Leaderboard

Did a dep gig for The Bonnevilles at bike night at Darley Moor. All went well and I suspect they'll be rebooked at the agreed higher amount (and the regular bassist will benefit!). Forgot to take a long lead and my MS-60B fell off the amp so finished up going Sei Flamboyant fretted 5 -> Lekato WS-90 wireless -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212. My leather waistcoat with all the bike badges on has shrunk. Feets were encased in Caravelle memory foam trainers, as always.

So last night I told my band (The Spacewasters) I’m going to be leaving and they’ll need to replace me. Since I did my lower back in a couple of years ago I’ve just not enjoyed pretty much everything about gigging, aside from the actual playing, as it’s just made it difficult & painful. I see an osteopath and we’ve got it pretty much as good as it will get but the strains of gigging just too much. I did feel sad on the way home as I’ve really enjoyed being in this band, the music is great, the lads are a good laugh and the relaxed manner in which we do stuff has really suited me. Had some great experiences too - recording an album at Boz Boorers studio in Portugal the main one. Not walking away tho, until a replacement is found I’m still there, my intention is to just not be gigging next year. Now just need to write a hit single so I can retire on the publishing…..

We're missing a guitarist for a little while, but got offered a gig that we didn't want to turn down so decided to fly missing-man. We've done it before and it's generally been fine but I've definitely felt the lack of the rhythm guitar during the lead solo sections, so wanted to try and 'thicken' the bass tone a bit this time. I had an unused corner of one of my boards so decided to try a cheap octave-up, and am happy to report that it's actually doing what I hoped it might. Placing it after a bit of gentle overdrive seems to have brought the whole sound together and gives a suggestion of extra guitar without making the bass sound too iffy on its own, meaning I should be able to just leave it on.

Not strictly speaking 'free'; it's already been paid for by yourself, and thousands of others, through National Insurance contributions. A Very Good System.

Skavana....... you guessed it: Ska covers of Nirvana (it's the law that ska covers bands need to have 'ska' in the title isn't it?!) Quite a lot of the set are our ska and reggae versions of Nirvana songs, also some straightforward 2 tone covers, and our ska/reggae versions of the sort of stuff most pub punters know and can sing and dance along to (Billy Idol, Green Day, Radiohead, The Cure etc.). We're an 8 piece: Drum, Bass, Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Singer, Trombone, Sax x2 (alto and baritone). We gig about once a fortnight, mostly around Sussex - usually pubs and small festivals. 21 gigs booked in for 2025 and a few more will get added. https://www.facebook.com/skavanaband

I've been looking for a Hornby fretless dining-car for years. There were only ten made (albeit using CNC) and I believe Pino owns all, bar one of these. The other is owned timeshare between one million millionaire dentists and they each get to watch it go around a table-top sized loop of track once every 218 years. I'm about to contact Ernie, Sterling, Rugby, Tennis, Cricket and Foot Ball to see if they can make me an exact replica of Pino and his nine Hornby dining-cars, but will not purchase any unless they come with a case.

Hurtsfall have been going in our present incarnation since October of 2021, although we had done a handful of gigs in 2019. The current sound and line-up is a result of the original drummer and guitarist leaving the band and us deciding not to replace them, instead with me switching from conventional bass to a Bass VI and alternating melody and bass parts with our synth player and using a drum machine to replace the drummer: We play originals in a post-punk/goth/synth-pop style, and while we are based in Nottingham will travel anywhere for the right gig. Currently we are doing on average a gig every 2-3 weeks. We've released 10 singles, the most recent of which is "Robert Smith's Eyes": We're currently working on our debut album for release later this year. We'll play anywhere that will give us a gig and pay at least enough to cover our expenses. Most of the gigs we've done so far have been supports or festivals. These are the sorts of gigs that we like since it puts us in front of audiences whom may not have seen us play before. Our singer who is good with people and social media sorts all of this out. Here's a short clip of us performing "Revelator" at a festival last year: Hurtsfall-Revelator.mp4

Well, let’s see how long this lasts, shall we? Traded two of my surplus basses last night. I'm traditionally a Jazz bass player and I’ve only ever settled with one Precision in the past (a first gen American Professional), so let’s see how I get on with an Ash body with 'Road Worn' nitro finish and a Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder pickup. Interestingly, this is one of the early 2013 models with the Leo Quan BadAss II bridge, instead of the high mass top loading Fender one. So far only played it through a school practice room Aria 20w and it sounded huge already!

