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The finished Bass. Mark is due to visit the workshop this Friday to take delivery, and we may make a short video/sound check.

About ten years ago we were looking for a new drummer. First chap we tried spent over an hour setting up the biggest kit we had ever seen, and then proceeded to drown the rest of us out. Mutual agreement he wasn't the best for the band. Out of desperation we then tried a 14 year old kid who volunteered through a friend. Sort of did it as a favour as he had never been in a band before - turns out Sam was God's gift to drumming. He won the Yamaha U18 drummer of the year competition a year later, we recorded a bunch of Toto songs for his A-levels, and then he left us in his dust when he disappeared off to become a session musician! It was quite humbling to have a tiny part in his development.

Bass Amigos, Its Steve Fishman aka Steve Lawrence here. Someone asked about my gear and sound with Hugh. Missed this one by a decade or two. Its P bass for me and even the Burns bison (UK c.1980) is a PJ . Most of my basses have had J pickups (added before I found them) but I use the P pickup only as a general rule. I still have the Peavey Max but last several years have been using a Genz Benz Streamliner a lot. Theyre great but I dont love the eq with 3 fixed (not my fave) frequencies prolly to sound SVT-like SVT isnt my 1st choice. I endorsed PV and have a couple of T40s and a Midibass. I also have a cool vintage Carlsbro 200W valve amp for loud bands. Im currently doing projects incl Glen Matlock & The Maestros w Clem Burke and Gilby Clarke and Intergalactic (post psych postpunk). Im gonna try to look on this a bit more often. Love to all bottomly people!! XX Steve https://epi5050.com/musician

Talk about blowing your own trumpet….

Let me see. . . . a musician is having some success and the Basschat massive isn't happy about it. Well there's a surprise.

In the days when I was using a full backline, for local gigs it was cheaper and convenient to get a taxi. Taxi drivers have no qualms about "parking" in the middle of the road directly outside the venue for me to load in and out. The fare both ways was only slightly more than the cost of parking and definitely less if load out was after midnight, and the overall convenience of not having to carry the gear great distances or messing about looking for free or cheap parking outweighed any additional cost.

Little ray of sunshine! The music may not be to my tastes but it’s a lovely story nonetheless.

Don't my purple Vans count for anything ? Lol Daryl

pic courtesy of Emma Bowden @armadillocentral.com Brilliant gig on Saturday at The Plough in Shrepreth. Good turn out, some lovely comments from the audience and staff and being not far from home. I had lots of friends and family in; which is always nice.Very good friendly venue; a great local pub that prides itself on on being a proper music pub- nice stage, good house PA and an owner who also knows his way around a desk; he did a great job on the sound while running a busy bar and looked after us really well. He also happens to stock some great beers and Mrs C was driving ! We had a great time one of the best pub gigs I’ve played.

Here's a good one in reverse. I auditioned for a classic rock cover band. This was years ago. They double booked my audition with another guy. I was able to watch his audition. A young guy, he didn't know any of the songs I nailed all three. They went with the other guy. He was a friend of the guitarist. He didn't last long. Turns out the guy had no transportation to get to gigs. They called me back and offered me the job You can imagine where I told them to shove their offer . The lesson, never audition for bands auditioning friends or relatives. Daryl

That's sexual assault. If a man had done that he'd be in serious trouble.

Yep, good luck to ‘em.

I only play 4 of those strings. Supporting Hellbastard back in December

Closure: The bill came in at a rather more reasonable £510, for which I was very relieved. Perhaps more importantly, the instant I started playing the bass it was as if I'd traded in a cheap Chinese beginner's bass for a high-end instrument. Not just better than it was (with a warped fingerboard, well duh!) but substantially better than on the day I bought it and - if anything - even better than the Zeller 3/4 it replaced. No complaints from me. Thwaites did an excellent job. 🙂

I've te green model arriving sometime this or next week ready for a full video review, so I'll keep you al posted.

The only sensible point that Jeremy Clarkson has ever made (that I'm aware of) is that councils and pedestrianization are doing as much if not more than the internet to destroy the town centres. The town I grew up in still had the Blockbuster livery on a shop unit the last time I went back, the high street is dead. Meanwhile there's the Metrocentre shopping mall 20 minutes drive away, Team Valley (industrial estate/retail park, 15 minutes), the Arnison Centre (retail park, 10 minutes) and Dalton Park (outlet shopping, 30 minutes) that are all absolutely thriving. Why? Free parking.

