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Just got back home from watching Ozzy come through town 1 last time, definitely an atmosphere of celebration, to be expected with a guy like him. Plenty of tourists and lots of pride on show from Brum natives, which is nice to see. Managed a couple snaps of Sabbs bridge on Sat as I was in the area, streams of people coming to pay their respects.

I've been looking out for a sixer to be more "everyday" than my Sei, which is both as lovely and as unpredictable as my beloved pet cat. I had an inkling a TRB-6 would fit the bill. What I read about playability, tone, and build quality are all right up my street. I saw this one on FB a week or so back. Went up to try it out yesterday. It's been sitting doing nothing for a few years, so the strings are grubby, and the whole thing needs a light clean. But it's in excellent nick. (Two small dings on the neck which might well have happened when I put it down on the little stand the sellers had, and the stand collapsed.) Otherwise nearly flawless. Gave it a quick play whilst I was there, and I can see why these are said to have a distinctive voice. Whilst I like it, plans are already afoot to move some instruments on (not the sei) to make room for a second TRB-6 so I can experiment with pickup replacement. It would be good to find something a bit less distinctive.

Got my Cali ll TM SL Short ex-stock from Thomann. The only thing it didn't have compared with my configurator design was a roasted maple neck. I was happy to trade that off against immediate delivery plus a cost saving of over £400, which has funded the Aguilar pick-up set I've just had fitted. Now the Sandy is definitely 'the one bass that rules them all' - in our house at least 🙂 The pic is the shot of my actual bass taken by Thomann.

Big knob? No idea what you're talking about...

Just for you BassmanPaul,,,,,,,,,,,,,pics added 😊😊😊 Due to the ill health of my wife ( Parkinsons and Dementia ) my life , and playing in bands , stopped two years ago, and I now care for her 24/7 . The only little bit I have of my life is playing bass for five or ten minutes a day , the rest of the day is caring for her . This came up on Reverb over here at £199 ,,,,,,,,,,,,how could I not buy it . I aint got many years left myself ( I`m 78) so why not treat myself . Its heavy (69Ib) but what a sound . It takes me back to when I started playing in the early 60`s Pete

Hi all, Just took delivery of above, 69Ib of pure heaven on castors. Considering the age (17 years old) not bad condition. Trying to gather as much info on known faults, just in case! Pete

thanks for all the comments guys… I went and saw a local luthier today - Carl Munson at Munson Guitars who is ten minutes down the road from me and with me stripping the current finish, he is going to do a very competitive refinish for me. He was keen to do a natural finish (gloss nitro finish) and I do like the idea, but it all depends on what I find underneath the paint. he also showed me about a ‘dirty stain’ natural finish - staining the wood with a dark stain then sanding back to make it pop a bit more as a natural finish. I would be worried about it being too light and boring so anything to bring the grain out a bit more can’t be a bad thing. Will be stripping it towards the end of August so will update and make a build thread so anyone interested. thanks!

Mmmm.....breakfast.... I suspect we'll be there for that and to help setup. Rob

This could be fun. The neck pickup is a bit wonky, but that's easily sorted. If I wasn't skint I'db tempted to turn it into a fretless (has anyone done that to a Mustang/Musicmaster btw? I couldn't see anything on Youtube) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/376440384712

Rejoined the Sandberg club with this lefty TT4, soft aged metallic orange with a birdseye roasted maple neck. Three gigs under it's belt so far, loving it 😊

Recently fitted a new pair of Callaghan nickel-plated brass flat-top knobs to my Precision bitzer. They’re the late-’50s heavy knurled style — machined (not cast or moulded), so they have a nice solid feel and noticeably more weight than standard ones. There were £40 for the pair from Charlie Chandler’s Guitar Experience, but totally worth it — they really add a touch of class to the rebuild. This bass started out as a fretless a little over twenty years ago, but I’ve remade it with a new Fender fretted neck and an EMG GZR pickup.

I think this is an underrated opinion. A lot of people go "ooooh I like that bass, I'll just put my strings on it, get it set up to my usual action, put the EMGs that I like in it... etc etc". Just stick with what you've got then. I'm kicking myself for changing my SB2 to VVT. No tone control is part of what makes that bass unique, even if it is a weird quirk.

I spent some years before the internet looking for a later Fireglo 4001 , and eventually found one in Toronto. There were never any for sale here in Halifax. It was just exactly what I hoped it would be , and for some years I was a Ric guy. I’ve had it now for close to thirty years. I just play it at home today , but any time I pick it up it feels perfect. Incredibly stable neck , I’ve only adjusted the truss rods twice in that time. Also managed to find an old burgundyglo set necked 4000. I thought I’d miss the neck pickup and knobs. I was wrong. They are beauties. And despite owning and playing Rics for some years , I still get excited when I see a nice one. They simply do that to me. Still.

