Leaderboard

Cannon. I mean, that bloke in the 1812. What was he thinking?

Last night we were back at The Burton in Brixham. We were offered tge gig with a weeks notice and took it, as we owed them a gig during to a cancelation earlier this year. Our last gig was 2 months ago and we didn't hsve time for a rehearsal, so just a bit od personal practice. The gig went really well. There were plenty of people, including a party group. We played well and gave a good show. I chatted to a couple who were visiting and came along with some local friends. She said we made her night playing songs from her youth, and he said War Pigs was the song of the night. A guy was videoing is on his phone and we caught up with him afterwards. Hopefully we'll get some of the footage soon. He lives upstairs from the pub and was drawn down by the band and my bass sound. The best gig we've had there, and we were payed a bit extra too. My usual rig, Stingray into RM500 and BF210. One of my photos of the stage.

U42?

I couldn't find this in the thread but for me this is a cracker of a cover. The Stones version I can take or leave but Beverley Knights take on it makes me smile. What a voice and the way it builds and keeps on building!

On a record I used two Leduc basses: a fretless Masterpiece MP 628 SF and a fretted U-Basse 6 MM. Exactly these very two: When the CD was released, everyone listening to it complimented me for my fretless playing on all titles, ... when half of them were played on a fretted bass. So the opposite is also possible. 😉

I've been meaning to write this up for ages. @The Guitar Weasel's recent thread has finally given me the nudge I needed to start collecting pictures and writing notes. Conveniently, this nudge has come on a weekend when my wife is out of town visiting friends, which was also the circumstance under which I did this project back in 2018. First. A little background on my bass, cast your mind back to the early 2010s – I genuinely don't remember exactly when, I think perhaps 2012? Definitely either 2011 or 2012. The weekend after my birthday, which is a few weeks before Christmas, my mum popped round to have a cup of tea and drop off a present for me. Over tea, I was presented with a bunch of small wrapped boxes that held – in no particular order – a roll of 120-grit sandpaper, a metal scraper and a bunch of scouring pads. The whole time I'm unwrapping these, my mum was just grinning at me. I stammered some appreciative noises and probably did a poor job of hiding my complete bafflement. She wiggled her eyebrows and said, "for instruments, you know. Fixing stuff". I nodded and smiled as if this explained everything. A few weeks later, and it's Christmas day – my wife and I, along with my siblings, are sitting around at the family home, exchanging gifts and listening to music. My parents then jump up, say something about getting my present, and scamper out of the room. We all hear an odd hollow thumping noise, and the giggling to-me-to-you's of two people manoeuvring something very large down a flight of stairs. I turn to my brother and say, "has, er... mum seemed odd to you lately?", but before he can answer they push open the door to reveal a full size double bass. It turns out that one of my mum's colleagues (primary school teachers all) had been clearing out her late father's house earlier in the year, and had found a double bass in the attic. The old man had been a school music teacher, but never played bass and his daughter didn't remember ever seeing one around. Her best guess was that it was a damaged instrument he'd brought home to fix (probably some time in the 1980s), as he apparently did that sometimes. The following day, this teacher mentioned her predicament in the staffroom, and said it was a shame it would have to go in the skip. Thinking of her bass-player son, my mum volunteered to go round after work and shove the bass into her Skoda Fabia. So why the sandpaper, scourers and scraper? Well, in the 15–25 years it had spent in an uninsulated attic, the gig bag it had originally been stored in – lined with some sort of neoprene-like material, I think – had completely broken down, and the whole instrument was coated in a crust of crumbly, sticky, rubber-like chunks. Annoyingly I didn't take any before pictures, but believe me when I say it was gnarly. I got it cleaned up (it mostly just needed a scrub), replaced the frayed mismatched strings with a set of rotosound RS4000s and set about learning to play it. My wife christened the bass "Marylou", because she (as in my wife) is from the deep south and felt something person-sized needed a person-like name. Marylou has no maker's marks or labels, just the sticker pictured above. The typeface of the school board that presumably originally owned it (below) says early-to-mid 1960s to me. The low-profile BC'er and double bass player who visited me last year to take my old bass cab off my hands reckoned she was probably a Boosey student model from the 1950s or 1960s.

