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I did two gigs this weekend, and they couldn’t have been much more different. Saturday night I was playing at Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival with blues trio The Alligators. It was actually my final gig with them, as I’ve started a local weekly residency at a rock n roll club and it was getting a bit much - I’m supposed to be semi retired for gawds sake! Anyway the gig was okay - some great bands on before us including sax player Tom Waters (son of pianist Ben Waters). A friend of mine was on directly before us doing some of his original stuff, and then I joined him for a few covers to get the crowd dancing. Then our band got started at 11pm, to play for around an hour. Onstage sound was really loud, so was glad I’d taken my old Barefaced Compact to use in addition to my Fender Rumble 500. Played my sunburst P Lyte and it sounded good, just about keeping up with the guitar. As is customary, we were joined by a couple of sax players towards the end, and it was in danger of getting out of control. Managed to steer it to a conclusion, and I was quite relieved it was all over. A really steamy gig, drove 50 miles home with the sunroof open. Sunday evening I was back in the familiar ‘Lookout on the Pier’ in Scarborough with our acoustic duo. Really busy along the beach, blisteringly hot weather so parking wasn’t easy due to the crowds but we got set up and ready to play by 6pm. Loads of requests, with some good ones including ‘Out of reach’, ‘Tears in heaven’ ‘Human’ (Rag and Boneman!) and ‘Iris’. Fender Kingman bass into Rumble 100 combo - nice and quiet after the previous night’s gig. Couple of days off now - next gig Wednesday so will give my fingers a rest.

Not a live clip application but sharing this: Don't mind the last line of this Chaka Khan classic 24k Magic Not sure if there are K-Pop listeners here in Basschat but was trying to emulate the moog sound in the record. MXR bass synth in the Anagram's FX Loop. Adding a preamp(gentle/Noble) after made it sound full. It decays nicely before it glitches out. Also good to note to tweak the Glide and Tracking parameter. Press and hold voice knob and tweak the resonance knob for the Glide and do the same when you press and hold the Shape switch for the Tracking. The Glide parameter smoothens your portamento or pitch slide between notes, allowing for smooth transitions or more pronounced effects. I still have a hard time doing quick runs or maybe I'm just a bad player haha

I hadn't owned a fretless for over 30 years. Now have these beauties and loving them.

I'm definitely a fretless player, wanna proof? Check this... And a lot are missing...

Two x 2 hour gigs at the Dereham Blues Festival on Sunday. These were the inaugural gigs for the Checkmate Kings new line up and the first the band has done since last year’s festival. The first was outdoors at the George Hotel to a packed beer garden and pub. Despite some significant cock ups it went well and we got plenty of positive feedback, including a possible return match later. It was pretty hot but we were under two gazebos, which gave us the space to spread out. Gear was 2 x LFSys Monzas, Blackstar U700, MB LMIII 500 back-up, Mooer Envelope filter pedal, Boss Tu3, Maruszczyk Elwood 4a 32” and Greco Atomic 32” as spare. Everything was DI’d, so the master didn’t go above 9 o’clock on the U700. One of these days I’ll get the chance to open up the rig! The second gig was early evening at the Red Lion and indoors. Hot, hot! We were squashed into a small space at the end of the bar. It’s a small pub, so pretty tight. However, our keyboard player wasn’t able to attend as he was playing at the Ely folk festival, so at least we were down to 5. Minimal equipment, just vocals, kick and sax into one PA column. I only used one cab and the guitarist used a small combo. Without the keyboard player we had to drop some material and rearrange on the fly, which had mixed success. I had some brain farts, which was embarrassing given some of the people who came to see us. Just as we were starting, I noticed that one side of the bridge saddle on the A string had dropped, which explained why I could hardly hear it (choking off). Fortunately I had my guitar multi-tool with me and I was able to fix it. Ah! I can’t post the pics, I seem to have a 43KB limit! That’s tiny these days!

Just got in from a rehearsal with Knock Off. Went well as usual but the highlight for me was the Hartke HA3500 410 combo with their VX speakers, combined with my JMJ Mustang and Behringer BDI21 the sound was awesome. I know some people aren’t that keen on Hartke gear but this amp was just great.

