Leaderboard

There's been a bit of a development. I was talking to a band a while ago but it all went quiet. Yesterday I heard from them again and they sent over some new material and it's really good. I'm going to give it a good go, write some bass parts and see how it goes.

I'm a proud new owner of an MTD to show off and can't see an MTD owners thread, so here it starts! MTD Kingston Andrew Gouche AG5. Here it is in the wild: It plays very nicely, I'm impressed. The neck and fretboard are real standout features - probably the best of any 5 string I've owned, good feel and low action. Only thing I might change is I think some smoked nickel knobs would go well on it. ....and I realise that 4.1kg for a 5 string is relatively lightweight, but as it is all relative and I've owned a 3.4kg Ibanez EHB this now feels a bit heavy. I might get used to it, but once you've gone superlight it's difficult to go back!

This board is doing what I require atm. A Bright Onion 3 button aux switch is on its way though.

It often is for those of us who live here Daryl! 🤪

That neck was actually the one on the Ebay listing. So that won't be the neck I receive. However, they were kind enough to send me pictures of the neck I will receive. This is it before they packaged to send.

… and tonight’s build (whilst listening to The Tanifesto by the Tanhai Collective, and Meta-Music by The Funky Knuckles) is this Nano build. Similar to my last one, tuner-comp-preamp-DI, but with daisy chain power and no HPF: … and I’ve got a couple more to be done over the coming few days, below is a mock up of a Fretless board on a Nano +, hopefully a 5 way daisy chain will work well to power this one.

As mentioned in the SGC Nanyo thread, I have joined that gang - yesterday I acquired what I think is an SB310 with a Glockenklang preamp. Spent the afternoon restringing it (it came to me strung BEAD - my poor little brain can't handle that!) and giving it the once over - a clean, lemon oil on the fretboard, new strings, full setup, sorted out a little niggle where there was an odd screw in the bridge which stuck out because the head was too big to fit in the hole - found an M3 machine screw in my spares which had a small enough head to fit in the recess. Chrome instead of black, unfortunately, but it's a lot less noticeable than before! Only thing left to do is new knobs - these are press fit knobs but the pots on the Glockenklang are solid shaft so they kinda work but want to keep turning after the end of pot travel. Got some tasteful black flat tops coming in which are set screw fitting. I tried to find period correct ones but it seems the bevel topped ones with the white dot like the ones which SGC Nanyo used back in the day are only available as press fit - boo! I might revisit this though, been looking at ways to convert press fit knobs into set screw... Anyway, enough guff, here are some pics:

As another Monza owner here, I can only chime in with extremely positive vibes. I've had my cab a several months now, definitely way past the usual honeymoon period and yet, every single time I use it, I'm blown away with it. For a single cab, with a 1x10" speaker it is incredible. The low end is tight and punchy, all the time, but you can dial in more low end if you wish, the driver can handle it. The best word to describe it, as @cetera stated above, is, "authoritative". There is a solid presence at all volumes, that can't be ignored. I also think it would be a wonderful cab to reinforce a double bass. @stevie is also an absolute star to deal with, and although I'll likely never need it, I have another Monza on my shopping list, as soon as I can afford one. I recommend LFSys and the Monza especially to anyone that'll listen!

Really interested in your experience. Declaration here: @stevie is a friend and we've shared ideas on the home build designs we've published on Bass Chat. Two or thre years ago at the SouthWest Bass Bash I took along a pair of new designs of my own for people to have a look at. I'd been following a discussion here on amplifying double bass and I thought one of them in particular would work well for DB. I ran live sound for a couple of years a very long time ago so I know all about the problems. Well I grabbed a DB player and got him to try my 8" design which did work well reinforcing the sound without overwhelming it and making it sound like a double bass. I was fgeeling pretty pleased with myself but we also had a prototype Monza there. Effectively the 10" version of the Monaco. I knew about the highly damped bass response and all the care that had gone into the crossover design and horn and driver selection and been there when some of the frequency plots had been made so I suggested we try that with the DB. It blew my little 8 out of the water, absolutely gorgeous. I know the response of the BB3 too, it isn't as flat as the LFSys and the drive units aren't as sophisticated. Keeping any resonances controlled and reducing them by 3db will give you 3db extra headroom. I'm not saying how much the difference will be in practice but I'm not surprised from the measurements that you've found it works that way. Equally the magnet systems in the Faital drivers Stevie uses are unusually powerful and keep the cone movement well damped reducing the bloom you get in a lot of commercial bass cabs which contributes to bass feedback. The price difference is irrelevant to the performance. The Monaco uses better components than the Barefaced and is a bit of a secret bargain if FRFR is what you want.

