Leaderboard

Three (!) gigs this weekend Friday was the Cantina Band at the Vaults in Knowle for guitarist Steve's 50th. A good laugh, a decent turnout, Steve insisted nobody drive so we could all have a few drinks and who am I to argue? One of his daughters (14? or 15?) joined us on drums for 5 or 6 songs, she's really good! She made the mistake of knowing the songs and playing them properly, which really threw the rest of us. His other daugter (11? or 12?) joined us to sing A-P-T, which was great, she gave it loads! We also had a friend of the band on additional guitar so Steve could go and have a few (more) drinks. Mrs StingRayBoy came, she loved it which is always nice... I joined her on the "dancefloor" for the last song, first time I've ever smooched someone while playing. Played the Sterling -> small board -> Amp board -> Mark CMD 121p, Silver/Gold glittery Converse. Saturday was Azura (3 piece) at O'Neill's Leicester. Dep drummer (Little Nige) who's been gigging since I was a glint in the Milkman's eye, lovely bloke, great drummer. Good gig, bit seat of the pants, usual drunken rabble... one bloke thought we were Grandad, Father and Son (The ages are about right, to be fair), we played Happy Birthday to three people (all at the same time (Alison and two others whose names escape me)), we did 'I'm a hog for you baby' which Little Nige sang - great song and a ton of fun to play. First outing for my (Basschat purchased) LD IEMs which worked flawlessly - happily, the band use the same system so I didn't even have to set up the transmitter. Went for a wireless wander for the encore (Don't look back in anger (Don't judge me, it's a Saturday night pub gig)) which was an absolute hoot. Same setup (and footwear) as Friday. A good night, except I didn't get home until gone 3 o'clock. Sunday Afternoon was the Sax Pistols at the King's Arms in Cleeve Prior. How the BL finds these gigs, I'll never know... tiny little village with about four houses (and the King's Arms) It was a 'reopening under new ownership' type affair, a good few people there, we went down well, we played OK, we sounded pretty good. The whole band (apart from the drummer) use wireless mics, so there was plenty of strolling about, especially for 'Tequila' and 'Minnie the Moocher' which is always fun and goes down well. There was a Delorean there! (Weirdly, Mrs StingRayBoy had seen a different Delorean on the M5 about two weeks ago) Oh, and two blokes dressed as Spiderman (He's a web designer... he sorts out the bugs) and Superman for some reason. I went off charts for the first time, not entirely unsuccessfully. Played the Sousaphone, wore the same Converse. A good weekend!

We played a 30th birthday private event on Saturday. Our first ‘function’ as opposed to a pub or charity gig. Strange experience, especially before the crowd were suitably lubricated with booze. Lots of people standing around chatting and ignoring us, kids playing with balloons and running around. Quite disheartening in the early part of the evening, for sure. Some songs ended with barely a smattering of applause The second half was much better, with punters singing and dancing and plenty of raucous applause and cheers. Ultimately we got paid and a few pats on the back afterwards, and back home for midnight.

Decal applied. Not perfectly 100% straight, but certainly much closer than the one that was on there originally.

Two gigs again for me this week. Wednesday as usual at the rock n roll club. Plenty of dancers in, but very hot though - think the club have stopped using the air con till next year! I did ‘ Memphis Tennessee’ in my now regular Chuck Berry spot, and went down well. Always a bit knackered next day after playing mainly fast songs for nearly two hours, fingers / hands in particular a bit achy. Sunday afternoon saw our duo performing at our favourite pub in Beverley, The Sun Inn. With it being a bank holiday weekend it turned out to be almost ridiculously busy, all seats & tables taken and little standing room before we even started playing. We had the usual wide range of requests, ranging from ‘Guantanamera’ and ‘He’ll have to go’ ( Ry Cooder style) to ‘Dead Flowers’ ( Stones ) and even some Coldplay ( following their recent Hull gigs!). I used a Squier Jaguar shortie into my Rumble 500, leaving the PA for vocals and acoustic guitar. Our PA only just coped with things TBH, so we will be needing to address updating it soon I think, especially as whilst packing down the landlord offered us a series of monthly gigs for all of 2026.

