Leaderboard

We've not been as busy recently, feels like ages since I've posted! We were supposed to have a big slot at Northern Kin festival on Sunday but that festival, along with a load of others, went bust. We managed to put together a show a Billy Bootleggers in Nottingham instead. One support act, then our 30 minute "acoustic" set for Rebellion Festival next weekend, then our latest album in full, then another 10 songs. We arrived at 1:30. The sound engineer was outside, "no staff here until 2pm". Apparently this was known to our front man so god knows why he wanted to get there so early. He was desperately hungry and went to order some over priced pizzas while we waited. Then it turned out the staff had locked themselves out of the venue so we had to wait another half an hour for someone else. Finally load in at 2:30 in the world's smallest lift. I was soaked with sweat by the time I'd set my drums up. Boiling in there! Sound was fine and the venue was rammed by the time we went on. The acoustic set was fun, but I really was soaked by the end of that. Everyone else got a nice 5 minute break while I re-jigged the drums for the "proper" set. Our latest album has some very intense and difficult drumming on it, for which I can only blame myself, but after playing it all the way through, and then another 8 songs from our back catalogue, I was absolutely done. I could literally wring out my t-shirt. Anyway, absolutely wonderful gig in every way but I really, really wish I'd booked today off to sleep and hydrate.

That's a bit odd, pages 864 and 865 are displaying identical content. Anyroadup, Saturday was another dep for the Bonnevilles, who are still trying to get an answer from their current bassist about his intentions. Back to the Anker Inn in Nuneaton, which was not exactly rammed but it was a pretty good audience. Usual gear and footwear.

Sorry, no pics as I was still setting up until three (as in the three in 1,2,3,4). The Rebbels had a very good gig at my local Legion, in front of all my friends. People that have seen us many times said we had the sound we ever have, although we had to run without on stage monitoring, due to feedback problems. Legion in the next Village next Saturday.

Finally had the opportunity to play one today. For anyone worried about the pickup sounding like a mudbucker, no need for concern...this thing sounds great, quite a change in tone rolling off the tone knob. I can only imagine how good it would sound with proper strings. The quality of this bass is surprisingly good, even though I expected as much...and damn, it looks even better in real life! Sweetwater has several and they all seem to be in the 9 pound zone, but I'm guessing the one I played was much closer to 8 pounds. Oh yeah, it does both hard rock 𝘢𝘯𝘥 soft rock with equal conviction...I have to believe it'd make a nice bass for that Motown sound, too. Yes, I've played the Fender Vintera version, but no one would ever be able to convince me to buy one of them instead.

Probably one everybody knows but for tapping out tuner ferrules/bushings a suitably sized socket from a socket set is ideal.

Alternative title, "I'm not buying that one - it's all scratched!" Alas, poor Nate has gone. It was a lovely bass, but I don't gig Precisions. It's not my sound. So here's [yet] another Jazz bass... Previous owner has added a Parallel/Series switch (like Fender's original S1 switching), quite why, I have no idea. Also a Leo Quan BadAss II bridge, which is an excellent choice, although I'd have preferred the Fender American Standard/Professional bridge with the through body stringing. I guess you can't have everything. Liking the Shell Pink finish and the Pure Vintage 64 pickups (same as my American Original), but the relic job is VERY heavy handed. Then again, I could've been playing it since 1961 (eight years before I was born... 🤔) Like I said in the Nate Mendel for sale thread, I haven't kicked this around a gravel car park, but some Mexicans in Ensenada probably have. With it's American Original cousin...