Because I am horrified by what I have read in the pages of this thread, and the Vice link aniki posted. That's why. Like you say, we can all pick and choose where we rehearse, and on the basis of this thread I would pick and choose to avoid Pirate like the proverbial.

Why's that? Obviously we can all pick and choose where we rehearse, but the Pirate studios ive used have already been pretty full when we have been there. never had any incidents (unlike with certain other studios).

That's what the security guard said when I tried to leave Tesco without paying. He was wrong.

Hey Pete, I have some inkling of what you are going through and I wish You all the strength you'll need to get through it. In 1988 when he was sixteen my younger son was involved in a car acccident that left him with a broken neck a paralised from the shoulders down. Our lives changed drastically. We had to find a new house that could be renovated to suit his needs. After a search involving 75 houses we found this one. The changes, like adding an elevator, cost $187K which we had to find! Cut to present day and he bought himself a Condo and went out with his attendant one day and never came back! But that's enough of my story. I no longer play out and haven't picked up a bass since the time of Covid. That said I do have a lot of knowledge and try to pass it on to help my fellows.

I'd never heard of pirate before reading this thread. It makes me glad to be in a band where the guitarist has a studio in his home. The only hazard I encounter is the possibility of tripping over Ralph.

Legal liability aside, I would not feel comfortable with the moral responsibility if it did indeed turn out to be a genuine alarm and someone was injured after I disabled the alarm. With my fire warden hat on from work, I’m appalled. A key rule is never to re-enter a building in a state of alarm until all clear is given. That is the responsibility of a Fire Marshal or Incident Controller; the person should be familiar with the premises and be fully aware of all the potential hazards therein. A company cannot simply outsource the role of Incident Controller / Fire Marshal that does this to its customers and visitors to its premises. On the evidence available it’s hard to see how Pirate can demonstrate that they have an effective emergency action plan is as required by law; clearly if they have one, it is not working. E2A: where the premises are routinely unstaffed, then that just means the emergency action plan must be more robust and actionable.

I’m now in the process of getting another beautiful Overwater made. Here are the first pictures for the build diary.

Tonight we all sat in a circle, kept the volume right down and deep dived into the arrangements for three originals. We had all come up with our perspectives on WhatsApp in advance. I used my fretless and it opened some new sonic avenues. We got into some theory which was fun. I am turning a D into a Bm7 🙂... but only sometimes and i makes a big differenceto feel. We had long discussion on how to move in and out of solos and decided to end a song in Em on A major to accentuate the mbiguous lyrical ending. It was pointed out that one if my basslines sounded like Dani California so I ended up quoting that instead. Another song, relegated a really nice line I came up with using a different inversion of each chord to the chorus and came up with a mwah-enriched melodic line for verses. Similar attention given to drums, guitars and vocals, as well as overall timing and structure. Was fun working as a group and achieving some major improvements by thinking from an audience perspective. None of us could have achieved this alone. We aren't the beatles but still very satisfying.

So useful to know that the MXR struggles to track at pace, thank you! For bassists less competent at "synth bass technique" than you (like me for starters), that could be an issue. Together with the arpeggiator and a decent display, another reason to stick for a while with my Boss SY-200 which delivers idiot-friendly "tracking" at pretty rapid speeds.

Hey all. Update to the thread. So, I got the chance to try out a new prototype cab from @stevie. It’s wonderful, very capable for an 8” cab. The driver for me for trying it out was having the Everse 8 distort a lot when I pushed it a lot harder on one recent busking gig. I was asking too much of it - outdoors, no walls nearby, playing with a drummer on a portable kit - but I realised that I want to step up my power/speaker size. When I compare directly to the LFSys 8” prototype. I now appreciate more cabinet resonances when I turn the Everse up loud. I think this is because it is a composite cab, and also not as well braced as the LFSys cab. There’s no contest for me. Having the prototype LFSys 8” cab to compare to the Everse shows how much better having a dedicated, properly braced, rigid bass cab sounds at high volume. I’ve sold the Everse 8 and accepted that what I need for busking is more speaker size and power. I did a lot of testing out of portable camping batteries and the Jackery Explorer 300+ is where I landed. I’ve solved a significant EMI noise problem with that, and will simply use my well used B-Amp with an LFSys cab and the Jackery. I accept better/louder sound will now need a bigger carry - so got my luggage trolley back out. I now await an LFSys Goodwood 10” with great anticipation.

