Leaderboard

It has arrived.

I was listening to some songs from my old band the other week and kinda missed my maple necked P bass, glorious Fender Japan '57ri sunburst with a gold plate I added (if you have it give me a shout!) ... so went looking on eBay at maple necked Precisions.... Years back I lived in Glasgow for a year and found an old beat up Cimar 1905 model Jazz bass from 1975ish bought it knowing a friend was going to have it, @Bassassin helped me fix it up, and it was just fun thing, fun to play and a bright bouncy sound.... nice. I regretted selling it to the mate (although he has loved it since.) And then in my search on eBay for a precision I found a Jazz like the cimar ... and stuck in a bid... and lost.... A week later I got a second chance offer and a few days later it arrives - sold as broken from someone selling for a family member. So other than knowing what it was maybe going to be like a bit of a risk... So it's a Japanese made 1975-76 ish Jazz bass, the headstock is branded Diplomat who I think were a kiwi distributor, but it's very close to both the other one and assassin's one - so Cimar/Ibanez/ Fujigen build probably. It's ash and maple, kinda cheap - pressed tuners that look cheap but seem to work well, square end bridge, the old curved end Japanese pickups, the most evil bridge design known to man, the pots which need replaced and just a bright engaging tone... first thing I found taking it out the box was wasn't far off being in tune that the neck relief was spot on. A good sign. Though the action was High. Then I noticed that the evil bridge had something missing... so the evil sticky out screws to adjust the height are on the bottom, with the nice rounded ends facing up (an improvement) - but the adjustment screws... erm... but the intonation was pretty much spot on... And then soldering the wires back - I imagin they were broken when the old owner tried to fix the dodgy pots... and it comes alive... And yeah they feel, look and sound like TI jazz flats on it too! So yeah my new precision bass ...

I found this guy on Youtube. He is spot on. Everything he mentions has happened to me and I can totally relate to all of his experiences, even though he lives and gigs in Australia.

So I had to engage in a glue fight to get the fingerboard glued on ... hide glue everywhere including my bench, the floor, my hand towel, countless rags to clean up squeeze out ... er and my eyebrows! So from this ... to this ... A couple of hours on the bass before work today - went in for 7.00 as I wanted peace and quiet to do the glue up ... with no phone ringing! After 'gluemageddon' and a couple of hours of clamping ... Neck bolts snugged up to a pair of temporary nuts ... and technically the bass could be strung up and tested tomorrow ... but I've a few more things to do yet. The nuts are temporary as I found the stainless steel neck bolts I had bought are about 10mm too long to tighten fully ... gurrr ... more on order from Accu. I glued in the nut and started doing sone assessment of how much needs to be trimmed off the bridge feet to match them to the belly curve. not much as it goes. Looking forward to hearing its first notes in perhaps 30+ years soon. Then it'll be looking to a re finish.

That’s very tough on him, best wishes to him and his family 🙏

Rehearsing with Taffman and Daffodil tonight... so we'll have a go at the theme song...

I have to say that my Monza is not lacking in any way. It is a very early one and still rocks my socks.

After a mare of a practice where the kemper wasn’t happy wanted to not rely on with the midi side of things so I’m switching from the kemper controller to the Morningstar mc6 and I’ll run the midi out to switch a few things on the kemper in time obviously it will work well with the ML10x under the hood the sl20 was a pog 2 but it’s poorly pattern trem after fuzz sounds cool

Nothing can be "too vintage" for me, that why I like it! I do play a vintage P bass with LaBella flats on though. Rob

Currently working on the moves for a Weeds dance routine... https://fb.watch/z-V2O2C-nN/

Thank you for your service 🫡 Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on them!

Finally got these pickups routed out, I paid a local luthier to do this as I couldn't trust myself. I've fitted an old vintage modified p bass squier neck for now, nut will source a decent maple neck soon. Just need to wire it up all at the weekend and try it out

it needs a bit of care, 120Hz should be fine, but if you go higher and start to get low male vocal in the subs things can start to sound a bit strange.

Lol we use Accu quite a bit ... they are a really good solution for difficult to find things - like tiny M1.6 Allen headed cap machine screws ... we use these to replace drilled out rivets in some old Hofner pickups when we rewind them ... as we invariably have to! Handy on some old DeArmond stuff too.

Just polishing up my J4 after quite a bit of use. Can never get over how cool this top is!

Last night was a spin off from the originals band. We're doing Postmodern Jukebox style stuff. Just upright bass, guitar, drums and vox, so we're arranging things differently as we haven't got the orchestration. It's good fun and was sounding great. Certain songs I need to be warmed up for, as walking bass lines on the upright can take their toll 😆

That was unexpectedly disturbing.

