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I found this beauty on eBay a while back, being sold by a fella in Japan. It’s a 2022 masterbuilt, but it had just been sat doing nothing and never bought or owned by anyone. I wasn’t in the market for a new bass (I am picking up a new Shuker any day now), but the opportunity to get this at about 40% of the list price (yes, Warwick list prices are silly) couldn’t be ignored. I have owned other Warwick basses and other high end basses, but this is something else. My iphone pictures won’t do it justice. It feels stunning, the neck is silky and plays like butter and it’s so beautiful to look at. Hope you all like it!

… what can i say, i’m in love..

Accidentally bought this over the weekend, it arrived today. Very impressive little thing.

Accidentally bought this on eBay over the weekend. Very impressed with it, though the 18-fret fingerboard may take some getting used to! Pickups very punchy, nice variation with the tone, not as heavy as some reviews had suggested. Happy days!

In truth my fave gig for many years, not the most competent or accomplished but extremely satisfying. First outing for BandKamp, a bunch of friends getting together to rehearse an iconic album for 2-3 months, and then gig it live once and once only before moving on to the next iconic album. First was yesterday when we did Dylan's Blonde on Blonde (tying it in with the Chalomet movie) at The Ballroom in Canterbury, which is a lovely venue. We were expecting an audience of about 10 but to our amazement had around 120. We played the set our way and had a ball doing so, and had people dancing; to Dylan! A few folks said the same thing afterwards; I don't really like Dylan but really like your set. Job done 👍 Hard to let the album go as over 3-months we've come to love it, but as we've all agreed, we're not in a relationship with it, we've simply had a brief flirtation. Time to move on

There's something almost pathetic about those who think they are gatekeepers of being a 'real bass player' according to what brand, value or style of bass you play.

Fun evening ahead. (The Puppy is a loaner.)

My trio of Squier P basses The sunburst PJ is a VM The white PJ started life as a Affinity but I acquired a CV 70’s neck from Spacecowboy from this very parish, Hi-mass bridge, custom loom & a set of Toneriders. The orange is a real bitsa, with the original affinity neck from the white one, a ratty body from Orangepeelneil & the rest mostly raided from my spares bin..The Neo Entwistle pickup gives it a great punky JJ rasp

I think you're confusing 'professional' and 'elite'. Most professional players play off the shelf basses, and I'm sure plenty of them own and play Squiers. My DPD delivery guy doesn't get to drive Max Verstappen's F1 car, but they're both professional drivers.

The 40th Anniversary Precision I have plays better than most Fender's I've tried. When I bought it, my intention was to buy a CS but this blew them out the water. Great basses.

"Almost"? It's 100% sad.

Didn’t they use nitro on the headstocks and that’s why they discoloured more than the poly body from 68 ish

What a great question and the answer is actually quite subtle and probably something we all ought to know if we are playing amplified music. Now the first thing is how do we measure loudness? Most people would say 'in decibels' but that's not quite right. The actual measurement of loudness is the phon. More of that later. The decibel is actually a slightly difficult concept and is used to describe slightly different things, it can be used to describe the electrical gain in an amplifier or preamplifier or the sound energy level at a particular point, they are of course closely related but not the same thing. For that reason the decibel (more accurately the Bel isn't accepted as a SI unit though it is regulated and recognised by ISO and IEC). It was initially invented by Bell (the telephone company)for measuring the loss along a mile of standard telegraph cable with one decibel being the smallest loss that anyone would notice and 1dB remains the smallest change in volume that anyone will notice. The other way the decibel reflects our hearing is that it is a logarythmic scale. For us to hear a doubling of volume it takes 10x more power. It's a brilliant piece of organic/evolutionary engineering which lets us hear a leaf blowing across a forest floor several meters away but still cope with a herd of elephants charging or even a volcano or landslide. It's not so good when you are buying an amplifier, a 10W amp will give you 10dB over a 1W amp but that will only double the sound level. If you want it four times louder then you need to increase the amp to 100W to get your extra 10dB. Then if you want it eight times louder you will need 1000W. Sorry to tell you this but moving out your 500W bass amp for an 800W monster gives you just over 1dB extra headroom, only just noticeable and not really worth the expense. Now this is all about gain so far and in and the concept of the db. It so happens that in their telegraph cables at the time you got 1dB loss for each mile mile of cable and in amps doubling the power gives you an extra 3dB of sound. Go back and have a look at BFM's excellent explanation of what happens with 2x10's and 4x10's and you can see what a good deal an extra 6db from more speakers is compared with the puny 1dB gained by buying an 800W amp So this is where we move from sound levels to actual loudness, how it sounds to us and the reason why some amps sound louder than others, the mystery or Trace watts if you like. Sound is frequency dependent humans can't hear bass very well, we feel bass when it's loud, our ears aren't much better at picking up bass than the stretch receptors in our guts and on our skin, Similarly we don't hear bats very well or anything much above a few thousand Hz, our hearing is much more sensitive at around 1,000Hz quite high in the midrange and the quietest sounds we can only detect here, the rustle of that leaf blown through the forest. When we remove the measuring microphone and pressure measurements we start again with a new decibel scale. One decibel is now defined differently as the quietest sound we can hear at 1,000Hz, something twice as loud (still at 1,000hz) is 10dB and your bass speaker producing 90db is 1,000,000,000 times louder than that at 1khz with just one watt or less! but at bottom E our hearing has lost most of that energy, deliberately filtered out by the working of the ear and then by the brain. You've lost 30dB or three of those noughts or in terms of hearing the 1.000Hz noise if 8x louder than the fundamental of bottom E. This is where the Phon comes in, it compares all the sound with the 1kHz sounds and allows for all the trickery of the ear/brain interface. Very few people use Phon's, we use decibels because we can measure them and anyone using measuring equipment will know about Phons and equal loudness, but there's one big practical thing about knowing all this for musicians who don't regularly get the ossciloscope and measuring mic out. I terms of perception any aplification systen that emphasises the midrange is going to sound louder and for a long time speakers in particular have tended to have huge peaks in the midrange to make them sound louder. A 6db boost isn't unusual and this can make a cheap 100W amp sound as loud as a 400W amp with a more honest speaker. Actually the whole of rock'n'roll was founded on that peaky miidrange sound so I shouldnt use words like honest, people love this artificial boost and it sounds good to them. The thing for you when buying an amp is to realise that Trace, Orange and many others are made to sound loud by some tricks engineers all know and if your tone rolls off those frequencies you might not be as loud. If you've read all this I apologise, I'm such a nerd As a final treat these are the equal loudness curves ISO version

