Leaderboard

I've wanted one of these since they first appeared so seeing a used one at Guitar Guitar the other day I had to have it. Anyway the bass arrived at tea time and I took it straight to band rehearsal and unsurprisingly it acquitted itself brilliantly. What a bass - tonally its right up my street and the Neve 2EQ sounds terrific - though GG shipped it with a couple of dud batteries so I noodled around on it in passive mode till I could put 2 x9v in there. Love the magnetic battery cover btw! Love the neck too - and the fit and finish is top drawer. Whats not to like?

A couple of gigs at the weekend, one depping in the 8-piece soul band at Skegness, the other my regular light rock band, outdoors at a local pub. Saturday. Great venue (Three Monkeys) and good to get another dep gig with these guys under my belt. Still needed the tablet with notation/charts for about 1/3 of the songs, but going to get there to be able to do it with just the Setlist and keys. 2 free drinks which was welcome, but no changing room, using the network closet on state one at a time, though most of the band went to the toilets! The crowd was dressy and well-behaved, with a good portion up for dancing. My gear held up well (Lakland JO5 with a John East J-Tone preamp (battery failed during sound check - note to self to swap in a gig battery!), Ampeg BA210-v2, Valeton GP-5, wireless bass and IEMs. Started well but was hearing too much of myself in my IEMs so turned that down. Found out at the interval the MD had found my bass too woolly/thumpy in the sound check because the stage alone amplified my bass apparently (!), so he had pulled my DI out of the mixer (so no FOH nor bass in anyone's IEMs) and the bass in my IEMs was down to the personal mixer on my pedalboard (which gave me more of me into the IEM transmitter). Overall the gig went alright and my confidence with the basslines is growing. Have time to put some solid practice in before the next potential dep. Sunday. Outside at a pub where the band is known and goes down well. Unbelievably just before the soundcheck the two main guys informed me and the drummer that the band as it is, will be no more, as the two will be stopping! Great timing. Could have had a bit of discipline and told us after we're performing. The gig went alright, but I gave some of the basslines a bit more beans, given we were told it was the last gig. Pity about the band, but that can happen when the average age is about 65 and guys are getting tired of lugging gear around and various things they see as hassles. Life goes on. No doubt some good will come out of it. VID20250927221649.mp4

I had a little bit of fun with my aux pedal from @pedalnetics and some craft paint. I don't foresee any changes to this simplified pedal board for a very long time. (However I have said similarly before!)

Latest iteration of the Heartwood Satellite: I can’t help but tinker. It’s now got a DiMarzio DP145 Will Power humbucker in it with a coil tap switch. I think it looks the part and sounds huge.

So I've been pretty much a full time P bass/flats player since i started in bands. Ive had a few flirts with Jazzes and once upon a time a burns bison bass but always come back to the P. Over the years I've had a few basses I've always loved the look of a few others (i still think a Spector Euro in Gloss Black and gold hardware is one of the best looking basses) and had mixed reactions when finally getting hold of them. Now, my main 'always wanted' bass is an original Ric 4005 but finances just cant justify even the reissues but i developed a ric itch. Fast forward to last week and my daily trawl of the usual sites took me to Bass Bros where the had a few ricks in. I love fireglo but to me the newer ones have a sort of 'washed out' or 'bleached' look. Then i saw it - a 1998 Ric 4003 with just the right mojo and for what i thought was a reasonable price - i had to have it! Today, after being ordered late Friday evening she showed up in her rickenbacker hard case and she looks absolutely glorious. After years of P's ill need time to adjust and ill need to get her off to the fixers for a set up with my usual strings when they are in stock but here's a few teaser pics in the meantime.

Hes the one who wrote the Ozzy Osborne albums that are credited to Ozzy.

