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Had a blast at the excellent Percy's in Whitchurch, Shropshire. Turned out we were headlining, which meant late bed for this old codger - I'd been hoping to be home by ten 😁 First up we had Taser Puppets - 3 piece with and early Velvets sound. Good stuff! Then, the Spontanes - they had a couple of ex-members of foul-mouthed punks The Macc Lads; they did a set of punk covers of 50s and 60s stuff. They were seriously tight with great arrangements, plus plenty of dirty jokes from Muttley. Then we were on. Not only that but we were also tight as, with nary a mistake and though I say it myself, we smashed it. And the sound-man there is awesome - couldn't ask for much better, no feedback, no mush, everything clear as a bell with heft, oomph, thwack in boatloads. I used my ACG Recurve into Helix and my old Marshall Jubilee amp with the venue's brilliant and enormous Mesa 2x15. Very happy with that!

Kay, so: not as bad as I’d expected. 4 Play (🤤) at Smith’s in Bourne. As good as a pub gets. Brilliant place. Double yellows, 200 yd walk with the gear and nowhere near to park though. We played well. One of my run downs in Don’t Look Back You Wan### was mint. My harmonies were excellent, frankly. I’d been dreading it after the last car crash gig. Good sound… outdoors, DI’d the acoustic and electric amps, kick drum and sub but bass amp was on its own. Nice to crank the GK for a change. The RB sound when the boost power amp is given some beans is the best bass amp sound on the planet - official. Into a Barefaced 12 with some tube style hair from the SA Aftershock and a 1mm plectrum and I’m like: pass the Kleenex. Fender USA Dimension 5 stringer, Boss wireless snd Robert Keeley’s Bassist compressor always on to make it just so. Dimly aware that other comps exist: meh.

In a completely different vein, I was out with the cello last night with a concert in Carlisle... not quite 70s punk... And in case you're wondering why the drummer's stool... the church's chairs are too low for me and cause cramp in my right leg. I bought it when one orchestra I played in rehearsed in a primary school...

An odd one last night, playing with Nine Lives at the Balaclava Bar in Fraserburgh. We had to get a dep singer, as the gig was booked before we got our new singer on board and she couldn't make it. Thankfully, our previous singer agreed to step in, which is probably the best kind of dep in terms of familiarity with both the material and playing with us. We also got some new powered speakers for our PA. Gig went well, but it was a strange night - it was only moderately busy, but we had people up dancing and I could see people singing along. Yet come the end of most of the songs, nothing, nada, very little response. The floor wasn't even sticky at the end, very unusual for the Balaclava. Oh well, a gig's a gig. Gear used: Epiphone Les Paul (not very) Standard (anymore), then Yamaha BB1200, into Markbass Mini CMD 121P IV + New York 121.

Today's gig, I'm on the left playing my shiny new mandocello, our new bass player on the right. He's actually very good - better than me. But I'm still playing bass elsewhere, and enjoying the change today on rhythm and backing vocals.

Played an ‘interesting’ Dog & Duck equivalent in Dawlish, Devon last night for a town pub festival thang. First outing for my BF cab, sounded tremendous, as did my bitsa P 🤩

Billy Bootleggers in the popular Ouseburn area of Newcastle upon Tyne. Great live music bar with in-house PA & engineer (who actually knows what he’s doing). The bar has three bands on each Saturday, and we had our favourite 5pm kick-off slot. Lots of folk in for the music supplemented by passing trade and with dry warm weather, there was plenty of passing trade. We played well and the bonus of being home by 8pm makes it doubly pleasing. Oh and first gig with the Finally v2 ‘with bass in mind’ and I couldn’t be happier with how this sounds, now at the end of my chain (arguably where it’s supposed to be) it provided a lovely fat warm input to my amp, and the engineer said it’s the best D.I. he’s heard in a while. Oh and we got paid too 😎

