Leaderboard

Well, this is a NBD thread I honestly didn't expect to make. Some of you might know that back in September 2024, I set myself a challenge - to achieve a "giggable" bass in a £150 budget - new parts only, ignoring postage costs. The core component of this challenge was a bass I spied and really liked the look of - the Fazley Hot Rod - a no-nonsense, pickguardless FSO, reverse P, volume only. Bax are the only vendors of these as far as I could see so even though they were out of stock and on back order, I laid down £84 for the bass. Yes. £84. Unfortunately, most people know the story now - Bax went bankrupt in early 2025. Womp womp. And you know how it is with companies going bust - the customers are at the back of the queue when it comes to making things right, so honestly I had written it off. But, Bax coughed back into life after being bought over. Then I started getting emails suggesting that they would be honouring past orders. I was sceptical, but I played along, answered any questions I was asked (confirming the order details, and a bit later on asking if I still wanted to wait, or take store credit). I opted to wait and have the order fulfilled as originally intended. Well, would you believe it? Look what arrived this morning... I tell you something for nothing - there's a lot of bass here for £84 (well back in September last year they were, they're £94 now - oh no!). It's the neck which surprised me the most - absolutely no raggedy fret ends, and even a very slight attempt to roll the edges of the fretboard. No swarf in the nut. Tuners are serviceable - not the smoothest turning but no play in the gears. Bridge is a BBOT - it works, nothng more. The only places I could see where money had been saved are in the finish - it's a bit uneven in places (but you have to look closely in the light to see the unevenness) and then the pickup. The stock pickup is comically low in output - I was giving it a test in my Tascam Bass Trainer and with the input level set to 10 (the maximum) the Fazley was barely getting to half way on the input monitor! Of course, the stock strings are hot garbage, thin, rougher than Rotos and went straight in the bin. In probably the quickest time from receiving a bass to replacing the pickup (about an hour and a half) I had the stock strings in the bin, the fretboard oiled (because it looked as dry as a camel's hoof) and the stock pickup out and a Tonerider Duke in there. What a difference! Much better output. The stock strings weren't giving the truss rod much to do - after I put my beloved D'addario XL nickel rounds on it, the neck was a banana and I had to tighten the truss rod three quarter turns! Further tweaking may be required, but I gave it a quick and dirty setup and now it's playing great. So that means so far I've spent £119 (£84 bass and £35 pickup), leaving £31 in the budget. I was expecting to have to change the bridge and/or the tuners, but in all honesty they have been unobtrusive and perfectly serviceable. Which leaves more room in the budget for some silliness/extra credit. I think I will fit one of my preferred Sire/Reverend style 3 string retainers, and I will fit a silly knob - which was the plan originally, but I stole the one I ordered and put it on the Epiphone Em-bassy (which I got when I was sure that this one would never materialise). EDIT - because people like to know - this particular bass weighs 3.6kg - or a smidge under 8lbs.

The green machine is all finished. It started as black and is now a gorgeous Emerald Green as you can’t get that colour in a shortscale left hander

2 Starry Night Stingrays…….

My dear friend and extraordinary bassplayer Barend Tromp offered to make a demo video of my bass! I'm very happy with the result, Barend played some killer grooves and is able to really push an instrument to the limits! So finally you guys can hear my "black beauty"! [youtube] Also check out Barend his solo work with contributions of Michael Manring, Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn! Barend Tromp spotify

I have a few basses but this is still one of my favourites. I think if I could only have one this would probably be it.

Not exactly new, it's a 2014 bass and I've had it a month or so now, but with one thing or another I haven't got round to posting anything, so I'll explain. The current Mrs C and I retired together on 26th June, and during the countdown - whilst planning our new lease of life - had decided on a retirement present each. Hers would be another (third) dog......she's obsessed with Scottish Terriers 🙄......mine would be something I could pass on to our daughter at some point. I've had an itch for a semi hollow bass for some time and had been getting back into the Byrds and the Grateful Dead, then I saw this little beauty for sale, and it fitted the bill perfectly. The only problem was that we were about to go on holiday and I didn't want to miss out on it, so we went from Plymouth to Southampton, via Manchester (on the day Oasis were starting their home gigs🥴) and it came with us on a cruise round the Mediterranean, where it celebrated it's 14th birthday🍰. It's in mint condition, has all the case candy with it, stating it's number 25 of something like 75 I think, but I'm not sure that this makes it particularly collectable or valuable. If Ruby can prise it out of my hands when I'm a bit older and weaker, I think she'll like it, it feels quite compact and the string spacing is a bit narrow for my big hands, but it will suit her fine and she's working on a suitable looking customised painted suede strap for it already. I don't know how close it is to an original vintage one, I should think it's more of an homage to Chris Hillman's '67 single pickup Starfire bass, but it's a lovely thing and I can't put it down at the moment. Its got roundwounds on it presently and I should think some flatwounds would be better suited, it's a bit bright and I'm hankering for some more whump! I might even consider adding a neck pickup? it's alright this retirement malarkey!