Gregor in the Bass the World video said that the Satellite bass would look really good with a big humbucker in place of the precision pickup set. I guess he thought more in keeping with the 60s bass vibe. Anyway, that has been eating away at the back of my mind and I happened to have a DiMarzio DP145 Will Power in my last remaining long scale bass (a three pickup bitsa I put together). Long story short, I decided to try Gregor’s idea. It meant making a new scratchplate to accommodate the different pickup up shape, which was a challenge but it’s done now. Result in the pictures below. I think it looks the business and it sounds immense without being too muddy. I wired it up with a DPDT switch to give a coil tap option. Tapped it sounds a bit like a Jazz front pickup but not quite as woody. I’m pleased with the result. I may leave it this way.

Don't say that in public..

Not a bad shout at all!… just arrived obligatory photo

Third session with the drummer and guitarist, second with our multi instrumentalist sax/ keys player. It's coming together nicely, of course song endings where the originals have fade outs and tricky bridge sections are a bit ragged but the core foundations of all the songs on the list are there. Meeting up every second week feels good for learning songs thoroughly and at our own pace. Having a live sax player in the room doing "the heat is on", "Maneater" and "careless whisper" is just bliss. Singer options are drying up, we really only have one so we are putting a lot of hope into this one guy... Having said that, the guitarist's girlfriend has sung at the last two sessions. She's never sang with a band before or through a mic and though she's sometimes a bit flat, etc. she is better than a lot of cover band singers I hear. So we always have her on hand! We are going to book a gig in for early January to put fire under our feet to get sorted with a solid set list and get tighter as a unit. There's a venue we know well, we will offer to do it for free on a random night so it's kind of a soft launch/ pressurised rehearsal.

Hi all, I’d like to step in and clarify things directly, as I can see some understandable confusion here. Bass Bags Ltd (the company) went into liquidation, but the Bass Bags brand, stock, and team were acquired by Strings Centre Ltd, which is now running the business. We are trading as Bass Bags (a Strings Centre brand) and continuing to serve musicians exactly as before. Like many UK retailers, we’ve faced tough trading conditions in recent years — Covid, Brexit, and wider global pressures (including the war in Ukraine) have all made it challenging. Closing Bass Bags Ltd was a restructuring step, but it has allowed us to protect the brand, keep the same team together, and continue looking after our customers. For me, Bass Bags has never just been a company name — it’s our team, a small family of people who share their expertise to make a living. We’re musicians and craftspeople ourselves, and we take things personally when it comes to our customers. That hasn’t changed, and it never will. To be absolutely clear: The same team is here looking after customers, just as we always have. No customer orders, hires, or repairs have been affected. We’re fully operational, continuing to support players across the UK and beyond. We’d always prefer people to pick up the phone and speak to us directly rather than speculate online — but I completely understand the concerns and wanted to set the record straight here. If anyone would like to talk to me directly, please feel free to get in touch: 📞 01332 840391 📧 [email protected] Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the years. We remain committed to delivering the same reliable service that Bass Bags has been known for since the beginning. David (Bass Bags / Strings Centre Ltd)

Tanglewood Rebel? Think you can see part of the logo on the body beneath the sticker.

I'm not sure about that. Many years ago we had a slot at the Reading Festival that was a real poison chalice. We were on between Status Quo and The Faces. Quo fans didn't want them to stop and Faces fans didn't want to waste time with us, so we were being booed by everyone in the festival! A Party 7 sailed out of the darkness, bounced off the piano and, fortunately, over our heads. At least in a small venue you can see who the enemy is!

Sterling Bongo? Ernie Bongo's brother? Last I heard he was doing a 5er in Wandsworth for nicking toilet seats. Hang on, wrong thread.🤨

Using a line selector pedal like a Boss LS2 to boost the OC2 could achieve this with the same number of stomps as just engaging the OC2.

Thank you. Hangs head in embarrassment and quietly shuffles off to the corner.