Another weekend of incremental progress. I was out being sociable on saturday, and being slightly hungover today, so I was only really able to do stuff on Friday and Sunday afternoon. I'd decided early on that I was going to give this bass a full refret, and I figured that bit should probably be next in the order of operations. That way if I clip the body with a fret-cutting-saw or file, then I can address it when I'm tidying up the body before spraying. This might seem a little drastic, as the frets weren't in terrible shape, but I have my reasons. The first, and simplest, is that I may as well do it if I'm going to be putting in a dozen or so hours on restoring the instrument. The frets as they were could have been dressed and polished, but they would always have been a bit sub-par. The second is that I noticed that the fretboard is very low to the body by design, and that the saddles on the bridge appeared to be as low as they'd go. Obviously I've not seen what the action is like with strings on (I got this in bits), but those details were enough to make me a little worried that I might have trouble setting the action, especially if I had to dress the frets down any lower. To that end I ordered some super-jumbo fretwire – 3 mm x 1.47 mm – figuring it will raise the "floor" of the action up a bit, and hopefully give me a bit more leeway with saddle adjustment. The height of the existing frets was about 1.2 mm. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big difference in terms of feel. I like my fretted basses to be really emphatically fretted, if I want low-profile and smooth I play my fretless. First job was to take the frets out, which just involves carefully pulling them with a set of end-nippers ground down to have an edge that's flush with the front. After that I relaxed the truss rod and levelled the board with light sandpaper and a levelling beam. This fretboard was already more or less fine, so I was really just doing this to tidy some of the tear-out around the fret slots. I have to admit that I didn't do the most careful job with the fret pulling on this occasion. Nothing that can't be addressed with some sawdust and glue down the line though. I radiused the fretwire with my home-made fretwire radiusing tool. This is just three bolts through a old chopping board, with a set of roller-bearings and washers spaced so that you can tighten up the radius on wire. Trying to do fretwork with wire that's a bigger radius than the board you're trying to bash it into is a maddening experience and the results always suck. Professional versions of this tool are adjusted with set-screws and gears. I adjust the radius on mine by gently whacking the middle roller with a hammer. After that comes the arduous and boring task of cutting fretwire to size. This just involves standing at the workbench with a big pair of nippers, cutting off each fret-length piece until your hands hurt. The last few times I've done this it's been on acoustic guitars. Going from those to a 24-fret bass was an annoying experience. If you have the proper tools this goes a lot faster, and with less bruising of the hands, but the proper tools cost like £200 and take up a lot of space. Then, if you think that's boring the next job's even worse. If you don't have a tang-nipper (again, those cost about £200) then the only way to take the ends off the fret tangs so they don't look ugly on the fingerboard edges is to file them off one at a time in a vice. I genuinely don't think I would have gotten into guitar building as a hobby if if weren't for the ubiquity of podcasts and aubiobooks. Finally, you take the fretwire and you bash it in with a hammer. You can get professional results this way, it's just slower and takes a little more care and finesse than using a radius clamping caul and a fret-press. I don't have the space for either, and wouldn't want to spend that much money, so I've just gotten very practiced with my nylon-headed hammer. Pro tip: If you're installing frets at about 7 pm on a sunday evening in a thin-walled terraced house, do it on the kitchen floor. This is just a thin rug over tile on concrete, nothing to reverberate and boom with each hammer blow. The next step is to file off the ends and dress the frets, but I've run out of time for this weekend.

Had a cracking gig as dep in a UB40 tribute last night at the Big Tribute Fest 2025 in Plymouth. The band were headlining the Saturday night.

Went to see a local band play their third gig of the day(!) Their schtick is playing requests and when in places frequented by local musicians they also have a lot of guests up in the second half. Got asked up to join in for several rock songs, mostly ones I know for a change, but ended up doing American Idiot and Money for Nothing entirely by ear which was fun. This is the band without me!

Played a local pub (to the drummer and myself)on Friday night, The Yew Tree in Norton Canes (South Staffs). We are, as they described, a light rock band doing 60's, 70's 80's and 90's covers. We got there around 6ish to set up but found that they were still serving meals and they use the stage area for bigger groups, so hung back 'till 7pm. This also gave the lead singer time to grab something to eat. We started at 8.45pm and although the place was not packed but was busy and the audience were appreciative. Started the second set just before 10pm getting a similar response but having people from the 'sports bar' in the back of the pub popping in to listen as well. Finished just before 11pm. Now we had cleared the tables from the stage when we set up and we put them back afterwards as they seemed a little short staffed. The punters had told the landlady that they had had a good time and were pleased to have been able to hear the music and still be able to hold a conversation with friends. She had also enjoyed what she heard and was over the moon with the response and comments from customers to the point that she recommended us, via an internal WhatsApp group, to the other 200+ pubs in the chain and said she will book us again. Sorry for the long post and sounding a bit euphoric but this is only our 4th gig as a band, The Context, and we acquired it via a 30min set at the Yew Tree open mike night in April. They booked us there and then.

But... is it good for metal?

I haven’t bought anything since April. Thats quite good for me.

