Leaderboard

My moonlight blue P34. Did have a 735a and was after a P35 but as is the way of things, I ended up with the 4 string. No complaints. Great bass! 8

Good one in the end last night. Started off looking like it might be a quiet night, presumably for Christmas works do’s but it filled up before we started and they were well up for it and singing all night. I had a minor op on my ankle last Tuesday to remove the screws put into my heel last year that showed as having come out the other side of the heel bone and thought to be the cause of some pain in the ankle with the hope that this would fix things and won’t require further surgery to fuse the ankle (with another 6 weeks non weight bearing). Walked out of hospital Tuesday after and am fully mobile, but I hope a couple of sets stood up won’t have a negative effect. A few new songs in the set and a big re jig of order that seemed to work well for the most part. I did have a major brain fart three songs in and got completely lost in a song we’ve done for yonks 🤦‍♂️ IEM’s generally worked ok and the bass sounded lovely in there. It would be good if I could work out running in stereo to split out the guitars. When they’re playing harmony lines the separation is good, but if both are doing chords it can become muddled. Should be feasible as there are spare aux channels on the desk. Gear: FrankenJazz -> Darkglass Anagram -> Darkglass Microtubes 500 -> Barefaced BigBaby2. Shoes: Barefoot (rh) / Post surgery boot (lh) No gig tonight, it’s the band Christmas meal 🎅🏻

Last night was a curate's egg of a gig for Dirty Roses. The venue was the Old Court, King's Heath, Birmingham. It's on a busy road, with a residential street of tightly packed terraced houses by the side of it, so parking was a nightmare. I managed to squeeze in by the pub, making use of Mrs Zero's blue badge (Mrs Zero was with me, I wouldn't use it illegally). Went in and was "greeted" by the most miserable looking and unwelcoming barmaid I've seen in my life, who led me to the doors through which I was to load in. I've just had a flare up of gout in my right foot, so it was rather painful bringing everything in - this is the band I do the PA for so there were numerous trips to the car. While I was doing that, Mrs Zero asked about moving the furniture out of the way, to which the miserable harridan replied that it was busy (there were five people in the pub plus us) and there were only two of them on, so we'd have to move the furniture. The singer arrived and he and Mrs Zero moved the furniture while I was loading in, then the guitarist arrived. We'd got pretty much set up by the time the drummer arrived - I was still rigging the PA so the others helped bringing in the kit. Anyroadup, we had a fair bit of space, and a whole one mains socket each side of the appointed area. There was a bit of response from one somewhat enthusiastic woman and what I presume was her equally enthusiastic daughter, but as the evening went on we got more and more of them moving and singing along. At one point in the second set we have a choice of two songs depending on reading the room, and we went for Time Warp - a good choice. The WAGs did their duty and led the calls for more. Oh, and the big TV behind us? They left the bastard thing on all night. There was another (younger and friendlier) barmaid who told us afterwards that we'd gone down really well, and then asked us to put the furniture back. We loaded up and then buggered off - we shouldn't have had to move the furniture in the first place, and we CBA to move it back too. So it's somewhere we never want to go back to, though the gig itself was good.

Weird one for me today. First ever loading the car in the dark this morning to head up to Methil in Fife for 11am load in. Doors open 1pm and we start 2pm. The good news we finish around 5pm and hopefully away by 6pm, home via the Indian takeaway for approx 8pm. Easy peasy. Not sure how this will go today. There was a mix up with the bookings when the organiser went off sick and someone else took a booking for another band. We originally were booked 4-7 but they asked if we could move it to 2-5 to allow them to keep the booking for the 2nd band too. As long as we're getting paid same fee we said yes and all was agreed. Will it be busy ? mmmmmmmmm personally i don't think it will but a paid rehearsal for our main weekend next week when we are out Fri and Sat nights. Wish me luck. Heading out now. Rock & Roll lifestyle, couldnae beat it wie a big stick. 😂 Dave 🤶🎅

After selling all my gear last year, all my gear has been bought this year. The worst is easy, a Fender Mexican standard Precision. I think it was just a bad one, I've had a few before but this one just sucked. I couldn't get a decent setup on it and it always sounded weak so its gone now. Best purchase is either my Spector Euro 4 LX which sounds incredible and is really nice to play and was a great price or my Yamaha BB1100S which I picked up for £450 and is the nicest playing bass I've owned and sounds great.

