Leaderboard

I've been slacking again due to the venue we've just opened. I'll do a thread on that when I get time. On Saturday night we played the Lexington in Islington. Coming from Stoke we had to pickup a guitar that was left behind a few weeks before in Chessington. A total of 6 hours crammed into Vantanamo (named because I don't fit into the van, and so have to spend hours in twisted positions) had me pretty grumpy. Load in up a huge fire escape almost finished me off. The headliner was old friends Abdoujaparov, and I managed to relax while they sound-checked. The venue is very cool, classic old London venue. The set went very well, we won over some new fans, and I left the stage soaked in sweat. Ace gig! Then I had the pleasure of sampling the bourbon bar downstairs. Four Roses and Buffalo Trace were delicious. Here's a photo The next morning we were up bright and early to travel up to Katie Fitzgerald's in Stourbridge where we played a matinee show. Load-in time was 1pm. We arrived at 1:10pm. The owner who actually lives there let us in at 1:30pm 🤷‍♂️ The place was full of our fans singing at the top of their lungs and we loved every second of it.

Baffle cut and cab screwed together,( will glue and screw when happy everything fits ) Back panel cut , just need to wait for when the neighbours are out to check for any buzzing or rattles .

I'm looking forward to this Saturday. I'll get a chance to hang out with a bunch of our local musicians. I'm glad we're going on first. It's a beautiful room on the marina in Port Washington. Daryl

My blue sparkle Sterling Ray34. Imported from Swee Lee in 2016. Much as I love this I might be selling soon as I have a black Sterling Ray34 with matching headstock, Ibanez jetking and just bought a Sire U5. Somethings got to go and this is just too pristine to limit it to pub gigs so will be someones pride & joy on a stage.

shitesnake

I fired the cab up in the rehearsal studio tonight and have some observations: 1 - It's very loud; when compared to my usual cab (Eden 2x15, no tweeter) using the same amp settings it gives noticeably more volume. 2 - Frequency response (or perceived frequency response) is very good; it maintains sweetness in the high end and it doesn't get overly clacky, even with the bass's tone control fully up. 3 - It's chuffing heavy; I've not weighed it, but it's somewhere between monolithic and made of the hearts of collapsed stars. 4 - It's very responsive; even with my Cali76 Bass compressor in use the dynamics are pretty open, and when digging in it moves air around without hesitation, but when playing normally it stays pretty sweet. 5 - The bottom end is big and full but not woolly. 6 - It pairs well with my amp. All in all I'm very happy with how the project has turned out. Cheers, JRK

I know I have a very rare version!

Utterly pointless to try and grade art and artists. Just sit back and enjoy.

I absolutely hate AI. It's theft.

A day using the spray booth and I think I’m getting better lol. Walnut, Paulownia and Sapele.

That's the truth of it. AI is simply another tech tool that will provide some people with new opportunities, allow others to continue as they are, and no doubt piss off a few people. I wasn't around when Dylan and The Band caused uproar with electric instruments in folk, but I was around when synths appeared and people described it as the end of music, when digital recording appeared and people described it as the end of music, when sampling appeared an people described it as the end of music, and when pitch correction appeared and, well, you get the idea. I've no doubt there were similar emotions when recording technology, amplification, electric instruments etc were introduced To me the problem with this thread is the idea that something in the artistic/performance space 'overtaking' something else is in any way meaningful. It's simply change.

Think I've made the same mistake as the O/P...........

Hi Peeps, Unfortunately, I'll not be able to attend on Sunday, but have a good one and it's always a great day. Cheers once again to all involved in the organisation and enjoy yourselves, Cos (Kebabkid)

Long scale? Epiphone Jack Casady. *mic drop*

Just heard back from my GK contact. There have been some manufacturing delays and they are now hoping to ship out in January.

The brilliant Wilton Felder played on one big hit, the Jacksons IWYB and a stonking groove it is to, but he was primarily a highly sought after saxophonist. For my money there's a whole tranch of little known post Jamerson players from that period worthy of consideration including Scott Edwards, Philly souls Ronnie Baker and Henry Davis who played on Love Hangover.. etc. All top flight studio guys who very few people have even heard of.

Don't worry, The Inevitable Teaspoons are currently recording our second album, all by ourselves, in our RF hellhole of a rehearsal room, with whatever mics we can find and a Zoom R24, mixed by me who knows hee haw about mixing. What could possibly go wrong? But it will sound about as far from AI generated "perfection" as it's possible to be, and even though no effer will listen to it, it might poison the AI well a touch...

One of these. Cort a5. Absolutely astonishing bass. So comfortable to play and sounds tremendous. It's quickly became my #1!

Bake That.

Earlier this year, in my quest for U2 basses came these Warwicks Then came a Harry White 4003 Found myself buying a Ric bridge pickup and the bloke played me some stuff he recorded with his Ric thru an Ampeg V4B. So I had to buy one of those too Wow, ussed the HW thru the Ampeg last week at a Total Jam gig. Awesome. Total Jam are a Jam tribute not able to get everything lined up but what a year I've had Ampeg has given me the best sound I've had in 38 years of gigging

It's important enough to say it twice - do NOT use your truss rod as a means to control string height/action. That it has a small effect upon string height when you're adjusting at it is neither here nor there. It's there to control neck relief, to keep the neck straight (or with a very slight concave bow in it) to counteract the forces being placed on it by the strings.