It’s arrived and it’s like an old friend coming home ! Needed setting up, action was very high and the Rosewood fretboard was drier than a nuns chuff ! Anyways fretboard done, frets polished and action set and she’s ready to play

Here is my doom machine I built a year ago. It's a Squier Sonic Bronco in Tahitian Coral, heavily modified and personalized, strung with Ernie Ball Bass Flats 2801. Such a fun instrument, easy to play and great sounding. And I think the customising work I've done made it quite a looker, too. Work done: - Swaps: Pickup to Seymour Duncan SCPB-3 "Quarter Pounder" (I had to attach an additional ply of MDF with threads to the bottom and add springs to make it adjustable) Tuners to Gotoh GB11W Nut to Tusq XL Bridge saddles to 3-slotted vintage ones I had laying around (don't know the make) string tree to Gotoh TB54 string retainer knobs to Hosco HK-MKF - Add-ons and personalisation: Fender Vintage Jazz Bass pickup cover in chrome custom order vinyl wrap on pickguard and headstock custom 12th fret "marker" done with ultra-thin vinyl wrap and GitD tape Fender Strap Blocks in Daphne Blue

I put up with it for a long time in the 80's. Then one day, on the counter of a music shop in Leeds city centre, there was a sweet jar with hand written label "strap locks". It was full of these curious looking things. Have been using the same pair ever since. I recently took them apart and cleaned them for the first time as they were getting stiff. They must be 40 years old. How wonderful.

Kerchinnnnng !! Fretted with dual MECs and Fretless with single homeland

Not to flex on somebody else's achievements, but my drummer finished a tour with a broken foot a couple of years ago. Came offstage badly during an encore moment and broke it but still finished the gig before he realised he couldn't stand on it. Luckily we had a couple days off so he got booted at the hospital, me and him went into the studio and he relearned the set playing left foot kick, and then we did the last three gigs. He was taking the boot off so he didn't have to hobble onstage with it which earned him a shouting from the doctor after we wrapped. He's healed up fine thankfully. Wouldn't do it now but you know how it is when you're young and the band is the most important thing to ever thing.

Late night bass time! Dialling my custom Slap tone preset on my Darkglass Anagram. Here's a quick jam.

I've spent a pleasant couple of hours fitting most of the remaining hardware. During this process I discovered that (1) my M5 bolts were too short for mounting the transformers safely, and (2) I've run out of 3mm nylon locking nuts. I've placed orders for these, but in the meantime this is starting to look like it wants to be an amp: ALL BUILD PICS NOW IN POST DATE 01/11/2025

Slapped this board together in a hurry as I wanted a battery-powered utility board for a small gig. Slightly miffed I needed to use 2x USB converters to eliminate noise, but it worked well and sounded good in the end! Apologies if the messiness offends anyone!

At an open mic night in France, our visiting daughter decided to get up and sing At last, Etta James' classic. I was on acoustic bass, drummer on brushes, mate on keys. However the self appointed house harp player assumed he was included in the line up. After him playing continuously over the vocals for the first two minutes, I thought I'd really overstepped the mark when I screamed over mic "Shut the f*k up" but then, a big cheer and applause from every other muso in the place. These people have to be told.😆

Not sure if it's Trevor Horn who wrote the part, but Mark O'Toole does a great job of playing it here, and that's a fantastic tone. It doesn't hurt that it's given pride of place in the mix here. One for the good headphones / speakers.

I bought my first set of Dunlop strap locks in the late 80's. I'm still using the same set on my main bass.

It's taken me 30 years to find the right band, and in doing so I've realised how much I need a band, and how much shite was going on in my bands previously. I've joined around 30 bands, left 28 of them for the same reasons as you, and the other because had I stayed I'd have ended up a junkie. My current thing started as a way to catch up with mates, have a beer or two, and play some tunes, but it's working beautifully. Bands are like relationships, you just never know which one's going to work 👍

I've had an email from Colin Moulding/XTC: Paul It sounds like a worthy cause, and the money is not an issue , but I can't really say right now whether I’ll be available. I prefer to react to stuff when it comes through, so making a date , 4 months hence, would not be right for me. Sorry for the lack of committal Best Colin While it's a great pity he's declined at this point, I've thanked him for taking the time to come back to me.

