Leaderboard

Beyond the shape of the pickguard, when talking about tort pickguards it is unfair to lump it all together as there is a huge difference between beautiful tort and fugly tort. Beautiful tort: Fugly tort:

I'm going to keep this, in part because despite the problems it's an incredible piece of engineering and I won't find another anytime soon, in part because I don't want the hassle of dealing with a shitty seller (and BTW Reverb have handled this very poorly), and in part because I'm going to enjoy fixing it. While the financially sensible thing to do is to get the circuit repaired, given I'm not convinced the bass was all that well maintained, I don't think I'll feel fully happy unless a new circuit is installed. I was hoping that Status might be able to supply/build a replica of the original but having been initially quite responsive they've gone very quiet which is frustrating. So I'm guessing there are a few options from here. Re the earlier comment about size, check this out.....

Mark Bass Little Bass with a Retrovibe over wound Rickenbacker Pup upgrade. Lovley little bass, 38mm nut with a super slim neck. Sounds brilliant, very surprised with the bite and fatness. Probably do a few more mods in the new year. Pickguard, bridge, knobs, V & T pot values and try a few capacitor values. Just a bit different to the Bronco .

For all my moaning about my original Ibby SR1305 Premium, I've been missing it after I sold it. So, something very similar, but more towards the "Dark (wood) Side". Thanks to Guitar Guitar I now have this SR1355B-DUF Premium in Dual Mocha Burst Flat. It's the same old, same old for me Nordy Big Singles, same 3 band EQ with passive switch, and 3 way Mid frequency switch, but no gold tuners or bridge (which I only think work on some finishes, so yay me !) The matt finish is different for Ibanez. Very warm to the touch. Everything is as it should be, though I'll possibly drop the string height. Incidentally, FYI Ibanez now seem to supply Premium SR's with a reasonable Gigbag, rather than the soft/hard case of yore. I'm well pleased

By Free Ones Be Driven

I think there should be a "Fugly Thumbrests" thread...