Hi, @W-1Pro - hope all good with you! It's been a long time Remember: - the truss rod is not there to change the action height. It's there to keep the neck straight. My strong advice is to loosen it back to where it was ASAP so it doesn't break something. When I get a moment tomorrow I'll post some simple instructions how to set the truss rod at the right tension - especially seeing that this is a sort of bolt-on-neck, almost certainly the neck needs a shim in the body side of the neck pocket. We are not talking anything of significant thickness...put in the right place, a thin shim can make a HUGE difference to action height

There's going ro be an absolute deluge of these from people hoping that if they churn out enough AI slop they might get a few hits that make money. It's already happening on social media, every 3rd Instagram clip seems to be an AI fake and it's getting really hard to spot them. There's got to be a gap in the market for a streaming service that can guarantee no AI content.

The V4 had a little hiccup a few months back with a horrible cracking through the speakers, lightning inside one of the EHX KT88s and ultimately a fried fuse. The EHX are still currently untested but being safe rather than sorry, I replaced the fuse and installed some old SED 6550C that I'd acquired - these thankfully brought it back to life. They've been fine but I wanted something a bit newer and special for the big Trace so having done a bit of research, I came across these 'Linlai' branded '88s. Initially, I thought they were re-branded premium Shuguang but seemingly, I was wrong and it's a new factory set up by former emplyees of both Shuguang and Psvane specialising in big hifi tubes such as 845 and 811 plus smaller 6SN/L7 and ECC83/2/1 types.. With only about 45 mins on them so far, it's nowhere near enough time to evaluate them but initial impressions are very good. They look fantastic, biased up and remained stable after about 25 mins plus I noticed an exceptionally low noise floor - the V4 isn't noisy anyways but it was near silent with these. We'll see how they go - I got the best part of ten years out of the EHX (and there's a chance they're still ok) which is longer than I've had out of any other set that have ever been in there. Whether these will match the Russian built valves is yet to be seen but having paid £150 including delivery, the V4 feels great and I'm a happy camper.. 🥰

I know there's a lot of love for these, and I share it. This is my second one - the previous was identical, but a victim of one of those 'perhaps I really do have too many basses' moments of doubt which can strike the unwary. This one cropped up on our local Irish small-ads site for a price not dissimilar to what I sold the old one for, so having watched and wondered for a while I eventually did a deal for it. When I got it home, though, I realised that it hadn't just been the 'too many basses' feeling that had prompted the previous one's departure - I was also not loving the bling. So in a move which I'm sure some will regard as quasi-sacreligious, I set about replacing all that fine gold hardware with something a bit more, well, restrained. And here is the result: There's no 'before' picture as I'm sure you all know what one of these looks like when it comes out of the factory (if you don't, there's one for sale in the classifieds at the moment). I bought all the parts I needed - tuners, string retainer, pick guard, bridge, neck plate - on Amazon.ie, all sold by Musiclily Direct UK, for the grand sum of €62. I already had some vintage-style telecaster knobs and some regular strap buttons, so I didn't need those. I think the quality of the parts is every bit as good as those I took off it. I particularly like the pick guard, which fitted perfectly with no need for any fettling or redrilling of holes. The tuners, despite being shown by my (admittedly crude) measurements as having the same dimensions as those I took out, did require me to fill and redrill, and the ferrules were slightly too small. Still, a few minutes work with some cocktail sticks and duct (duck?) tape (I couldn't find the PTFE) sorted that: I'll get round to adding the other two screws to each tuner at some point. Maybe. I was particularly pleased that I managed not to drill through to the front of the headstock... The only evidence left of its illustrious origins is the output jack - I'm sure I could find a silver one in the parts drawer if I looked, but I a) couldn't be bothered with the soldering and b) quite like leaving this little marker for 'those in the know'. A few more pics: the new bridge (somewhere between a hi-mass and a BBOM, and perfectly functional - it even came with a shorter spring on the E saddle to allow for intonation), the pick guard (which picks up the blocks quite nicely I think), and the rear with its new plain neck plate (and my foot). And done! I'm very pleased, and much more likely to pick this bass up in its new guise. Fickle, fickle, fickle...

Little fluffy clouds - The Orb

Probably because it wasn’t a proper P bass 😉

I certainly do gig with one, I find the string to string balance and thickness of the notes high up really useful. The Fallout is a pretty versatile bass....I don't sound that different whatever bass I play, for better or worse, after all these years.

I thought I'd share my bridge/body measurements as I have a Korean Skyler Acord model (love it!) and I really appreciate that the neck is further in on the body than most other 35" scale Spectors I've seen. Though it's a tougher reach to the highest frets past the horn, I don't use those very often and the rest of neck is easier to get to for me.