LAST NIGHT! Dance to the floor (5 piece girl-fronted pop band) at Memoirs in Walsall. Oh, the glamour! Dep singer as our usual frontgirl was otherwise engaged (again 🤨) which meant a couple of key changes, which I weirdly quite like having to do - I feel like learning the songs in a slightly different key is a useful way of getting to know them better? Somehow? It was a 30th birthday party, so we were expecting an absolute rager. By 9 o'clock (first set time), there were about 15 people in there, so we twiddled our thumbs FOR AN HOUR until the other 15 people turned up and they'd all partaken of the (very good) Indian buffet. Went on about 10 to a very small and disinterested (uniterested? I can never remember the difference) audience of older folk and vey young children. Oddly, there were very few 20-30 year olds in there. A very dispiriting set, we played pretty well considering. Dep singer did a cracking job. She's got a different voice and style to our usual, she was a bit nervous (first time gigging with a band (!) as her main thing is solo gigs with backing tracks) and she's not used to IEMs but she did a great job. Quick vape and moan about the audience break, back on for another set to even fewer people (what sort of party IS this?!) and even less response than the first. We were all pretty much phoning it in by this point. Played the StingRay 5 -> New Improved Enormous Pedalboard (NIEPB - I won't list everything that's on there as I'm going out in an hour) - MB 802 -> PA. The 5 is still a work in progress... I'm alright on the stuff I've learnt on 5, but had a few wobbles on the stuff I'm used to playing on 4. I'm going to start playing the 5er on 'normal' gigs to really get my head (and hands) round it. The highlights were 'Forget You' which I love playing, especially the tricky Bass bits in the middle 8 (I'll get them right one day) and the Indian food. Packed up, loaded out, drove home, Cider. Meh!

It's been almost a quarter century since I used to play bass. Back then I had black Fender P-Bass and I have to say I really missed it. Hopped over to GuitarGuitar and picked up a new Player Series P-Bass in Buttercream. I'm so far out of practice that it'll be like starting all over, but it's sure good to have another of these beautiful instruments back in my life.

Nice frendly 50th birthday party. Not a large crowd, but they were up for a dance and we had a nice stage and a proper green room as it was at a community centre used for plays.

A fairly quiet one at a social club on the outskirts of Huddersfield last night, a bit of a come down after last weeks bikers rally. Our singist really had to work it to get them up an running and even more to keep em up. Still nowt wrong with the odd paid practice. First outing with the new Sandberg Lionel, didn’t have chance to change the stock strings to my short scale slinkies but they did the job. Amazing how much difference they can make the sound on identical basses in a gig setting…first time I’ve done a direct comparison at a gig.

It can be a tough business. For example, the attached pic is pretty cool. You can't tell we're playing to 10 people in a huge room. Lol Daryl

I played the Andertons stage at Guilfest yesterday afternoon. Was told the backline would be a Boss Katana rig so didn't bother taking an amp: big mistake as they supplied a 100 watt Orange combo!

Now the neck lived up to the 'Bonny wood' logo, body takes that up a notch or two.

The Rock Formation returned to play The New Inn in Buckingham last night. Great night but very hot, quite a few commented on how much they enjoyed our sets. Dep drummer as our own is recovering from a recent operation. No pics, we are back there in October.

No, but we did play Things Can Only Get Better, which everyone seems to be a little more familiar with lately for some reason!

First coat of oil to the neck.

We have an answer!!!! It is But you really need to read the WhatsApp messages that came when I was sent that: Worth it just for the level of confusion on show!! 🤣

I picked this up today and man it’s sooo good and so cheap £699. Just couldn’t resist at that price. after setting up, cutting the nut and dialling in my preferred set up I gotta say it genuinely embarrasses my other basses in the rack which at at a minimum cast twice as much. How is this fair ha. sounds a like a modern jazz, slightly darker, with slightly more tamed mids than my STD jazz 04 but with the active EQ you can of course sculpt it however you want. regardless of all the top level level parts the fretwork is really quite astounding- it’s been nicely levelled so you drop the action down crazy low (okay probably too low right now I’m just excited) and the ends are filed into nice sausages and polished. I’ll do so recording for my Instagram and uploading it here if anyone is interested:) I think if I had to have a life or death bass off where I had to slap tastelessly and overplay in order to stay alive I’d be using this ha

Did you announce a general election?

How was my gig last night? Wet.

I've had this for a long time. It's in incredible shape for a 40 year old instrument. There's hardly any left globally (they didn't even have a model to photograph to include in the Hamer coffee-table book) and it's worth a small fortune (which is why it doesn't see much action). Tonally it's lovely - I've not had the pickups out (not want to/see any reason to), so I don't know what they are, but considering it was 100% original when I got it, I'm assuming they're early-80s DiMarzio units. Original hardware was chrome, have swapped out to the same units in black and have recently swapped the jack socket for a flat one made by a young chap locally. (Kept the originals.) Gigged it once - @Wolverinebass was at that one - I rehearsed with it a couple of times and it's been to a couple of SE Bass Bashes, but in general it spends most of its time in a case.

The fee barely covers fuel! But we feel it's worth playing there as it's a place worthy of support. They put on bands 2 or 3 nights a week, up to 3 at a time in all genres, it's free to get in, they've got a brilliant soundman and I think grass-roots venues like this deserve every break they can get! As we don't do it for the money - it's effectively a hobby - we're happy to do that. It's not as if they're charging on the door, then charging loads for food and drink then underpaying the bands; they also support foreign touring bands too with free accommodation. I'm happy to play there for a fifth time as well if they they want us...

