.

Christmas Day has come early for me today. I have been extremely lucky enough to acquire an absolute beauty of a bass from the master Alan Cringean of ACG. The piece is an absolute dream to play and the tone from it is exquisite. This one is the Finn version, 5 string with a 33 inch scale. Incredibly smooth, comfortable and a joy to play. The body core is black limba with the top wood being ebony with a blood wood accent. Headstock is ebony matched. The neck is 3 piece maple with a bloodwood fingerboard with ebony blocks. Stunning! Hardware is a Hipshot bridge with Gotoh tuners. The pickups are ACG SB70 single coils paired with a John East Uni-Pre 4 preamp. It plays incredible and the pics don’t do it justice. One tasty bass. Alan as usual was excellent and a gent as always. The craftsmanship is second to none. If you’ve ever been in two minds about committing to an ACG build then don’t. Have a good look at the website and the various options available to you and contact Alan. Now for the pics Cheers Stuart

Here's the Thinline Telebird that I built a whle ago Seafoam Green top. Semi-opaque Blonde on back and sides.

The idea behind the original Marcus Miller collaboration was for an affordable yet high quality bass with a great preamp that students could gig and record with, Marcus uses one every now and then (the other bassist in his band uses one regularly) but still gigs with his Fender sig most of the time, however IIRC he did spec the preamp and may have had some input into the pickup voicing. Essentially they were a bog standard Dame with in house hardware and different electronics, I assume these new basses are just a different flavour of the same ethos rather than being a lower tier copy of an artist's instrument. I think it's quite a novel way to do a sig, definitely better than the lower tier ones that an artist will never use (how many gigs have Troy Sanders or james Johnston done with their Squier sigs?) which are just standard cheapies with a bumped price tag. I'm not a fan of signature basses really but I can see the value in getting a prominent recording artist to spec things like preamp eq points and board radius etc. I think Marcus Miller also did the same for his Markbass head and people thought that was a big improvement over the stock eq.

My '73 Rick 4000/1 conversion has CRUE crudely carved on it. No link with Nikki Sixx, probably just the work of a drunk fanboi bassist. Doesn't bother me in the least

Even our guitarist loves it when GYOW gets to the chorus because of the bassline!

Silly me , he used to endorse ovation magnums 😬

Behind me satan!

A new bass should be in new condition, if it’s B stock, ex demo or used then it’s kinda expected but still noted , if it was me it would go straight back

I'm not at all sure that I'd even notice marks such as those I see in the photos. No, it wouldn't be sent back. I'd probably just start playing it, and (possibly...) spill a cup of tea over it in my reckless excitement, clumsy oaf that I am.

Hard to say, really. Even when you can see the face! Donald Fagen? David Baddeil? 🤣🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

I wouldn’t have been that bothered about the fretboard scratch but the ding on the back of the neck, no, not on a brand new bass, that would go back.

Came out ok. prep could have been better, paint sank a bit …. But what do you expect painting 24 hours later in 10degrees C. I wouldn’t do that on a car 😂 I might relic it and do the acid on the hardware too, we will see. I’ve got a new bass coming tomorrow so I suspect it will be on the back burner whilst I play my new toy. cost £100 to do, that includes a used drop D tuner… so can’t complain.

A little delayed, this one. Went down to London to pick this up. It has been advertised on BC but I bought it, plus the frame strap system, via Ebay. It's a little tatty round the edges, no major damage though. The strings on it are NS strings, which have a good feel to them. I've tried the boomerang strap and the frame strap system - can't get the hang of the boomerang system yet, I'm hoping that I will with further practice. I have a WAV-4, so I will also play with the tripod stand on that.

Ronnie Pickering.

😎

Dear people who care about bass effects, I haven't visited here in a while, since I live on the wrong side of the pond, in TalkBass land. I'm happy to report that I managed to put together a one-knob compressor that I consider worthy of installing onboard a bass and thus becoming part of its sound. It's a miniature, 9V battery-powered offspring of the classic dbx 163 "Over Easy" one-slider half-rack compressor. I just thought I should inform the other five bassists on the planet who think an onboard compressor is a good idea 😊 Just for you, here's where you can find out more: jtex.ca/okc From frozen Canada with love, Jerry

Wee vid from last nights show. http://www.facebook.com/100079944291714/videos/25433903599533850

When The Levi's Break Led Zep

Speaking of Polish prog, one of my favs:

Nice. If I'm understanding 'upto four effects modules (two pre amp and two post)' correctly it's got nothing on things like the Boss GT 1000 Core with 3x parallel paths and about 27 effect blocks as far as long/complex effect chains go. I don't suppose it's really designed to compete over numbers of effects blocks though. I expect the Kempler is the one to go for if you are mostly after amp/cab sims and the DI stuff.

