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My final gig of 2025, with the Elton John tribute, at Bibi’s in Leeds. The usual matinee and evening gigs, both really well attended with the audience up for singing and dancing. Its a long day with travelling and a gap between sets so I came prepared and had a nap in my car between sets. As ever, plenty of good food, good vibes and a lovely way to round off my year musically. The usual rig of P bass and Yamaha basses (for the different 70s and 80s sounds), Markbass Traveller cabs, Little Mark II head and effects board. Just about managed to cram it all, along with the drumkit (and drummer) in my car. Long live old Volvo estates.

Ours was quite good. A slight goof as we get this song tight. But were having a lot of fun....

Twenty years ago today, pretty much to the minute, I started playing bass guitar. I went up to my daughter’s bedroom, picked up her bass and practice amp, guitar lead and teach-yourself book, and carried them all down to my study. Plugged it all together, tuned the bass, opened the book to Lesson #1 and started. Just like that. There’s a back-story. Obviously there’s a back-story. As a pre-teen, my daughter was one of those annoying people who could learn any musical instrument without any apparent effort. She was also even lazier than me and would abandon said instrument as soon as anyone suggested she put some work in and get really good. By the time she was 12 she had already been through flute, piano and guitar and then she announced that what she really wanted was to play bass. So I tole, I dun TOLE that girl, I’m getting fed up with this and I won’t keep doing it … if you do the same as you always do then I’ll come and take that bass and I’ll learn to play it myself. You know what she said? “Yeah right, Dad, like that’s gonna happen.” So she played the Badass off that bass for a couple of months (Blink-182 and Green Day, mainly), then put it on its stand and abandoned it. That would have been about October of 2005.

Behold my collection of vintage Peavey basses! I’ve had most of these for a long time now but I’m moving into a stage in my life where I no longer play in a band, or gig at all. So realistically I no longer need these. Gulp. I’ve sold so much of my collection over the last few years, to buy things to use for home recording. Somehow these keep avoiding the cull!! those who’ve seriously trimmed down on their collection of splendid things… did you regret it?!

Hi all, I've been a long-time low-end lurker and finally have something to share. I have a bit of an obsession with photographing bass guitars in places they definitely don't belong (like an abandoned basement for fruit storage) This one here is a close-up of my Fender Japan Mustang Bass CIJ - The lighting in this basement was too good to pass up. I've actually started documenting my basses and these "strange places" over at my website because I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Curious to know if anyone else here does on-location shoots? If you want to see all the basement photos, here's the direct link: https://bassesinstrangeplaces.com/bass-journeys/the-old-orchard-basement-storage/

I might have just bought this and some labellas 🥳

I’d fallen out of love with pop music in the mid-80s and simply stopped listening. Until my daughter started playing ‘her music’ in the car on long drives, I’d never heard of Nirvana or Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Lenny Kravitz or … or … or … But that’s OK. I’ve spent the last 20 years playing almost exclusively the music of 1955-85 and I’m really very happy with that. I haven’t yet played my 1000th gig but it’s getting closer – two or three more years should do it. It’s hard to over-state the impact that Thursday afternoon was to have on the rest of my life. I didn’t have a clue at the time, obviously, but that decision to go up to my daughter’s bedroom led to a new interest and obsession, an entirely new friendship group, a divorce and a re-marriage, early retirement and a new career. Oh yes, and Basschat.

December 29th 2005 was my 49th birthday. I took the family out to a nice restaurant for a celebratory lunch, had rather too much to drink (yes, we walked back), and by mid-afternoon I was sitting in my study when I remembered the bass. I played honky-tonk piano as a teenager and the cowboy chords on guitar, sang in several choirs, so the musical background was there but it was all 30 years in the past and included no bass EXCEPT I’d always sung along with the bassline of songs. While my friends were miming Paul Kossoff’s string bends in the solo to All Right Now I’d be going “ba-bum da bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum” with Andy Fraser – stop laughing, you know the bit I mean. The bass was a Dean Edge that my daughter chose at Macari’s in Charing Cross Road – I took her there specifically because of the Beatles connection. I remember almost nothing about it because I traded it in p/x for a Hofner 500/1 1963 Re-Issue within a few months. The practice amp was a generic, lightweight thing with (IIRC) an 8” speaker. At the time, and in my tiny study, I was impressed with how loud it was. The tuner was one of those Korg plug-in types that everybody used in those days and carried on using until a year later, when the clip-on tuner exploded onto the scene. And the teach-yourself book? Well that was by Basschat’s very own @Stuart Clayton … Crash Course, and I can still remember (and play!) that very first bassline. My intention was solely to be able to play along to my favourite songs, especially Macca’s basslines for The Beatles. I had genuinely no interest in playing with others, still less being in a band and performing live on stage. I hadn’t been to see a band play live in years at that point (family, career, family, career) and the only pubs I ever went into were the newly-invented gastropubs for the occasional Sunday lunch with my family.

Quite local pub last night for an early evening gig (or 7-10). Setup and found I forgot the iPad so dashed home to get it, seeing as I had already setup everything. Looked like it was going to be a quiet night, there were actually 2 people in the room when we started! Luckily after a song, another group of 6 people came in and then some more afterwards. By song 5 it was actually pretty busy, although it is a fairly small room. The drum kit lights had broken so I put my aliexpress bar light across the front and it worked really well. All in all a good gig and the last we need to do christmas songs for!