Fancied a short scale so picked up this Mustang CV today, new pick guard turned up for one of my Teles too

G & L are the Saab of the guitar industry. Maverick to a certain extent, quirky, historically significant a bit...I love 'em (i own a m2000 and a SB-2). The MFD pcikups alone should have hailed as a classic design Yet, always the stealth brand, with no big name endorsees, always a bit to far off the general path of things. And we'll miss them when they are gone, or bought. Aparently the tariffs have something to overload their costs...conjecture maybe, who can tell these days. Those who knew...knew i guess, just not enough of us. I also owned a Saab..lol

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month , well a round of applause and a pat on the back maybe for both @Chiliwailer and @Wolfram , tied winners in September with superb compositions. Well, onwards and upwards, so to get those itchy fingers back to the instruments , Wolfram has supplied the following for your inspiration. "I glimpsed this ad on the Underground a while back - I was previously unaware that 'non-toxic' was a key selling point for an air fryer! Let's hear your ad jingles, weird and wonderful product endorsements, or songs about air fryers 😆." ✅ Entries must be <5 minutes and recorded between now and the deadline. ❌ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on ❌ No Bagpipes, Please, I think they would suffer from the tubular reverberation and sound a bit off. ❌ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you.. Deadline-wise, we will go for Midnight on the 25th September ... Which really means the last day of summertime , dark nights and closed neighbours windows , thus I can sing as loud as I like A line or two of blurb as usual for the vote thread will be super duper smashing lovely. Good luck, Have fun

So I went with A for the front. It’s a thin body (32mm) and slightly smaller than a P size so it will be an interesting project to see how everything fits. I will definitely have to go for lightweight tuners to combat neck dive. Part of me is thinking about doing a short scale.

My dear father named our cat after the neighbours just do he could annoy them when calling for her to come in

Fair question because I can't tell if there's a generational shift in the punters you're playing to, or a saturated market of bands conforming to archetypes of genres that are getting hackneyed. I've certainly got jaded with covers. Not that there's anything wrong at all with it but I've got ground down with the repertoire, venues and the people I've been in bands with. A lot of that could be a post covid lockdown problem with my motivation! I rejoined and left a band earlier this year that I've played with on and off for over 5 years. Again, it's a specific unique case in point but it was hard to see what that particular band offered as an alternative to a solo girl singer with a PA speaker and a laptop backing track. Bizarrely I'm back enjoying doing originals ( in my mid '50s!!) doing less gigs but it's sustained my interest.

Yeah. "They were really good when they played last time. Let's go again." Unfortunately, it's not how, or what you play, it's entirely down to how you make people feel. As a musician it sucks, as an entertainer, it's what makes a good band.

I've recently got the building bug and so far I've done my Pingray, a strat and I have the parts for a Gibson scale telecaster in the house but I need the weather to get warmer again before I can paint outside. But now I'm thinking of doing a short scale 50s P bass as a sort of Dusty Hill tribute. Ideally I'd like to find a slightly downsized body to keep the proportions right, but I'll think about getting a body blank if I have to - slab bodies are probably the best option for a first time body making attempt. A blank that has the neck pocket already done would be perfect. If I can get suitable parts over the next few months then I'd have 2 things to paint in the spring. I'd do it in that old butterscotch type colour he had for a long time, then do the hairdryer + air can cooling approach to get the finish cracking a little. I wish I had a workshop - at the moment I have to do everything other than soldering in the garden. I also really need to spend some money on power tools. Other than an off-brand Dremel and a drill I'm doing everything by hand.

I carry the ubiquitous Behringer BD121 pedal everywhere in my leads case. An absolute no brainer for less than £30. 😃

Very sensible. Most people underestimate how bad they look on a stage wearing shorts. I used to gig with a guitarist who had ultra thin, ultra white and hairless pipe cleaner legs. With his rotund torso he looked like a joke in his shorts. It was beyond embarrassing. I've done many stupid things in my life but gigging in shorts was never one of them.