I've got a mate who used to work for Anchor Housing Trust... He took great joy in answering the phone with "Hello Anchor".

Am getting envious chaps!

If the holes align, but are just too big... Maybe use neck inserts and bolts, rather than plugging and re-drilling

In the article, Mr Flea says that he "showed up, rocked out, and split". I must say that sounds terribly painful, and I hope the studio staff were able to administer suitable first aid until the paramedics arrived.

If you listen to Jamerson's stuff isolated, it is not always pretty. We are, by now, used to playing to the grid. I have recently put a track together using a prerecorded drum track. It is very odd. The drum track is played live and bubbles along very nicely. I played the rest of the instruments using the drum track as a guide. Soloed, the bass sounds horrific - what we "know" as timing is deeply offended by what I played. But along with the drums it is just fine and dandy.

They're definitely learning that a big PA is very different to a club PA and it shows up things that just weren't a problem before like the occasional string touching a pickup is barely audible on a small PA but its like a punch in the face on a big PA. Fortunately, they're quite mature for teenagers and learning quickly and keen to adapt. They played another festival today and went down really well, the organisers want them back next year.

My recently delivered JayDee Roadie II Active Bass: I received this in April, But I am just getting to posting images of it, along with the hyperlinks to the demo videos on my channel on YouTube. If you enlarge the thumbnail image attachment, the breakdown of the controls and the specs of the bass is as follows: 34" scale, set-neck design, pickup height can be adjusted from the back, JayDee custom humbuckers and eq system. The pickup selector switch has 4 positions so from back most position to front, the options should be: 1) Off (no LED) 2) On - back pickup only 3) On - both pickups 4) On - neck pickup only The top chrome control knob is volume (self explanatory really, if you give it a tweak) and the bottom is passive tone. Rotary knob is OFF-Bridge pup - Both pups - Neck pup, switch is active passive, two silver knobs are master volume and tone, black knobs are three band EQ. The unboxing video link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUXO28tjwCQ&t=42s The sound demo video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljXTI9NH0kw&t=98s

Just a few cable management improvements thanks to a hole saw and Amazon's wide range of cables!

Three gigs this week. Tuesday was our monthly gig at a local pub ( acoustic duo). Plenty of great requests, including a few for the inevitable ‘Paranoid’ which we left until the end. Probably the busiest we’ve seen it, a lovely crowd all up for a good time and a laugh too - we did ‘Sylvia’s Mother’ and don’t know how we got to the end TBH. A fabulous gig, best we’ve done there I think. Wednesday was my weekly gig playing rock and roll at a local club. I’m getting a few songs together to sing , to give my guitarist mate a break mainly. I did JJ Cale’s ‘The Breeze’ and also ‘High heel sneakers’ which went down well with the dancers. Then Saturday I was depping with a local band at a garden party 6 miles from my village. We played under a gazebo at the end of the garden, and I had a tortoise keeping me company throughout ( see pic). One of those rare occasions where I wasn’t the oldest guy in the band, sax player was 83 and played seated unless soloing when he stood up and rocked it. Material was a mix of ska / reggae / soul with a few pop standards thrown in as well. Well lubricated audience loved it, and we got fed and watered. Nice to play with people I’ve never worked with before, doing stuff I’ve not played before too. Tunes included ‘Lip up fatty’, You can get it if you really want’ , ‘My boy Lollipop’ and ‘Everything I own’. Finished by 8.30pm, home around 9.15 so fine with me.

When soldering to the back of a potentiometer use a light abrasive (sandpaper, larks’ tongues etc…) to remove the coating on the metal and make it easier to solder to. When soldering the wire to the lug of the potentiometer use a small crocodile clip as a heat-sink to avoid overheating and damaging the insides.

On lead guitar last night with a pub covers band. The venue was a ginormous chain pub with a huge (but not separate) ‘function room’ area at the back. Sadly they had at some point walled off the stage to create a store room and somewhere to mount the biggest TV screen I have ever seen. I really wasn’t feeling it at first as I’d played with the band the previous night and could have done with a night in. Our sound check quickly cleared a table in front of one of the PA speakers, which didn’t bode well! But as soon as we started playing our first set there were people on the dance floor, and it just got busier as the night went on. By the end there were several people dancing on the tables, which fortunately seemed to have been constructed from scaffolding materials! The landlady was so happy with the band that she paid us an extra 20%.