... Or pick fights on a Bass forum? 🫣

Apparently that last reply earned me a 'Basschat hero' badge. I feel quite emotional....😆

Rather more secure than my old brown factory case! When I took it back to Paul the other week, he expressed amazement that the piano hinge was still intact

I think you have lost me Tim. Sure there are plenty of people doing very well in this economy. There are some very wealthy people without a doubt. Broadly speaking though the general impression I get is that there is a high degree of uncertainty and even people on decent wages are cutting back a little. For those on the margins - the precariate, the rapid increase in accommodation costs have made life much much harder. This is Bristol in 2025 where my property has gone up by 150% in 20 years: I am sure someone will tell me how rich I am. It’s my home. It makes no difference to me if it’s worth £50K* or £850K!!! The only people benefiting from this are banks, governments and increasingly hedge funds. The rest of us just want somewhere to live. Again yeah I go on a bit, but this is the reality of the way the financial system is structured. The relationship between debt, liquidity, yield curve control/quantative easing, deficit, bond markets and inflation are just dull words. That video is what they lead to and it’s going to happen again. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/people-and-communities/vehicle-dwellers-in-bristol  Edit: * This is not true. It makes a big difference. If it was £50K my stamp duty, interest payments to the bank over 15 years and undoubtedly soon whatever extra taxes I will be scalped for being a beneficiary/victim of money pumping.

I was just messing, as I really can’t take this seriously 😊

Shape can't be patented, only copyrighted and they lost that battle decades ago. Yup. PU type and position define the general characteristics of a P type to me, but sadly many will look and determine that a non-FSO is not a P even if they couldn't pick it blind from something else.

I also found my local off license (lovely people!) are now accepting Royal Mail deliveries which has helped them improve turnover and saved me a 20 minute trip to the post office. For small items it’s a brilliant system.

Great work, Jack. Were I not so feeble, old and decrepit, I'd treat myself to another proper bass cab'.

Wal I never!

You should aim them as the room demands, which is to cover the most listeners possible. That's listeners, not people. We've all played those rooms where far too many are more interested in their conversations than the music. When I played those rooms I aimed the PA where it would be most appreciated, at the dance floor.

I should update my collection on here. Since getting my dream RetroB 5er, I decided I wanted a 4 string almost-identical sibling. Almost identical in terms of shape and pickups combo, but almost a bit yin to the 5ers yang. My other ACG is my gorgeous TKO Custom - I suspect one of very few white finishes Alan has (and will?) do. Certainly one of one in terms of body binding 🤓

Id sign up for that streaming service and Id pay more for it. AI music is a parasite. It feeds off real music while also killing it.

We've had 2 rehearsauditions for guitar players recently... 1st one said he knew nothing about theory but had put quite a lot of practice into working out our songs. He was, however, a bit plodding and standard-metal with very little invention, spark or syncopation though timing was generally good. 2nd guy was far more interesting musically, understood what modes were and could play around with our songs. He started off playing a little too blues-ily (as our original guitar player did on the album) but varied from that when told he had free reign. His only negative was that he's very slow to respond to messages on't phone... So I was keen on 2, the rest of the band wanted 1 as "he was heavier". I said "heavy is easy, interesting isn't, what sort of band do we want to be - same old same old or an interesting mix of all-sorts?"). As a result it looks like we may now have a 2 bass 2 guitar band! I'm very tempted to show 'em Chick Corea's advice to musos, though as they all hate anything to do with jazz, often including musicianship, it may well fall on deaf ears!

A couple of decent gigs….. loving the P bass and favouring the TC BQ500 & 4x10 at the moment. One night in Leeds…. and one in Stoke…. Both fun ones, and the new songs seemed to go down well.

A couple of pics by the audience from Thursday...

My best bass purchase – also my only major one – was the battered Hohner "The Jack" that I bought off here in June. It gave me a fun project to while away the summer afternoons and has turned out to be a really lovely bass. Here's the "before" pic. And here's the after: I've been pleasantly surprised by how good it sounds. My expectation was that it would be light, practical and a bit bland. And, well, it sort of is, but in a good way. I've never played a bass with p-bass pickups much before (these pickups are reverse Ps in humbucker cases), but I'm starting to get the appeal. My other fretted bass has a MM pickup and a really aggressive sound. It sounds amazing when everything's just so, but can be very finicky. The Hohner just sounds, er, solid, I guess. A nice smooth sound, almost like it's been compressed and tweaked already. I can just run it straight into my interface and be perfectly satisfied. The worst purchase would be Montana Color "Fire Red" paint. This turned out to be a shade of red no-one's ever seen in a fire or indeed anywhere outside of the Barbie dream house.

Stood in with a blues band for a 45-minute support slot at a blues club. I don’t normally get nervous about performing but I was conscious this would be a more discerning audience than the usual gaggle of pub punters, plus the headlining band would probably be listening from the wings. As it was, I felt I acquitted myself pretty well, and we got good feedback from the audience. It was quite amusing when one of the sound techs offered me a hand onto the stage with my Barefaced cab, and I lifted it with one finger! I was surprised how many women there were in the audience. I expected a blues club audience to consist of 98% gentlemen of a certain age, but most of them seemed to have brought along their significant others.

Good gig. Second set wasn't so great. BL called songs we haven't played in years.No complaints and I was home by 7:30. Daryl