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Showing content with the highest reputation on 24/07/25 in all areas
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This is an absolutely beautiful example of an outstanding handmade bass In 10/10 condition. Used primarily in the studio. The bass sounds incredible in both passive and active mode. The preamp is an 18v model with massive headroom and very easy to get your desired sound. The bass is a tone monster with the best bottom B anywhere. Here are the technical specs from the KS website. General Specifications Features and Specifications for All Smith Basses (See Model for Additional Features and Options) “NEW” Smith B.M.T. 3 Band Active EQ 18-volt Circuit with Internal 4-way adjustable frequency DIP switches for each band. (Opt. Concentric BT/BMT Circuit with Top Jack on BT Vintage Elite Models.) World Famous Smith Custom Bass Humbucking Soapbar Pickups Fully Shielded Pickup & Control Cavities Aged 5-Piece Laminated Hardrock Maple/Shedua Necks with Graphite Inlaid Bars and Smith Dual Truss Rod. Long Scale, 34″ (Best Low ‘B’ in the Business!) 24 frets Fingerboards: Quartersawn Macassar Ebony (opt. Morado/Pau Ferro. Mother of Pearl Inlays Angled Back Headstock reinforced with Smith Coat of Arms carving on back Wood Headstock Overlay Smith Custom Tuning Gears Scalloped Brass Nut, Individually Hand-Fit Smith QSR (Quick String Release) Bridge machined from Solid Brass Semi-Gloss Poly-mix Elite Finish. Matte or Semi-Gloss Poly-mix finish. (High Gloss optional) All Smith Basses are Set-Up with Smith Custom Balanced Taper Core Medium Bass Strings 5-String Models are Standard with Low ‘B’ 5-String Models String Spacing: Nut: 9mm (23/64″) Bridge: 18mm (23/32″) Fingerboard Width: Nut: 1 3/4″ 24th Fret: 3″ Ken Smith hand picks the wood for every bass from our in-house lumberyard, which features over 20 species of aged tonewoods. Visitors to the factory are awestruck by what is probably the largest collection and variety of acclimated musical-grade woods in the world. Inspired by the techniques of 16th – 19th Century European stringed instrument makers, Smith Basses are a marriage of Old World Tradition and Modern Innovation. Ken Smith supervises the production of each bass and still does the final set-up.13 points -
The "bluegrassy" trio did an outdoor busking gig in front of a restaurant at noon today. First time in many years where I have played on a sidewalk, we went acoustic (mandolin, guitar,DB, vocals) except for me on DB who used my Traynor amp to give just a bit more volume. We will be doing another lunch time gig next week and then have a bluegrass festival with the full 5 piece band the following weekend.12 points
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Another Wednesday night for me playing rock n roll at a local club. A three piece band ( guitar, bass and drums ) using the house PA for vocals and our own backline. A reasonable crowd all wanting to dance, so we obliged with a good selection of stuff including ‘Flip flop and fly’, ‘Lipstick, powder and paint’, ‘Sea cruise’, and some more recent tunes like ‘I knew the bride’ and ‘Rockabilly rebel’. We ended the evening with ‘Tennessee Waltz’ as a tribute to Connie Francis. I used my P-Lyte into a Hartke 3500 and my old Loud 4x10. Couple of musos commented it didn’t sound as good as my Rumble 500 I used last week, and I have to agree. We get to leave the gear at the club though, and I use the Rumble on other gigs so it’s easier for me to use this set up , but I maybe do need to consider getting another Rumble at some point.11 points
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Decloaking briefly. I have a thing for Fiesta Red Precisions. One the left a GB Spitfire with a P bass pickup. In the middle a 1962 Fender Precision On the right a 1981 Fender Precision 1957 Fullerton reissue. These have very wide necks!7 points
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I am currently using the Boss instead of the HX. It sounds really good, but it is 0 intuitive7 points
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Here's the pic I should have included in my previous post! I'm planning to raise the board a few mm to fit the HPF underneath as soon as I find some suitable feet.6 points
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You might have to hold your horses. theres a band meeting been called. I’ve obviously raised some valid concerns and I don’t really want to leave. i wont lie - ive not been in a great mental space recently so maybe the band has copped for it… i dunno:6 points
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BC right now...6 points
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Man. Where do I start? I wasn’t always the biggest fan of Ozzy or sabbath. My gateway to metal ran through Guns n roses, Bon Jovi - hard rock acts. From there I fell into Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. I was aware of Sabbath and Ozzy of course but I wasn’t a particularly huge fan. I respected them for what they created, but there were louder, faster, darker acts out there by the time I was discovering metal in the early 90’s. However the shadow of Sabbath and Ozzy loomed over everything. Pantera did sabbath covers. Anyone who was anyone in metal attributed their passion to the Birmingham quartet and their lunatic frontman. Still not a ‘fan’, they were impossible to avoid, from compilation CD’s, to articles in Metal Hammer. You learned by Ozmosis (sorry!). War Pigs, paranoid, the Wizard. Crazy Train, Mr Crowley. All became ingrained in my psyche, and I still wasn’t a fan. I told people ‘oh yeah they’re vital, but I don’t really like them that much’ i got older, I got wiser. I paid more attention. Iommi, Butler and Ward were the engine of sabbath, they made it work. But Ozzy was the paint job that screamed ‘look at me!’. He was the heart and soul of Sabbath. They were a good band without him - Dio’s sabbath were incredible, except they weren’t Sabbath. Ozzy made them iconic. He made them ‘them’. i realised that I’d been lying for years. Telling people I wasn’t a fan. Telling people I respected their influence, but never loved their music. I realised too late that I was always a fan. Probably since I first heard them on one of those compilation CD’s. Since Tuesday night all I’ve done is blast Sabbath and Ozzy. We’re gonna put paranoid in our set next week and close the show with it. Our little tribute to the Prince of darkness. I hope he’s looking down right now, shaking his head and wondering what all the fuss is about. Probably shouting for ‘SHARRROOON’ to explain why gen-x is being so quiet right now.5 points