Basses I used to own at some point over the last 40 years (not in order): 2 x Kramer Spector NS2A (Red Stain) Kramer Spector NS2A (Teal) White Spector USA NS4 Cherry Spector ReBop Red Spector NS2J-CR Natural Spector Euro LX Blue stain Spector NS2 CRFM Poplar Burl Spector Euro LX Zebrano Spector Euro LX Dark Cherry Spector Euro LX Blue stain Spector NS2000/4 Black stain Spector NS2000/4 Cherry Spector Euro5 Holoflash Spector Rex2000/4 Black stain Spector Rex2000/4 Black stain Spector Legend 4X Amber Spector Legend Cherry Spector Legend 3 x DeArmond Pilots (black/white/red) Epiphone Goth Thunderbird Feline Spector Aria CSB360 – (cherry stain) Ibanez Destroyer Bass Collection noname P bass Charvel Model 3A? (purple) Kramer Forum IV Kramer Forum III Fernandes Spectorbird Fernandes Spectorbird ¾ scale thru-neck Jackson Kip Winger (lacewood) Jackson Kip Winger (White) Jackson Kip Winger (Black) Nightingale Harlequin Hohner B2A Musicman Stingray SUB (black) Hartke XK4 Kay Tulip bass - my FIRST bass! Melody Grabber Washburn Scavenger Mighty Mite Precision Schecter Model T Fender FSR Precision ‘70’s Reissue Ash/Maple board Fender Jazz Bass Special 80’s Jap Fender Jazz Jap Geddy Lee Fender Precision Mex (Lake Placid Blue) Fender Jazz Bass Special Deluxe (Black PJ with white blocks) Fender/Allparts Jazz ‘70’s (Vintage White, maple board/white blocks) Guild Pilot (black) ESP PPJ (cream) Ibanez Soundgear SR1000 (Painted by Yoshiki 1988) Tokai ‘Hard Puncher’ P/J 80’s (Red) Tokai ‘Hard Puncher’ P (Black / Maple board) ESP Horizon Custom 1990? Ebony Fingerboard (Cherry Sunburst) Dingwall NG-2 (Purple) Dingwall DBird (Colorflip Blue/Purple) Frankenstein Billy Sheehan ‘Wife’ Bass (Aria/Fender/Allparts clone) G&L Tribute L-2000 (big logo 2003 Indonesian) Archer KS3 ‘Kasim Sulton’ Hagstrom Super Swede “Rutger Gunnarsson” Signature Model (Mahogany) 2 x Peavey RJ-IV “Randy Jackson” (Silverburst & Pinkburst) Peavey “Rudy Sarzo” (Dark Natural) 1 Wal Mk1 “Geddy Lee” (Black/Gold Hardware) 1 Wal MK1 (Wenge) Lobue Chinese copy Basses I currently own: (PRE-KRAMER) SPECTOR SB-1 USA 1976 Active (Walnut/Maple) (PRE-KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 1986 Active (Cherry Sunburst) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 198? Active (Black) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 1987 Active (Black) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 1987 Active (Gloss White) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 1989 Active (Tobacco Sunburst) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 198? Active (Red/Black Lava Crackle) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 198? Active (Red Stain) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2A Active (Gloss White) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2A Active (Black/Winger graphics) (KRAMER) SPECTOR NS-2A Active (Black) SPECTOR NS-2 USA 2001 Active (Holoflash Black & Abalone) SPECTOR NS-2X ‘Spectorbird’ USA 2012 Active (Tobacco Sunburst) SPECTOR Euro CR 2001? Active (Holoflash Black) SPECTOR Euro CRFM 2001? Active (Purple Stain) SPECTOR Euro CRFM 2004? Active (Emerald Green Quilt) SPECTOR Euro CRFM 2004 Active (Plum Stain) SPECTOR Euro 2007 Active (Gloss White) SPECTOR Euro LX 2012 Active ‘Ian Hill’ sig (Black) SPECTOR Euro LX 2017 Active ‘Rachel Bolan’ sig (Black/Silver sparkle) SPECTOR Euro LX 201? Active (see-thru Black Quilt) SPECTOR Euro LT 2019 Active (Violet Fade) SPECTOR Euro Classic 2021 Active (Solid Red) SPECTOR Euro Classic 2023 Active (Gloss White) SPECTOR Euro-X 'Spectorbird’ 2023 Active (Ultraviolet quilt) SPECTOR Euro-X 'Spectorbird’ 2023 Active (Tobaccoburst Flame) SPECTOR Euro-X 'Spectorbird’ 2023 Active (Black) SPECTOR Euro-X 'Spectorbird’ 2023 Active (White) SPECTOR NS-2 JA-CR Euro RI 2008 Active w/Badass (Gloss White) SPECTOR NS-2 JA-CR Euro RI 2008 Active w/Badass (Black) SPECTOR Legend 4X Classic Active 2012 (Holoflash Black) SPECTOR Legend 4X Classic Active 2012 (Black Stain) SPECTOR Coda Pro 4 Active 2016 (Natural/Quilt) SPECTOR Ethos Active 2021 (Interstellar) SPECTOR NS Pulse II Active 2021 (Ultraviolet) SPECTOR NS Dimension HP 4 Active 2023 (Plum Crazy) STUART SPECTOR DESIGN NS-CR Euro Active (Natural) STUART SPECTOR DESIGN NS-4 Euro Active (Red Stain) SPECTORBACKER/RICKENSPECTOR Kip Winger (Black w/white binding) WAL Mk1 Fretless Active 1982 (Mahogany with Stained Maple facings) M.V. PEDULLA Buzz Deluxe Fretless 1989 (Black) FENDER Jap Precision ‘70’s Reissue “Phil Lynott” Alder/R-wood board (Black/Mirror) FENDER Jap Precision ’62 Reissue Alder/Rosewood board (Vintage White/Red Tort) FENDER FSR Precision P/J maple board/blocks & East preamp (Sea Foam Green) FENDER Jap Classic ‘70’s Precision maple board & blocks (Sunburst) FENDER Mex Classic ‘70’s Precision maple board & blocks (White) FENDER Jap Jazz Bass Special ‘Duff McKagan’ (White with black neck) FENDER SQUIER 40th Ann Precision ‘Gold Edition’ (Lake Placid Blue) FENDER SQUIER Classic Vibe 60’s Precision (3TSB) CHARVEL 3B 1986 with SD Basslines pickups (Cobalt Blue) CHARVEL Fusion IV 1990 Active (Camouflage) JACKSON "Kip Winger" Active (Orange Cherry Lacewood) 2 x JACKSON "Kip Winger" Active (Red Cherry Lacewood) JACKSON TBX-Pro ‘Jacksonbird’ Active 1 of 56 made (Black) JACKSON Ontario ‘Concert Bass’ 1987 Active (White) JACKSON CBX-IV ‘Dave Ellefson’ 30th Ann Concert 2017 Active (Quicksilver) HAMER Impact USA Active 1991 (Black & Gold ‘Marble’) HAMER Impact USA Active 1991 (Red) HAMER Impact USA Active 1990 (Copper/Gold) HAMER Scarab USA ‘Rick Savage’ Active late 80’s (White) KRAMER Forum I Active late 80’s (Flipflop Blue) KRAMER Ferrington Electro/Acoustic (Black) ESP The Surveyor 1984 (Blue Stain with Blue fingerboard) ESP LTD ‘The Surveyor 87’ 2021 (Rainbow Crackle) ESP/Zep-II PPJ-160 ‘Masayoshi Yamashita’ Signature Model - Active (Black) ROCKINBETTER “RonnieBarker” Ricky copy TOKAI Works TW801? Active 1987? (Black) 3 x FERNANDES MV-65NS “Nikki Sixx” Non-Reverse Spectorbird 1989 (Black) MUSICMAN Sub Stingray 4 (Black/Mirror) YAMAHA BB3000 (Black Sparkle) IBANEZ SR1000PN Active (Purple Neon) ARIA PRO-II CSB 380 ‘Black & Gold’ (Black) ARIA PRO-II IGB-85 Integra Active (Black sparkle) GUILD Pilot Active (Purple Burst) GUILD Pilot Active (Red) BASS COLLECTION “Betsy” Jazz Active (Burgundy Mist) ITALIA Imola GP “Ricky Phillips” Active (White) EPIPHONE Thunderbird Vintage Pro 2018 (Black) EPIPHONE Thunderbird Vintage Pro 2018 (Tobacco Sunburst) HOHNER B2A ‘Steinberger’ Active (Black) FELINE/SPECTOR "Gene Simmons SB-1" Hybrid. Active 1977-copy (Black) FELINE/KRAMER "Gene Simmons Axe" Active 1980-Copy (Black/Silver) PUNISHER "Gene Simmons" Ltd. Edition (Signed/#’d 0016) Active 1997 (Black) AXE "Gene Simmons" Ltd Edt (Signed/#’d 163 of 250) Active 2000(Black/Silver) CORT “Gene Simmons Axe-2” 2010 (Black/Silver) CORT “Punisher GS-2” 2011 (Black) STACCATO MG Active (Black/Magnesium Alloy/Numbered 22 of 34

