Leaderboard

Tempted by a 6-string fretless on the Gardiner Holgate, I put in a low bid (below the lowest estimate) and won it. Went down to their auction house today to pick it up, and also picked up a guitar that one of my guitarists had bought - saved him a 5 hour round trip which would have been difficult as he works in the week, so it was just me with a 5 hour round trip (a different 5 hour round trip to his). Anyroadup, it came in a rather nice Gator case (£150 quid). Description for the auction: 2018 Greg Barcus Custom six string fretless bass guitar, made in USA; Body: chambered mahogany body with figured maple top and figured myrtle back; Neck: seven-ply maple and bubinga neck through; Fingerboard: ebony; Electric: working, Bartolini quad-coil pickups, John East five knob preamp; Hardware: good; Case: Gator hard case; Overall condition: very good. As some may have noticed from the photos, it's a single cut. I never thought I'd buy one but my tolerance to the looks has increased gradually. It's also got a headstock. Well, there's no such thing as the perfect bass. On taking it out of the case, at first I thought the neck was a bit thick, then I realised it's an asymmetric cut which works really well for me - more perceptibly asymmetric than my Sei Original 5-string. It's lined with faint lines (if it's got to be lined, I far prefer these) and also, admirably, with the dot markers on the fret positions. Action was a bit high for my liking but a small tweak to the twin truss rods and adjustment of the bridge saddles has it nice and low. Strings are roundwounds with colour-coded ball ends - I guess D'Addarios. As I like rounds on fretlesses, they're staying. I'm pretty sure the strap buttons are Schaller, I'll check that with a strap or two tomorrow. I haven't yet plugged it in - the five knob (two of them stacked, two of them push-pull) preamp will provide hours of amusement, and I have to find out the functions of the three switches. This will be tomorrow's fun. The logic behind getting it is that with the originals band, I'm using a fretless as it's the most flexible for me. Currently a 5-string but I'm wondering whether I can push myself into more exploration with a 6-string.

Since my last band split almost a decade ago I completely fell out of love with all things bass. I have hardly picked up a bass in that time. I’ve been getting that itch again and was hunting for a Geddy Lee Jazz as I’ve had 2 in the past and love them. BassBros had one to win in one of their competitions. I bought a ticket the day before the competition ends, and it was my first time buying a ticket. I only bloody won! Beyond chuffed! Won on Sunday and today this was waiting for me at home. 😍

Another Wednesday evening at my new residency playing rock and roll dance stuff. Great selection of tunes - some standards plus some deeper cuts from Elvis, Johnny Burnette and Big Joe Turner. I sang a couple of Chuck Berry songs, ( the inevitable Johnny B Goode and Roll over Beethoven), so am looking to expand my repertoire of his stuff to lesser known songs that are still immediate & danceable. Bit of a NAD for me - first time out for a recently acquired Hartke HA3500. Not much time to fiddle with it so pretty much straight in, and it sounded as well as I’d hoped. Only got it as we can leave our gear at the venue, so no heavy lifting required. Using a Fender Rumble has turned me into a right wuss….

I actually bought this in March but have only now gotten around to posting it. Saw the ad on BassBros' socials about a collection of Fender Japan signature models they had just taken delivery of, and it immediately caught my eye. This is a Fender Japan Tomomi jazz bass in fiesta wash, with mint pickguard, CS 64 pickups and stacked knobs, amongst other distinctive features. I'll keep this brief - great specs, sounds great, plays great, and everything you have ever heard about Fender Japan's attention to detail is spot on. Really impressive bass First time buying from BassBros and it was a top-notch experience. Sam and Will were extremely helpful, the bass arrived on time, was well packaged, good comms and they are nice guys to boot.

Not great. I loaded the car and headed to the practice place, which is luckily not particularly far. As I drove in their car park was half used for some event, they had a food truck and loads of people sat outside, there was hardly anywhere to park and I was the first there, it was going to be difficult getting the equipment past them. I went to message the guys to say that it looked like it might be an issue and to ask the singer if he had cleared it with the pub owner, then had a sudden though, and looked at my watch. Sadly my watch said Wednesday, which is unfortunate as we practice on thursdays. So I drove home!