At this point I might be more excited than you

Re-tubed Monique , I had picked it up used and had no idea how old the tubes were. Noticed a difference in the way the eq responded. And tried out some different cabs. So I’m very glad I did it. The clear winner for cabs was my 112 Bergantino.

Router and sanding followed. With that done there was a trial fit.

Spent a bit of time with this pedal over the last couple of days. The more I learn about it the better it gets. Discovered the slicer and the whammy and got them to nail the start of Fox On The Run for my glam band!

Check the firmware updates , that’s loaded with bells and whistles. And is a beauty. I originally picked up a Bergantino cab. And understood that Bergantino really do make beautiful gear. Wasn’t long before I became a fanboi. Bought another cab , and then decided that I really should try his amp. no regrets

The Borough Blues Festival next weekend. We are halfway up the running order I've discovered, although poster makes us look like the openers. Which is nice.

Wembley last night.

In general, most amps, even some tube amps, the sag is almost zero until reaching maximum power. The original question was regarding doubling the power in which case +3dB minus any power compression of the driver is the correct answer. A well designed power supply is a big part of any well designed amp isn't it? It is likely that a 4 ohm driver (not a 4 ohm speaker made up of 8 or 16 ohm drivers) is likely to have a lower sensitivity. This would be a more significant factor in comparative volume, but I did make the clear assumption that all else being equal, therefore +3dB is still the correct answer. Correct, hence my qualification that all other parameters were assumed to be identical.

Wow, you and Liz Truss are really close

TONIGHT! Played Sousaphone with The Acid Morris for their Solstice (ish (Solstish?)) dance out under the concrete henge of Spaghetti Junction (Gravelly Hill Interchange for the pedants). The Acid Morris are like nothing you've ever seen, even in your wildest Psilocybin-fuelled fever dreams: Border Morris Dancing to techno remixes of traditional Morris tunes and tonight for the first time ever, a Sousaphone. Probably one of the weirdest things I've ever done, and possibly the world's first (?) Techno-Sousaphone-Morris Dance mashup (under Spaghetti Junction). It was a ton of fun, there were sermons (one entreated the audience (there was an audience!) to teach their tortoises to sing) , testimonies (mostly nonsensical (one about the benefits of Morris cats as opposed to Morris dogs (of which there are many))), there was a bit where we all cast soft toys into a bin bag (not sure why), a speech about how the Sousaphone is in fact the preferred instrument of the angels (followed by a short (improvised) Sousaphone solo) and several techno Morris dances. After that, it descended into a more or less full on rave (with Sousaphone accompaniment) which was ace - it was my first time jamming along to a techo DJ and it went down really well. I don't think anyone there had ever seen/heard a Sousaphone player jamming along with loud dance music under Spaghetti Junction. The ONE TIME your Sousaphone lights aren't charged up, you end up at a rave. LIVID. I was tempted to stay and have one of the funny looking peppermints that were going round, but my designated driver (who is also (sort of) the main idiot (and also my Dad)) was keen to nake a move (and I'm gigging tomorrow) so good sense prevailed and it was back home about 11:30 for a homebrew cider (ABV unknown) and a cheese and pickle roll instead. Their sound system has the potential for hooking up the SA C4 synth pedal, so there's every chance the next outing will involve Sousa -> Wireless mic -> synth pedal, which could be quite something.

I recently came across with an older type of Samick PJ bass. I've tried to find out some basic information about the guitar, but I wasn't successful. The pickups and the bridge are not originals to the guitar, these were replaced during the years. The only info I've found that this tree-note logo was the first and it was used between 1972 and 1986. So it narrows down the period a bit. I am wondering if someone has some info about the bass (model name, period of manufacture and specifics). Any help would be appreciated.

Picked up this vintera ii 50s p bass a couple of months ago; great instrument, though the big neck took a little getting used to!

Its like the AM version, but a lot clearer.

P*ssed myself laughing when the band on before us started Freebird with 2 minutes to go of their slot leaving us in the rain with all our kit….

On to frets next. Fret ends dressed and sealed.

Hey Presto.

I love the slicer. I have no use for it, but I love it anyway!

