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Some pics arrived from Sat nights gig iin Arbroath at the Royal British Legion Club with BLOCKBUSTARZ. (see earlier post)

Another of our semi-regular acoustic duo gigs at The Lookout in Scarborough this evening. Took two basses with me ( Taylor and Ibanez) to compare, but somehow managed to leave my holdall behind which has all my leads, stand and mic in it! Disaster averted though by my guitarist pal having spares, and the venue having a euro lead for my Rumble combo. Anyway, a full house of diners and shed loads of requests. Along with the usual kind of stuff you’d expect a duo like us to play, we also did some we hadn’t done before / for a long time - such as ‘Sir Duke’, ‘Mr Bojangles’ ( which I really don’t like) and ‘Little red rooster’ with my mate using a half pint glass as a slide for his guitar. Ended with ‘Come up and see me’ in tribute to Steve Harley. We return there in three weeks time, when I’ll make sure I have a full compliment of kit with me.

I now have a BB2000 as my main and only bass. Like other neck through Yamahas I've had in the past (TRB6P and BB3000A), it's one of the best put together basses out there. Very aggressive and punchy bass with those three sweet spot pickup settings. Endless sustain and even across the fretboard. Just an incredible instrument.

New 12x8’’ board from Bastow Pedalboards. Very nice sturdy build with good clearance underneath. Running the stomp on the CAPO’s post loop. Doom2 and Octabvre are in the Stomp’s FX loop. My tone toys from clean, gritty and synthy stuff

One of my very occasional solo acoustic / vocal gigs at the Organ Grinder in Loughborough last night. Sunday early evenings are quite mellow, with an audience including a spectacularly large golden retriever who seemed to enjoy himself. I’d been having some gremlins with my PA (dodgy leads, broken 9v adaptor for pedals etc) so I was relieved it all sounded ok. Played my £40 FB marketplace Yamaha acoustic with a Seymour Duncan Woody pickup and it sounded glorious. Job done. 👍

The standard village hall width is 2 x boom freq wavelength.

Gig rig.

OK round one of the carving is complete. I left it 1mm thicker everywhere on purpose in order to give me a chance to see how the carving was going without risking it getting too thin. Time to get serious. I routed the perimeter down to 4mm, it's final thickness. Time to crack out the gouge and mini plane again. I'm not finding it easy planing it without getting tearout. Wood is like cats fur, it want's to go in one direction. Get it it wrong and the blade can get out under the fibres and pull out a chunk. Carving it is like butter, till suddenly it isn't. It's also a second grade piece of wood, so there's lot's of grain runout, making tearout even more difficult. So far so good though....

I've noticed the Longhorn picking up a few fans recently, so this might interest you.... https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2024/03/22/danelectro-announces-the-red-hot-longhorn-bass/

I was at the Dog and Duck last night when I saw Charles Berthoud sitting in with a blues band. It was terrible - he kept playing so many notes and was slapping and tapping over everything. He was also playing a class D amplifier that had no heft. Nobody in the crowd was dancing due to the lack of groove. Eventually the band got sick of him and invited a Basschat greybeard onto the stage to sit in. From the moment he plugged his (modified) Harley Benton into his vintage '80s Trace Elliot everything changed. The power and heft of his whole notes and the tasteful use of minor pentatonic shapes (no matter whether over a major or minor tonality) had everybody up on the dancefloor grooving away. I later saw Charles outside pacing up and down nervously and chain smoking, a bit like when Clapton saw Hendrix for the first time. True story. There's a lesson for us all there I think.

I bet that plummets when word gets out that he's been criticised by a couple of people on an internet bass forum.

Si

Everything I bought from Japan came via Japanpost EMS and their service was always excellent, usually took exactly a week to arrive. Bubblewrap the bass in the case, get a box from a shop and post, I say.

All your base are belong to us Sam x

A return to the Apple and Parrott in Torquay last night. Our drummer couldn't make it as he had tickets for Mr Big, so we drafted in our previous drummer, my son, who still deps for us. It was party central and plenty of people up for dancing and a good time. In house PA and engineer always gives a great FOH sounds, although the stage sound can be a bit odd, but was sorted for set 2. It's a great vibe there which we can feed off. Lots of great compliments from people afterwards, including one guy who admired my playing and my Stingray. It was a late finish, but at least no PA to breakdown. Looking forward to the next one. My usual set up, Stingray 2eq, Ashdown RM 500-Evo II, BF 210 on gramma pad due to raised stage.