Hello Basschatters I had been looking for a fretless for a while and there have been several on the forum that I nearly went for but in the end decided to build one for myself. The plan is for a fretless four string, with a single Bartolini MMC pup coupled to an East filter preamp. I used to do a few builds, some of which I posted on a previous incarnation of this site, but I haven't done one for ten years or so now so it will be interesting to see how much I remember. Anyhow the idea is to keep the budget down to the cost of what I was going to spend on buying a fretless so a notional budget of ca. £400. This will mostly go on parts as I have an unused mahogany body blank, maple neck blank and a wenge fretboard left over from when I last built a bass, although I will splash out on a nice walnut top for it. Here is a pic of the last fretted bass I made, the plan is for the fretless to be the same shape and style if i can find the old template and hopefully source a similar grade walnut top.

Well our afternoon gig started off with a 90min drive. On arrival drummer and PA guy were already set up so that was a bonus. Doors open 1pm, nobody there, no queue, no-one in the hallway outside. Oh well we'll still go for it at 2pm. Paid rehearsal. Then 2 people appeared at 1:15pm and then some more and by 1:30pm the organiser asked us to push it back but PA guy had a hire on at night so we said only by 30mins as we had a gig later that night. Wee white lie but at 2pm it started to get busier. By the time we went on at 2:30pm we had around 50-60 folks but its a big venue so it didn't look overly busy but they were all up for a great party afternoon. People just kept coming in even during the 2nd set folks were still arriving. I think we must have managed about 80 people for 2nd set. Dancers on most songs and full floor for the last 4-5 songs so that was good. Turned out quite an enjoyable afternoon and few quid in my pocket so that was nice. Stopped for an Indian takeaway on way home too. Now i'm sitting watching Mr Mercedes on Netflix with a full satisfied tummy. Diet finishes tomorrow. Target reached last week at 12st. but i'm gagging for a wee dram after tomorrow. Usual gear for me. Sandberg MarloweDK - Shure GLXD - Keeley Bassist comp - HB WB-100 - BF212 cab. Dave

Loads reviewed here. Obviously, one guy’s opinion, but some insights into the differences.

A little something for all you short-scale aficionados as I know it can be challenging to find a smaller bass that is not your run of the mill mass produced fare. This body is custom made by me from one solid piece of Walnut. It has been oil handed sanded with Liberon Finishing Oil and finished with nitro satin clear coat. It will have a 30” maple neck with chrome retrovibe lightweight tuners. Pickups will be Tonerider Precision Plus paired with a Bloodstone Guitarworks P bass loom. Hardware includes chrome Gotoh bridge and Schaller type strap lock buttons. I’m hoping to get it all buffed and put together this weekend with more photos to follow. This unique custom bodied beauty will be going on sale soon with an anticipated price of £795 ono including a Fender shortscale gig bag. Drop me a DM if this bass makes your GAS come alive!

How is my gig tonight? Cancelled - singer's got the flu. Baws. Oh well, one of my mates is coming round for a few drams instead. Evening, saved!

Ditto.

20 hour flight from Perth back to Brum last night ...Emirates have a surprisingly good music library on which I found this: I'd never heard of Dieter Ilg...ok so it has a trumpet on it too, but boy do I wish I could play like him.

We won’t play with TVs on in the same room. If they want music, then off they go. Beats me as to why anyone would want both at the same time TBH.

Interesting. I had tendons replaced last year as well as the screws in my heel. Generally worked, but if I walked more than a mile or stand for too long the ankle becomes increasingly painful. Went back to see the consultant a few weeks back and he was suggesting fusing, but having seen the CT scan he could see that one of last year’s screws in the heel was out the other side of the bone so we went with “take the screws out of the heel” as that was quick and did not require lengthy recuperation. Hopefully that works and I don’t need to consider more. He can see arthritis in the joint but it’s not too bad. Maybe I should just accept I’m old and need to slow down and make allowances.

Are we taking bets? A tenner on the sack trolley!

D’oh, i had managed to forget how much I wanted a Junior Jazz and now he’s reminded me how good they are 😅 I do like this chaps videos! He seems to really break down every element in his reviews 👍

That's one way of fogging the stage.