Hand on heart, there was no googling involved - wasn't the Mystery Machine predominantly green?

A new branch of HMV? You really must think it's still 1987. 😄

I’ve actually just picked up a second hand rig: a genzler Magellan 350 and a Barefaced two10. It sounds awesome at home and I’m looking forward to trying it at gigs over the next two weekends. I really like the EQ section and contour knobs on the Genzler, I think the orange contour channel is going to be really handy in a live setting.

Nobody can afford a new Stingray anymore

The thing with the current Line6 HX/Helix range is that all the upgrades are done in software. Not only that but they are all free. So although my Helix Floor looks the same as it did when I bought it six years ago, inside it's is very different. I'm currently on V3.7 of the firmware and I believe that there is at least one update that I haven't yet got around to installing. There was a major update a while back that improved most of the amp and cab models so that they used less processing power, which allowed you to have even more modules in a preset (not that I have ever come close to running out of processing power yet). I'm sure at some point there will be some major improvement which will technically render the current range "obsolete". But so what? As long as the devices still work they are still relevant. After all there's musicians using amps, cabs and pedals with technology that is at least 40 years old and they seem to be perfectly happy. My Helix does 99% of the things that I want and does all of those things perfectly. The 1% it doesn't do are highly specialised to my needs (MIDI-triggered gates and filters) and although I have a request in, I suspect my requirements are a long way down the list of priorities. However I've found work-arounds for what is missing. I've been using programmable multi-effects for 35 years now and the Helix is by far the best in absolutely every respect.

Chris from Turner Pickups here... The "old" pickups were wired internally such that each vertical row of 4 coils were all in series, effectively creating a single "coil" (just made of 4 small ones). Then the 2 rows each had their own pair of leads, so the usual series/parallel options were available, like a normal humbucker. The "new" pickups, which are used in modern Wals (Mk 1, 2, 3), are wired such that the 2 cols under a string are wired in series (RWRP so it's a small humbucker). Each of these coil pairs have their own output, and all of these outputs are buffered and summed in each low pass filter. I make my multicoil pickups in the "new" configuration, my "SEP" variant. I also make a modified version of the "old" configuration that allows for Series, "Standard P", "Reverse P", and Parallel wirings (my "SPPP" variant). The advantage here being that all wirings are humbucking. See below... SEP Variant SPPP Variant

To my ear, the that guy is playing it an octave up from the isolated track, and i don't hear an open A in there either. Here's the run I'm hearing on my phone speaker, noting that the E string is downtuned to a D. A -5-3- D ---- -6-5-3-0-3-5-0

Design revision required - turns out my velcro is great at keeping pedals in place when gravity is working with it, not so much in the opposite direction. It was actually the adhesive that failed, not the velcro itself. Bugger. So a more permanent way of attaching the PSU is required. I could replace the tape with... better tape like 3M Dual Lock but I figured in keeping with the whole "make do and mend" approach I'd find a way to mechanically couple the PSU to the board. Someone on here, I'm sure it was put up a picture of using bike chain links as brackets to attach pedals to boards. As luck would have it, I had a small length of bike chain lying around so I spent a satisfying 20 mins or so bashing the rivets out of the chain. Thanks to T-Rex putting all the screws on the side and none on the bottom, I had to bend the links to make right angle brackets. This is when I found out that the outer links are too brittle to be bent, but the inner ones are fine? Anyway, some hammering and bending round the vice gave me this: Now, just need to find some screws small enough to get in those wee holes. Maybe tuner screws, maybe pickguard screws. Time for a rummage in the spares boxes!

Would rather be gigging than sitting on my arse. Music is meant to be played live and not confined to the bedroom.

Swindon. Nuff said. VID-20240302-WA0002.mp4

I had an acoustic gig today. 2-5 at The Twisted Pear in Beachwood. Respectable size crowd and it was a nice place. Somebody spent allot of $$$ renovating. We were ok, my playing was pretty decent, I got paid and I was home by 6. Daryl

Some real irony to Aberdeen being a Low Emission Zone...

Latest batch of update photos from Mike, and time to start getting proper excited now, I think! 😊 Scheduled to pick up next weekend at present. Mike's been testing the various pickup connections at each stage of assembly, but has not so far been able to sound test them. I can't wait to hear them. He's a true artist and I've no doubt at all they'll sound every bit as good as they and the bass looks.