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Very neat. Nice idea. When I use it, I shall be sure to point out that I am using the patented Al Nico 'Cable Restraint At Point' method.5 points
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You can't go wrong. Last Friday one of the agents that books gigs came to see us and it was the first time I'd met him. He said to me after the first set what a great bass sound I had. The Fusion 550 is a peach.5 points -
While the lacquer cured, I started to prepare the tuners for installment. Like I mentioned in the thread of the other bass that I built for Tom Petersson I modified the Schaller tuners a little bit. Two reasons: Save weight. And to make them shorter in order to keep the headstock as small as possible (without sacrificing strength of the wood). After I had wet sanded and polished the bass, I installed al the hardware and electronics. Initially the bass was designed with a pearloid pickguard (which matches the pearloid buttons of the octave tuners) But when I saw the beautiful quilted maple top I got second thoughts. And suggested we'd leave the pickguard off. Tom agreed to leave it off. But I did make some pics with the pickguard that I already had cut out. I used cut off head of phillips crews to make it look as if it was really mounted. So no holes were drilled in that quilted maple top. I put the pickguard inside the case. So if Tom should change his mind he can always decide to mount it after all.4 points
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A couple of years back I worked an acoustic duo with two guitars. Very laid back, restaurant music. Occasionally had a percussionist sit in and he was generally excellent and tasteful. One particular show he was suffering from an ear infection and consequently the volume kept going up with a particularly piercing cowbell right in my ear line. I could have handled that, but a chap at the pub garden we were playing announced he was also a percussionist and ran home to fetch some kind of wooden primitive xylophone thing so he could sit in. It was about knee height and he placed it on the floor while sitting on a slightly-too-tall stool, so he had to lean forward and awkwardly hammer away at it with a mallet like a particularly demented shed builder. It was already a horribly warm day and now one ear was getting the cowbell and the other a discordant clattering of poorly tuned wooden tonebars with little relation to the tune, with the two of us guitars trying grimly to hold onto a tempo. I started to get a bit woozy and felt like I was dodging massive gears inside a giant horror movie clock or something equally baroque. SAW: REAPERCUSSION perhaps. Puckered my anus enough to get through about three tunes worth of it and then had to stop the set "to do a couple of solo tunes" while the other guitarist diplomatically told them to shut the f*** up before both their instruments went into the harbour.4 points
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Sent the bass to the USA three weeks ago. And lo and behold, two days ago it showed up on stage in Toronto4 points
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Great sounding amp, just not using much at the moment and need some funds. Price includes UK shipping.4 points -
Good luck Andy, hope it all works out for you which ever way it goes. I hit 56 next year which means I've played bass in bands for 40 years. As I get older, I am becoming more reflective and less enthusiastic about gigging. I'm very happy with the bands I'm in, everyone is great to work with and on the same page but the fire is dying. I started out all those years ago, playing all over the country, building a following and eventually getting a record deal. Every pub and club had music and it was always a packed and enthusiastic night. These days there really is a huge difference with a general lack of interest in bands and music. There are less places to play and the foot fall is so small that it makes you wonder, why bother, it sometimes feels like flogging a dead horse. Even playing Glastonbury this year, I noticed some stages were very quiet and bands were playing to not many people which was depressing to see. Someone said earlier that as we get older, we realise that time is precious and I'm very much feeling that way. I'm fortunate to have lived out my dream and achieved more than most but after 40 years of being a musician, I have nothing left to achieve. I now feel that the years I have left, with good health and relative youth on my side, I want to spend the time I have building new chapters, memories and adventures.4 points
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You've got to admit though, getting any sort of tune out of a chimney is pretty impressive.4 points