Auld Gambling Hoose in Alloa for BLOCKBUSTARZ tonight. Reasonable sized crowd maybe 100 in plus a childhood neighbour turned up who lives in Alloa. Owner said its been slow over past few mths. Anyways thought i'd try my Overwater J4 for a spin but half way thru 2nd set i realised it was getting a bit heavy and my back was feeling it and i changed over to old faithful Sandberg VM4. Wife reckoned the VM4 was better sounding, deeper but clearer. Had dancers up most of the night with a full floor for special request of Time Warp. Audience seemed well up for a party tonight and really enjoyed themselves. Using Overwater J4 then Sandberg VM4 into Handbox WB-100 and BF 212 cab with Shure wireless and Keeley Bassist Comp. 1st set fro 8 to 9:20pm and 2nd set 9:45 to 11:15pm Got paid and a 1:15mins drive home. Dave

First gig with this tonight The Policed It sounds amazing and a great crowd Couldn't be happier

It's a flush fitting pickguard so it detaches and held in place by magnets

My First Ever Five! I’ve been wanting a 5 string for about 15 years but have never got around to it. Well, as I’m fairly set with my main gigging bass now and recently sold my Mustang, I decided that rather than putting the cash back into the mix to get spent on everyday stuff or ‘bits and bobs’ I was going to put it towards finally getting a 5. I was shopping around and nearly pulled the trigger on a Ray35 when this popped up… If money was no object, I’d buy an Overwater Jazz and in honesty, i think Cort Jazz’s have that kind of aesthetic (IMO) so I think this is why I’ve always been drawn to them. The finish on them is gorgeous to my eyes and I’ve seen so many good reviews, i thought it would be as good as any to make my first. I bought it Monday and it arrived Tuesday. I’ve not had loads of time with it yet but so far, I’ve got to say, I’m well impressed! OVERALL The fit and finish on the bass really is superb. Especially given the price point. The birdseye maple neck is stunning (my first ever maple neck too). THE B The B string seems pretty solid, and not floppy, or clangy. But, I’ll caveat that with saying I’ve not got a huge amount to compare it to other than friends 5er’s I’ve played in the past. TONE Again, not really got stuck in too much. But, well it sounds like a jazz bass. It’s a very clean/transparent sound I would say, and it’s only really when I boost the mids and roll off the neck pickup a bit that I’m getting a little growl. But, it’s a very nice sounding instrument without much colouring to the sound, which I sort of expected. Albeit not the loudest/hottest bass I’ve ever played (could just need pickup height adjustment) But to my ears it seems nice and balanced across the strings and I’ve no complaints as i wanted something versatile, which it is. One little annoyance is that it doesn’t appear to have any eq control when switched to passive. It just seems to make it flat. Kind of defeats the object other than as a battery failsafe. WEIGHT Compared to a lot of 5’s I’ve picked up and played on in the past, it’s pretty darn lightweight. I’m not sure on the exact weight. But, I was concerned when the box arrived that it was even in there! WAFFLE I’ll likely change the knobs out to black metal ones, as the stock Fender style, feel a bit cheap and look unappealing. I’ll also probably remove the clear pick guard for now. Might potentially look at getting a custom black pearloid one cut but for now I might just leave it off. It’s also another first for me. It’s a bass I’ve bought myself, purely because I wanted it. I didn’t buy it to fill an imaginary gap in my live set up or because I’ve got a few gigs I’ll need ‘X’ for. In fact, I’ve no immediate plans to gig it at all. I’ve just bought it to play, learn on and enjoy. Which feels like a very nice/fortunate thing to be able to get to do. ROSE MORRIS AND…. Big shout out to Rose Morris in London who were superb to deal with and got it boxed, shipped and delivered in just over 24 hours for free. I’d seen it online and had a few questions and David was really responsive and friendly. I ended up getting it for a really good price and even after I’d paid, he kept me updated with getting it shipped (Which was about 1.5 hours after buying it 🙏) CONCLUSION Overall, a very happy bass player so far. My ‘daily runner’ is a 30” passive 4 string, so it’s a bit of a jump up. Almost feels like learning to play all over again. But, a few hours in the den and I’ll be fine i think. If you’ve made it this far. Thanks for reading my waffle. Here’s what you’ve clicked on to see (Not the best pictures but i was in a rush to play it!) …