Del Amitri at Sheffield Leadmill on Thursday night. One of my favourite bands (and one of my consistently favourite songwriters in Justin Currie). Performance-wise it was great - Justin doing a charismatic job on vocals, acoustic guitar and bass; Iain Harvie bringing the guitar grit and the rest of the line up turning in a solid show packed with great sing along songs from the last 30+ years. But the sound out front wasn’t good - a bass drum and booming low end so painfully loud it swamped everything else and obliterated much of the nuance and dynamics of the songs. In contrast the encore of largely acoustic songs with lush vocal harmonies and accordion was a delight - without the overwhelmingly loud drums, they benefited from a lightness of touch that allowed these songs to absolutely shine as a result. They were some of the best and most engaging moments of the night. Overall a heartwarming gig, well-received by a capacity crowd, but hampered by poor sound out front.

My first proper band existed from 1988 to the end of 1993. We had a couple of records out, and got up to plenty mischief wherever possible. But after our final gig in November '93 we knew our moment had passed. Our album flopped miserably in the UK (it did okay elsewhere though, but not enough to sustain us) and we drifted apart. Within a year, all six of us were living in different towns or cities, doing different things of varying legality. Our sole album is being reissued next year in expanded CD form, with outtakes, demos, live bits, etc. We'd been approached regularly over the years to do a reissue and we always said "On yer bike!". But this time we said yes, mostly to shut people up, and on one condition - that we don't get back together and do gigs or anything else again. We're all clean living family types now, with estate cars, and labradors, and Waitrose bags for life, so revisiting a Class A's past where we were constantly getting into bother... it's just not worth the risk. None of us would be up for it. Some of us will meet up occasionally for a pint if I'm in the UK, but if the conversation turns towards having been in a band, we all get the shivers and laugh it off, then change the subject 😂

Updates. The layout allows for reverb, delay and looper to go in the fx loop of an amp. I occasionally put my puny little stratocaster through it. Sounds great for both. But it's better on bass, because bass is better. Obviously.