Here's me in 1967 wearing my "kipper tie", and playing my Burns Sonic Bass that I purchased second-hand for £15 from a mate's mate.

Phoenix Rising! I had another full-gig dep with my old band at a nice pub in Gillingham (Dorset) on Sunday afternoon. I don’t think the pub's name (‘The Phoenix’) was inspired by my gently-reviving bass career, but who knows? Mrs G came a long as it was a 4-7pm daylight gig in the pub garden, on a very pleasant sunny day, with free drinks for the band all afternoon and a good crowd – whoopee! I took the H-B Mustang-alike along with my usual AG700 and Darkglass 2x12 through an Aguilar boost pedal. It’s nice how my set-memory sprang to mind after months of not playing bass, even down to those unfortunate (but thankfully occasional) bum notes. I unwittingly added a little street-theatre to the second set – the KB player uses a bespoke drink-glass holder screwed to his mic-stand. This works fine with normal beer glasses, but the pub was (for some reason) using stemmed glasses with a C of G was a lot higher than normal, and his drink-holder had a gap in its circumference neatly judged to allow the stem of a glass to fall through. During an enthusiastic bout of pogo-ing I managed to swipe the glass with the head of the bass, the glass fell through the holder and upended a good ¾ pint of beer all over and into the KB - cue some interesting electronic noises and a mild ‘bang’. The KB-ist started laughing, removed the KB from its stand then stood in the street pouring beer out of a vent in the side of it, left it to dry in the sun, drove home (nearby) and got a replacement KB – back on the stand after we had done 20 minutes as a four-piece to cover – what a trouper! Here’s hoping it dried out and just needed a fuse… I did my usual sax-set, we finished at 7.15, Ms G and I were back nursing a cup of tea and an upset cat (‘What time do you call this?!’) by 9.15, then we slept like whacked haddocks. ‘Yes’, I thought just before starting to snore, ‘this gigging is as exciting (and tiring) just as I remember it! ‘ ZZzzz…

A multi-band charity fund raiser for Dorothy House hospice, for us today. We planned to play an originals only set of Gothic rock with me dusting down my USA 2008 Jazz bass. I have been struggling with the lack of bottom end from J-basses but the addition of the Boss GE-7 to my board was hopefully going to fix this. I also added the Boss IR-2 as I often go ampless. First band on really struggled against a rogue sub-woofer and we immediately started to twitch about our set. Thankfully the second band sounded much better. We took our time setting up on the back of the truck. We’ve added little bits of finesse like roses around the mic stands and burning incense onstage (typing that, I realise it sounds pretentious but it does make a difference to the presentation and it was remarked afterwards that we are very professional in our approach). I thought we played well. The sound was fairly reasonable and my bass sounded immense. My wife said my vocal was getting stronger and we had a fair few compliments - comparisons to Joy Division and Bauhaus, without being derivative - which I will gladly take! One member of the audience hadn’t seen us since school and was very complimentary. A great day and a solid show.

Three gigs with three different bands Fri, Sat & Sun for me. i think I played over one hundred different songs over the three days, surprisingly there were only a couple that were in all three bands setlists. on Saturday, someone spilled a drink over an extension lead which took out the power!

Oldest: No Fat On A Turkey 6th August 1991 - the day I first picked up a Bass. (My brother's Hohner Jack... I had to lie and tell him someone else was playing Bass - he'd lend it to a stranger but not to me. Cheers, mate.) We thought we were the next Stone Roses... we were not. Newest: Depping with Manchester Ska Foundation last month - joined the audience for "One Step Beyond" Playing the Sterling - not my first choice for ska, just fancied a change!

The first photo is pre 1989, I'd bought a Hohner Stienberger style headless by then. The band existed for several years under several names doing original songs before disbanding (Got tired of going nowhere) After about a year the singer got us back together playing 50s and 60s rock n roll under the name Captain Jive and the Pink Sectets for a run of paid gigs. The bass unbranded but almost certainly an Antoria. This picture was taken in July this year, I'm playing a shiny new Rick and singing in The Dooks ( Buzzard County's finest country rock trio) Weirdly I accidentally stumbled on an antoria again last week so there's potential for two NBD threads.