Last night. Mash up of La Grange/Steppin' Out (Cream, not Joe Jackson) Beer Festival at The Swan Inn, Chappel Danelectro Longhorn into pa via Trace Elliot Transit B

Song: 12 Long Years (this has been the closing song in the set since the band started in 2018) Band: Hurtsfall Venue: The Bodega, Nottingham Bass: Eastwood Hooky Pro 6 > Line6 Helix > PA

For a change mine was a cover! We did the Dead Kennedys "Moon Over Marin" with Raph on CopyBass and me adding a Magazine "Song From Under The Floorboards" feel. This was at Percy's, Whitchurch. And he played his Squire Jazz through Sansamp and Trace Elf into Bitsa 4x10 cab, I used my ACG Recurve into Helix with a very slightly overdriven and heavily compressed and gated patch into ancient Marshall Jubilee head and huge Mesa 2x15 cab. Worked surprisingly well.

Saw them at Lancashire County Cricket Ground last week - was a funny one, watching my 15 year old daughter sing songs from my teen years - as if it was hers. Very cool. The new stuff doesn’t excite me, but it was a good show. Nothing But Thieves were great too.

That's really interesting - it looks like a more upmarket version of this 1980-ish budget through-neck P type, also made by Samick, sold branded Satellite in the UK. A quick dig around came up with a single P version of your bass: And a link to a listing of the actual bass you have (same grain patterns) with its original DiMarzio knockoff bridge, and a clearer pic of those odd pickups. Are you sure they're not original? If they're not, the bass has been professionally routed to fit the J-type unit. I don't recognise the logos & a reverse image search doesn'r come up with anything similar. Anyone else recognise these? I think you're right that this is from the late 70s/early 80s era, and the problem is that Samick was almost 100% an OEM manufacturer at the time, so there are very few examples or records of what they sold under their own name - the earliest catalogue I can find is 1987, and there's nothing like this there.

Jack is right, a double strap might help, but really you are not experiencing a comfort issue, you are experiencing a weight issue and straps usually don't fix those sorts of problems. If 5kg is hurting your shoulder you really need to buy a different bass.

I finally succumbed to the GAS and bought the 4 string version of the EHB short scale. I know there is a thread on the 5 string but I thought this warranted it’s own. First impressions are very favourable. It seems pretty well made. Not quite in the same league as the Premium and Prestige ranges but easily as good as say, a Mex Fender. There is one flaw in the finish on the top of the residual headstock and that might be the result of the head rubbing on the packaging in transit (see photo later). Otherwise the finish is excellent. It is super light, almost like picking up an acoustic. It makes my Gretsch Junior Jet feel decidedly overweight. The back of the body is heavily sculpted from the centre line on the upper bout. This makes it very comfortable to sit with and balance on a strap is good too. I think it is going to be great for extended sessions. I can understand why some people criticise the Bartolini pickups. The Ibanez website says they are dual coil: humbuckers to the rest of us I guess and that is always going to put them in a certain tonal range. I can’t find that model on the Bartolini website, so they must be Ibanez specific. On top of the humbucker pickups, the body is chambered, so it is pretty close to a semi-acoustic. All of that is bound to give the tone a sort of 60s bias, i would have thought. It happens to suit me fine but when you switch from passive to active, the 3-band eq gives you a lot of tone shaping options, especially as the mid control has a frequency band adjustment. As an aside, the pickups are very long. It made me wonder if they use the same set in the 5 string, perhaps there is a six coming, they are long enough. The neck is a thing of beauty to behold. Lovely burled grain effect. The only problem there is that you can’t see the dot markers on the front or the side in normal light. They just seem to blend into the darker (but not as dark as rosewood) pigment of the fretboard. Apparently the side dots are luminous but I haven’t noticed that working. Profile wise, it is slightly wider and flatter than an Ibanez SR, or Jazz Bass. Compared to the Gretsch Junior Jet it is a couple of millimetres wider all the way up. The carve on the back seems to start as a C and flattens quickly to a D as you go up the neck. The overall impression is that it is chunkier than I expected but nothing unmanageable and comfortable for extended playing sessions even with my stubby fingers. That is pretty subjective of course. The rest of it is nicely appointed, except for the plastic control knobs, which look like the top of a toothpaste tube. I am not sure what made Ibanez put those on it. It really lets it down because the rest of the hardware is pretty good quality. The individual bridge units and tuners are good quality and offer string spacing adjustment. It comes with Schaller strap locks (not just the buttons), a detachable finger ramp and locking jack socket (a bit stiff to operate but it works). The gig bag is pretty good (I guess 10mm padding),with a fair number of pockets and a neck retaining strap on the inside. It is definitely a keeper as far as I am concerned but I will be replacing those horrible plastic knobs with some metal ones.

That's literally what it is... I keep my basses on a multi-stand in an old wardrobe. Keeps them out of the sunlight and away from the dust, safe and accessible.