Next time place a bag of chips on the car 2 down from yours and it'll be fine. 😂🤩😎 Dave

A Ping Ray?

So I had a rummage in the parts collection and found enough stuff to do a proof of concept at least - some tuners, a BBOT, pickups (the stock one from a Squier Jag H, and a rando J pickup). Found the Hipshot string retainer I had pilfered off of it. Offered it up and it seemed to fit. Even the tuner bushings gripped the holes - needed persuasion to sit flush which amazed me! But there's a more existential threat to the whole thing - the neck's in a bit of a back bow after years in the shed with no strings on and the truss rod not loosened - oops! And it's not simply a case of replacing the neck, because the bugger I bought the original body and neck from back in 2007 had glued the neck in! So I decided to just get the tuners and bridge installed, then string it up and hope that prolonged string tension with the truss rod backed off completely will pull it into a forward bow once more. So that's what I did (and don't talk to me about the missing screws - I snapped three drill bits during all this and two of them are stuck in the bass, FFS! Anyway, that's a problem for another day. I strung it up and at first, horrible fret buzz on all strings from frets 1-4, then comes good from 5 onwards. Sad sauce. BUT It appears to be recovering - it seemed to be a little better as the evening progressed last night, and it's better still this morning when I checked it before heading to work. So that's it had about 12 hours of unopposed string tension. Hopefully it will have improved further when I get home from work this evening. I don't wanna jinx it, but it appears that the bass wants to live....

I had an Ash bodied natural Fender Precision with coated maple fretless board and it was incredible. It was so nice to play and sounded amazing. The below track was recorded using it and its one of my favourite fretless bass sounds I've recorded.

Bass Centre Elites. Further confirmed by the slightly too long E string

Spoke to my brother earlier. His band closed out the local free festival, Cadstock... daily attendance is about 4,000.

Always a huge treat to be playing at the London 10k and we couldn't believe our luck with the change of location we found ourselves moved to for this one! We'd had a late one at a function gig the night before, so an early morning start to arrive to set up at 8pm meant just 4 hours sleep, but it was one of those gigs that the adrenaline gets you through! In some ways our own mini marathon - playing for two hours solid with no break, but we all loved it. A sweet moment for me right at the close when a local London lady, who had an ice cream van set up behind us, thanked us all for providing the music and offered us each a free ice-cream! A little clip from the race: LA Mixtrax - London 10k

Just a quick message to let everyone know that John of Noise Works did a fantastic job of fixing an awful banana neck on an eBay-acquired 1979 Shergold Marathon bass. I bought said bass a couple of months back and did everything I could (truss rod, low tension strings, filed some proud frets etc) but the bass was virtually unplayable - looks like it had sat in its case unplayed for years with high tension Rotosound steels. I tried the Shergold forum on FaceBook (thanks @ash for reminding me of this forum) and some peeps recommended John. Eventually I went with their advice. Over the course of a few weeks, John heat clamped the neck, fixed the dents and bumps on the back of the neck and levelled/polished the frets. The result is a slick playing, low action bass with loads of 70s/80s cred. Very reasonable price and friendly service too. Recommended!

I don't know much about Hartke amps. I've seen them back lined. I knew Larry before he started that company . Daryl Daryl

The thing about a live clip with a band, which is partly why @knicknack / Paddy's clip is a really excellent demo of this pedal's potential, is that you get to hear it in the context of the rest of the instruments and vox, which is what many of us are hoping to use it for, but also (and here's the rub!): you get one take to nail it. I loved Nate Navarro's honesty when he reviewed the Boss GM-800 saying that he'd had to do multiple takes to get some decent recordings (and he made it sound seriously lush btw). If anyone tells me that was because he's got poor synth bass playing technique...

Damn! Love it! I'll do it!

Nearly a year ago my brother, and our singer, suffered a stroke live on stage at a festival. For a while we wondered if we'd ever get to play a gig again. Luckily, that chance came last friday! A filmmaker friend brought his camera along, and I arranged to record the set. We put together someof the footage and mixed a brand new song that we played. It was the hottest day ever, but in my 20 years of being in this band, it's the gig I'm most glad to have been able to do, and I know this video will be something to look back at and cherish as long as I live. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks! Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobody.