Pictures of an Exhibitionist - Modeste Mussorgsky (and ELP!)

I think you'll love the Three10 Paul. The Elf is noticeably better through multiple speakers at 4ohms. I've not yet had to use it on a bigger gig, but I do have confidence that it would get me through a gig, any gig in fact. I have used it as the main amp in small rooms with a jazz band and a funk band, and in the huge cavernous space in Lancaster Priory. On the Priory gig it was DI'd, and the engineer was very happy with the DI it provided. Rob

I use TI flats in a Foo Fighters tribute, absolutely works wonderfully. Flats can 100% rock hard with nice lows and the mids really cut with the TI's. I use Daddario Half Rounds on my Rippers with a Nirvana Tribute too.

Well, Ill just have to find out myself, got some on their way from La Bella direct

Thank you for the likes, it all helps me on the road back! This really is a very supportive and worthwhile community!

A badly cut nut is the obvious culprit. How much of a gap is there between the bottom of the string and the top of the first fret? Are the other strings the same height off the first fret and showing the same problem? Have you tried a different string?

So the evil day of cutting the 'access' hatch came. I'd racked my brains to find a mechanised way to do it ... but there was simply no way. This was going to be protracted and painful. I made up a saw doohickey using a chopped off coping saw blade ... with a screw holding it into a little handle and waded in. I used a school compass to mark out a circle, a tiny drill to slot a starting hole and found to my surprise that the C panel was only about 1/8th of an inch thick. This meant that I could only cut on the back stroke ... ie the wrong way ... and it took a very very very very very very long time ... and absolutely crippled my wrist! Mr Blobby had clearly been about with the glue inside! And done And a new sound post will need to be made ... the original wasn't even a gentle push fit ... it took a bit of 1/4 inch scrap wood to get it to wedge into place. Something has shrunk methinks! Well it comes to us all with age I suppose. I shall make up a reenforcing flange to glue around the access hatch (probably three or four laminations of thin ply) and due to the really thin nature of the C panel I will have to make some bracing ribs for the hatch cover - as well as a decorative knob (ooer Missus) to be screwed onto it to facilitate easy removal against the pull of the ring of neodymium magnets I intend to set into the flange and hatch cover to keep it in place and stop rattles.

An update as I started this . After about two months I put my La bella deep talking flats back on my P bass, and then even started to think about selling it. But having trawled through various comparison videos on the Tube, I thought i would try a set of La bella low tension flats. Have to say guys wow wow wow, love these, amazing tone really unbelievable tone, I had not expected such a variation in tone across the sets. totally sold on these now. It is always bit of an expensive decision to go and spend money on trying various Flats. These were not too bad at £42 but some are silly money. Anyway just in case any of you were wondering about these. well worth it. Back in love with the ole CS now.

Latest incarnation of my board, transplanted onto a Pedaltrain Metro 20 kindly supplied by our own @spacecowboy. This will probably be the last incarnation of the doubling board (for electric, acoustic, EUB, and double bass). If I acquire any more pedals I’ll probably split between an electric board, and a second board for the acoustic, EUB, and double bass gigs.

Hello! Here’s my pedalboard. I play in a lot of festivals with multiple bands per stage and normally, musicians have to be ready to play in zero time. Since I was always struggling with monitoring, I made a box that goes under the pedalboard that feeds my in ear monitoring system (X Vive PX System) and for the DI out. Works great and I just have to unplug 4 cables and I’m fliyng out of the stage. In the next weeks will be added an Arkham Oracle Bass Preamp

I've been playing all evening and absolutely loving the sounds I'm getting from it. Dirty channel on my Revolt preamp pedal, both pickups on full, and it sounds huge.

Welcome come on in !

The The return jack can be used as a stereo audio input when adding a return block to the end of the signal chain on the Anagram and mixed accordingly.

Yes - That's I think you're probably right. In reality, it isn't the alleged major change of musical direction that I (maybe/probably) wouldn't have been interested in that angered me, it's the sly and underhand way that I was replaced and ousted that grated my gears. For me, that's not an acceptable way of behaving in any walk of life. I've moved on, and I'm already talking to another band about possibly joining them.

I remember them as a nice bunch of lads. They used to frequent a local jamnight I went to years back every Friday when they were learning their trade.

Oh yes - and remember the golden rule "Always tune UP to pitch" If you are sharp, detune past the note and then adjust back up. This ensures that any backlash in the tuners is eliminated and also ensures that the tension of the coils on the post is at a consistent level.