I don't want a thread de-rail or a big discussion here but I'm just a little uncomfortable about the direction this might be headed. BassChat thrives because of the generally good natured ethos of debate here. We don't discuss politics or religion and I've had my knuckles rapped for the former Maybe would be better steering away from discussing national stereotypes? I love getting comments from @agedhorse who is a person of great knowledge and experience. He frequently helps out with individual advice to owners of gear he has designed or had an association with. His insights into what Gibson are attempting or indeed any information about how things look from his part of the industry are always fascinating and worth reading. I would love it if more industry insiders engage with us in this way. Often in the past this has been from bassists who happen to work in the industry and their insights are always interesting and add to our general knowledge of all things bass. Obviously they are a little constrained in what they can say and they are unlikely to criticise their own products or employers My own nationalism is pretty limited, I feel shame about quite a lot of England's past and pride about other bits but I'm really happy to see increasing numbers of people from around the world joining BassChat and I'm proud that we make them welcome. Let's all be friends here.

A few months ago, I watched a video of a guy designing and building a guitar/bass with a spinning round neck. He surprisingly got it to work! Now Charles Berthoud has got his hands on it. Not everyone's cup of tea, but you have to admire his ability to play his style on almost any stringed instrument.

I went for it! I left an offer but knew I'd be heart broken if someone else got it first because its literally perfect - so I ended up buying it for asking price 15 mins later hahah

@BassAdder60I went through a similar thing a few years ago. The band had broken up after lockdown and I just couldn't face going through the never ending cycle of getting a band to giggable standard, building a reputation, getting gigs and then it all falling apart. I sold everything except a cheap bass but kept my guitars and now do a bit of home recording to keep me musical. I haven't missed it at all. Good luck!

But hopefully NOT plastered!

Here's the latest iteration of my pedalboard. Much simpler than my previous one as I decided to just build presets in the MS-3. The only exception to that is the Wampler mini, as I didn't want to sacrifice one of the four effects in the Boss on a compressor. I've also added the Bright Onions DFM2 to facilitate easy switching. I've kept my trusty Providence Dual Bass Station (powered by the Gigrig 12V adapter underneath) as I always take and play two basses to each gig. I went for a Rockboard Tres 3.0 so I could add the Mod 2 patch bay, which allows for the basses to be plugged into A and B and then sent to the amp via D. The USB allows me to charge the Rockboard power supply fitted to the tray underneath. All neat and tidy

Where's the groan emoji when you need it?

Absolutely. If any contemporary musician can be considered a genius, then AP can totally be included in that list.

It’s very versatile. I’ve been playing it regularly over the past few days and can confirm that it is one of the slappiest basses I’ve ever hit with my thumb (on the central setting). But it also does a great burpy 80s J bass thing and can do a decent Jamerson. Very broad. On the neck pickup setting, rolling off the tone removes some of the clank and growl I suppose? Leaving a pleasing thumpy P with nice definition to my ear

It certainly looks oarful.

I do like the pictures of King Charles. they add a certain 'authority' to you all....esp the drummer

Did you climb back in through the same toilet window? The world needs to know 😆.

I'd completely disagree with you. The sound quality is amazing! You can really hear, with quite astounding clarity, that everybody singing has a large beard. Try headphones, maybe.