John East 4-knob pre amp? Supposed to give you the original MM 2 band tones plus a sweepable mid. https://www.east-uk.com/product/mmsr-4-knob-3-band/?v=7885444af42e

At present I've only got this: I'd quite like another fretless but I almost always end up playing double bass these days so it seems a bit of an extravagance (and I will be knocked out of the gear abstention challenge). This one (with Villex pickups) also crosses over with the fake Fender decals thread... Taking the neck off reveals a "Fender" stamp due to it being licensed (the body's from the same source). The decal (easily removable) is only there for the "well, you didn't bring a proper bass but at least that electric one's a Fender" crowd.

Differences between fretted and fretless are greater with slap that other styles - frets have a hug effect on slap tone - but I'd argue it's less a case of 'doesn't work particularly well' and more a case of 'works very well when used appropriately', one example for me being Bakithi Kumalo on the Graceland album (I may be repeating myself here) 👍

I’ll be off to Wemberley in August to see Blackpink on parental chaperone duties.Hmmm… can’t wait. Friday at the O2 Arena watching the Doobie Brothers was much preferable and a fabulous evening. Proper quality country rock, yacht rock and blue eyed soul. Treat to have Michael McDonald back in the fold too. Lad had a great time so there’s hope for him yet 🤞.

So onto the matter at hand. The problems. As I mentioned in the first post, Marylou probably ended up in the attic of a house in Norwood because she'd had an accident. When I first got her, the action was unplayably high. I didn't really know anything about double basses at the time, so I didn't think too much about why that might be. I just did what I'd do with any instrument whose action was too high, and lowered the bridge. As it turned out, in order to get the action even half-way playable, I had to remove an enormous amount of material both from the feet and from the top part of the bridge (not sure if that has a name). If you look at the picture at the top of this thread (taken before the great works) you can see the comically cut-down bridge. This was fine though, for my limited abilities and even more limited knowlege of double basses. I played Marylou in this state for about four years, having a lot of fun even if my technique was probably pretty awful and my intonation worse. The problems started when my original set of rotosounds started to get a bit frayed and tatty. They were probably fine, but I was also aware that Marylou sounded a bit flat and quiet, and wondered if different strings might help. I bought a set of d'Addario Helicore strings, which have a steel core and are higher tension. This made Marylou a little louder, but also much harder to play. Unfortunately, I also injured the tendons in my left hand around this time, which meant that Marylou was now effectively unplayable – the effort of trying to play her for more than a minute or two caused me quite a lot of pain. I started to look a little more closely a Marylou's neck. I'd noticed before that she'd quite clearly had a fairly violent neck break in the past, and that it had been glued up rather ineptly, but I hadn't realised just how ineptly. Note the luxuriant froth of PVA glue and the decorator's-grade wood filler. This picture shows the angle that the neck had been reglued at. As you can see, it's almost parallel to the body. I realized that if I was going to ever be able to play this bass again, I was going to have to get that neck off.

Carmine Appice, with his enormous 'in your face' 24" double bass drums.

Great name for a band!

Year started playing: 2024 Number of basses: 8 Music theory: 2 Technique: 2 Groove: 4

It is a modified/personalized clone/upgrade of CoT-50 tweaked for bass. It's a booster and overdrive that saturates the sound and adds low to medium dirt to it. The level of overdrive is input-sensitive. The pots are Level and Sizzle (reversed bias for Boost mode). The toggle switches the LED color and toggles between no Boost (smaller lighting, blue LED) and Boost (bigger lightning, red LED); the rotary switch selects clipping between no added clipping (I), extra Schottky diode (II) or extra symmetrical pair of Schottky diodes (III). I is most low end and volume, least grit, III is the least low end and volume, but most grit, and II is somewhere in between. This thing does wonders with the rest of the pedals, adding more "scene" to the sound of other dirt pedals, also pushing them to more oomph, or, if they are properly dialed, gated and nasal tones. On its own it's also really cool, with warm, bluesey drive.

V sad. Many years ago my eldest son worked as a Saturday boy for a local company who did pa and lighting hire and sales. When he left to go to uni the owner gave him as a gift a paid overnight trip for two to the JHS trade show (up north!) and a couple of hundred to spend at trade prices. I couldn’t go so he took his grandad, they both had a brilliant time and son returned with a lovely Vintage j- bass and some other bits and pieces.