This is a FB comment I got from my local luthier and multi-instrumentalist who attended one of my band’s gigs on Sunday. I really respect his opinion on all things musical. I think it demonstrates how good a single Monza is. “Patrick T R O'Brien. Bass sounded great down the room - really fat in the low end and punchy. Great sound from such a small rig. Sounds much bigger.”

Two gigs this weekend. Still not 100% but improved enough today I think I'll be OK. One on Barry Island. I only went to the original Beir Keller once, to see Nik Turner's All-Stars. I remember at the end everyone ran to the bar for a last beer... leaving me standing alone with Nik, and we had a brief chat. It's been resurrected after 40 years! They have private parking for load in! Edmondes, I've only seen from the outside but Facebook suggests it is very dancy.

I always take a couple of slivers of wood (matchsticks without the heads are perfect). If the strap buttons work loose or tear out (I've seen both happen) you can slot the matchstick into the hole to help tighten the screw.

Here it is. I posted a build diary on here last year, I think.

I met him in a pub one night. Only compensation was, he ended up with the biggest rig in the world. OK, I'll get my coat.

Full Maple Road gig at Bastille Days this Saturday. We'll play from 3:00-5:00. No, we won't have the crowd in the pic. Lol Daryl

As a kid growing up in the 80's, fretless was right at the forefront for me, despite at the time not knowing it was a thing, I vividly remember listening to Sting and Paul Young thanks to my older sisters playing 80's music throughout the house day in day out. When I picked up the bass in the late 80's, one of my goals in life was to become a competent fretless bassist and these days, for the last 10 years, I've only played fretless. Only recently have I had to buy a fretted bass for a new project but it was super hard going back to a fretted bass with all those messy lines and dots all over the place, playing unlined fretless is so much easier. I've had 14 fretless basses in total and currently have 3 really good ones. Below are what I have or have had. Fender Japan 62RI Fretless Jazz x4 Fender Japan 60's Classic Fretless Jazz x1 Fender Japan 60RI Fretless Precision x1 Fender Japan Precision with Fretless Status Graphite Neck x1 Fender Mexican 70RI Precision with Custom Maple Fretless Neck x1 EBMM Stingray SR4 with Fretless Pau Ferro Neck x1 EBMM Stingray SR4 with Fretless Rosewood Neck x1 Warwick Streamer Jazzman Fretless x1 Limelight 60RI Fretless Jazz x1 Squire VM Jazz Fretless x1 Unknown Fretless Bass x1 I am super tempted to buy the cheaper Pino fretless as I think it would be fun to have in the collection. Here's a few pictures from what I can find quickly.