Played a Wedding gig in the beautiful Surrey Hills yesterday. Packed with beautiful, horsey ladies in flowing summer dresses and, doh, their dumb other halves in polo shirts and tight trousers ending mid calf with NO socks and loafers... 🤦‍♂️ Played my Betsy with the GK Legacy and LFSys Monaco so sounded fab as usual.👍😎 Spent most of the night fending off huge hornets that liked the lights above our heads, which kinda ruined our performance vibe a little though.....!! 🐝🐝🐝🐝

I've been a little neglectful of this thread whilst being away this summer... but the project is complete! Here's a few progress shots... Body stripped and prepared: Primed! Looking waaaay too blue! Ready for go faster stripes Stripes done Big chunk out of the fretboard... Seamlessly repaired... i can't even find it in person. New frets whilst we're at it. And here we go... she's done! Here she is with my other recent acquisition... a 1967 Hofner! I couldn't be happier... she sounds stunning and plays so well. The one I've been looking for for a long time! Going out for our first festival outing together tomorrow (Monday), if anyone is at Twinwood this weekend! https://www.eternal-guitars.com/... I can't recommend Dave highly enough. We've had so many geeky chats about the minor details on this, and it's turned out better than i hoped. His own instruments are stunning too.

The first one of a two gig weekend today at the Eclipse pub in Loscoe, Derbyshire. We were part of The Losca Festival, a one day event to raise money for local charities. Live music from midday until late in three pubs all within about a hundred metres of each other. We did a forty-five minute set of covers starting at 4.45. Very hot and sweaty, but we went down a storm. I think the audience had imbibed just the right amount of alcohol. Unlimited free food and drinks for performers and we’ve got some paid bookings out of it.

Nice wee afternoon gig for us with the Glam band at Polmont Bowling Club. Sold Out too. To be fair it only holds 65 seated. 😂 Organiser was telling us they had a band in last night Sat and it was free entry but only 18 people turned up yet a Sun afternoon ticketed show and it sold out fast with many folks still asking for tickets after selling out. We have played it 3x before to be fair and it was full. Audience up for it from first song so that was great to see. Even the songs with no dancers we got a lot of applause and cheers at the end like Ziggy Stardust. Was very hot and sweaty even with my large fan. Left the house at 10:45am arriving 12 noon. Start time 3pm - 4pm then 4:30 to 5:45pm. Greggs sandwiches supplied too. All went well and home by 8pm via chippie. Used the Sandberg VM4 into Shure wireless and Keeley Comp then Handbox WB-100 and Barefaced 212 cab. Sounded very nice. Dave

I've had worse weekends

NBD - Sire U5 fretless! (ok it was actually 10 days ago, but hey.) Sorry for the long post. TL;DR - £380 short scale fretless bass is surprisingly decent if not without a couple of flaws. Been planning on getting one of these for a while, being the only really viable affordable shortie fretless on the market. Thomann is literally the only place that sells them, so knowing that Sires have a reputation for being weighty, and my shoulder being incredibly sensitive to my 7.5lb limit, I eventually ordered it expecting it may well have to go back, but thought screw it lets have a go. Also ordered a set of Gotoh GB528 Res-o-lites at the same time from https://tonetechluthiersupplies.co.uk while they had them in stock. First the good - it's a smart looking little bass, scaled down aerodyne jazz shaped body, burst flame maple top with binding, and the weight isn't too bad at all - about 7lb 10oz, brought down to 7lb 5oz after fitting the GB528's which are drop-in replacements. The jazz width satin neck is very playable, I love that the fret lines curve around the side of the neck so I can see them while playing (see photo). The PJ config pickups are definitely noiseless, bridge is decent enough and the finishing is generally very good. It sounds *fine*. Not spectacular, but certainly very usable, but this is the first budget level bass I've bought in a while and I think I may have just been spoiled with better quality pickups now. If I intended to use it more I might think about swapping them out. The passive VVT controls work well, feel pretty solid with a good range of usable tones. My preferred tone is J up full with P varying between 75% to 100%, and the P on it's own is nice and full bodied too. It has to be said the J soloed is rather thin and anaemic, but it suffices perfectly well at brightening the tone in combination with the P and adding more articulation and bite. The two negatives which do stand out a bit though, are the nut which had 3 of the 4 slots cut too wide for the stock D'Addario Chromes, causing them to rattle when played open, and the lack of forearm contour on the body. I worked around the former by wedging tiny blobs of silicone in the nut slots to take up space and it's also improved after switching the strings to EB Cobalt flats. The hard corner on the body is really just a playing technique thing. The body is pretty slim (tried to show the body width and offending corner in photo), and as far as sharp awkward corners go it's certainly not the worst offender (looking at you Hofner Club), but it's still a pain and something they probably should have designed better on a modern bass. If it costs more to produce a forearm contour I'd really rather have paid the extra to have one. Anyway, it may not be perfect but at the end of the day the value for money here is fantastic and I'm really very happy with what I got for the £380 I paid for it (plus another £100 for the Res-o-lites). It's easily worth the asking price, and it's achieved the main goal of giving me a lightweight, gigworthy short scale fretless I can comfortably play for hours at a time. Given the lack of any competition in the price bracket, I'm grateful that Sire is making something this good.