Yeah, that was another time. The board was pretty well documented on here back then. I gigged with a board that was custom made and was strictly a 2-man lift (1.4m wide, around 50kg). it was all a bit silly really. But life led me to sell up everything (I was bass-less for 3 years), though really my entire collection was on the board to be fair. Pic of that old board for the new crowd that never saw it back in the day! Note this was only has 4 foogers, but the custom Xerograph had just taken the place of the Moog LPF... it didn't stay for long though as it struggled with the CV messages from the MP-201. There are 5-6 pedals not seen under the rear raised tier as well. That board was... fun.

I'm sure he appreciates all that you have done for him Steve. My current band has stood by me while I've undergone cancer treatment over the last 4 years, I have to admit that it kept me going through the dark times. I looked to quit but they wouldn't hear of it. I have always stated they should use a dep though to avoid missing a good gig or venue but so far I've generally soldiered on. Maybe one option would be to look at a more part time/smaller scale situation for him to participate in? As said, whatever you decide I'm sure he'll appreciate your friendship and efforts over the years; good luck going forward.

I've got another one that might ruffle a few feathers Roundwound strings... Put down yer 'big guitar' and get back to reality - flats are for bass .

The classic question of what do you ‘need’ and are there specific tones you’re after? Are the drives too raunchy or just missing a vibe? I had the ToneHammer for a number of years and used it in AGS mode as a slightly warmer low gain drive sound and it was great in this role. It then meant some other low gain drives came alive in this gain staging role. My pedal board is basically a preamp/eq, some compression and a couple of drive pedals. I have the option to add or swap in or out a few things but ultimately for the current pub gig it’s all I really need for this gig. There’s not much room for experimenting and even using some fuzz and octave combined but it’s not quite right for the tunes we play. For this reason I’m just using the basics but they work! I flip from thinking I need more stuff then get it and it doesn’t hit the mark then go back to the basics again, think I should be making more interesting sound only for them to not work and back to the basics again…

Toobs. Since when did the word valve suddenly become pronounced toob? For example, "man I hate those shi**y little modern class D amps, gimme somethin' with toobs in" What are you talking about you gibbering idiot, you're from Wantage, not bleedin' Idaho.

One word: Flea I have literally no idea how the guy who can barely play and sounds awful on almost every record is venerated as a bass god. This isn't something I would share (as there's enough negativity in the universe) but this irrational hatred of a hugely successful musician emerged when I was a music teacher for 5 years.

One last (ever) pair: 21 Am PRO II FSR Jazz 21 Am PRO II Precision both in Dark night with Rosewood boards. Picked up the P bass last night - was a swap with my sunburst 06 American Standard S-1 P Bass and a couple of other little bits (so no, I didn't buy it!!!! 😋🤣🤣🤣) Had planned on stopping off at Bass Centre in Melbourne, as we had a long layover on the way back to the land down under-er (after visiting the motherland last week) but a jetlagged missus and a very tired and dangerously-bored 3yr old did not make for happy travel mates, so had to skip it in the end. Just as well because they were having a clear out on some lovely Fender goodies, including a gorgeous and long-coveted Dark Night P (which was efffffin cheap too!). There was also a brand new Adam Clayton Jazz there for a used bass price 🤤🤤🤤 But as it happened, a really cool bloke in the same neck of the woods as me happened to want to downgrade from his AM PRO II DN P Bass around the same time. Worked out a trade deal on the 06 P Bass over messenger and boom - I'm now set for life bass-wise, I didn't buy any basses like I had previously promised AND the credit card was not cut up after the holiday! We all win. Or so I told the better half! 🤣🤣 PS -yes, the plastic is coming off the Jazz this evening!

Valve amp. Thought it was the right thing to do. What a waste of time!

Thanks again to all the responses - really helped frame my thinking. Following some discussion with @stevie I'm now pleased to say that I've placed an order for the LFSys Monza. I shall report back in due course!

A couple of Rays, modded one from 1995, and the fretless is a 1994 & 1997 hybrid.