Hi all My first post in about 2 years after retiring from bass & bands. I have been totally bassless for 2 whole years with no real intention to buy anything ( we all know how that on goes) Whilst walking in Saltburn yesterday I happened upon Stephen James guitar shop so naturally had a "quick" look inside like you do. Then I spotted an absolute immaculate Warwick Corvette $$,so obviously I had to have a little look ........... Two hours later it was on it's way home with me. It is a 2009 German made bass in as new condition with no fret wear at all & not a single mark of any kind. It has the original gig bag completel with all the usual goodies that come with that & also the original sales receipt dated 2009 from Promenade music in Blackpool ( £975 ) It belonged to a collector who sadly passed away & looks to have hardly been played. I paid £900 for it which included new strings & a good fret polish. Happy camper here

Kid stuff. When in college my bassplayer (I was lead guitarist, sorry...) asked me to design him a no holds barred cab to house three fifteens. I modified the Jensen Imperial folded horn to fit them. It stood some 6 feet tall, 3 feet wide, 2 feet deep. He made it from 1 inch MDF. We never knew how much it weighed but it took all five of us to lift it in and out of his van. We named it 'The Hulk'. 🫢 Entwistle would have been envious.

I had one. I never really noticed the sound, I was too busy recovering from carrying the bastard thing into the venue.

Build Me Up Buttock Up — The Foundations

I never was on board with the gold knobs...

Unless the bass is fretless you shouldn't be pressing down on the strings so hard that you come into contact with the fingerboard. For me fretted bass fingerboards are chosen for looks and nothing else.

Thats the direction we are headed, or at least slowly trying to get there

By way of an update, over halfway through treatment and can see the finishing line albeit still a bit distant. But a good friend has asked me to join him and an excellent drummer to do a 45 mins set at a BBQ. A perfect opportunity to play again, not too long a set, outdoors to help protect my immune system and it's mainly country so not too taxing (famous last words!).

Weird thing is, I am half way through a novel. I picked it up lunchtime and, two pages in, there is the word 'lugubrious'. Three times in one day? Who'd have thought it?

Bax seems to be back. For places like GAK and PMT with physical shops mostly making their £ selling mass produced new instruments then they can't compete on price with big online only shops for price, so what's their selling point? Even if people want to test the instruments, they can just do that in the shop then buy online elsewhere. And even that isn't really necessary as all online sales can be returned for refund within a month. I don't think they've adapted with the times with internet, return laws, big automated warehouses, cheap delivery. We've seen it with shops like Our Price and HMV going under while shops like Rough Trade have expanded. They do in shop signings/gigs, have cafes, have fairly obscure vinyl and merchandise that can be tricky to get online. Personally I'd try and do similar with an instrument shop - don't compete directly with online shops for shifting mass produced boxes, put some effort in to offer alternatives: In shop demos, talks from musicians and manufacturers, small gigs, product launches, lessons, good part exchange deals, second hand, servicing, in shop experts happy to help, equipment rental, practice spaces, cafe/bar, boutique brands and custom stuff. Incentives like 'buy here and get a free lesson on how to use your new keyboard/set-up your bass/pair your mixer with your Laptop' etc. really make it a 'go to' hub for musicians. I think places like PMT have dropped the ball on this.

Worse still, I got home and my wife said 'I did wonder why you were practicing on a wednesday', but obviously didn't feel like asking! And I still have two days of work to the weekend

Very nice, and I like an aesthetically well designed single cut sixer bass (Anthony Jackson fan here). The back is more beautiful than the front and it reminds me of my former JPBasses Lucii aka J-Lo, which is now with @diddywah (just look at his avatar). I guess it must be on the lighter side with a chambered body. Congratulations!

Gosh, what a horrible time to be a top quality bass gear reviewer! Neural DSP, Darkglass and now Line 6 all bringing out new toys! Mwah ha ha ha!!

Getting ready for a run of two gigs in Wales this weekend (The Pit at McCann's in Newport on Friday, Fuel in Cardiff on Saturday). Got a few issues with a new song ironed out, so it should be all good. I do find I struggle with the timings for weeknight practices though. We do 6-10 at a local place, but finishing work at 4:30 so I can do the nursery run, where my daughter has decided that she wants to walk to/from nursery (and I don't want the fight of trying to get her in the pram!) means I get home at 5:20, quickly try and make something for dinner and get my stuff ready and wait for my wife to get back, try not to burn my mouth as I inhale dinner and then get out of the door... It's a challenge that seems to put me on the backfoot for practice.