I've thought about that too but not only the horns are cut off, the upper- and end part of the centre piece (below the armrest) is also partly cut off, that makes it difficult... i think you can only use is when the body is fully covered with lacquer.. so i think its easier to build an entire new body....

I'm a real sucker for import models of boutique brands, here's my KZ6. Lovely neck and punch for days.

And it would be full if BCers wanting to meet the famous bass player. If not the other side of the country I'd make the effort to be there with my autograph book in hand Daryl. 🤣 Dave

Take it Caerphilly...

Remember a cople of weeks ago when I said "For every decent gig I do, there's fifty rubbish pub gigs that make me think "Why do I bother...?""? Well, I did TWO of them this weekend with the Cantina Band. Friday was the Meathead's Arms in Sutton Coldfield, hardly anyone there, we played well, my current squeeze came to see us for the first time and loved it, which was nice. Saturday was a Rugby Club do - we assumed it would be a great gig and it was for the first five songs, then everyone started drifting away and by the end there were about ten people there. The highlight was going for a wireless wander (out of boredom) and discovering the cheese table at the back - I played half the last song one handed while eating celery and Red Leicester. Ho hum, paid rehearsals!

Thanks all. I think the conclusion is to bite the bullet and put in the miles so that is what I shall do!

This is a fun little board I put together yesterday. The Ultra Wah is a somewhat rare Behringer pedal aimed at guitar rather than real musicians like us. So I've put it in the loop of the Orthros usually reserved for drives with no clean blend. It's a lovely snappy fresh wah and mixed with the clean tone works very well. Similarly the Lizard Queen is too thin for the fundamental nature of our instrument but fizzes and snarls wonderfully on top of the clean. The interesting thing I came across was the placement of the C4. Originally at the end of the chain it seemed to lose much of its effect. So I switched it to the start and it's great.

I wonder if giving it a picture of a 1-string bass would freak it out?

Our manager/sound guy is a fanatic about keeping the stage area clean. So much that nobody goes near him or touches or moves anything until he's done setting up. We can't look at anything either. Daryl

This Saturday, we're doing a record shop show which coincidentally kick starts world goth day celebrations in the UK.

Thanks both of you. However as I always say great gig photos are just as much down to having a good photographer, good lighting and not too much clutter in the "stage" area as they are to the band looking and acting interesting when they perform.

Last one before Friday’s prog extravaganza. I made a load of silly mistakes so hopefully they’re out of my system. As it’s prog I took the kitchen sink: - two basses (Wal and FrankenJazz) - pedalboard - acoustic guitar and stand up player stand - BB2 and power amp that was going to be for the bass pedals but in the end was an expensive, but rather nice sounding monitor for the acoustic through a TwoNotes Opus - Alesis Strikepad loaded with two kits for the drummer, one with rototoms and a pad for the clocks at the beginning of time, and a second with two pairs of timpani, one tuned for Fanfare for the Common Man and the other for Life on Mars - I had the McMillen 12Step and bits to connect to soft synths on my iPad for bass pedals, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I shan’t use those. I can get by with the Source Audio C4 on the pedalboard. Friday we have a non proggy support who I don’t know (our guitarist does and I found a couple of videos) but have been asked to share kit and amps. I was going to take both BB2’s to run separate rigs for bass and basspedals/acoustic and I always carry a spare amp so I’ll probably just run up both rigs and he can tweak the spare then I’ll swap it out for the power amp. Had a bizarre “cheese dream” about it last night where we soundchecked in a wooden shack scout hut then I went out to sort out sharing my gear only to come back and find the drums and bass gear stripped from the stage, taken outside and unceremoniously dumped in a deep crater. I woke up as my WTAF rant started 😳 I’m sure it’ll be fine 🤣 Used the FrankenJazz that’s my current main squeeze most of the night, but swapped to the Wal at the end of the first set and first couple of the second. Both sounded great and I’d have used the Wal more but didn’t have my Duo strap and my shoulder started complaining. I love the Wal dearly, it was my only bass for a good 20 years but damn she’s a heavy old girl.