A mock up of my board before it gets all wired up. I still might swap out the Darkglass compressor for the new Cali 76 though.

It has arrived!

I gigged my Ashdown 200 Drophead for the first time on Saturday and could not have been happier. Tone was fatter and smoother than I'd get for the same volume with SVT but could still bit like an angry Jack Russell when needed. And I have to say, of all the big tube heads, I thing Ashdown take the prize for best aesthetics also, especially mine....

Just wanted to post a final update and say that I purchased the TC Electronic BH250 and BC208 from a local seller for £280 all in and I'm more than very happy with it. Big thanks to all for your input even though i came across as picky and indecisive 😆👍

tonight’s practice rig

Beings I started this thread a few years ago, here’s my current set up! The Sampeg SVT CL into a Fender Neo 8x10. Overkill in every sense of the word. Tone and volume for days, though I usually keep it sensible. Usually… Sounds incredible. @Bassworks JPJ4 featuring in front - a wonderful bass, outstanding craftsmanship. Hot take, but an 8x10 is far, far easier to move around than a 4x10, even up stairs. Happy to arm wrestle anyone who thinks otherwise.

Fingers crossed for Thursday... odd early evening gig but we've pushed the fact our frontman/guitarist was supporting Cardinal Black for a huge sellout gig on Saturday.

I would love to persuade some guys to do either Supper's Ready, or the whole of Chronicle of the Black Sword.

Finally got my latest video uploading - I bring to you the new Mark 2 version of the Lusithand Double NFP Special. Spoiler, I like it a lot. Edit: Hmm, some of the audio is clipping. I am going to re-upload it. Edit 2: Fixed the audio. New version coming now; new link below.

I worry that matter might meet anti-matter if you two meet 🙂

I can pop it on the bathroom scales. Not sure how accurate they are though, they keep telling me I’m getting heavier.

We only play about 5 times a year (at the same venue). We charge £420, as we hire in the PA each time, but tend to always pretty much pack the place, so everyone's happy.......

Yeah! 2024 ended exceptionally well with no less than two Brooks bass guitars in the Top10 of No Treble. And 2025 continues that with yet another Brooks bass featured as Bass of the Week! https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2025/01/20/bass-of-the-week-the-upgraded-brooks-1-2-short-scale-inspired-by-a-classic/

I'm always keeping half an eye out on what Squier are doing. Apart from anything else for the last few years the finishes available on Squier's skinny stringers have been a lot more appealing to me than the rather bland offerings in the Fender Player range. Also, every now and then Squier does something really cool like the baritone Jazzmasters a few years back or the FSR run of purple Bass VI's they did for Andertons a couple of years ago. That purple VI has become one of my main squeezes and at the time I bought it there was no equivalent Fender model in any range outside the custom shop. I'd take a punt on a Squier tomorrow if saw something that ticked the right boxes.

Yes 😈

Why would anyone buy strings from eBay? As far as I am concerned eBay is for buying second hand items only, and I wouldn't want to buy used strings.

We get a bit more than that but there are fewer venues these days. Although I don't think we have ever done less than 2 hours, unless it was a slot at a multiband venue.