Ringo Starr & Greg Davies love child.

If you already have hearing loss then you need to be thinking very seriously about in-ears from the start. I'm no medical expert but just turning off your aids is not going to stop the same level of energy reaching your ears. Even at an open mic with an unknown PA its possible to use an ambient mic to run your in-ears and hear the same mess of sound as everyone else but at a lower and safer level. Most band nights will either provide some simple back line or someone will lend you something so you may be able to play if you choose the right mic night. No guarantees but a bit of research might pay dividends and give you more time to sort out a longer term solution. So the advice David gave you about the bottom octave is correct, You really don't need to worry about 30Hz and a B string. They sound rich and thick because of the harmonics, we can barely hear 30Hz and in any case because of the positioning of the pickups there is almost no 30Hz passed to the amp anyway. Most mid to high priced PA cabs will handle bass as well as a bass cab and many of us gig with PA cabs quite happily, I've actually done Jam nights with a single RCF310 as the drums at these things tend to be stripped down ancient kits without the volume of most bands 'real' kits. Are you proposing to use your MAG with a passive cab as backline or will you buy in an active bass cab to do the job? The theory of using flat response systems and using your Digbeth for tone shaping is a good one. I've gone down that route and it does simplify set up even if it isn't quite as simple as it sounds on paper. The Ashdown has a pre shaped tone and I found it dull sounding when I had one. Great amps but they are coloured with the Ashdown tone and that may be fighting the Digbeth. The RB3 is probably just as coloured but in different ways. Don't be scared to eq the Ashdown differently when using the Digbeth. The other thing to consider is speaker placing and room acoustics. You may be using the Laney in tilt back mode with the speaker pointed at your ears and the 4x10 pointing at the back of your legs where you lose all the upper mids and treble. Your home practice space might be a bit livelier than the rehearsal room or the 4x10 might be jammed into a corner and just moving it might improve things. If you want to try the in-ears/ambient mic route let me know and I'll give you a quick run down. Look after the hearing you have though

Every time you feel the ding under your thumb Give yourself a wipe, they've treated you like a bum 😉

If it's got a scratch There's no other that will match its 'mojo'. If it's got a ding Embrace that thing as being unique.

He will give it a bloody good go!

That's pretty poor for a brand-new £1100 bass & to suggest 'minor imperfections' (that look a lot like damage to me) are somehow to be expected is taking the p!ss. I recently bought a cheapo (£140) guitar from cheapo guitar purveyors Gear4Music, which arrived with the box looking like it'd been kicked here rather than driven in a van. The guitar had survived pretty well but had a bash on the bottom end of the body & minor lacquer cracks around the neck pocket & end of the headstock. They straight away offered me an exchange, or a £30 discount - which I was happy to accept as it's minor cosmetic damage & I bought the guitar to mod & mess with anyway. I might be willing to acept similar 'minor imperfections' on a high-end bass if they knocked, say, £100 off the price.

I think they were cheeky selling it as new with those dings in it. They must figure more will roll with it than send it back. Or they are slackers.

Ok so tonight is a massive room, big PA. Often I find that stage rigs can get lost in these situation. However after sound check this is fine as expected. Yes it’s turned up to about 75%, but into a single 8 ohm 12 at less than 200 watts it’s fine. I can hear it. In smaller rooms it will be plenty.

Hope this is not too many pictures. I haven’t weighed it, but it feels like the lightest of my Jazz basses

Arrived today, and I couldn’t be happier with it. Looks amazing, detail is spot on, sounds great… a nice alternative to my P and J and the 5 strings (my first) are pretty easy to adapt to… bonus. i think I’ll need to work on my muting a bit, and the string spacing is obviously closer, but that’s no biggie. ill have to work out what all the knobs do mind 😂

Private function for us, the lady of the hour insisting on a pic with the band. You can tell how live the room is just from looking at the pics 🤣

Right we’re done. It was a little tricky fitting the loom with larger CTS pots into the cavity, however a little chisel surgery and she’s gone in fine. The neck bolt kit has gone in without any challenges, it’s brought everything super tight to the body. In retrospect that was overkill, the quality of the neck and the pocket was fantastic, it was super tight already. However, this can’t hurt. I’ve used the old pickup covers to save drilling new holes in the body, the new ones were a little slimmer. I’ve fitted a set of flat wounds and it sounds great. The old pickup was distorting and sounded overdriven, it’s got a lovely warm tone now. I need to make some minor adjustments to the action to level out the string heights in parallel with the fretboard radius and then I’m good to go. I may have to put a smidge more foam under the pickups but that can wait for the short term. I want to give it a few months and see how I get on.