Another transaction with Brian. Simply one of the very best, a truly exceptional ambassador for everything about Basschat. Cheers Brian.

The problem is the technical ability required to play it is rather obscured by it sounding like a near-random sequence of notes to the uninitiated.

Here's the run through I recently did for a Basschat colleague. The diagrams aren't mine but I couldn't track down from the google stuff who it was I needed to acknowledge - so all credit to the folks who drew them! What is Neck Relief ? One of the first things that is done when setting up a bass is checking the neck relief. It is easy to check, relatively easy to adjust and can be the difference between a beautifully playing instrument and an unplayable one! This is what it's all about: 1. Bass necks are flexible and the string tension tries to bend the neck like a bow-and-arrow string does : 2. To play well, the neck needs to be 'almost' straight and so, internally, there is a trussrod fitted that pulls the neck in the opposite direction to counteract the string tension (I will explain 'almost' straight shortly). So, depending on the string tension and the opposite pull from the trussrod, it is possible for the neck to end up straight, or bowed upwards, or bowed backwards. Greatly exaggerated in this picture but like this: 3. The effect on the playability of the guitar or bass of these three conditions is shown below: Note the effect of back bow, in condition 'C' above. Buzzing from the middle of the fretboard. And back-bow is the most problematic because the strings will buzz at certain places or certain situations. And so the general rule for set up of the neck is: "Get it as straight as possible but without the possibility of back bow occurring." But, because weather conditions change, because we might use alternative tunings, because we might fit a set of different tension strings, and we never want back bow, then we change the above general rule a little, to become: "Get it as straight as possible, and then add a teeny bit of forward bow" And that teeny bit of forward bow, showing as a gap between the bottom of the string to the top of the fret is referred to as the 'Neck Relief' How do you measure the amount of relief of your bass neck? OK - now to measure the amount of bow on your own neck. And it's VERY easy to do. And ref below, near enough is good enough. We are going to use the string itself as our straight-edge. All you need to do: - tune the bass up normally - hold the G string down to the fretboard in two places - just in front of the nut, and just before the neck joins the body (see pic below) - while doing that, look at how big a gap there is under the string in the middle of those two points (usually around where the 8th fret position is) (marked with yellow arrow in pic below) From the side view, this is what you are doing (ignore the gubbins under the fretboard in this picture): Because of the length of a bass, this is easier if you have someone else holding down one of the two positions - or if you have a capo, use that at the 1st fret position to hold that end down. At the mid point (yellow arrow), there are three possibilities: 1. The string has a gap, and it is around or less than 0.5mm (approximately the thickness of a business card). Teeny gaps can be confirmed by tapping the string down to the fretboard. If it moves and taps, there is a gap. If it is rock solid, then refer to 3 below. This is the ideal situation. See A in diagram above or 2. The string has a gap underneath, but that gap is larger than 0.5mm / business card thickness. This is less than ideal. See B in diagram above or 3. There is no gap at the mid point - the string is hard against the fretboard. This is not good. See C in diagram above.

BassChat facemasks next year?

My 2023 Autumnglo is all over satin finish including the fretboard, it feels fantastic, one of the slimmest Ric necks I have owned.

When I started reading this thread, I immediately thought BT. I worked for them for 2 years, and it was a horrendous experience. The company, as a whole, has an extremely poor culture and terrible management. And as if them driving me crazy as an employee wasn’t bad enough, more recently they accused my brother of committing fraud against me, and stuck to this story for several months in the face of my remonstrations that their website was faulty. Only after getting my MP involved did they listen, and very shortly after launching an internal investigation did they realise that I was completely right, and they had actually compromised the security of my account, and I suspect probably all their customers accounts. They still continued to say my brother committed fraud against me. Shocking and awful organisation. Also, Charles Hurst. They’re a major car dealership in Northern Ireland (specifically Belfast), and they are a large part of the Boucher Road complex, which is apparently the biggest car retail complex in Europe. I don’t know a single person who has a good story to tell about them, but personally, they’ve lied to me several times about what needed done on my car, they’ve overcharged me, and they’ve not done the work to an acceptable standard either. I haven’t gone back to them since the time I asked them to recharge my air-con and they said I needed £1,200 worth of work done - I said to leave it, and I decided to simply drive around in, at times, a very warm car for a year. One day, I took it to a little place in an industrial estate that mainly does radiators for commercial vehicles and I told them what Charles Hurst had told me, and that I didn’t believe them. They hooked a pressure gauge onto it, and asked me when I had it in Charles Hurst. “That was a year ago” says I. “Well, it’s held a vacuum for a year then, so it’s grand”. He turned the tap on the bottle of gas, and ice cold air flowed into the cabin almost immediately, and that was it. That was nearly 2 years ago now, and it’s still working perfectly. The fact that I know a good bit about cars served me well, but I can see a good few people getting caught out by unscrupulous dealerships. Also, P&O. Not that I really make that many ferry crossings anyway, but they way they unceremoniously sacked all their staff, with zero warning, and then hired in underpaid foreign mariners to replace them all, was disgusting, and nothing but an insult to the maritime industry and all decent people. May they go out of business.