WARNING NERDY CONTENT Yes, AWG16 (use of AWG is deprecated) is approximately equal to 1.3mm2 , you look on t’interweb, you will find many tables showing the current rating of flexible cable, and they can vary considerably. https://www.cablejoints.co.uk/upload/AWG--American-Wire-Gauge--To-Metric--Sqmm-Millimeters-Squared--Conversion-Table.pdf The reason is that many of them are quoting for different uses, high temperature, enclosed in conduit/trucking etc. These things reduce the current rating. In addition they usually quote for a single conductor, Free air or strapped to a cable tray, those perforated, overhead strips you can sometimes see in shops and factories. When using flexible copper cable to connect between an amplifier and a speaker remember that the cable ratings in these tables is continuous whereas a music everything is along away from continuous (of course most recordings from after the 80s do not qualify as Music). The other thing you need to remember when you’re looking at the cable current rating is that the power you can draw through a cable is determined by the impedance of the load. An 8 ohm load will draw twice the current of an 4 ohm load. So: Let’s take a cable rated at 6 amps. Power is current (squared) x Impedance. 6x6=36 then 36 x 8 = There 288 watts. For 4 ohms it is 36 x 4= 144 watts. The irony of that is many Jacks and plugs are rated at 5 amps or less. Finally the reason for using what seem like crazy large cables for speakers should not be looked at purely for current rating. Thicker cable means lower resistance (although cables exhibit some capacitance and inductance, they can be ignored) especially over short lengths). A cable that is too thin can consume some of your power, especially when running 4 ohms. Thin cable, what those across the pond call hook-up wire can have a resistance of 2 ohms per metre. Of course a 50cm, 2 core speaker cable has 1 metre of cable. So 100 watts of power into a 4 ohm speaker could lose up to 33+ watts in the cable leaving 66+ watts for your speaker. Go up to a 2.5 mm2 and you would lose less that 1/1000th of a watt at 100 watts. You must also remember that both the cable in the cab and cable between the amp and cab need to be added to give an accurate resistance/impedance figure.

Agreed. Full tax scavenging mode. Just picking the meat from the bones rather than the fat. The real question being why do so many people need a side hustle just to get by?

I'm new here (have come back on a new account after about 15 years break!) but what better way to say hello than sharing my rig! (Fender) Sunn1200s, diy 4x10 and 2x15 (2x15 not made by me, but the same chippy who helped with the 4x10). The only rack I had was 6u...could do with filling up the spaces a bit but I am not after a compressor, eq etc...maybe just blank spaces, a drawer and some lights which I'll get round to at some point.. It's effing loud! That said, our guitarist loves volume and so does the drummer, nice to have a rig that keeps up without any stress! Awesome to see so many nice rigs, some very tidy set ups here!

Best: - 2012 MIJ Fender Jaguar bass (ok, I swapped the pickups for Fender CS 60s, but it sounds great). - 2024 Epiphone Jack Casady bass. Although a longtime Jack and hollowbody fan, I avoided this bass due to my 'made in China' bias, but after trying one that was well set up I took the plunge and don't regret it. - Fender Super Bassman. Haven't band-tested it yet, but the 'vintage' channel sounds amazing, and loud. Worst: - Orange OBC 115 cab. The sound is not my thing and farts out way too early. - Accugroove 'El Whappo' 15/12/6 cab. Sounds good at lower volume but can't hold it together in a big room. - Orange AD200. Sounded great at first but then developed problems and it's been back to the shop twice now.

Well this upped the ante!

Not really last night as I'm still here. 40th birthday party booked before the band disintegrated, so we had to honour the commitment. Digital desk flat out refused to play ball. Could not connect to it. So the hour I was going to spend blowing cobwebs off the songs I've not played for 6 months I spent messing with that. In the end we ripped out the little 3 input mixer from behind the bar and ran with it. The show must and therefore did go on.

You can use Fiverr (an online marketplace). I’ve used it for some cheap branded animations for a charity and it was fine. The prices are low, but many of the people there are fantastically well qualified. Use reviews as a guide and offer a generous tip if they do good work. You’ll likely be surprised at what you can get for your cash!

I have one in black, brilliant bass but swapped out the pickup for a emg gzr.

