Leaderboard

Deadlight Dance returned to the stage last night, supporting the excellent Sun Machine at The Tree House in Frome. Prior to the show, I took my 57RI P-bass into Kempsters in Swindon, to replace some dodgy pots. Amazing service as always with 80s style pricing, although he did “have to tell me” that he didn’t like my neon green strings! 😹 I also picked up a Pennywise stage mascot at HMV. Despite the AD200 Orange bass rig, I am actually running through just a board with the Boss IR2 as my “rig”. The Orange sounded incredible when Sun Machine were on and having owned the exact same setup, I didn’t miss it during the first floor load in. In fact I had 4 separate people ask me about my bass sound! I was also compared to Peter Hook and Simon Gallup, which for an originals based set is either a massive compliment or I need to get better at stealing! The sound guy Chris was amazing, Sun Machine were fantastic and there was not one diva style ego in the house. A respectably full room and everyone showed up to watch both bands. Coupled with the age friendly 10.30pm curfew and the competitively priced Guinness 0%, a superb evening. Nice to be back “home” on the bass too 😎

After a few weeks off while the guitarist was touring, we were back at the Railway in Countesthorpe last night. Unfortunately nobody told us about the Indian streetfood kitchen set up in the carpark, and I'd turned up with a bellyfull of Chinese takeaway. Moot point anyway because they had packed up and gone by the time we'd got the kit in. Slightly quieter night than recently, which was good because we could actually set up. Normally it's a right scrum. It was hot! It went pretty well considering I hadn't picked up a bass since the last gig. Lots of compliments on both sound and playing. Stingish bass through the GT-6B, and then via my new deluxe big muff, into the Rumble. DMs

Good one last night. I used the TC rig rather than my usual Ashdown, and it sounded great, lots of clout via the 4x10. The P bass was magnificent as always, but it was a lot of fun using the Hohner B2 for a D tuned number. Cool venue and a very lovely audience.

Another visit to the Spread Eagle in Polesworth, as always rather tight for space. Advertised as an 8:30 start, then we were told it was 9:30 to 11:30, so we went with 9:00 to 9:50ish, long interval, 10:30-11:30. A few fluffs in the first half but no major car crashes and the second half went well. And the landlady was dancing, which was a good sign. Could see through a passage into the other room, and there was some dancing going on in there too. Looks like we'll be getting some Saturday gigs next year, so less of a rush for the 50% of the band who aren't retired, and also the pool table gets moved out of the way instead of just being covered over. Sei Flamboyant -> M-Vave wireless -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212. Normal footwear.

Great gig at Ye Olde Butchers Arms with the Fortunate Sons. Got compliments from the band and audience members on my £10 Temu lighting rig 🤣 Really great sound with loads of low down thump. Did have a minor crisis when the hi-hat unscrewed itself ...

Strange bass gig for me! INXS UK seated in a little sold out gig playing a rubber band bass Uke! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1Cqb8hgpFP/

Very good gig tonight. Very successful in every sense - 19 new followers on the Instagram, swathes of posts and stories and the owner of the bar (before we'd even finished, mind) emailing us offering us 9 dates over the next year. Crazy stuff. Rig was the new (to me) fender MIM standard P bass (I'll do a NBD on it, maybe), over Swiff Audio 5.8ghz into the TC Electronic BG250 combo. No pedals, no nothing. Simple as anything set up, and I got compliments from bar staff and audience members on how clear and punchy the bass was. *footwear were the same pair of puma suedes I always wear.

Next step, the wax cylinder! Enjoy the sound of noise...

As opposed to what? Making pottery? 😋

Having been a short scale ‘fan’ from afar without having played many, I recently made the leap after experiencing an unhealthy obsession with upright bass. Just to be clear I wanted to obtain as close a tone to an upright to my ears without having to resort to buying one, which would have proved to be highly impractical. The bass I chose was a Duesenberg Alliance Dave Landreth Model, which I liked both aesthetically and tonally after I swapped out the stock round wound strings for some Pyramid flats. In the lower registers it sounds close to spot on for my reference at least, although it becomes a little less woody on the G string, something which can be tamed by using the tone control. To date I am really enjoying the experience of owning and playing this instrument, everything about it screams quality, it’s built exceptionally well, sounds and looks stunning (even the case is a thing of beauty), it’s also light and very comfy to get around on. They are not exactly commonplace, but that said they are played by some well known musicians, Dave Landreth, Curt Smith, Rob Mullarkey, Dave Bronze and Chris Chaney for example.

Or this lovely thing??