Some of you might recall that I recently bought a DeArmond Jet Star bass for the simple and highly frivolous reason that it made me laugh. Those who are familiar with the single pickup, long scale variant will also be aware of the decidedly bridgeward location of the pickup, leaving vast tracts of empty space on the body between the pickup and the neck. I think you know where this is heading. Well, a very nice chap in the States who makes YouTube videos (and occasionally posts on here - @Rib13Bass - shout out to you, bass brother) sent me a gift which arrived today... As Ozzy used to sing - what is this that stands before me? You gathered bass cognoscenti don't need me to tell you this is a pickup from a Peavey T-40/T-45. What is a person supposed to do with such a behemoth of a pickup? Oh, maybe something like this: So, the plan is to move the jack socket (currently front mounted) to the side to create a hole for the pickup selector switch. Will have to make a wee hole for a coil selector switch for the T-40 pickup. Oh and a big eff off hole for the T-40 pickup. T-40 pickup goes through the coil select switch, then onto the pickup selector switch, original pickup goes to the pickup selector switch, then the output of the pickup selector switch will be wired up to the existing harness at the volume pot. Easy as that! Now, where's my router...

Great news, and a great bass. You can change the thread title to *FOUND!* 😁

Raising money for our local hospice in a couple of weeks.

ooh new bass sound to aspire to. Not quite sure why this came up in my watchlist but I like it!

Meep Purple

Simplified sight reading for electric bass by Jos des Pres. I used this to learn bass notation. It’s brilliant!

I had a rehearsal on saturday with my new band. Guitarist played a good rock and so did the drummer. We played 5 hours with some coffy and cigaret stops. Rehearsal was good, i mainly played chords, said by guitarist and listened to the drummer. Long time ago i had to play 5 hours, so rehearsal ended with 2 big blisters on my 2 and 3 right hand fingers.

I've ordered the Artec now, ETA 12th Aug, will let you know how I get on. 👍

Aaagh first world problems and that, but… had a couple of ideas and thought I’d hook up the phone to Reaper via the interface , but I’ve got a new phone so the pricey cable I bought doesn’t fit the new phone. that’s ok I’ll use the old iPad …no battery , and now I realise I’ve got no ear phones / buds for the new phone ! just when I felt a masterpiece coming on aswell 🤦‍♂️

It reminds that when I started making this job many many many ... many moons ago, I was doing it in the attic at my parents house at ... whatever hour it was, so sometimes very late in the night or pretty early in the night... The following day was the day of the argument with ... guess who. 🤦🏻🤔😂

Missed this thread previously - fretted & fretless - my main two basses for the last twenty years!

Had a few Artec pres in basses, currently have an SE2A on my fretless and an SE3P in my Zoot. They sound very good to me, prefer them to a lot of posher preamps. Centre frequencies are very musical, you'll need to shield the cavity properly as they can be noisy if that isn't done, once it's shielded they're silent however.

50 minute afternoon spot at Ellesmere Port Summer Jam today. Only our third ever gig. It's a slow ball to get rolling right now but we're getting there. No amp/cab, just a HX stomp in and IEM straight from the desk. It always sounds fine at rehearsal but I need to do more work on my gig mix as it's never as well defined. Thinking about that diverts my focus away from what I'm playing, so I need to get it sorted. Played well, pretty happy all round. Sun came out and people listened. Nice things were said afterwards. Unfortunately the wrestling show had finished by the time we got off stage so my plans for a top turnbuckle band pic were scuppered. Here's a little phone clip of Macy Gray. Of course, our friends & family managed to catch the bit where I trip over my lead, nearly stack it then hit the wrong note. And some Jamiroquai with added photo (video?) bombing.

Photo from yesterday evening's guest spot

I’m going to cross post from my busking thread on the Everse 8. it’s very relevant here as I got to try out Stevie’s new 8” prototype cab. ‘So, I got the chance to try out a new prototype cab. 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’ll update the thread here once I get my new Goodwood.

Back from playing Dorset Chilli Festival. Was a great day and some lovely food. Recommended.

***UPDATE*** The bass was found. And delivered at Tom Petersson's address today! It appears to be undamaged.