I went to Firebird for a classical piano exam. But they had no piano and were at a loss as to why the exam board had sent me there. The staff were helpful and friendly though, and it looked a decent set up.

Pirate started well but it is a concept that requires respect from the users. There's so much potential for abuse.

Yeah, and ive been to many London studios where plugs are falling off the walls, lack of earthing on the amps and condensation on the walls etc. But those are manned so much safer 😅

Stopping is easy. I've done it loads of times.

The Bash starts at 10am but anyone who wants to come earlier from 8am is welcome to have breakfast served from Mrs Scrumpy's kitchen and maybe help us set up.

Thanks, I will pass that on to our singer.

#spiritofbasschat

Anyone reading this needs to get proper moulded ones. Saving 100 quid to use plugs which are not guaranteed to seal is asking for trouble. Every one of us who has tinnitus/top end loss/hyperacusis (sp?)/something else would spend that 100 quid without blinking to make their hearing right. Most of us would spend 10 or 20 times that. But we cannot. Once the damage is done, it is game over. No one sits there listening to their ears whine/grumble/rumble or just not work and thinks "so glad I saved the cost of 3 sets of strings". Do it right first time. I am not pointing at anyone who is using anything else.

When our band kicked off a couple of years ago, the premise was that every member ( 5 of us ) had to sing lead vocals on various tracks, mainly because we didnt have a front man. Only 3 members had sung lead before. I wasnt one of then, so i had to get stuck in. Not easy so i found out, and it depended on what bass line i was paying at the time. But it worked out ok cos i kept at it, and had around 5 tracks to sing lead on. Just practice , there's no magic.

^^^ I've owned both amps and would definitely agree with this... The V4BH is easier to use and in a gigging situation, that's so useful...

I’m now part of the club, a Sandberg California TT Superlight now in the house.

After years of playing Fender P basses, I've recently started getting an issue with the forefinger of my fretting hand after playing, especially if it's a 2 gig weekend, possibly the early signs of arthritis. Having Sandberg's in the past I took the plunge on this lefty TT4, as I've always loved the necks. Three gigs later & no issues with my fretting hand. Added bonus it only weighs 3.5kg 😊

I'd hate to live next to a pub or music venue, but wouldn't expect it to close down because ive just moved there. Some people are up thier own backsides.

You might be better off with Grindr then.

OK, as they are silly cheap, I ordered three sets, including one for my brother who wants to try flats. First impression - packaged in an attractive, nicely finished proper box, not an envelope. In individual sealed plastic envelopes with very clear numbering. Other brands could do this, it feels premium compared to most brands. Colour coded ball ends, though not as nicely finished as Fender ball ends. Red silk wraps. Feel surprisingly slinky. Lighter gauge than the Fender flats I took off, so hard to make a really fair comparison. The HB strings are marked as 45-100 and measured as 44-99. The Fenders 55-105 measure as 56-104, both sets are stainless steel. Very clear the wrap pitch is much narrower on the Harley Benton strings, which should make them slinkier for a given diameter. Bent over the ends before cutting and no problems with the wrap slipping (presumably helped by the hex core. They also feel smoother than the Fenders, appear to be closer wound. Sounded much brighter/richer than the fenders, with tension much lower than I'd expect from the diameter difference. I had to slack off the truss rod by at least half a turn. Lower tension feels much better. I suspect a lot of this is the 45-100. So if they bear up and keep some of their richness, these are a much better score than the Fender flats for me. Obviously comparing with Fender 45-100 would be fairer, but at less than 1/3 the cost these are a great deal. I will try their rounds as well.

There's a very exciting Netflix drama in this!!!!

Look behind many tragedies and even major disasters and there’s an alarm that has been routinely ignored or switched off. Building fires are funny things, you often don’t see them until it’s too late, as a close neighbour found out two years ago. CCTV is not a fire alarm, that’s why we have fire alarms

Never mind their head office. Whoever the OP spoke with was obviously following their policy, so they won't be bothered. Inform the local authority and the fire service and don't do so anonymously. Give dates, times, etc. I'm sure they would be very interested to learn the company asked a customer to disable a fire alarm. If they've already banned you, you have nothing to lose. Forget the hand-wringing over a bit of swearing. That's obviously their way of trying to justify themselves.

It's a case of who was there first. If you build a dwelling next to a noisy venue then that should be your responibility. If a bar/cub opene up next to you then it's their responsibility. It's the "Agent of Change " princible.

I should share this beauty which arrived from @skelf last week:

ACS, ACS, ACS