@Dad3353 - Some stats from... AI... Creating a 2-minute realistic video using AI with photos as a guide requires significant energy, but exact figures are hard to pinpoint. However, here's a rough estimate: - A 5-second AI video generation consumes around 2.9 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, equivalent to running a microwave for over an hour. - For a 2-minute video, energy consumption would be substantially higher, likely in the range of 100-200 kWh, considering the complexity and processing power required. - To put this into perspective, training a large language model like GPT-3 uses around 1,300 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity, equivalent to the annual power consumption of 130 homes in the US ¹ ². The energy consumption varies greatly depending on factors like: - *Model Complexity*: More advanced models like Google's Veo 2 or OpenAI's Sora require more energy. - *Video Resolution*: Higher resolutions (e.g., 4K) demand more processing power. The average UK household uses around 2,700 kWh of electricity per year. To break it down to a weekly estimate: - Average weekly energy consumption: 2,700 kWh/year ÷ 52 weeks/year ≈ 52 kWh/week - Average daily energy consumption: 2,700 kWh/year ÷ 365 days/year ≈ 7.4 kWh/day Keep in mind that energy usage varies greatly depending on factors like: - House size and insulation - Number of occupants - Appliance efficiency - Heating and cooling systems - Lifestyle and habits For a more accurate estimate, consider tracking your own energy usage or checking your energy bills.

Things escalated quickly: 3 weeks since I started this thread I sold my CK-61, MPC Key 37, Boss GX-10, two job lots of vinyl, and with the proceeds I've bought a ES-60 as a home piano and a Viscount Legend One 73 as stage piano/organ. The Legend One is excellent to play and almost every preset sounds great. Editing is all relatively intuitive (haven't needed to open the manual, which is always a good sign). It feels like a solid premium bit of kit, (apart from the knobs all having a bit of sideways give - I assume that's intentional though), it feels like something that'll still be working and relevant in 20 years. Lots of connectivity (disappointing that although it has an in-built audio interface to send MIDI via USB and receive audio via USB, but no option of sending audio out via USB to e.g. record your sounds without needing an external interface. A response I got from Viscount "Currently, there are no plans for an update that would implement your request, but I have forwarded your email to our Research and Development department."). Playing this vs other keyboards I've owned (MPC Keys, CK-61, P-45, ES-60) is a bit like the difference between watching a film on a phone vs cinema: it's kind of the same thing but is an all together better experience. My main negative is: Spot the display.... it's tricky! I understand it's a 1970s sort of look to everything which is great but you know how just about every other stage keyboard has a decent sized screen and main controller in the middle (and many do additional stuff like colour coding the lights)?... Well, it turns out they've all decided to do that for good reason! A piddly little screen over to one side is difficult to see (I am a fan of the OLED monochrome, it is bight and clear, just too small) and due to the small size it doesn't show enough info - it ideally needs to clearly provide quite a lot of information at a glance: Preset name, drawbar positions (when switching presets they could be anywhere), 4x 'sound zones' with names of specific instruments and volume levels, if things are set for split zones or dual keyboards, fx specific types and levels etc. but only limited stuff can be shown at one time and what info is displayed is often difficult to read, and you need to use your right hand to make changes whereas positioned in the middle would give option of whatever hand is free. I would say though, things like the red knobs all being ones you can press and it then opening up the screen to edit that is a good idea - despite the fact they only have a very small screen to show the info. Other small gripes: A 'shift + switch' two hand manoeuvre is required for some things (like changin the drawbar sound zone and fx zone assigns) that I'd prefer they just added an extra couple of switches. Constantly flashing lights for fx zones to tell you the fx is on if you're viewing the others zones is annoying e.g. if you're in 'master fx' view then fx 1 & 2 buttons flash to tell you if those fx are on ...... I know I've set the fx1 to give the 'sound 2 (synth)' custom EQ, I always want it on and I don't need a flashing light to constantly remind me it's on (even when the 'sound 2' section is turned off and I'm just using the Organ). It's like Homer Simpson's 'everything's okay alarm'! Other than those mostly small things I generally think it's great and am really pleased with the sounds and playability. Time will tell, but I think I'll keep it and be happy with it for many years. Here's a quote from someone on the Legend One Facebook group that is much more knowledgeable than me (seems genuine, photos with the keys at gigs n'all). Now for the ever so trickier part - getting good at playing it! Lessons booked from January.

I don't think there are any... most 'free' ones are limited to 6-10 seconds due to how ridiculously compute intensive it is to create an AI video from images. I'd also raise the question (my personal opinion) of the point of doing so? Why have your original music that YOU created superceded in people's memory by a video AI created? Don't diminish your work by tarnishing it with AI.