Last Night: Bloxwich hockey club's end of season awards/prizegiving/dinner/pissup at Old Wyrley Hall in Walsall (I think?) with Down to the Floor - 5 piece girl-fronted modern popular music beat combo. Britney, Beyonce, Dua Lipa, Arianna Grande, Rhianna, Girls Aloud, Spice Girls, Whitney type stuff. Load in at 5 so we're set up, soundchecked and out of the way before the awards and speeches. The stage is about the size of a postage stamp (a normal one, not one of the big commemorative ones) so there was barely room for my size 12s and the New Improved Enormous Pedalboard (NIEPB). The Bass amp was on the other side of the stage and I had to fold my stand up between sets, it was that small. I had a bit of a mare setting up as the Bass amp (not mine) decided to commit suicide (luckily I had mine with me) AND my midi controller decided it didn't want to play nicely, so I took ages to set up and had to soundcheck without IEMs and hope it would all be fine. Soundcheck done (sort of) and with some time to kill, a couple of us went to the drummer's gaff and watched most of Pretty Woman with his Mrs (Spoiler Alert: Julia Roberts is pretty and also a woman. Richard Gere is also in it (He's not a woman, as far as I am aware. I wouldn't call him 'pretty' either, but I believe he is generally considered to be quite handsome (if you like that sort of thing))). Back to the venue for 9ish, sat around and kicked our heels (and had the singer paint my nails a fetching shade of purple) while the prizegiving and roistering continued, went on about 10:30 to a room full of incredibly excited and heavily refreshed hockey players - imagine rugby players but without the restraint, decorum or dignity. They absolutely loved it, the dancefloor was packed from the first note, we played really well despite being wedged onto a tiny stage - I was so close to the drummer, I could smell his earwax. We had our first choice singer, she's fantastic - she's always nervous about Love on Top (the song), but she smashed it - including the four key changes and the whistle register stuff. Highlights were Toxic, which we nailed (a relief after we totally flubbed it last time) and Crazy in Love/Crazy mashup which is our collective favourite now we've nailed the arrangment (It's easy enough: 6, 4, 2, 8, 8, (4), 8, 10, Crazy, 6, 4, loads, (*4), ending). Two 45 minute sets, finished about half midnight... they would have had us playing til 3 AM, they were loving it that much. The organisers loved us, they want us back next year (again) and have promised a bigger venue (again). Played the 'Ray 5 -> New Improved Enormous Pedalboard (NIEPB) -> MB 802 (with PA support - I'd love to hear the OC-2 and C4 synth bassline on 'How will I know?' through those subs) Foot fans: White DMs with purple laces (to match the white shirt with purple tie and purple fingernails - you think I just throw these outfits together?!) Packed up (the drummer can now officially carry his entire kit including cymbals and hardware in one trip), home about 2 for last nights curry and a Westons reserve (8.2% ABV). Great night.

The gig itself was OK, loads of mmistakes, but seemed to go down well, however, we found out that the singer is in another band, which takes his count up to three bands and a solo, singer/songwriter/cover act around the local pub circuit. Our guitarist is less than happy, and we ended up having a band discussion prior to the gig, but he's a singer, therefore he's an egotistical, self-centred narcissist.

First time in Arbroath with BLOCKBUSTARZ last night in Royal British Legion. Sold out again which is always a great morale booster. Audience were up for it from the first song. Lots of people turned up in Glam gear too which is always great to see from the stage. It was so enjoyable we had a contest for best dancer and best glam dresser who both won one of our T shirts. A few others we gave out our new pin badges. Was very warm even with our fans on but air-con units above the stage were firing out warm air all night. We had a smaller upstairs function room to get changed in which was good too. Lot better than a small cupboard sized room that some venues have given us in the past. 4 blokes and a female singer doesn't work in cramped spaces My usual gear, Sandberg VM4 into Ampeg SVT7 and Mesa SW210/115 cabs. Shure wireless unit. Stage a bit boomy even with gramma board it was a bit noticeable. Had to turn the bass EQ down a bit on the amp to clean it up but no big deal. They want to book us for 3 nights in 2025 incl a Xmas gig. Bit of a drive tho 2.5hrs on way there and 3hrs on way home. On way home the roads were quiet but they closed the main M90 right after the Queensferry bridge crossing meaning i had to take a detour. Wasn't home till 4am so by the time i unloaded the car with my bass gear and the 3 way 15" PA cabs it was 4:30am and then a coffee to wind down getting to bed at 5am and back up with a cat banging cupboard doors at 8am. Bit tired this morning to say the least. Probably one of the most enjoyable gigs we've played. Just great fun all night. One or two wee hiccups but nothing we couldn't cover. Dave

Anyone who has spent time in a church will realise that things which are big, bulky, musical and unwanted will end up there... Organ. Pianos. 4×12 bass cabs. Soprano singers.