Fantastic rehearsal last night. Sounding as good with the new lineup as we ever did with the old lineup, which is really good considering this current lineup has only been together about 8 weeks.

Every time I hear someone talented play a fretless, I think I need one. Then I remember that I won't sound remotely like them and put that idea back in it's box 😅

I play bass in Syncolima, we are a Notts / Derby based original stoner / grunge band. Formed at the end of lockdown whenever that was, just trying to ramp things up a bit now! Approx. 30 odd gigs a year, Our 3rd album coming out in September, followed by a modest tour in November. Played some cool stuff in the past few years, more to come! we're currently signed up with a booking agent / manager. https://linktr.ee/syncolima

£3499 here FYI

I love how these adverts say: "Rosetti (Egmond) Guitars, were the very first guitars of John Lennon, George Harrison, Keith Richards, Brian May, Rory Gallagher and Paul McCartney" without adding the 'Until they got enough money to be able to get something else, and then they never went back!"

I disagree. This is what has been missing from Bass Bashes. A really good cage match. Maybe we can skip the cab shootout to move on to a duel at 10 paces? This could be a major selling point. Someone turns up with a Musicman Sabre not realising that they should have brought an actual sabre for the afternoon events. Someone asks "is it good for metal?" and is immediately required to fight Rhonda Rousey whilst playing Mr Pink by Level 42. This is the future where the "bash" in the event title may mean something else. It's a winner.

@bassist_lewis enough about the pedals, who's the guy in the tuner?

Full Maple Road Festival Gig this coming Saturday night. We'll close the event with an 8:30 start. The Regner Silver Lining stage has always been tough for us. Daryl

I am in Erronaut. Four piece original stoner / doom / grunge. Released our debut album at the end of a last year called The Space Inbetween. available on all streaming platforms. we’re currently gigging a few times a month. We’ve played Desertfest and StoomFest this year which were two bucket list gigs. https://erronautuk.bandcamp.com/merch

I’m one half of Deadlight Dance, Wiltshire’s darkest boy band! I guess we’d be filed under 80s goth. Nick and I met in a Sixth Form goth band in 1989. We did our first gig together and have been friends for over 35yrs now. Here’s a one minute showreel of our greatest hits. Deadlight formed over lockdown as we thought we’d have a jam when restrictions eased, to see if we could play the old songs properly. It just grew. We decided to write together and wound up signed to Ray Records with an album out. Last count, we’d been streamed in 75 countries. I appreciate it’s not rivalling the big bands but it’s not bad for two old mates just having a jam when the restrictions ease! As to the question of originals or covers, we do both. We booked an old Saxon Church (is there such a thing as a new Saxon Church?) in 2023 and recorded a covers album of the songs that first inspired us. We made a short film about it. We can go out as the “full” band with our backing tracks we wrote or chuck some quirky folk instruments into the back of the car and go out acoustic style. I did the numbers on gigs and it really varies. It’s usually at least 20 a year but it has been much higher. We get gigs whenever the Batphone rings.

Picked one of these up recently. Yep. Very nice. Lovely smooth neck, lovely dimensions to it. Pickups sound lovely. Tone pot has a lot of width in it, plenty of tones. Tuners work great. Its lightweight. Yep. Very nice indeed. Absolutely no need for any higher priced precision.

This is why I won't spend six grand on a bass - because I can spend about 1/20th of that on this kind of thing instead. 1998 DeArmond Jet Star "Spel", Gumby, Dali, melty - whatever you want to call it. It just made me laugh so much I had to buy it. This example is in good nick, the only issue is that the knobs have disintegrated a little and the silver "D" discs in the top are long gone. Anecdotally, this was a common issue - seen a bunch of them online with replaced knobs. This is the long scale (34") bolt on version. The short scale one is fancier (two pickups, set neck) but I don't dig shorties so it had to be this one. Honestly I'd have loved a green one, but they're rare as hell, so a cherry red one is an acceptable alternative. Hard to photograph with the phone camera - the cherry red is much deeper than this and you can see the wood grain through it - phone just doesn't have a clue and goes "duh, it's red". Nevertheless, here it is. I've only played it in headphones and my office amp (Laney 30W HCM30B) so far, with whatever scabby strings it arrive with. But even with that stacked against it, it sounded pretty good - the split P pickup being more towards the bridge makes for an interesting sound, not completely devoid of bottom end and P-esque, but just a bit twangier or something. I've since given it the once over - a good clean, lemon oiled the fretboard (it was so dry!), restringed and setup fettled with. Here it is when it first arrived next to one of my T-birds. Welcome to the wonky family!