On Saturday Hurtsfall played at the OxJam festival in Beeston. Over 100 acts split across multiple venues, this is the 3rd year we've been asked to play. This time we were on at 3.30pm at The Berliner, the second band of the afternoon at that venue. Not the easiest of load-ins with the venue being very busy so there was nowhere really to leave our gear where it wasn't in someone way. However it turned out that lots of the people were there specifically to see us play which was very gratifying. Just about enough time between bands to get set up and line-checked. Technical problems of the previous weekend were behind us and we played well, and even felt brave enough to open with our newest song which most of our audience wouldn't have heard before. We're taking a break from gigging until the end of November to work on new material and for recording the album.

Rhino is now selling albums on reel to reel to make it even more of a hassle https://store.rhino.com/en/rhino-store/special-edition-shops/reel-to-reel/?pdshow=true&eml=2025October10/6909709/6134371&etsubid=223450362

Kudos 👏🏼 Love a well polished boot me 😉

@neepheid and I are now in Taunton. We'll be checking out the dodgy clubs, pubs and houses of ill repute til early hours or until one of us needs to get to bed, so around 2100 for me.

Just packed the car ready for an early start. I'm only bringing nine speakers this year.

I lied... they are only £2.62 each and I have two. Photo exaggerated as you'd expect, but worked well considering it was a pub with the lights on.

Never found that, audiences always seem to appreciate the chance to show appreciation for the individuals.

We do it over the end music of the last song, and we've always had a great response for each individual band member. We find that the audience love to show their appreciation for each musician after watching the band play for two hours.

Loving this build I added the Para EQ this week, don't think I'll be changing much for a while (other than stripping it down a bit depending on situation).

Hope it's ok to mention this here... The self-built all-valve B15-inspired head that I brought along last year will be with me again, this time with a FOR SALE sign on it! I mention this because, while I am really trying to slim down my kit (honest), I am also not completely averse to a trade, and you might want to bring something with that in mind. If the head sells/trades at tomorrow's bash I will donate 5% of the net proceeds towards the Bash running costs. Of course you are welcome to try it with your own bass and/or cab without obligation of any kind - that is part of the fun of a Bass Bash!

That Hohner just looks great even now. You never really see the Steinbergers these days ? Dave

… just don’t price up boards, keeps things more manageable in my book 🤪

Thanks very much, @Mike Brooks - I think it'd be great if you would come and share some of your experiences, knowledge, and anecdotes. We're now moving into the month leading up to the event and expect to cover off preparations over the next week or so. As per @NancyJohnson's update, we've got two rooms at the venue which facilitates having talks/presentations, which have always been enjoyable and enlightening in previous years.

If your guitars are as old as that joke, I’m quids in! 🎸

@Misdee is absolutely correct. It's a late 80's Overwater Artisan, a slightly downsized, single pickup version of the Overwater Original. Here're the specs from a 1987 review... OVERWATER ARTISAN BASS PRICE£599 BODYmahogany NECKmahogany FINGERBOARDrosewood PICKUPone humbucker CONTROLSvolume and tone; coil tap switch COLOURSblack/red/blue/sunburst

There are lots of great ideas in this topic and I'll nick a few of them. My tuppenceworth is never ever mumble or speak too quietly. Always project and sound confident. It's not a private conversation.

It’s a pretty ‘rickenbacker’ way to do a short scale. Wrong.

Bit the bullet over Thomanns guitar day offer. I wanted something small to bring with me to work on public transport and then on to a pub for a folk / uke jam night. This has really surprised me, it's great fun and has a huge sound. Delighted to have it as a couch bass too

Thanks! just don't look underneath!! 😬

Well played @floFC ! I meant I don't use the reel-to-reel for listening to music

Absolutely ridiculous. I want one.

Bought this used about a month ago, for what equals about 30$. An ESP/LTD B4JR : It's not in production anymore, and a pretty rare find on the used market, though it is a cheap budget bass, still it usually goes for over 3 times what I paid for this one used. It's a just 28.5" scale length short scale bass, with a Basswood body, and a Maple neck with Rosewood fretboard. And after a thorough setup, and having the stock pickups, which honestly sounded decent enough, replaced for an EMG Geezer Butler P pickup, it sounds non less than amazing. Really nice tone, both finger plucked, but especially using a pick. Really punchy and snappy, very focused, tone, and the sustain is pretty substantial too. Even the low E sounds great, despite the short scale length. Though I have now strung it with coated Elixir Nanoweb guitar strings, of the gauges .068 - .052 - .038 - .028, tuned to tenor bass, A standard, tuning. It's also very light, the body being made of Basswood, which does make it prone to neck dive, but nothing a wide grippy strap can't solve (which the strap in the picture has been replaced with). Now the bad things, when I got it it had one of the most horrible setups I ever saw, and with loose input jack socket, that was easily fixed though, however the nut slots are cut way too high, and it got some pretty sharp fret ends, that you can literally cut your hand on if you are not careful, and will probably have a proper luthier fix that too at some point. The thin U shaped neck also took a bit getting used to, it is not exactly beefy, but it kind of felt that way at first, because of the neck profile being so round. The fretboard is pretty flat though, with a radius of 400mm (~16"), which I fortunately does happen to prefer. The frets are not perfectly leveled, but still well enough that I can get it to my preferred string action (about 2mm (~5/64") low E string at 12th fret) without any issues or string buzz whatsoever. Truss rod works as it is supposed to, and neck seems stable. Tuners are not the best, but they work just fine. All in all a lot of bass for merely 400 Danish Kroner (~30£), definitely satisfied with my buy. I named it "Dud Bottomfeeder Jr.". Love this little fella'.