Yes! Got one at 4:30pm. Very pleased. There are still some left as of 4:50pm. 😊

I'm in awe of the foresight shown by architects and stone masons who knew, often centuries before magnetic pick-ups were invented, that they needed to build large stone pillars in order to one day give an electric bass player something to hide behind 😁

This reminds me of years ago when my then band went out for a curry. The guitarist went to the toilet, and then walked in through the front door proudly announcing he’d just done a runner. Don’t think he really got it

In like Flynn (with a limp). The old gang reconvene at the pub one more time to enjoy a few drinks in the sun and reminisce about the days when they had everything going for them and all the time in the world to loon around. Lo-tech talk: Unbranded Strat, Daphon Wah Wah pedal, Vivlex Delay pedal, Westfield bass, Roland Cube amp, Apogee Mic+ and MT drums. Recorded with Wavepad, Audacity and Ableton. Fancy some lyrics to go with this Fisher-Price Fun Lovin' Criminals funk? Here they are. Won't mean owt to you lot but all the names included in the song are various drinking acquaintances of mine through the 80s, 90s and 00s, although I'm not sure they were all ever in the same pub at the same time!

I have just learned that I lost another musician friend. Tony Priestly played guitar in Liverpool's Earl Preston's Reflections and in the Realms earlier than that. He passed away after a battle with Cancer. When the band broke up Tony left Liverpool and came to Toronto. After an economic down turn my family followed. To get through that first winter I took a job servicing high end stereo equipment on Yonge Street. My Engineering qualifications were deemed of no value unless I went back to school for two years. Looking in the Telephone Directory I found Tony and renewed our friendship. He made the suggestion that I enter the Drafting field and gave me a contact number. I followed the suggestion and was shortly working as a contract draftsman for Ontario's electricity generating and distribution system Ontario Hydro. Truthfully I didn't even know what pencil to use!! LOL A couple of years later I was invited to join the Hydro staff. This set me up with paid vacation, a pension and a wonderful benefit package. Essentially we were set up for life. Thank you Tony and rest in peace my friend. I'll certainly miss you.

Snapped this morning - fretless and fretted US Stingrays, with some bonues Trace Elliot - so good I used the thumbnail on my profile!

@CharlesBerthoud‧ 1.78M subscribers‧425 videos https://www.charlesberthoud.com/about.html I think he probably does all right for himself and he strikes me as a very accomplished musician.

Man who earns money on youtube is a PITA for promoting the way he plays the bills? What a weird complaint. Like it or not, YouTube playing is an entirely different sport to band playing. YouTube playing is a different product to band playing. Loads of YT people are honest about it. Like drummer El Estepario did an interview and explained he spends far more time learning drumming tricks for social media than actually playing songs because that is his primary source of income. Just playing four to the floor wouldn’t earn money on YouTube. I don’t know why anyone would think either of them couldn’t play simply for a band though.

Played in Ramsgate last night with Verity Bromham. Had Kev Hickman depping on drums who did a marvellous job. I tried an XVive in ear unit that John lent me along with my rig. The engineer pointed me to an app to put on my phone and I set up my own monitor mix - bloody amazing. Journey home was a nightmare due to road closures, road out of Ramsgate was shut as was the M25, A1 and M1. Bolleaux! Got halfway home and realised I’d left my house and car keys at the venue. So I had to leave my car at Johns, get Del to go right out of his way to drive me home then wake the misses up at 3am to get in! Why the funk do I do this?!! Was a cracking gig though!

For me, there are players I don't like, but it doesn't invalidate them at all. Lots of different bass players speak to different people in different ways. Saying that, for what it's worth, and to contradict myself immediately, I just don't get 'Julia Plays Groove' amongst others. Playing someone else's songs (well), but that's it. I've seen hundreds of bass players on YouTube do the *exact* same thing, often better, but don't receive this weird fawning (I suspect I know the reason).

I done one! Remembering the Babycham ad with a bit of jazzyfunkyrock... Bass is the trusty Wal with a touch of chorus. Guitars are a strat through various Helix programmes. Horns courtesy of Loopcloud, and drums programmed in EZ Drummer. All rolled in a spot of Neutron 3 and Ozone 9.