Now all you need is a baby and somewhere to post it to.

I love a Sunday afternoon gig, especially when it's outside and doubly so when it's "acoustic". Lots of the usual songs, but played in an unusual way. Perhaps Sir Duke was a little ambitious - I ran out of both strings and fretboard! It was a request/challenge though and much fun was had. There were plenty of requests, and even a bit of dancing. It's great to have a good laugh when playing and there was a decent crowd too enjoying themselves. I even got to drink a pint or two for a change as Mrs Norris drove home. Stagg EUB straight into the Rumble. Converse footwear, O'Neill eye protection

After a period of flux, the board settled into form again … some refinements and focus. First blood for this set up in studio last week, ‘ampless’ and full wet Hmmm …

Finalised the current layout for my second board: TC PolyTune Mini3 -> Fuzzdog Mr Creosote DIY kit (Phat Phuk B)-> Schu-Tone FLOverdrive -> MXR Bass Envelope Filter -> MXR Bass Octave Deluxe -> Schu-Tone Finn Chorus -> Fuzzdog Bass Fuzz Blender DIY kit (Tall Font Muff with mods) -> ShiftLine Olympic MkIIIS. Pedaltrain Metro16 and powered by a Cioks DC7. Si

Safer than using AI:

Been toying with some ideas for the headstock in Inkscape...

A trip from Tyneside across the other side to Liverpool for another Eagles tribute gig. Big brewery / shed type venue - lovely room, lovely staff, top-drawer PA & techs. No monitors, so had to grin and bear IEMs. Still don't love them. New MIJ Jazz - with new pickups - continues to be my friend.

A while back, I found a hodgepodge with a Fender Roger Waters Precision Bass neck ‘deep in Wallonia’ for a véry good price, and I was already toying with the idea of adding a second P for a while. After some very intense searching, I stumbled on a dusty Italian webshop, where I found an Allparts PBF-CAR body (a colour that has been out of the range for a while). Then I started gathering some parts left & right, with the aim of creating a '64-'66 hybrid without breaking the back. A day with an assortment of screwdrivers, measuring devices and a soldering iron later, this is what came out. It's quite a fierce one. Where my white one with flatwounds sounds very warm and fat, this one sounds diametrically opposite: angry, fierce, raunchy and punchy. I'm happy with it... although I'm still itching for a neck with a veneer rosewood fingerboard, and that neck on a Slab66 body. With flatwounds on this one, and rounds on the '66. - Neck: Fender Roger Waters (44.5mm nut width, maple cap, vintage frets) - Tuners: Gotoh FB-30-LP (the full-size tuners with the large mounting plate) - Body: Allparts PBF-CAR (Alder. CAR with a silver-coloured undercoat) - Pickguard: Fender '62RI (stark white, not mint green) - Pickup: Fender Vintera II '60 (I was very surprised at how good those Vintera '60 P-basses sounded. The intention is to bake in a greybobbin in the future, but this pickup is also extremely good, much better than the Vintera '50) - Covers: Fender ‘Pure Vintage’ (I wouldn't be me if I didn't install measures to restrict playing freedom on my instrument, I just removed them for the photo-opp) - Bridge: Fender ‘Pure Vintage’ - Wiring: Homemade with CTS, clothwire, Orangedrop,...