I still need to recable this, but I’ve had a major shuffle over the last few months. I’ve also broken my ‘if it’s not on the board, it gets sold’ routine… so there are a few toys on the shelf for swapping in and out. For a long time I struggled to justify having a ‘collection’ and so I just kept making the board bigger and bigger. I’ve finally got out of that silly spiral Large board is my bass board, small board is for synth (and the space at the edge is for a Walrus Canvas Stereo LI). The big board is really two boards in one. It covers my synthy/electronica/soundscape side of things, and my prog-y Tool-esque rock stuff. Realistically, it could be two boards, but I like the option to throw in a few extra sounds here and there. I also have PT Classic 1, so might put one side of the board on the shelf for a bit given I’m not gigging at the mo and downsize the board.

So that Curly Claro Walnut headless Status KingBass with the MK-style ultra short strap, DI preamp pedal & the top shelf Inner Ear System we were going to buy you for Xmas would be unwelcome gifts, then?

The Soundgear by Ibanez logo. I mean seriously? It looks like the logo on a combined guitar and amp package from Argos for under £80.

If anyone was thinking of fitting a Hipshot Xtender onto their Sandberg Lionel you need a BT7 which is the closest match as advised by Sandberg Only slight drawbacks are the ferrule hole needs enlarging very slightly and you need to drill 4 small holes. Other than that easy fit and works great!!

Musicmaster arrived today (amazing service from Rich Tone Music, Sheffield). Plugged it in, and it’s a blast! The weird electronics mean I get both pickups only but at least I know they both work. It has a really rich growly sound and it feels great. Neck is straight, possibly one or two high frets but no major issues. I can get the action very low and even the janky bridge allows near enough intonation. It’s a bit heavier than the Mustang but still light. The finish is really very yellow indeed which is lovely in person, more yellow than I expected but quite faithful to the pictures on the listing. The cream pickups look lovely against the body and I can see why the dimarzios are so well regarded. The finish seems to be a polyester coat although it must be quite thin as it’s worn away in places. It definitely fees and looks more like poly. Being ‘72 I think that checks out. It’s clear that the bass has been loved and thoughtfully modified thus far. It’s definitely been played and loved, and even though I’ll be making a few changes I don’t feel like I’m rescuing a basket case. Looking forward to the next step - fretless neck comes tomorrow, so I’ll put that on and give it a go although without pickup pan it won’t be ideal, but enough to give me an idea of the final sound. I have the new bridge on the way from the USA and still thinking about the wiring. Early Sept I’ll pass it on to my luthier and get cracking. In short, I’m relieved that the bass is ok. Much better than expected and I’m super excited to see how this ends up!! Not sure what sort of strap to get for it, as I have a wide RightOn strap for the mustang which matches perfectly. Maybe the same in black with a yellow stripe. I’ll also need a spare clip for the Backbeat. Then another pedalboard. Yellow stage clothes. The list goes on…

Back on topic, here's three of mine - I don't have the black 6-string or the purple fretless any more, but I do still have the CAR one:

My Frankenstein! (Or is it Fronkenshtone?)

Same here. The thought of Trace Elliot gives me nightmares. In the mid 80s I was in a band who got a publishing and development deal (I don’t think the latter exists nowadays, but it was essentially a pre-record deal where a label would fund gear and studio time, and have first dibs on you if you developed into what they were after). Trace Elliot were quite the thing at the time, so the first thing I did was ditch my perfectly fine Marshall 50w amp and 4x12 speaker for a snazzy, all singing, all dancing Trace Elliot rig. 250w amp, with UV light, a fan you could switch on (and off!), various bells, whistles, and a graphic equaliser that gave you the biggest smile you could ask for. I got to the first rehearsal and carted in my new rig. The band and sound guy crowded around, then slowly shuffled away in silence, leaving just the drummer, who, after about half-hour of witnessing me frantically move sliders up and down, and twiddle various knobs, said bluntly, “that sounds sh*t, can you get your old stuff back?!”. It did, and I couldn’t…

A clip on tuner. Ok, convenient and works well but it makes you look (even more) like a t***.

My goodness, I never realised what a seething pit of resentment and hatred we had here on basschat! Get it all out and purge yourselves!!!

I’m not overly familiar with the Ampeg B18 , I like this guy’s videos and it sounds really good here

Huh, just you wait until the knob I have ordered arrives - Joe Dart will have nothing on me...