After a fallow couple of months for Dirty Roses, with just a few dep gigs for the Bonnevilles thrown in, we had gigs Friday and Saturday. Friday was in Polesworth, about five miles from my house - small pub, made a bit more crowded by the pool table pushed to one side. It was cool though, there are a load of 12" fans mounted to the walls. Mrs Zero decided she'd come out as well, just two weeks and a day after her hip replacement - recovery proceeding apace. Slightly rusty but no huge mistakes other than a totally false start to Paranoid, one of the songs that's been a permanent fixture in our set for ever. Oh, and someone accidentally pulled the mains lead out of the monitor on the guitarist's side at some point in the second set so he couldn't hear the vocals. And someone came up to me afterwards and said that my Sei was the most beautiful guitar he'd ever seen. Gear: Beautiful Sei Flamboyant 5 headless -> Lekato WS-90 -> Zoom MS-60B -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212. Footwear: Caravelle memory foam trainers. Second one was in Cheltenham, 70 miles away for me. Load in and out was from a car park right at the back of the long thin pub to the stage area right at the front, and as the singer was busy directing the guitarist and drummer (separately) to the hidden car park at the back of the pub, I had to unload all my gear (basses, rig, PA), which is probably a month's worth of cardio exercise for me. Large room, we were right by some opening French windows [1] although the downside to this was that there were a load of smokers outside. As I didn't know what the temperature was likely to be, I'd brought my massive fan, which proved a good idea. Initially it was a bit sparse attendance but a birthday party and a hen party showed up and the numbers swelled. There was one (relatively) young woman there who looked completely off her face (I had nearly two decades of marriage to an alcoholic so I know the look). She made rather close approaches to the guitarist and the singer (who both carefully avoided eye contact) and then when I decided to go walkabout a bit later on, she made a lunge for my bass, which I protected while beating a hasty repeat. At the end of the set, we did the standard pause while pretending we've finished and waiting for someone to say "more!". And, as always, some did. I noticed that one of them was the gaffer who was just outside the French widows, enthusiastically shouting "more, more!". Well, if the gaffer wants another song, we play another song. Of course, someone had accidentally pulled the mains lead out of the guitarist's monitor, but he coped. Had a moment of epicaricacy on the way home - driving along the 4 lane section of the M5 in lane 1, cruise control set to 70, and there was some dickhead bimbling along in lane 3 slower than me. So I stayed in lane 1 and went past him, and a short time later I saw in my mirrors two cars going past him, one either side, which then both went past me. Then the lane 3 hog suddenly came shooting past me just as we came up to a gantry showing 60 limit - I slowed, but lane 3 hog kept on at about 80 past the gantry and the HADECS cameras which flashed him. So he might not get done for lane hogging but he'll get a come-uppance of sorts. Gear: Sei Flamboyant 5 headless -> Lekato WS-90 -> Zoom MS-60B -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212. Footwear: still the faithful Caravelle memory foam trainers. [1] "French widows in every room!" - Gerard Hoffnung

Wildfires at The George, Chiswick. Third gig. First time using the Digitech BP355 in this band. Sounds great, and the pitch shifter is amazing, no lag even when I'm wireless. Wasn't as hot as we were expecting, and plenty of people were in the pub, many were still there for the final set when it was packed. Shuker 3 -> Swiff Audio wireless -> Digitech BP355 -> TecAmp Puma 500 -> customised Tech Sound System 2x12.

Great private party gig last night celebrating a 40th and an 80th so wide age range watching. Outdoors in the garden of one of the local farmhouses and all up for a good time. Only the 5th gig of the new band but they liked us so much that they paid us more than the agreed going rate. Same happened last at last gig so we must be doing something right. First outing of my s-s Sandberg Cali since new Aguilar pickup set fitted. Much more heft that OE pups. Didn't realise just how much in fact. No need to engage the 'deep' button on my Mesa D800+ from now on methinks. So nice to see all the old folks having such a good time. That includes me btw 🙂

Two gigs for Hurtsfall this week. First on Thursday at Rough Trade in Nottingham Supporting the brilliant Miranda Sex Garden. Lovely air-conditioned venue which was a relief from the heat and also meant I could wear my normal stage gear rather than something that wasn't going to make me pass out due to heat stroke. Played to an audience who were largely unfamiliar with our music but it looks like we won them over, and consequently sold loads of CDs afterwards. As always here's some photos from the gig: Then on Saturday we were near Ellesmere on the Welsh border for Goths On A Field. The bands play inside a barn which could have meant it was like an oven, but luckily it turned out to be marginally cooler in barn than outside in the field. My sister (who last saw me play live in 1985) and her husband who live nearby came along and seemed to enjoy it almost as much as our usual Goth audience. Plenty of people up and dancing from the first song, and the new song we were playing for the very first time got a great response. Despite the fact that most of the audience must have seen us play before we still sold a decent amount of merch and we had a number of people saying that we were their favourite band of the weekend which given who else was playing was high praise indeed! No photos as yet, but I'm sure there will be some posted when everyone is back home later today or tomorrow. For both gigs I was using my Eastwood Hooky 6-strong bass going direct into the PA via a Line6 Helix. Footwear was a pair of black and silver Converse-style boots bought years ago from TK Maxx Next gig is back at Rough Trade on 26th July as part of the Nottingham Pride festival.