I my house we like both kinds of basses, Precisions AND Jazzes 😁

There are simply too many variables to give a definitive answer to this. Size of venue, genre of music, how loud the rest of the band are and so on. Thats only about how loud you need to be. That depends upon the power of the amp, the efficiency of the speakers and the tone you choose to set up. There are so many variations that no advice can be completely solid. However there is an approximate answer which applies to roughly 60% of the possible set ups and it is 200W into a single 12 or a 2x10 That's a bold statement so it needs some explanation. A few years ago I designed a speaker on Bass Chat. One of the design specs was that it should be ‘loud enough’ to work with a band on its own. I had to turn that into something technical so I made the basic assumption that the bass has to be as loud as the drums. No point in being louder, if the guitars are going to be louder than that then all is lost anyway. Match the drums and you are good. The next thing is how loud are drums? I found some health and safety measures and the average level at the drummer’s ears is around 100-103db. I took that to be 100db at 1 metre and that the bass would need a 40db dynamic range. So 100db +/- 20 and 120db clean was my target. Looking at specs for speakers efficiency wa around 94-100db for bass speakers and I took 97db/W as being typical. So at 97db/W you need to have 23db of gain which is 200W I gigged with one of these speakers for 2 years. The theory holds out for all normal gigs but not for really big spaces or outdoors where simple physics says you need more. There are a whole raft of amps that are 300W into 8ohms 500 into 4ohms. Any of these should be more than adequate.

Tomorrow in Cannock. First one after having Nov off for vacations so raring to go.

Ah okay fair enough, QC it is then! Its a different world, but once you learn how to use it i'm sure you'll find itll do everything you want, and tons of stuff you didn't think you'd need. I've owned since launch, replaced quite a hefty pedalboard, and no regrets at all.

I played massive gigs with £400 basses. In the end, none of it matters much. Play the music you like on the instruments you love and forget all the rest.

The official reference is Switchcraft 113X. 😉 https://www.switchcraft.com/assets/1/24/110x-m110x_series_cd.pdf?5406 You can find it here at a normal price: https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/Switchcraft/113X?qs=iwvYsH9bSFbrUaj7QgyZ6A%3D%3D&srsltid=AfmBOoqhz7UfD89CrWZlOZAJMRlC2_sCGRrr2q8MhwZkTH-_NYfW8N7R

Sounds comfy 😉

Also what's even more important for me - I get MUCH better results with tube guitar amp and guitar cabinet for bridge pickup than using a bass amp and cab with dirt pedal.

So, I have been pondering a Bronco upgrade project for a while and when I saw the release of the Mark Bass Yellow line basses I decided to proceed with the short scale Bronco-a-Like bass. Mark Bass Little Bass. Over the years I have enjoyed tinkering and building Bitsa basses but the one bass tone I have never deemed necessary was a Rickenbacker sound. The Pup on the MB Little bass was a typical single coil 6 pole piece guitar Pup which didn’t excite me at all. I previously spotted an over wound Rick replacement Pup on the Retrovibe site, and it seemed to fit the bill. Once the pickguard was removed the body routing for the Pup was very generous and all I needed was a small increase in the length of the rout to accommodate the Humbucking Pup. The aperture for the Pup in the pickguard was to be honest a bit sloppy and I will probably get a replacement from Brian in the New Year. Once it all went together, I was very surprised at the Rickenbacker tone that this little bass and Pup produced. Bold, bright, fat and surprisingly smooth with the tone all the way down. I very nice project. I will probably tinker with the V&T pot values and the tone capacitor value when I get the new pickguard in the new year. Opinions anyone??

No one wants smelly tort.

I had a SR2605 - that had a 15pc neck, Panga Panga, Maple, Padauk, Purpleheart and Walnut Headstock looked like this:

Sadly not surprised by this. He came across as a bit of a dick in his autobiography tbh!

Same thing with certain vintage drum kits that came in amazing coloured wrap. Often the old wraps were beautiful, but also highly flammable, and the modern day equivalents are really difficult to match the old vintage ones. Especially the oyster pearl finishes, or moirés, even some of the Ludwig Strata or Slingerland Onyx finishes are notoriously hard to replicate. Decent vintage tort, however awful the chemicals involved were, can be spectacular when you find a good example on the right bass 👍

😂🤣 Yeah, but he just played that burpy, slidey, mwah style. He didn't need different basses for different tribute bands etc lol!

Jaco only needed one… Runs for cover!

Gentlemen, we have a winner!

Killer player, but yeah, he changes brands like I change socks. Got a bad habit of saying he wouldn't ever do something/like something, then later going on to do/use that thing.

The wonderful Ms. S. Has just secured tickets to Phil Cambell and the Bastard Sons at the O2. Apparently Alice Cooper and Judas Priest are playing too, which is a bonus.