Oh that's disappointing.. was hoping for a scrap 🤛🏼

Back then the exchange rate was in the UK's favour - it was nearly $2 to £1, so it seemed very cheap. The weekend flight to New York to buy cheap stuff was a thing, where you'd save more than the cost of the plane ticket, but that's most definitely no longer the case. People in the UK don't believe me when I tell them about the US medical system - even with insurance, you have an excess ("deductible") you have to meet before they pay anything. After that, you're still having to pay co-pays - in our case, it's $40 for a GP visit, $75 for a specialist, and anything the doctor prescribes is subject to the insurance company approving it (there's a lot of "computer says no" going on). And there's 26m uninsured Americans, with a large number of the rest being under-insured. The stress of dealing with the medical "system" over here just makes sick people sicker. Yes, the NHS has its issues, but you'll never be panicking about paying bills or worrying about an insurance company's algorithm deciding you can't have a particular procedure or medication. Went to Austin a few years ago. Cool city, lots of music, good food, very geek-friendly, quite student-y. But you don't have to go far to be reminded that you're in Texas - all the shops with "no weapons allowed" signs, gigantic megachurches, insane weather (including hailstones the size of cricket balls), the unbelievable heat, and so on. Nice enough place to visit, but I certainly wouldn't ever want to live there. Especially with kids. Anyway, oh yeah, Bongos...

Absolutely, thanks once again to @Steve Browning and @obbm, I use the box pretty much every rehearsal, perfectly engineered, built like a tank, and to paraphrase Anchorman, works 100% of the time 100% of the time 🙏

Oh guys. I'm full of hatred. I'm practically a Bass Palpatine. The Phrase "plays like butter" - seriously, just F*** off. Jazz Funk and the wave of bands that ironically try to make it cool. Vulpeck etc - get right in the bin and put the lid over your head. Sunburst. Expensive P-Basses. They all sound the F***** same. Just buy a CV Squier and be done with it. Pointy Metal basses/Metal-centric brands. Absolute winner is the phrase 'upgraded' to describe modified basses. 99.9% of the time it is not an upgrade either. I want a bass stock, not someone's interpretation of one. Ashdown combos - a youth spent seeing them everywhere has installed some serious aversion. Headstock wraps. The fact I have never been able to find a compressor that sounds anything like Stuart Zender's live compression sound.

Just made my last visit to Nobles. Bought some leads and a footswitch, bade him farewell and thanks. Nice to see someone retire rather than go bust.

Better photo from Rebellion...

NI pays for the state pension and various benefits, not the NHS, so that's not a good comparison. The NHS is funded from general taxation. OK, using current figures, a salary of £50,000 brings in £3,293 a month, or £39,521 a year after tax and NI. That's an effective tax rate of 20.95%. Using today's exchange rate, the equivalent US salary is about $67,800. So let's pick a state - let's say Virginia, that's a middle-of-the-road state in terms of state income tax. Adding up federal, state and FICA (basically NI) taxes, you end up with $52,728, an effective tax rate of 22.23%. In some states, it'll be a bit higher, in some a bit lower. So. not a great start for the US. That amount of tax only covers healthcare if you're a military veteran (the VA), so poor as to be indigent (Medicaid), or pension-age (Medicare - which has a whole different bunch of requirements). The way it generally works, assuming your employer provides health insurance, is your employer will pay a percentage of the total premium - typically 50%, leaving you on the hook for the other 50% which comes straight out of your pay cheque. Some employers pay more than that, but 50% is pretty standard. That number is subject to how many people the insurance is covering - might only be a couple of hundred if it's just you, up to well over $1k for a family, and, like I said above, the insurance premium is only one payment out of many that you have to make. There's also various levels of insurance, the availability of health savings accounts, and all sorts of other nonsense. The whole thing is a colossal cluster-fornication. And add in that the cost of living is probably about 50% higher than the UK... yeah. You see where I'm going with this.

When I was in my late teens I bought a compressor. I'd been told by the received wisdom of the internet that compressors were good and important, so I went up to Denmark street with my supermarket paycheck. I had also been told that Tech 21 were a great company, and given that I knew very little about what a compressor was supposed to do, I opted for the Tech 21 one – a pedal called the Bass Compactor. The problem was that the Bass Compactor is absolute, unmitigated balls. Like, I've played through plenty of T21 stuff since and loved it, but that pedal was awful. It was effectively a one-knob compressor (ratio) with the other controls being output vol and a 2-band EQ. It didn't behave like any other pedal I've heard since, with this strange make-up gain thing that was coupled with a really aggressive noise gate. With the ratio at 1:1 it sucked the life out of everything and it only got worse from there. It put me off compressors, and effects pedals of any kind, for about 15 years.