Think it's my first post of a gig, so here goes! Overview: I was asked to dep Friday afternoon for 2 gigs at the weekend, by a band a mate is in, but I'd never rehearsed with them. 30+ songs in the set, most were familiar too me as a listener, but I'd not played 80% of them before. Charts of a sort** were provided as PDFs. Tablets fine on stage. I'm not a fluent notation reader. Many non-original keys and arrangements. Cue, intensive learning over 24 hours. It was a very challenging couple of gigs, lots of things that could go wrong, did go wrong with songs, gear, tech, etc. Learnt again to hang in there, trust my ears, play for the band and get through it. Overall a great experience. VID20250824205002.mp4 Venue: A big bar in Skegness Band: an 8-piece Soul & Motown covers band Structure: 2 Sets of 15 songs each, plus encores. 9pm start. Pay: not enough 🤣 Gear: 5-string Jazz (Lakland Skyline JO5) wireless to my pedalboard, out to my amp (Ampeg BA-210v2) and DI to the band mixer for IEMs. ** Mostly lyrics with chords, tab or notation snippets of key riffs, a few songs only with full notation, some without any, some with a fingered key (say A), but drop Eb, so output key is really Ab so necessary to transpose on the fly, silent parts not consistently shown, key changes, etc..

Design transferred and traced onto the headstock... Not starting painting tonight though - that was hard work, plus I only have black paint at the moment - need white and dark grey. The plan is to hand paint it with model paints and tiny brushes, flatten it a tad with very fine sandpaper, then lacquer over the top to protect it.

Last night was at the pub closest to my house - the Gamecock in Birchmoor, about a ten minute walk over the M42 footbridge (but about a five minute drive as you have to go the long way round). We got a whole room with a goodly amount of space but not a very big audience - scraped into double figures. However, they were very very enthusiastic and the landlord wants us back, and a farmer who was there said he'd like to get us in to play in his barn.

I’ve missed out on several basses for not much money but was already stretched as it was so it couldn’t happen. I always just hope that one day I will be in the right place right time, but in the meantime enjoy what I have.

We had a reasonably musical family, my nan, mum and uncle all played piano but my uncle played keys in a band in that London, covers and a bit of a party band who did well in the late 60s/early 70s. when he quit, me and my brother inherited his Vox keyboard , AC30 head and a Selmer 2x12 cab . this was awesome and great fun , but a trip to Steptoes in canal street meant £15 was invested on a epiphone Gibson copy , and a rat pedal followed. this lead to some great noises from the garage, that not all the neighbours appreciated. However , Mrs Tristram next door was a touch more enlightened , and happened to mention that her eldest , Graham , had an old guitar that he wasn’t using and was in a box under the bed. And Lo , I became the owner of a late 60’s Hofner violin bass…with a broken neck socket , but hey , I was 17 , had my dads tools, and yes, a couple of wood screws put it back together. Having a bass at school was a novelty and thus I was seconded to play at all the assemblies and school shows. I moved on to an old Fender I think (that would probably with a fortune now , but was pennies or I wouldn’t have bought it) , that went missing as did the keys , amp and cab from a rehearsal room . suffice to say that my brother took on the violin bass duties at school and obviously corrupted @Leonard Smalls after his exposure to its subtle charms 😁

I did a thread on it a couple of years back. I love the tone of Jazz basses and I love the look but I definitely noticed a drop in low end frequency when playing in small bands with this one. I've had it since 2015 and usually play a range of different basses, from Precision to Rickenbacker to Hofner to Thunderbird. We never did get to the bottom of whether it was me, my settings, my bass, the pickups or something else. Coincidentally there was a younger band on after us and the bass player had a Fender Jazz which had no bottom end too - far worse than mine. The first Jazz bass I owned had different string volumes so I sold that on but I have had a couple of good ones in-between. I bet the Maruszczyk sounds good as I think it's some of the Fender ones that can be a bit of a mixed bag. Anyhow, it sounded good last night so hopefully the problem is solved.