Oh, I can tell you that now: the new amp modelling will be indistinguishable from the HX's amp modelling in a blind AB test.

Probably as useful and the amp will appreciate it 🙂

Good rehearsal with the originals band tonight. Got my basslines finalised for 7 songs. We jammed a song that was acoustic guitar only on the bands first album. I came up with a bassline that had a 'Cirrus Minor' feel - very pleased with it.

This is the best bass I've ever played. It's incredible. I was a bit worried when I first got my hands on it wondering if I'd done the right thing - out of the box it felt like a different leage in terms of quality but I wasn't sure about the sound but every hour I've played this it's felt more and more like I'm home. In terms of playability I can tell that this is a higher quality instrument than the Chinese-made Combustion I had, and that was fantastic. Sound wise, I'd have to have them next to each other to tell the difference (except the preamp - this Neve-designed setup is WAY more me than the EMG and I love the passive tone control), that's how good those far eastern instruments are, but when it comes to the feel of the bass in my hands. I am blown away. Mind-blowing.

Sad to hear this for all of the staff who worked at the stores

I imagine that that is height adjustment foam that has disintegrated.

There are a number of reactions/posts over on the Notable Deaths thread.

I've picked up the bass now. After seeing it in person and checking a few things I'm really happy with it. First thing was the neck. Stamped 103-1655 so that checks out for 1975. Also stamped R BUSH which I've seen on images of others. With the pick guard and bridge remoed, the overall shape of the routing was consistent for that era, based on this thread: https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/128339-70s-fender-precision-timeline/. Also good to see the through-hole holes were quite small and tidy and the original bridge holes there as you'd expect. The EMG pick up is active with a battery hiding in the main cavity - no scary routing for it thankfully. Battery was dated 2012 😀 The neck pocket isn't quite what I expected. Fully painted, some black and no stamps visible - does this suggest a refin? There's also a odd circular patch - could it have been originally made as for a 3-bolt neck? There no signs on the back of it ever having being 3 holes instead of 4. The cavities are mostly a similar shade to the main colour, maybe some black and white paint visible although the pickups seem to have tar-like black adhesive underneath. Paint under the pickguard has more of a red-shade - I don't know if the colour changes under the pickguard or only fades on the uncovered part. There's also what looks like a paint imperfection which I'm guessing Fender wouldn't have allowed. There are no date markings on the pots that I recognised. The pickups have no stamps or markings on the back. Did EMG produce a fully wired set with pots back then? Pick guard has pencil writing on the back - swirly hand-writing, probably L, LBR, and upper case JMD. The covered hole that might have had a switch has been patched with epoxy or similar on the back. Frets are quite worn but I used it with the band last night and it felt great. Heavier than my early 80s bass and maybe it bit punchier. I'm even coming round to the bridge and controls now I see them in real life. I'll probably leave it alone for a while at least. The first thing might be putting in a passive pickup. I've never had an active bass and the battery isn't easy to change in a hurry.

Just a quick bump for this. it will continue to run until 01/07/25. hope this is ok? X

3 hours is the point where creativity and concentration die...

Ah I saw you guys, you were great! Really enjoyed it, I'm a big country music fan and thought your set was superb. Will definitely be there in December.

I found a kijiji ad that was about six months old , someone in Cape Breton was selling a Dan Armstrong for about $450 Cdn. Messaged the seller , no reply. And made a post on Facebook about the one that got away. An old friend in California told he had a Chinese copy , and it was mine , completely unexpected. And when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised. Put a worn in set of flats on it , slightly tweaked the action , and have used it on gigs. The weight was lighter than expected but it does have some heft. Quite a chunky neck , I’m ok with that , I’m quite accustomed to various neck sizes , and I’ve found a good old school thump with flats and the tone rolled back. I quite enjoy it! 32 inch scale.

IME it doesn't matter when in the week you order something from Thomann, if it's destined for the UK it gets dispatched late on Friday afternoon.

We're Delta Smoak. Played Sunday 13th April, afternoon spot and back Sunday December 7th again afternoon spot.

I'm guessing not up for sale!