I love the ASAT but never considered one due to the neck dive that something that shape will always have. Which reminds me that when someone was mentioning famous users - Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith's name popped into my head and sure enough, here it is:

I’ve got an OC2 with the square wave mod which is great fun. Sounds brilliant in the loop of my env filter. I’ll record a clip…

I’m back in the club again - got this BBP35 with Nordstrand pups last week, plays beautifully and has a great PBass sound on the front pup. I can see what all the fuss is about with these now I’ve got it in my hands, an amazingly comfy neck and the quality is ridiculously good all the way through. My main bass is still an active J but this is a fantastic alternative when the P Bass is needed, gonna stick some TI flats on it once I’ve got a spare £80 😖

I've caved. I'm in a band where certain songs can be done in up to 3 different keys, a few semis apart, to suit the vocal register of whichever of our singers is taking lead on a particular night, so this could potentially be a game changer and has rightly pushed itself to the front of the queue, ahead of a couple of more exciting/fun pedals on my wish-list - but which would have been more icing and less cake. Should be arriving next week, fingers crossed.

I agree! Despite all I have said, I'm still a sucker for a nice Thumb Bass. I could see me ignoring all good sense and buying one like that example. I once nearly inadvertantly got given one by the Bass Centre in Wapping when I bought a gig bag and someone had very thoughtfully left a brand new Thumb fretless inside. For a moment I thought they might have been so impressed by my playing they were forcing an endorsement on me. However, honest to a fault, I alerted the shop to their generous oversight and gave them their bass back.

It's a tough crowd here.

I've had issues with underpowered pedals causing noise over the last few months, the most recent being the CMC Audio Protoype V2, so I bit the bullet and bought a Gen X 8 from Gigrig. It has six 500mA outputs and two 1A outputs so I figured it would solve all those issues. And I was right! Its more compact than if I added a third high current adapter while still providing all the current my board needs.

Must agree with @Stub Mandrel above. A deaf person running for a bus would be hard-pushed to tell the difference. If I need an oscilloscope to pick between them, the punters down the Maggot and Corpse won't notice either.

Absolutely, lost, claimed and refunded all in a single week? That's eBay's systems working bloody well if you ask me 👍

We don't have a PA bass capable so spare amp it is.

I might have it wrong, but I think the chorus sort of effect (a detune/doubling effect +/- 20 cents) was via the pedal. Ah yeah, my semitone maths wansn't on point! So in that case he has basically dropped down the low E to a C and that sounded okay to me, hopefully one more semitone would be okay. I guess it is the sort of thing you might feel when playing (perhaps a bit of latency) more than being an issue in how it sounds in a recording. Although come to think of it, I don't think I ever play a low B in my current 90min set, the lowest is a D a few times. So getting used to just dropping down to that is probably better than dropping all to BEAD. I'll add it to my expanding wishlist of pedals! (along with MXR Bass synth, Boss RE-2, and some sort of analogue envelope filter).

I get that it’s a way of changing sounds, but for me it’s all about finding an amp you really like the sound of in the first place. Personally I don’t get buying an expensive pre when you could get another amp for the same outlay. I think that if you have to run one as well as your amp then you need to maybe reconsider which amp you use.

My worst was a blues/jazz bar. 110 mile round trip. We played to three friends, two bar staff and a couple of locals for a decent fee. They depended on students and term had ended, and live music was the chain's schtick. Worst bit... they had us booked three weekends in a row, the staff loved us and wanted us back and the deal was worth it. But... they recommended us to the chain's venue local to us. Downside access was awful so after 2 gigs we stopped going there.

The older I get the more lax I get with reading what is actually there. And proof reading, but will come as no suprise to my followers. Imagine my surprise when I did not hear The Cardigans when I pressed play.

You are a man of great taste. I don’t like to see it personally, it just looks wrong to my eyes. I did it once, during covid, for one of those livestream affairs in the middle of summer, never again.

If it doesn’t work out I can collect Thursday Mike 🙂