Just got back. Was asked to help out a band I know whose bassist is planning to move to keyboards, after their keys player left for health reasons. We had fun going through the eleven songs I'd learned, then jammed a whole load of others. I already knew I was invited to join them for a drink and a discussion on the future of the band... Long story short, I want more gigs but not too many. They want a similar amount of gigs and are happy to go out as a four piece (keys move back to bass) if I can't make a gig. The great thing is, every time I've seen them I've really enjoyed it and felt that it was songs I'd enjoy playing. About 25% CCR, the rest is music in a similar vein.

Sounds like you didn't give e-dam about it!

Took a little trip to the seaside this weekend, down to Dorset. I was walking along the beach when I saw a bloke and a woman shouting, and then they started fighting. It got so bad that the police turned up, but instead of calming things down the copper started hitting the guy with his baton. Then the bloke got hold of the baton and started hitting his wife AND the copper. Then just when I couldn’t imagine things getting any worse, a crocodile turned up and stole all the sausages.

One band i was in back in the late 90s (in thd UK) used to only really play pubs and clubs. We'd be on at 8.30 or 9.00 usually. Drummer would be in first, rest of us would turn up 15/20 mins before the start. Set up, tune up silently, no playing other than an odd note to make sure your amp was working. On the dot... 1.2.3.4.... and off we'd go. A quick volume twiddle mid intro and we were rocking for the next two hours. In France, polar opposite, they all wanted to get to a gig 5 hours early. Drove me mad. Without meaning to sound condescending, a lot of it is down to experience and familiarity with the venues.

In the end it’s just a piece of wood…

I'd go for string-tree functionality over adhering to aesthetic tradition any day. On the 54 style I built, there was never a doubt I would use a 3-string tree to have continuity over the break angle across all the strings. The only people who would notice are a moniority of bassists and they're the ones you wouldn't want to be stuck in a lift with 😉

All 4, and thanks for the offer but I'd rather muller some Musiclily knockoffs than some OG knobs because I'm going to be making press fit knobs work with solid shaft pots

That's a signature pedal and the artist would have to request a change. Even at that, we would have to lose the tuner due to the current limitations of phantom power. Personally I'd just add an inexpensive DI box. If you want something similar, the VT Bass DI would be closest but it depends how you dial it in.

So, last year the guitarist and singer were having a back and forth with various technical sketches to work out how to incorporate wireless IEMs for the singer.... And I drew this.

Instead of wasting vast amounts of computing power on AI-generated images, you could go old school and actually draw something. Here's an illustration I did of me.

Playing any kind of UK gig would be surreal for me. Daryl

Personally I'd ignore the broken one (ie leave it where it is) and just use the other 4 screws - I doubt it'll make a lot of difference.

Having let the new strings/setup settle down, I had another razz on it last night, this time using the TC BH250 into a decent set of headphones. Sounds good to me! One thing I noticed is that with the Glockenklang preamp, passive with the tone all the way up sounds pretty much identical to active with the treble all the way down and bass at neutral. Dunno if that's how it's supposed to be but I found it quite amusing - a sort of "huh" moment of realisation. Still unsure if I like the sound of it better in passive or active - won't know that for sure until I play it with a band. Concerning weight/lightness, I find it odd - I weighed it on the bathroom scales and came back with 3.4kg/7.5lbs. Now normally I'm not keen on how anything below about 8lbs feels (insubstantial/throwaway/toy-like) but this one doesn't feel that way - there's heft or substance there which shouldn't be and it feels both light and serious at the same time. Brains are soft and squishy and very suggestible, dunno what else to tell you.

Yes - I'm definitely phoenixed out nowadays for doing this sort of stuff (spirit willing, hands not) but the fantastic and innovative ideas folks come up with with modding still fascinates me. And I know how I would tackle the back wing if I was doing it. I would probably need to draw a sketch, but basically I would recreate the general shape and visual effect of the two beauties that @RonC pasted above by: - routing the top rear bout from the back of the body, halving the thickness. - shaping the existing edge to the shape of the transition I wanted. - cutting a piece of contrasting wood and route a mirror step so that it would slot in at back that I'd removed and shape that to the 'correct' shape of the rear bout - I would add a sliver of contrasting light maple for the witness line - Glue it in - Carve the bout to the correct profile No idea at the moment what I would do to correct the 'SG' spikes of the front cutaways...

