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!) …

By God! That was a long time ago.

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.

This is what happens when you buy grossly substandard parts from unauthorized (or non-genuine) supply chains. This is not a capacitor issue, it's a fraud issue.

Meep Purple

That is the down side of long rehearsals. I try to play a bit lighter on long rehearsals and even the longer gigs. Dave

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.

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.

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.

Played for my Neice’s and nephew-in-law’s (is that a thing?) wedding yesterday at the beautiful Creeksea Manor in Burnham-on-Crouch. Keen readers who may recall I had a particularly painful experience at last week’s gig will be pleased to to know this one went much, much better. You may also recall that last week was challenging due to personal reasons, and I have taken steps to address them. As I was part of the wedding party for the day, I had to leave the other load in and do the majority of the setup. This massively helped me, not just my time being involved in the wedding celebrations, but also relieved some of the pressure I’ve been feeling lately with band stuff. So by the time the band had to make themselves scarce whilst the guests sat down for the wedding breakfast, most of the work was done. Just a case of plugging in my gear and a couple of mics afterwards, and a quick sound check. Everything was still dialled in from last week, so soundcheck was quick and easy. The reception was in a huge marquee, with a permanent DJ booth at the head of the dance floor, meaning the band were somewhat crammed in the corner, but still more space than we’ve had in some places. Usefully it also meant the soft drapes caught errant reflections and sounded great “straight out of the box”. Although it was quite a warm evening, somehow the thunderstorm the weather reports promised amounted to no more than a rumble and a couple of minutes of drizzle - but you could feel the mugginess in the air! Hazel, our dep co-lead singer for the night, did a fantastic job, and worked the crowd well with Liam, our other singer. At one point, they both got into the crowded dancefloor, getting people to join in on Parklife, which was a particular highlight. Another highlight was the bride’s brother singing Teenage Dirtbag (with my wife doing the girls' bit in the middle). When the bride first asked us if he could do it ages ago, I didn’t even know if he could sing. Turns out he can’t, but he’s very enthusiastic! Thankfully, he was in time and more or less in key, but moreover, he loved every minute of it, and the crowd lapped it up. Two hours of rock, pop, party and cheese later, we were done and knackered. I received a number of compliments from guests, including people who hadn’t seen us play before but had heard good things. So I’m glad we didn’t disappoint. A couple of people even said they were glad they had a good band as the DJ was rather lacklustre. Most importantly, my Niece and new Nephew were over the moon with their day and evening, and I went to bed feeling a lot lighter in mood!

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