Stub, what was interesting, the couple I sat down with knew me, but I had no clue who they were. They had seen me at our New Years Eve 2023 gig at The Precinct. They had met my girlfriend and was asking about her and made comments about how nice she was. This was the night my girlfriend had too much to drink and flashed our bandleaders father. Yes, I'm "internationally renowned." Lol Daryl

Saturday night was our second gig of this year at Hogarths in Bolton. A decent sized venue and usually quite busy. It was fairly packed while we were playing and our two spots went down really well. They even went a bit mad when we played one of our own songs off our album. Back in September.

I was home by 6 00. It was -3°. Sunday afternoon bar gig. Dep drummer, a good amount of dancing and lots of mistakes and sketchy endings. Good pay and good tips. My gear was functioning properly. I sat down at a table and spoke to some nice folks. I pretended I was famous.Sad 😔 Daryl

Yes, certainly safer than ebay. I got a beautiful Japanese precision neck here.

Ha ha, I wish, that's a way down the line Mick, but it - or Quadrophenia - are going to happen Next is an interesting shift in direction, Odelay by Beck, gigging it in April al going well 👍

Perhaps place an advert in the wanted section here on BC? Someone might have a decent quality neck they're no longer using... Worth a shot, I'd say.

On it's way today!

I'd be very wary of spending that much sight unseen. If you can find another 100 you could have Jon Shuker make you one, and going by what I hear here you're guaranteed it's going to be as good as it gets.

Err, it's someone's actual name.

TimeTree works OK for us.

I've not used the B6, but had been considering it vs the GX-10 and I've owned a few Boss and Zoom Multi-FX pedals. Personally, I chose the GX-10 because of: Boss build quality/reliability. I haven't had issues with Zoom things but Boss stuff feels more sturdy/reliable to me. Boss sound/effects: I might be wrong, but I think the GX-10 has the BB-1X and BC-1X software within it - both were on my shopping list, the BC-1X has almost universally good reviews, whereas I've not been much of a fan of Zoom compressors and I find compressors to be a key thing for Bass. GX-10 seems more powerful for effects chains/routing: 15x effect blocks vs B6 6x effect blocks. GX-10 can have a parallel effect signal path, B6 can not. Size: GX-10 is small enough to fit in my gigbag, or could potentially be added to a bigger pedalboard. Expression pedal: GX-10 isn't just a normal expression pedal: Heel down = tuner, toe press = switch to engage effects, can program quite complex things like adjusting parameters past a certain sweep of the pedal. The B6 wins out of some things though, the main ones seem to be more in/Outs & more footswitches. And although they are approx. the same price new, there are now second hand B6's available (one for £200 on here).

I'd go so far as to say a blanket statement about any manufacturer or line of basses isn't worth listening to. Usually it's just a bunch of hearsay campfire scare stories about "QC" - do one!

I did squonk once with no group practice as a one off. It would have gone better if I had sung it.

That's still pretty cheap, if you don't mind me saying 😀 Trick around here. £300 is pretty much the limit for most venues, you gave to accept that a pub or smaller club doesn't or can't get a huge audience.

I started a project with a drummer last year. We’re writing a handful of songs & hope to be gigging them this year. We have a vocalist who also plays acoustic guitar, the drummer has an ekit & includes a couple of multi pad controllers, and I play a mix of synth & loops & control the flow of the song arrangements. So after some tweaking & working out what I need to get this going we’ll, I’ve added a Launchpad Pro. Not only can it control much of Logic (which I use as a host and the band feed into it too), but it has a built in 4 track poly sequencer. So there’s the temptation to try just it & the Jupiter for some stuff. It’s got a bit of a Saturday Night Fever vibe going on.

Hi Dave, What I don't get is everyone blamed me for that stunt. I was sober and didn't flash anyone. My good friend and great drummer told me that's all anyone's ever going to remember you from. Daryl

Fourth gig of January so far Satdy night, pretty busy pub (thank Buddha that virtue-signalling nonsense Dry January has faded away; all it does is shut pubs), the punters enjoyed it and danced in between the tables, and I got to watch the American Football on a big screen right in my eyeline over the bar (we really must change the setlist up a bit; I play it 90% on muscle memory these days). No nutters, for a nice change...sorry... On the point earlier, we've put the money up to £300 for 2 x 45s for a trio, no-one's complaining and the diary's filling up... As always, cheapo lightweight P, Stomp, inears. Still unidentified trainers (I'll look at them properly for next time, promise..)

This is what I know Ok you're watching a video or at a live show , the Bass player is playing a fender bass and it sounds really good, Any professional BASS PLAYER doesn't buy a bass off the shelf, then uses said Bass , UNTIL HE OR SHE GETS THE fender BASS he got probably from Fender directly built exactly the way he wants it .for $0.00.00 I'm not saying Fender squires are shit BUT it is just one their bottom of the barrel basses , That In my opinion is a bass not worth the price fender wants for it and them. Ya want an off the shelf fender squier . Kool spend about another $700.00 to upgrade pretty much the entire bass. If you're a newbie to the bass guitar Buy a Fender Squire :?) Again this is about a personal Experience . I don't and won't play any Fender Bass again . doesn't matter if it's fenders cheapest bass or their most expensive. If you like fender BASSes Why would you care what I think about them