My current band is Tea Time Funk Club, based between Manchester & Liverpool. We're a covers band playing chilled out, funky versions of 90s RnB, classic soul and pop - a similar vein to Scary Pockets and Couch. It's completely different from anything I've done before, a real workout as I have to be much more precise and considered in stripped back arrangements. Four piece - Bass, drums, keys & vocals with hopefully a sax player on the way We've been together about a year - started gigging last March but getting the ball rolling has been slow going. We've done two gigs with another in August but we're still trying to find the right venues for the stuff we do and then get our foot in the door. Videos:

I'm in two "main" bands... Weeds, formerly Dredd and the Badass Weeds were formed in Leeds in 1985 with members going off in 1986 to do stuff like Utah Saints, Cassandra Complex, New Fast Automatic Daffodils etc, mainly doing funk and reggae extended jams for parties. But we got back together for occasional giggage and recording and finally - last year - produced our masterwork (actually, it's our only work). This got seized on by a Chester radio station who've convinced us to do an actual gig. So we're rapidly writing 5 more songs from our various corners of Europe (West Ireland, Shropshire, Manchester, Sheffield, South of France) ready for our one and only rehearsal just before the gig in October. Other band is funkpunk with female singer and 2 basses, we're called Choked and have been going for around 5 years. We get together far more than Weeds! In fact we've got 4 gigs coming up including Rebellion Festival. We've got an album and a single with our old drummer...

My new RetroB is quite the trad looking baby with all the perks of being a bloody lovely ACG:

All I can add to this is that I met up with @eude and @Merton a good few years ago and they both kindly let me have a try of their ACGs. I felt like a bit of a poor relation handing my trusty old Squier over to them in exchange! I am a bit of a traditionalist and (perhaps stupidly) prefer the look of a painted P or J bass to these works of art so not sure they would be for me, but the one thing I did take away from the trial was the low B strings on them and how good they felt/sounded. PS - I know Alan's newer Retro series is closer to the traditional look, but there is also the fact that I'd never get a custom purchase past the Bank of Mrs HH.....

Pervert 🤮

Shows much more detail. At leadt I know I'm not in catastrophic brain bleed or tumor the size of an orange territory.

Same with the JMJ Mustang bass, made in Mexico, relatively affordable and a great bass. I didn’t buy mine because of JMJ but because of the spec, meets everything I need.

I've been having a good hard look at these basses since last night trying to make my mind up about them. At first I thought, mmm, not for me. However, the more I think about it the standard one at three and a half grand looks a pretty good proposition in the current market. If a Stingray Special is retailing at 3K then a specialised 'Ray for £500 more is not an exorbitant premium. I'm actually a bit surprised they aren't more expensive. £3500 is an awful lot of money even nowadays, but these are luxury items made to a high standard. What price do people realistically expect EBMM to charge? If you can't afford it no one is going to force you to buy one, except yourself of course. I love Pino Palladino as a musician, but I wouldn't buy a bass just because he was associated with it. Regardless of the Pino connection,these new basses will be made to a very high standard, will play better and be more reliable than a genuine vintage example and would do very nicely for someone looking for a vintage-style Stingray. Providing you like sunburst with a rosewood board. Without wishing to committ heresy, I actually prefer the sound (and weight) of a Stingray Special to any vintage version, and when it comes to Music Man basses I enjoy the Bongo most of all. But if I was looking for an old-syle 'Ray to put flats on the fretted PIno version would be ideal. That said, it would be very interesting to do a comparison of a fretted EBMM PIno and a Sire Z3. In terms of vintage Stingray tone I bet the Sire in all it's cheap and cheerful glory would run the MM very close. It's great that such good budget alternatives exist nowadays, just like it's entirely beneficial the new Pino signature bass is now an available option.

Be nice to the guy at the Parcelforce depot, if he wants to have a look at the bass, let him. If he wants to pick it up and have a noodle, let him. For one of my Ishibashi Thunderbirds he did this, I asked how much the duty was and he he just went, 'What duty?' and waved me on my way. Sometime you can get lucky.

3dB is 'enough to hear the change' and 10dB is twice or half as loud. Translate easily to movements on the mixer sliders, and are meaningful in that context. They aren't all calibrated in dB but good ones are.