If I really really like a bass, especially if it's a relatively expensive (£2k+) vintage one that I'm unlikely to find again, I definitely wouldn't lose it for the sake of £100. Sometimes however, I think we might subconsciously put obstacles in the way when we're not 100% sure we really want an instrument.

Aside from question of whether it’s art or not, AI will destroy the ‘incidental’ music industry and those are real jobs that will disappear. We should feel sorry for those people. My business (journalism and copywriting) has been destroyed by AI. I’m lucky that I have a specialism and industry connections that will keep me on work for a few more years, but trust me it’s destroying livelihoods for real people. I have an estimated 2 years left doing my job. I’m actively retraining into a new career which isn’t as easy as you’d hope at 44. Technological progress comes at a cost to real people (the many) while increasing profits for some (the few).

Opens notebook. Writes down "Don't piss Andy Travis off". Closes notebook.

Today I got a WhatsApp message: Myself and F---- had a good talk a few nights back when we were out and we came up with what we thought were some really nice ideas for some staging for the show on the 19th. It us relatively minor stuff but will give it a but of a coherent thread and will make us quite different to many other bands. I'm sure hw will run them by you on Wednesday for your thoughts and opinions. 😃 I await Wednesday with interest!

BC collaboration at it's finest.

Got some baby jiffy bags here so I'll get the Colron away to you ASAP 👍

In terms of "Budget" I'm thinking prices up to £200. There is the criminally cheap HB PB-50 for just over £100 that in terms of fit and finish is remarkable, neck quality superb, and sounds great. I've also got the HB JB-75, but at just over 6 kilos, it's really heavy, but again fit and finish very good and the roswells are enlightening and sound much more expensive. I had the HB RB-414 body was great but was let down by cheap hardware and the bridge pickup was half the volume of the great little Artec neck mini-humbucker, plus I didn't like the wat it was wired in a gibson sort of fashion. I've recently scored a G4M Hartwood Satellite 32" which is another little stunner in terms of quality albeit styling is "left field" I love it. Many moons ago I bought my son a Squier Bronco which I've since inherited, and that little guitar never ceases to amaze me still to this day in terms of quality. All of these mentioned less than £200. Then since I'm such a cheapa$$ I'm going into what I call mid price (others may still call it budget) so up £400. This opens up a whole new set of possibilities. Squier and Epiphone lead the way for me ATM but that's only because of style, I have the Rascal and the Newport both shorties but similarly tricked out with 2 humbuckers each. Each is unique, tho the epi is a bit of a monster to tame when you're setting it up, due to it's bridge, but with flats one the 60's British tones you get out of it is as true as the original. Other notable mentions are the G4M 972 5 string fanned fret (orange guitar), the Retrovibe "Telenbacker" just nudging £400, and last but not least the Sire Z3, which in itself in terms of quality out does everything else with exception of the Retrovibe. I'm not going to say which one is best because all of them have been modded at least in part, but the 3 least modded are the PB-50 - headstock cut to Tele style, Newport - new strings only, and the Z3 - new strings only. I've no favourite make, as quality these days of all new guitars are a lot better than 30 or even 20 years ago.

Ah, the London toilet circuit. I used to play at a boozer in Tooting where the route to the toilet was through the band to a door at the back of area where the band played. There would be a constant procession of people stumbling between the musicians to relieve themselves (cue announcements over the PA of "Hope you can hear us in there, We can certainly hear you"), Happy days.