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So new (to me) bass day, a rather nice Sandberg SL. Been looking for one for a while due to back issues and when I saw this up for grabs, in my favoured black/black/maple it just had to be. Just played it for about an hour and even without being set up as I like, and without my favoured Elixirs (currently has Elites steel rounds) it’s simply a dream to play. Not usually a fan of matching headstocks but I think it really suits it, plus - and shows my levels of OCD - it matches our guitarists Ibanez like this so I’m more than happy. I’m giving up gigging so this will be used at home and with my non-gigging classic rock band, this 6lb bass will make 4hr rehearsals a lot easier.3 points
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Here are the two bass guitars together, side by side like they should be...3 points
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I just moved the Ozzy track behind the Scofield track so Ozzy's is listed as transcription no. 666 on the list on the front of this thread. 👺🤘3 points
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Finished the bass solid black. And applied the water slide decals. After lots of wet sanding I polished the bass For the pickup rings I made some black spacers. I laser cut them at the FabLab. So I'm thinking about making more of those for future use. Mounted the Gemini Thunderbird pickups (spacers underneath the nickel rings)3 points
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Routed the profile for the controls cover And cavities for the pickups And the neck pocket Shaped the neck heel (sorry no pics). And glued the neck in. Then it started to look like a bass3 points
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Forgot to show you a step 😉 Before I drilled the holes in the headstock I made a test headstock out of cheap MDF Because for this bass I had to used a new type of tuner for the octave strings. I had always used ultra light weight Gotoh Stealth tuners for the octave tuners. But Gotoh no longer makes them. Gotoh does make carbon plate tuners that are very light weight as well. But they are quite expensive and have to be made to order so it can take months to have them. Then I found that Schaller has a light weight tuner too in their arsenal. The GrandTune machine heads. I decided to modify them a bit by cutting off one lug. This would not only make the tuners even a bit lighter. But also would make the headstock shorter, which is a big factor in the battle against neck dive! So when I was happy with that result I drilled the holes in the real headstock (as seen in the post above).3 points
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When the fretboard and truss rod cover were ready I made a rough cut of the neck shape. And glued the fretboard on. As always I used strips of inner bicycle tubes for clamping. Then clamped the neck to my work table. And started to shape the neck profile When the neck was taking shape I drilled the holes for the tuners. Drilled holes on the side of the fretboard for the side position markers Glued the markers in Filled the little gaps under the frets with a mix of ebony sawdust and Titebond Original3 points
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I suppose, if the OP has no plans to gig soon, a compromise might be a good little heaphone amp like a Vox Amplug or maybe even a budget multi fx that can be paired with headphones like the old Zoom B1on if they can find one. It will still be a decent sonic upgrade on the practice amp and should leave enough change for a bass upgrade too.3 points
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It`s def a case of two arguments: Better amp - sounds better so makes you want to play more. Not much can be done to make an amp sound better than it already does. Better instrument - plays better so makes you want to play more. Re this as other mentioned a decent set-up can turn a budget instrument into a great player, so always worth getting optimum performance from your existing instrument.3 points
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I've had my music described as 'somewhere between Country and Rap'. I'm consistent.3 points
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Correct, we were outside beside the tables they have on their sidewalk patio, the gig next week will be inside the restaurant.3 points
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3 points
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He was aiming at the harmonica player, who got up and started playing during the premiere of the 1812. Tchaikovsky was so grateful to that audience member for his timely intervention, that he wrote the part into all subsequent performances. True story.3 points
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Ok, here's my entry, another hurried effort, but I'm out tomorrow, hence the rush! Inspired by the picture and by a jam at a friend's house over 40 years ago. Turned out a bit more guitarry than I intended, but these things do tend to evolve a life of their own, once started. Guitars and bass going in via a NuX Mighty Plug thing, except the lead guitar, Cry Baby into a Session Rockette 30. The usual Gretsch kit and tambourine, all into Reaper.3 points
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Moby, of all people, has some nice words:3 points
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U42?3 points
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After the neck was glued in I stained the bass in the desired color. Tom asked for a dark Lemon Burst. Which was a first for me. But it turned out great. After a few coats of clear lacquer Applied the decals2 points
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Routed the channel for the first step of the checkerboard binding. Glued in the strips of checkerboard binding. On the sharp corners it's actually done block by block. The routed away the black fiber strip in the outside. And glued in the real outer binding. I use a hairdryer to soften the binding where it has to make a sharp corner. When everything was in place I used the strips of inner bicycle tubes to keep it all clamped, while it dried and hardened. The two bodies were ready at the same time2 points