I play in Sad Lovers and Giants We're based in Watford. None of us live there anymore but that's where we rehearse. We've been going since about 1980 although I've only been in the band since 1985 and even then not for the whole of that time. This is our discogs page where all our records are listed. Here's our Spotify page where you can hear them! And here is our merch shop - it seems only 1 of our albums, an EP and a 7" are currently available but hey why not buy a tee shirt or a fridge magnet or even some old skool button badges? We play almost all our gigs overseas but we don't play very often. Our next booking is at Gagarin205 in Athens Nov 15th. Last summer we played a large outdoor festival in Murcia with The Mission and The Charlatans which sort of felt like we were going up in the world. The Dutch film makers who made a documentary about Adrian Borland of The Sound [Walking In The Opposite Direction] are currently making a documentary about us! It's taken them over 2 years so far but they have sponsored 3 gigs in Rotterdam and den Haag (The Hague) in that time so they can secure live footage of us for the documentary. I have no idea when that might get released. We are inundated with requests to play gigs through our Facebook page but many don't make financial sense. We have regular booking agents in Spain, Greece, Italy and The Netherlands. We have toured USA once in 2016 and there's a thread here where I told the story. We are currently working on a new album - it's nearing completion but currenly doesn't have a name or a firm release date. Our guitarist is 1/3 of Above & Beyond who have a new album out next week. This is the main reason our output is sporadic and we take up so few offers to gig. He just doesn't have the time. I have posted many vids of us live over the years. The first 30 minutes or so of this shows clips from our early evening set at Visorfest in Murcia Spain last September: and this was the video for our last single (made in lockdown) - It's about time we made another one!

If I think something is too quiet or loud in a mix I ask for +/- 3dB. If its inaudible or dominating, +/-10dB. Don't know if that's usual but it sounds impressive 🤣

SPECTRUM THIEF by Ghost Audio (FREE). "Spectrum Thief is an EQ-matching plugin that can export impulse responses. Great for capturing the frequency response of speaker cabinets, or creating adjustment filters to tone-match your guitar tone (or even a full mix), to a reference sound. The plugin is FREE and requires no authentication or registration, so grab your copy!" https://ghostnoteaudio.uk/products/spectrum-thief I've used various methods to capture EQ curves and create custom IRs, but this simple app is free and works really well. I've also discovered it makes a great applet for comparing the tones of different basses and their pickups and, of course, mix curves for full mixes too!

Think you are right but the SE should at least walk around the stage area to make sure the overall balance is right on stage. I know its mainly down to the band to sort out their on stage levels etc but i've experienced ringing on stage that didn't appear out front when i walked out into the venue during a sound check. Luckily that particular SE did walk around the venue and come up to the edge of the stage altho not on it. Dave

Me too! And Rhythm Killers as well. Then this album as well, featuring a galaxy of groovy geezers, with Bill Laswell production...

While £6000 for a bass is not unusual, it's excessively expensive for what is essentially a CNC-made mass-produced instrument. If I had that kind of money to spend on a bass right now I'd be getting Gus Guitars to make me Bass VI based on their G3 Baritone design, an instrument that would be unique and personal to me and not something that to all intents and purposes is indistinguishable from any other Music Man fretless Stingray. Besides it's at least 40 years too late. Does Pino even use his original anymore?

Yep - ten very happy dentists. 🦷

I'm going to stick with having my SUB, sporting a Nordstrand pickup and Stinger preamp, converted to fretless with a new fingerboard.

So why would a handmade bass from Alan Cringean, Jon Shuker, or Martin Petersen cost less than a CNC-made bass from a maker with enormous purchasing clout?

FTFY

Well as per my other thread I’m now winding down gigging, but: The Spacewasters - original material, garage punk/rock I suppose. Been going for 20 years, I’ve been with them since 2021. 10 gigs a year approximately, obtained usually by people asking us to play. Used to be only London-ish gigs but now stretch to south coast, plus a few overseas. Knock Off - original material, street punk/Oi. Started 2013, I left 2019 but am back standing in for the rest of this year. They were doing 50 odd gigs a year, all over UK and Europe but have scaled back a bit to concentrate on less but better gigs, these usually obtained by being asked. Thunderkunt - instrumental classic rock covers, a non gigging band, a bunch of old mates we rehearse every few weeks and have a laugh, and play some ridiculously complicated riffs - 70s drugs must have been strong maa-an!

This seems like a good place to put this video, Freddie is such a great player

We are not. We are talking about labour costs, energy costs, global supply chains and money supply as well as a whole heap of other complex issues.