This is the earliest photo I have of me with a bass guitar - a Colombus Jazz with matt black strings. Bedroom Arena, 1986: The first time I played bass live. I'm hding on the left with the same Colombus bass as above. The band was 'Mr McHenry', 1992: 2024 Hullabaloo Festival playing with '50% Dave', the support act to my main band: Depping with 'The Gowertones' in July 2025:

I'm an avid Zoom tweaker and I love copying sounds, but don't have such a thing as Mike Dirnt's tone figured out. Still I'll try my best to "deconstruct" Mike's tone so, regardless of gear, you get the concept, then can figure out your tone on whatever platform. First thing should be identifying the kinda BASS AND PICKUP COMBINATION used. It's usually P bass or neck pickup (if you have 2) for the P bass songs, and IDK what combos he uses on the Gibson G3 (i.e. "Longview"), but still a wide open 2 pickup bass can sorta' fake most of that. P bass is middier by nature. OTOH, more then one pickup in parallel (as wired on most basses with more than 1 pickup) is more scooped, and so does it sound on GD's tunes, not that P bass mids are tamed or they're reinforced on the G3 to compensate, they sound rather "natural", as they are, to me. The other thing is THE WAY HE PLAYS. Be conscious about it, there's no sounding like Mike Dirnt (and many other punk bass players) without a firm and rhythmic motion, hard picking in general. I can't recommend thin picks enough. I mostly use .60mm Tortex Triangles, and occasionally .73mm Tortex Flex Triangles. I prefer the fluidity and also the non-choking punch of thin picks (there's a limited amount of force you can apply to a thin pick before it starts "compressing" you by bending, great for consistency). Look, there's still people asking for holy grial gear to sound like Geddy, while some have been forever able to do that on just any random Jazz Bass. You gotta mean it from the start, from your hands and your bass. Most important part to get a sound you like. Next is some OVERDRIVE. For this I'd start with a SansAmp emulation (what I use the most in my Zooms). Start with EQ flat and gain/blend at 50/50. You might have to do 2 or 3 patches at various gain and blend levels, you'll find quite some gain variety from song to song. The blend control in SansAmps (and most emulations) does a great job making you lo-fi while keeping good (non-cardboard'ish) lowend. The kinda' distortion you want is grainy, but not hissy. Use the SansAmp EQ for correcting that, and overall shaping to the bass tone you aim at. Probably boost a little bass, give yourself some nice punching foundation. Then I'd use COMPRESSION (some more, as rhe SansAmp already compresses some). Nothing shy here. There's MANY compressors in your Zoom. I mostly use the 160comp emulation. Does the work for me. I do a lot of HC/punk with a variety of bass guitars and for that my compression is sorta' "binary", in that I'm either sounding full blast or I'm just not playing 🤣 Hope you get it, just use a high ratio and lower the threshold down to a point where pick attacks stop hurting and overall tone gets fattened a little (re-adjust to such side effect on the SansAmp EQ as needed). Finally, I'd add noise reduction to any overdrive gain patch, also pretty aggressive, as punk is, so you don't sound like a frying pan when not playing. Zoom's own ZNR noise reduction model works great, just set it to monitor instrument input, not all the chain. That (and the time spent tweaking) should be about it. Overdrive could be anything, I've heard anything from a Tube Screamer to a Metal Zone work with the adequate gain for the task and enough EQ and compression. Try different overdrives, theres LOTS of different characters you fan have from the emulations in that pedal. I'm exemplifying based on SansAmp because I'm sure it's in your B1 four, and also because it's one of the easiest to use and get a good basic tone from. Feel free to inquire further if needed. Hope I helped.

Sounds like a typical function gig audience! We did one a couple of weeks ago and it was exactly the same scenario. Thank god for alcohol though eh? 😅

I don’t see anything there that a decent competent luthier would have problems dealing with. I’ve read of headstock cracks like that repaired. Where it has split rather than coming apart, a syringe can be used to get the glue right inside the crack before clamping it up. I hope you get it fixed. 👍🏾

They have their… quirks…

Faith Healer by SAHB. I remember going to the rock disco’s at the Top Rank Suite in Cardiff during 1975, they used to play this track through the massive PA, the throbbing intro to the song was awesome, you could feel it hitting your chest. I would be surprised if Stub Mandrel didn’t attend any of the rock disco’s or live gigs there.

It definitely devalues the sticker if you take the bass off it.