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Drilled holes for weight relief in the body blank and routed the cavities and channels for the wiring Bought a beautiful bookmatched Quilted Maple top set at my wood supplier (Masave in Zwolle The Netherlands) Glued the top op. You can never have enough clamps 😉 Let it sit for a couple of hours And then routed the body outline.2 points
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Oh, and there's few things worse than a trumpet player who comes from the 'HIGH and LOUD' school. The ones with the cheeks like leather bowling balls who haven't worked out that monophonic instruments can sometimes lay out during other player's solos, or that sounding like a pinched balloon neck being rapidly deflated is not a desirable trait in a soloist.2 points
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Clarification: I was playing the DB while standing on the sidewalk, hard to get a good sound playing the sidewalk and the concrete is hard on the fingers.🤣2 points
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There have been a few different versions of Ampeg's active midrange EQ in different models over the years. They all use a multi-tapped inductor in a similar way, but they've used several different valves to do it.2 points
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I ended up sending the second Nux back and got the EBS microbass 3. It’s like the Nux on steroids. I had the Ampeg SGT—DI for about 30mins and hated it ( i wasn’t looking specifically for an ampeg tone, i just felt i needed top try it as i love the BDDI so much). For me it sounded too coloured compared to the Nux, plus i had interference issue, but the EBS hits all the spots other than battery powered.2 points
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It always starts with a few wood blanks. I asked my wood supplier to make a body blank of White Limba aka Korina. And a nine-ply neck blank of White Lima woith strips of mahogany in between. I routed a slot for the carbon reinforcement strip in the middle. And two tapering slots for the truss rods. Made the spokewheel part fit. And decided to cover most of that part with pieces of the same White Limba, because it was siting a bit deeper than the rest of the truss rod. Drilled hols in the ebony fretboard for the inlays And after I had hammered in the frets (sorry no pics) I made the truss rod cover.2 points
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I really like the sound out of it. I am still trying compressors, but they are good. I might go back to my Cali, I don't know. There is a feature that I love and it is the ability to have different Input levels and have them in the memory. I play different basses and that feature is pretty awesome I think2 points
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Take your own bass to the shop and try it through the same Fender amp. If it still sounds bad, then you'll know that a new amp is not the solution.2 points
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One of the things that happens as you get older, you realise that time is precious and you lose the willingness to waste it trying to sort people/organisations out. I have wasted years being a part of clubs/groups, where I should have walked away. I wasted 15 years or more on several groups where I was heavily involved in the organisation and running. You eventually realise they don't care - they plug you in, use you, throw you away, like a disposable battery.2 points
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Nice, very similar to my latest home/fly-board. Tuner->Multi FX->DI. Si2 points
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Yeah, it's a nice instrument. Mostly good quality, though the tuners quickly died on me (one broke and fell apart and others became wobbly) and had to do a costly swap. And while I was at it, nut swap came as well - Tusq XL eats the cheapo plastic for breakfast. I swapped the bridge saddles for more stability, too. The rest of bits is fine. Frets are nicely rounded. Even the stock pickup wasn't half bad, but I wanted it to have more kick. It's a match made in... well, in some cool but formidable supernatural place.2 points
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Wanted to try one of these for years, and talking to @Sean the other day only fueled the fire more! If my Orange OBC112s sell I'll probably be in touch.2 points
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Getting away from the doom and gloom of the neck pocket, I decided to do something productive instead of destructive. The old control cavity had not enjoyed life in the shed, it had warped and was rotting at one of the screw holes. So I made a new one - or at least a template out of hardwood ply if I decide to make one out of another material... Still to do screw holes etc, but I'm pretty pleased with the shape, it fits better than the old one did!2 points
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I understand where your coming from tho I beg to differ... cite "Darling Dear" and a whole tone of additional Motown lines as one collective example. Simple can actually get in the way of the musicality of the piece. The best line will support the melodic shape of the tune and can be either busy or simple.2 points
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Keys. I’ve been in too many bands where the keyboard player felt obliged to fill any hint of quiet with pointless flourishes adding nothing to the song.2 points
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