I think many of us enjoy the feeling of community around live music. If you play regularly and also go to local gigs as a punter you get you know a lot of people and vice versa. I nay be biased but I have found that hobbies and interests that require a bit of effort and understanding like music tend to attract more open-minded, friendlier people. Music is something that can bring enjoyment to a large number of people at once. When someone recognises you from a gig that's a buzz for both of you from that musical connection.

There are many things I dislike, but one of the things I like least is irrational prejudices. To which an orchestral musician would say "Bass what? Clarinet, trombone, sax..?".

Saturday we played our much-hyped (and I mean much-hyped, I don't think as much effort has gone into promoting a gig since I've been a member) gig at The Hop in Wakefield. Our guitarist Jen is a local to the area (three of the others are all from over Bratford way) so had been going mad with excitement for the last month and there had been a great many posts on "the socials" including from her employer. She had gathered a huge list of shout outs that she wanted to do but which we had to quite sensibly curtail - I made the point that with the amount she wanted to do we may as well ditch the set list and just do shout outs! The venue was reasonably compact but a nice size, and the stage was a decent size. It was a warm evening so we managed to get the AC turned on above us, but it was pretty useless and so it was a pretty sweaty one. I decided to go with my Sire V7, Ashdown ABM and the trusty Barefaced cab, with the Elf on standby just in case. During soundcheck everything sounded OK but the on-stage sound during the gig was very hit and miss - there were a few songs where we were relying on some sequenced drum tracks to keep the drummer in time, and thence to keep the rest of us in time, but there were a few songs where he could barely hear it and so we went a bit wrong on a few occasions, notably during the bass solo of Club Foot where I made a right hash of things. For the most part though things went pretty well, playing-wise, and our newly-prepped track Shout was amazing to play live, as well as giving me a chance to break out the Mooer octave pedal I got for Christmas! The atmosphere in the venue was absolutely tremendous, and playing issues aside one of the best gigs I've had with the band. Our guitarist's husband even went so far as to say he thought it was the best one he'd seen of us. People were up and dancing and singing right from the start, and the number that did so only increased through the night. We played two encores and left them wanting more - I was at the bar getting a drink afterwards and two lads were talking to each other about whether we were coming back on or not, and were disappointed when I told them we were done. My next door neighbours came to see me and looked like they were having a great time, possibly too great as they left immediately after we'd finished. We'd priced ourselves as low as we'd normally go to get the gig, but from what I was told they took almost well over double behind the bar what they'd normally take on a Saturday night. We hope we'll be invited back after that, and we'll definitely be pushing for a bit more in the way of fee. It's an Ossett Brewery pub, and we were told that they would pass on our details to others owned by the brewery, so fingers crossed. I think someone from another pub may have been in that night because we got an enquiry over Messenger during our mid-set break. Hopefully this will lead to us getting a few more diverse gigs for next year.

Most of my prejudices are perfectly rational to me, but maybe people think otherwise. Hans Peter Wilfer - A man who would claim he invented anything and everything regardless how obvious it was he didn't. However, nu-metal is over and nobody really plays Warwicks anymore. Unlucky. People who do the Darkglass/Dingwall combination just so they "can have everything just like Nolly!!" It sounds awful. Mark King fan boys. Moving from every era of bass he plays as he does, just so they can play Mr Pink with whatever bass and amp he's chosen to endorse for 3 months. People who do that weird slight bendy note thing whilst looking like they're having a hernia. Janek Gwizdala and Phil Mann are hilarious for this. Ashdown thinking they're amazing. All their main endorsees are either dead, retired or not far from either. Don't pretend you're forward looking when everyone who has an endorsed product is over 60. Manufacturers making sub 42mm nuts the norm. Just pack it in. Hofner basses. You know they're crap, we know they're crap. People who use tablets on stage for the music. Either practice more or prepare to be bottled. People who say the word "pocket" as regards playing. Seriously, just no. Influencer/Youtubers. Get in the bin. All of you. Scott Devine - Happy, plastic, Americanised optimism at it's finest. He should be a sales assistant at an Apple store. Obviously, my therapist says I'm "doing much better" with my misanthropy these days.

Some lovely patina starting on this recently fitted, untreated brass pickguard from Tinytone. EMG's are now gone. Solderless controls and Tonerider Classic pickups have been fitted along with some LaBella flats. Holy Motown. One of my favourite instruments to play now..