I've been trying for the last few months to design a small board that can cover all bases. I needed to go from a simple, lightly compressed bass sound to a pulsing Moog synth for 80s tracks and a highly compressed lightly overdriven sound through to fretless bass sounds for a new covers project for 2025. It's finally finished with a little help from a few Black Friday deals. 🤠

The Facebook groups (I'm in two, there's a Statii group and a Status Basses & Guitars group) are somewhat helpful, but most threads devolve quickly into "Here's mine!", "Buy mine!" or "Sell it to me!". Status themselves are probably your best bet. Dawn and Rob are usually very helpful, giving them a phonecall will get you Dawn on the line. The company is not as active as it used to be when they still had a full staff, but they're very much still active.

Perfect! Gator Icon does the job. Just need to repack it so Santa can redeliver in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the assist!

Indeed. We play a (good) gig in Southampton where there is a flat £150 fee and the pub staff take round a beer glass and card machine towards the end. Regularly get £200 or so in that. Nice PA is also provided so load in/set up is easier.

we've done a tip bucket once, for our first gig we booked an upstairs room at a pub and to get some help filling the room we asked a water charity to join in, they did some promotion ffor us and then ran the door and took the money, the room was free (as long as the bar took enough) the only expense we had was to hire in some speakers for the evening as we didn't own any at that point, so we had a small bucket on stage with a label "tips to cover the PA Hire" we got enough to be able to put the extra back to the charity and all was good. The gig was to get us some experience as we hadn't played together live (although we had all gigged in other bands, most of our friends turned up and it was a good night all round. Matt

Using Ric-o-Sound with another clean bass amp is a worthless idea. However using it with dirty guitar amp (AND CAB) for bridge and bass amp for neck pickup gave me THE BEST dirt sound I've ever heard. And I have 17 dirt boxes on shelf

😉Dude 😂

Dave, That term " discussion " is coming up a lot . We don't have that I'm not sure why. To be fair I was ask which of our 2 dep drummers we should use for a gig. They went with my choice and I regret my choice. Back to management. I do think the decision to invest in sound and lighting was a good one. It gives us a competitive edge and it took us out of bars and pubs and moved us from a $100.00 a man band to $150.00. That's not including tips which are very lucrative in our circuit. I'm flexing a bit here. I'm not sure of the exact amount, however we collected over $700.00 in tips on Thanksgiving Eve. I hope the start up band is up and running soon. Daryl

I guess I'd open with, what is leading you towards to Quad Cortex, given your preference for what sounds like a very straightforward setup? Gut response is to go Nano, as it doesn't sound like you'll use anything but captures and IRs, but just curious.

As others have said - better to look after your back than cripple yourself. Happy noodling, and pop in every so often.

Micro board for my Pbass. The IR box was a suprise; 32 IR capability, adjustable EQ using the app, headphone and XLR out, and I paid about £20 new.

The school year I was in was probably quite unusual in that just about everyone was in a band, or at least played an instrument. One of my friends contacted me shortly after leaving school in around 1978 (he had by then changed his name to Mr X) asking if my brother (a great drummer) and I wanted to join his new band. We had one rehearsal at his mum’s house which culminated in a huge argument because my brother and I “had added flourishes” to the songs that he couldn’t live with. Neither of us had any idea we were adding flourishes or even what the flourishes were, but the 2 hour old band folded. The first band I had been thrown out of. Undeterred, Mr X gathered more compliant musicians from our school days and finally created his punk band The Stereotypes. They got label interest, recorded one four track EP, performed a debut gig, had a huge argument about a guitar solo and the band folded. Fast forward a few decades to 2011, there had been renewed interest in the band from the label mainly because the EP had become a collector’s item - mostly due to its rarity. The band reformed, recorded an album, performed one gig, had a huge argument and the band folded once more. In 2021 Mr X called me: would I be interested in re-joining The Stereotypes that my brother and I had been thrown out of in 1978? Of course I joined (what could go wrong?) and along with the original singer from our school, a guitarist we were at school with and a new drummer The Stereotypes are back in business. We’ve played four gigs and so far have had no arguments, huge or otherwise, as I type this, the band has not folded…….

Some pretty awesome p bass and tube amp tones.

Pickguard arrived yesterday, and here are the final results - I'm done tinkering with this now, it's as perfect as I can be arsed making it!

No point buying anything but a special bass (i.e. one you can’t put together simply yourself), bitsas built from Basschat/ebay/Reverb parts win on price and quality over factory basses a lot of the time, keeping a keen eye open for used components by Warmoth, Allparts, Mighty Mite, Gotoh, means you can build some cracking instruments 👍

No this year, but in 2022 one of my bands released the cover of I Believe I Father Christmas that we had been playing live for some time: It was recently listed on the Emerson Lake and Palmer YouTube channel as one of their favourite covers. My other band put out this original song last year:

Another pic, showing off the scarlet 'wine red' flamed maple top.