We had been rehearsing our tribute band for nigh on 3 years. We'd been through a couple of second guitarists (I really must post in the weird audition thread). The keyboard player was an absolute perfectionist but we'd battled through week after week to get the performance "acceptable" (it actually sounded flippin' awesome). We were ready to gig! That's when the drummer decided he wasn't really into that music and he'd in fact just been helping us out until we found a drummer that wanted the gig. That's when I finally decided I'd had enough, and the band folded

This is why I'm enjoying playing in an originals band that has no backline. PA and lights plus someone to operate then is supplied by the venue. We get the whole band, our gear plus our roadie/merch seller in the synth player's estate car, and the 8 pieces of gear we have (two of which are stands) are easily carried by the four of us between the car and the venue.

Well, maybe one day you'll be in charge, you never know

Had a great gig with the Inevitable Teaspoons last night at Krakatoa in Aberdeen. Sound was a bit of a 'mare, we were late starting because the regular sound guy was off ill so it was the venue owner with a newbie assistant trying to chase the bugs out of the system - some annoying feedback coming from somewhere, took a while to track down the offending mic. But the crowd were patient and they were (hopefully) rewarded with a decent set. I felt really relaxed in my own performance, the sort of good feeling you get when you can have a laugh with the drummer if either of us does something a little odd instead of worried scowls. Played my Reverend Triad, and it got some questions (chiefly "what is your bass?" - happy to inform, 'mon the Reverend!). Rather more bizarre after we finished and I came off stage I got stopped by a guy at the bar who said very nice things about my playing, and paid me the very specific compliment of comparing me to Leland Sklar (!) - and he wasn't talking about my beard because that's a no contest - I'm only similar to Leland Sklar in that respect in the sense that I have a beard at all! He complimented me specifically on my fingerstyle and was talking himself down because he "only" plays pick. I was quick to point out that it's just a different technique, neither one is "better" than the other and mentioned that I can't play pick for toffee. Anyway, was kinda blown away by that very bass-specific compliment that I'm not sure what I did to earn, but I'll bloody well take it!

I see your singers and raise you a keyboardist. This is where my lifelong distrust and aversion for keyboardists comes from... Once upon a time I answered an ad for a funk band with female singers. It was like an X factor style audition being run by the guitarist who was a decent enough chap but the songs were more indie rock. There were loads of other guitarists and drummers there but only me as a bassist so I was kept. A week later and we audition a keys player. Dave shows up, long hair, looks like he wants a job in IT support but isn't bright enough, spends forever setting up his scaffolding for all his keyboards while talking about all these festivals he's played where the soundman didn't even have x, y z but of kit we've never heard of. Eventually he's ready to play a song. He hasn't listened to the audition songs or come prepared in any way. Stereophonics song? "Oh..... Errrr, Welsh band aren't they? I think I might have heard them on a cassette. My girlfriend is Welsh." Ummm thanks Dave. He plink plonks a couple of notes while we play. He doesn't even try to overwhelm us with weird sound effects, he just stands there looking confused the whole night, even when we tell him the chords. Guitarist invites him back the next week if he can learn some of the songs. Next week. Dave has clearly not learned anything and I doubt if he could achieve Grade 1 piano. After bashing through some songs hoping he will catch up guitarists says "let's pack away and when he goes get all our gear back out". I've packed away and Dave is still dismantling his huge keys rig so I get bored and say F this I'm off home. Half an hour later I get a call from the guitarist through gritted teeth: "I know you haven't got them, but can you check all your pockets and cases for Dave's car keys? We've turned the place upside down and just can't find them." I didn't have them. A long while later I get a text. Dave's car keys were eventually found after checking everywhere including in the till of the pub. They were in the pocket of his hoodie all along. I never saw Dave again. I've never played with a keys player since.