I have been talking about the family of OD/dist/fuzz pedals with manufacturers, players, and some boutique makers. All recommend the same: try before you buy. And with your own bass, not any other. One of the most complicated effects is the OD/dist/fuzz family, because their behaviour, sound, and adjustments are affected by the bass, or the effect before them. I've seen and heard that some compressors have a very different behaviour depending on the bass. That's why I have fx boards for hi-Z and lo-Z basses. Different beasts. I thought that output impedance does not matter at all. On paper there shouldn't be a big difference, but ears don't lie. Try a few side by side to compare them against each other.

Lawks! As I was a skint yoof I used to sew zips into my tesco jeans that I'd dyed black and purple and made into drainpipes. My needlework wasn't very good, but it was meant to be DIY punk! I even made my own bumflap out of a particularly vile green acrylic tartan material then scrawled "Slits" on it in fluorescent orange paint. By contrast, mine and Swamp's mate (the only other school punk) had a rich dad who bought him a pair of real bondage trousers from XClothes, and real leather jacket with Ruts painted on it... We always sent him to the bar.

latest micro board setup. usually powerbank powered. then this added to whichever board I am bringing with me. (I have two other setup depending on the situation/need)

We have been a purportedly metric country since 1963. There really isn't any excuse for hanging on to imperial measurements (the very last vestige of British empire), only officially used by three pretty much third world countries - Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.

No need, the resistance of even 1mm2 copper core is less than 0.02 ohms/meter. And as John says the amp rating for cable is based on continuous, sustained current. That means running it at that rating for long enough that it reaches temperature equilibrium, and failure mode is by melting the insulation. You just wouldn't ever reach anything near that in a speaker. Given that flexibility isn't that useful or desirable inside a speaker, I just use offcuts of T&E after tripping off the outer insulation

My new to me SR2605 in Cerulean Blue burst

A few years back I was doing some home demo recordings here; we had a couple of amps set up in a spare room and stuck Shure SM58 (vocal) microphones in front of the each cab and a Rode vocal mic up away from the amp to pick up room ambience. Sounded fine. Guitarist put a photo up somewhere and got an absolute deluge of comments about how stupid we were, that we didn't know what we were doing and how we should have used <insert assorted microphone types here>. The responses just reflect the world we live in, the results were more than acceptable (we just dialled in the tone we wanted off the amps), the SM58 was the only suitable microphone I had (I used to use it rehearsal spaces rather than catching herpes off the studio mics). Ultimately, any nuances in tone/frequency shift (etc) off the SM58 would be lost once everything else was added (drums, bass, more guitar). Plus, it was a home recording, not Abbey Road. People are idiots.

This is HMRC's sudden obsession with "side hustles", as they want to scrape a bit more income from the average person on the street/Clapham omnibus rather than Reeves introduce a wealth tax or bring CGT in line with income tax or do anything significant to get more money from the very rich.

Me with Yamaha trb p2 bubinga.

Although it wasn’t anything like the title suggested, I still found it pretty good, episode 3 with Nate Mendel in particular. Nice to see bass players in big bands acknowledging influences and their peers too. JJ Burnel and his sound getting mentioned a few times, but disappointingly no chat with the man himself. Respect for the late Jack Bruce and John Entwistle was nice too. I guess if we all had to make a list of bass players or the lines that influenced us, no two lists would be the same. Personally I wish they had included Geddy Lee, Sting, Paul McCartney even if just to talk about singing and playing at the same time in more detail, which was only brushed on. With the amount of bass players interviewed on the three shows they could easily have made 8 or 10 shows, but maybe they were cautious about viewing figures for something niche like bass playing, who knows? Here’s hoping we get some more episodes in future to dissect and disagree about.

Our annual Christmas gig for the Mencap gateway charity last night. Always a fun loving and appreciative crowd. This is where Christmas starts for us.

Taking a break from gigs due to the drummer welcoming his first child and me coincidentally dislocating 2 fingers in my right hand has given me a bit of time to reshuffle my board. The goal was to squeeze in a wah pedal and fit my new di box. I'm not 100% happy with the underside mess but it works! Looking forward to giving it a real test in 6 weeks when my splints come off

I won't keep you in suspense Richard 🙂 Scratch plate got pickups marked on then cut out yesterday afternoon. Did a wee bit tweaking this afternoon then when I was happy everything sat nice I switched on the soldering iron. 4 lipsticks in parallel, 250k pots and a 104 cap. Just the pickup heights to balance and the cling film to remove; might swap stings for something looser than Fender flats 👍