As in cheese bored?🥱

It was a Feta-ccompli!

Sounds like a brie-ze!

7.00am this morning - in the cool of the yard outside our Oil City workshop - I took off the extra unwanted neck heel - bringing the neck angle to 90 degrees. This was a bit of a 'brown trouser job' as a cock up here could ruin the whole neck. I am getting used to the Japanese saw ... it's very strange cutting on the draw stroke - but by the Lord Harry it razors through maple like soft wood! That's a huge slab of American oak everything is clamped to - somebody just fly-tipped down the road from my house a few weeks ago - amazing what some folks throw out! I got thing mostly bang on - with a bit of end grain No4 Stanley plane work which was pretty soon sorted. The only slight downer is that I now find out the base of the neck pocket itself is a tad out of true with the bass centre line - clearly their production tolerances were a bit iffy - so a little bit of extra plane work will be needed. The lower part of the heel also needs tapered down a lot ... but that's not so 'mission critical'.

I played two gigs this weekend with blues rock band ‘ The Alligators’. Saturday night we were at a pub on the east coast, which we’d done before. Not many punters in when we started our first set, and then quite a few left due to a guy who was off his head ( not from drink) floundering dangerously around the dance floor in front of the small stage. At one point he tried climbing the stairs onto the stage, so I stopped playing and gave him my best death stare, something I’m not great at to be fair. Amazingly he backed off ( thank god) but by this time the damage was done. Second set was brought forward and only saved by a group of ladies coming in on a night out. Got paid and then beat a hasty retreat - we have two more dates at this venue later in the year, but I’m not keen to return. Sunday’s gig was entirely different, thank goodness. Nice pub in Filey where we played a late afternoon session, starting at 4pm and finishing around 6.30pm. We had nearly a full pub of blues fans, including a few local musos, and went down really well. The landlady is soon moving to another venue in West Yorkshire and wants us to play there, so could be interesting. Used my usual passive Precision Lyte straight into my Rumble 500, along with a very comfortable ( but potentially uncool/embarrassing ) pair of Clark’s trainers. No photos of the gigs, but a nice one of Filey looking towards Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve. Also for the vintage gear heads, a shot of our ancient ( (1970’s?) Peavey PA amp - and yes, those are jack inputs 😆

Played The Lending Room in Leeds on Saturday supporting The Faces Of Sarah. It's a decent-sized venue with a great PA and lighting system, but is upstairs from a student pub. Every time, no matter what time of year, I have been here, the pub downstairs has been rammed full of students all in fancy dress getting very drunk. It's a complete contrast to the audience upstairs. A slightly smaller crowd than usual, but still very appreciative. Plenty of people down the front dancing. Fewer problems than two weeks ago. The footswitch problem appears to have been solved by a different choice of footwear and the wireless bug stayed firmly attached to my bass. However our singer managed to forget the words to the second verse of a different song to last time. Still sold a decent amount of T-shirts and CDs afterwards. We're close to selling out of copies of "Lost Souls", we have two gigs coming up in a fortnight's time and after those they may well all be gone. As usual gig photos courtesy of Oh My Goth: Next gigs are in two week's time first on Saturday 24th May in Bradford at the 1-12 Club as part of the ReVamped event and then on Sunday 25th in Nottingham at The Chapel as part of the Dot-To-Dot Festival.

Poor Scott really could do with a script. If only he could get straight to the point now and again.

Nope. If all you play is simplistic stuff - three chord pop songs, etc - and have a fixed set of a couple of dozen of them that never varies, then a safety net is not necessary. My function band has getting on for a couple of hundred numbers we can play if required. Some only see the light of day once or twice a year. Some hardly ever. It isn't possible to keep them all in a state of readiness, so we have charts. Most of the time, they aren't used, but if someone requests something we haven't played for a year or more, an aide memoire is needed. The same applies to classical players and jazzers, as pointed out already.