Yamaha needs to get into the short scale game again.

I've got a B2, the output is really hot from the stock pickups .

Oh, I love it! I have a turntable and a valve amp'd reel to reel, although I only use the turntable for listening to music. I actually like the hassle, and it's made listening to music an activity in itself rather than something I have on in the background.

It’s a combination of things, we live in the golden age of gear, it’s never been so abundant, available and to a degree cheap. When I started collecting pedals I was having to get custom buffer/blenders made to use fuzz pedals with active basses. There was a time when I sold all my pedals for a Line 6 M13, it was easy enough to cop decent fx from multis. The issue was amps, but as PAs got bigger and better a lot of us could go ampless. Which made the pedalboard more and more important and bigger and bigger. But until the Anagram the right combination of tone, fx, form factor, method of power and inputs and outputs just didn't exist at least for me. The Quad Cortex came close but it’s still a pretty big device if you've been running a pedaltrain nano for years. In between owning the Quad Cortex (which I hated) and the Anagram I built the board you see (along with additional things) for sale currently. This is where the problem became apparent, that board had like 3 core rigs, 3 sets of pedals I could take to a gig and get through the gig. So practice became this endless loop of comparing them and switching between them, the equivalent of going this song really needs and SVT, ah but this next one needs a Fender Bassman. Then on top of this you have more esoteric sounds that I wont use on a gig but I enjoy having, playing with, using on random songs I learn etc. So the board ends up being pretty large, you pull a few things off to do a gig, realise that no one cares and then comes a long a box, 2/3s the size of your smallest pedalboard, that you can power with your phone charger, that not only does all the combinations your current board but also any crazy signal chain you can imagine, has enough io to run a clean and dirty DI in the studio or work as an IEM mixer live. Then you look at your board and spares, price it up like Shep has, realise you've got 3+k sat there and even if/when you sell all that you’ll still have enough left over to build 2 nanos 😂….. well you end up where I am now.

I absolutely agree with you (and your input is appreciated!).

The original T-Basses are still sought after by some. It's one of those cases of if you know, you know. They were built by Status-Graphite and designed by Mark Gooday & Rob Green, so the quality is always bang on, as every bass originally went through the hands of one man. As for some sounding better than others, like all Status basses (and most others), they're sensitive to having clean strings and a good setup. If you find one that seems to be low on output, there's a "trim pot" on the preamp under the rear cover which should be turned to about half way, or just a little higher, but not turned up to the point of distorting the sound. Pickup height should be around 3-4mm at the bridge and 6-7mm at the neck. A very nice T-Bass 5-string I checked out earlier this year for an Irish BC Member fetched well over £1500. Relative scarcity keeps values pretty high.

Probably better sound quality though…. And you can always tape over it if you get bored of the album you bought.

How about we make a list so that anyone can easily access these albums? Oh, ok then. Solo Double Bass / Jazz Albums Marc Johnson – Overpass Anders Jormin – Alone Miroslav Vitous – Emergence Francois Rabbath – The Sound of a Bass) Alain Caron & Michel Donato – Basse contre basse Ray Brown – Soular Energy Eddie Gomez – Street Smart Edgar Meyer – Dreams of Flight Jorge Roeder – El Suelo Mio Classical Thomas de Hartmann – Fantaisie-concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra, Op. 65 Hans Werner Henze – Double Bass Concerto Peter Maxwell Davies – Double Bass Concerto

Uninspiring is a great quality in a DI.

Hi @Mike Brooks, Obviously, I can't speak for the organisers of this Bash, but from a punters perspective, It would be great to have you there on the day if you can make it. In my experience, the South East Bass Bash has massively benefited over the years from the contributions of a wide variety of professional players, who have shared some of their unique experiences and insights... So a talk /presentation by your good self on the day would be absolutely amazing. All being well, I look forward to meeting you there! Cheers Nik