A very hot sweaty gig playing at the new Rodeos Birmingham. Bizarre stage with the back end of a pickup truck slap bang in the middle, a solitary monitor, no sound man, a drummist we’d never met before, several drunk hen parties… had the makings of a nightmare alongside the heat. On the whole though, it was great fun. We threw in a few covers alongside Katy’s originals, had a delightful interaction with someone in the break asking us to play all the artists we’d covered in the first set 🙄, and made a few new friends along the way I think. The dep drummist was fantastic, so he can come again 🤓 Bass as ever my sexy ACG RetroB, through Handbox WB100 and Barefaced Two10. Shoes were my Soul Cals again. No decent photos of us playing (yet) so have a photo of my side of the stage 😆

Played my usual Everlys & Friends Live Tribute Show last night at Warners' Alvaston Hall near Crewe. First show for the full lineup in two months and was a belter, despite the ridiculous 30 deg heat. Luckily the powers that be at Warners actually had the air conditioning switched on, so playing was bearable! Two hour set straight through with no interval is always a challenge, but was very rewarding. Full six-piece setup, including fake Grand Piano housing for Pete's Digital Piano!

We changed to a female vocalist about 6 years ago. Got rid of all the old staid 'Dad Rock' stuff and now play Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Dua Lipa, etc. It is great fun coming up with arrangements that a power trio can pull off. No synth, brass, strings or backing singers, but the rhythm, lyrics, melody and chords are there and it works.

Brief update! Hall managers have said that as we're contributing any proceeds to a charity (TBD) we can get the hall at a reduced hourly rate, which is nice of them. We have access from 12.00pm for as long as required. It begs the question the date we want to do this...I can't do first weekend of November, but beyond that, I'm good. September my be too soon to wrestle the troops, dunno.

If it were 6-months back I'd have been the owner of three fretless basses and no fretted, but the band I'm in now requires a certain amount of the latter, while I tend to think that if you can play it on fretted you can probably play it on a fretless, there are certain bass tones that you'll only get with frets in the mix. I much prefer to play fretless though 👍

Unfortunately you still hear that ‘women can’t sing rock’ nonsense. I’d say it’s harder to find a good singer than it is to find an audience, so go for it.

Wow that thing looks monstrous, I love it! I'd be interested to see the build process on that. Edit: just realised it's a Spear! Still beautiful. My idea was to have the red/gold/green colour scheme on the pickup covers themselves, with the rest of the bass being that kind of military/camo green you see on reggae sound systems and things. Hopefully it looks half as good as yours! I did conider this kind of thing! But I think it's above my skill level just yet - next time? I knew I had to have it when I saw those little slanty guys. Not sure how I keep finding these weird basses in disrepair haha! Project update coming soon, night shifts for the next few days, stay tuned

Meet Scarlett - my Maruszczyk Frog 6-string fretless: She sounds as good as she looks... if you go to the BC Bands thread, there's a live video of my band in there, and I play it on a couple of the tunes. You can see a bit of her sister, Skye, next to her there - same, but fretted and with a blue colour scheme. I was the first person to specify a Frog with the ceruse-stained quilted ash, Delano Xtenders and coloured hardware. Based on what I've seen on their FB page, Adrian & co have made quite a few other ones since - I need to have a word and get him to call a Frog with that combination of features the Frog RW or something. Make it a signature bass.

Played a rare gig with backline and without inears over the weekend...never again (if I can help it). I'd forgotten what a rare thing it is to have a decent onstage sound (I didn't have one, obv), and obviously everything was wayyyy too loud...pfffttt... Once you've gone inears (with your own mix), it's tough to go back...

We closed the Home Grown Music Festival in Regner Park tonight. We started at 8:30 and played an hour set. If any vids appear I'll post them. Daryl

hey guys, Jake from Trickfish here. Maybe I can clarify couple things. The quoted wattage ratings for the 3K's dual amplifier outputs are RMS ratings per the power module manufacturer (Pascal). The amplifier cannot be bridged at 3000 or 5000 W (8 or 4 ohms). Each of the output channels was designed with enough wattage (1500 or 2500 at 8 or 4 ohms ) for that not really to be a necessary function. While the chassis is in fact machined/manufactured, the amp is hand built/assembled in Texas. I guess the PR could have been more accurate in that description. 🙂 Feel free to let me know if you have any questions that I can answer about the 3K. Here's a picture I took on a gig last week. I cant say enough good things.