The Cricketers in Westcliff last night. Not a bad night at all considering it’s the Saturday after Christmas, the weekend before payday, and miserable weather. It would have been nice if it had been busier, but we had a decent enough, appreciated crowd (including my mum who’s flown over from Spain to stay with us over Christmas who rarely get’s to see us play). The lovely Hazel was stepping in Jenny’s shoes with co-lead vocal and did a great job as ever. It was also my first one since Halloween due to afore mentioned shenanigans. I was a little apprehensive at first, and indeed a leading up to the gig and whether I should do it or not, as I need to avoid getting ill, considering I start radiotherapy in a week's time. But I've felt a little niggle in my throat like something's brewing for a few days, so doing this gig wasn't going to change anything. If I get a cold, it won't be from the gig. Besides, I'm being mindful of who I mix with and obsessive with hand sanitizer! It was a good job I didn't do last week's gig, as half the band had the lurgy at the time! Set up and soundcheck was painless and we played well - I was quite chuffed with myself considering I haven't played in earnest for a couple of months. The end of the night after our planned set had finished got interesting. People wanted a Xmas one, so muscle memory got me through Slade that I hadn't played for 12 months. Then improvised our with through 'My Girl' and 'Don't look back in anger' that we'd never played before. You'll be plaased to know I turned and faced the corner in shame during the latter whilst playing it. The next gig is at the same venue in a month's time. I'm still aiming to do it if I'm well enough, but after that, it's in the lap of the gods.

You may recall that earlier this year I took delivery of a Fazley "Hot Rod" bass. It was £84 at the time I bought it, and I was thoroughly impressed with it, especially considering how little it cost. It has of course since been modified - if my experience is anything to go by, expect comically bad pickups. Well, they've got to save money somewhere. Thankfully that's easily fixed for not too much scratch if you go to Warman or Tonerider and the likes. I stuck a Tonerider Duke in mine and it's a fantastic bass. I love playing it live, so simple, just play the damn thing, it's got naff all controls anyway.

An update... Late afternoon on Christmas Eve I had an appointment at the Fracture Clinic with a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. The cast was removed and more x-rays were taken, this time under load. The good news was that ankle joint/socket is all OK. Despite the significant amount of bruising, no other contributing factors were discovered. The tendons and ligaments are intact. I'm now in a boot splint rather than a cast and it is load bearing, which means I can sort of walk, albeit carefully and with crutches. Boot can be removed for bed - a huge relief after dealing with the cast. I was also cleared to drive given it's my left foot and I drive an automatic. Boot needed until about the end of January and physio will follow. I can now manage myself without quite so much need for third parties to lend a hand - I couldn't even make a cup of coffee last week.

Setup for 80s covers band gigs in pubs to big halls (400). 2 recent gigs with it and it performed as well as expected (better than me 😂). My first big board and I'm pleased that the effort to route into a patchbay at the back helps operationally (19" audio rack panel with d-series cutouts, am waiting on the TRS module, hence the temp solution). Only two effects pedals! 😆. The rest is wireless bass receiver and IEM transmitter, battery, headphone amp and tuner. It can be totally wireless without the XLR FOH feeds (bass out, band IEM in) when I use a pair of low latency 5.8GHz instrument dongles to reach my amp. The pedal switcher has triggers that I use to control the presets on the MB301.

I'll be 72 next month. Dave, I'm just not sure I could handle the amount of night gigs or trying to do 2 and 3 gig weekends. I wish I could. However, I still want to see more consistent packed rooms and lots of dancing. You can't get that with blues rock. It's a bit of a downer playing " Red House" and watch the audience fall asleep. I wish we would dump that song. Daryl

I would say that my signature sound is a bit of fret buzz, which you would normally assume to be poor fretting finger placement, but is actually fully intentional, and notes that sound like they are wrong, but are really just an edgy interpretation of the song. Not easy to do unless you rely on not doing quite enough practice....!

I built my home practice Valeton into a board. Most of the time I use the Valeton but it needs a wall wart and uses jacks, whereas the quad cortex gig rig that I sometimes use at home for setting patches etc needs a power cable and xlrs. I hate getting on my hands and knees behind the chair to mess with the cables! Korg pitchblack custom, Valeton gp100, Thomann DI. Pedaltrain nano, Cooks Adam. Occasional wireless bugs.

..and yet reading back through this thread it is quite a good example of how internet forums can be quite unhelpful. The OP was just concerned about not blowing a speaker to which they got the answer in the first couple posts - check what it says on the back, and if the amp has a higher watt rating than the speaker don't turn it up full!!

It's not always easy to know what is going down well sometimes. We play a variety of venues: some like to dance, some places It's nigh on impossible to get anyone on the floor. However we nearly always get positive comments, which sometimes comes as a bit of a surprise when you think you're not going down that well. I guess all you can do is enjoy this fleeting existence and hope some of the joy rubs off on other people 😁

Support home grown businesses, buy from Strings Direct for example, pay a little more, but get genuine products and customer service. I would also highly recommend Newtone strings. Order in advance as it takes a little while to make them and send them out. Also, IMO, don’t buy from Mr Bezos. I have, twice, both times the strings were fake.

Or it's someone who thinks they can re-sell it for more money if they include delivery.

No, no, it has nothing at all to do with the fact that my American Professional Classic Precision has been delayed by some damned inconvenience called Christmas and there being no one at the Gallery who is capable of taking it to a Post Office or Courier and actually send it to me, or something similar. Obviously the Gallery folks don't have arms. No, no, no... What's that you say? GAS you say? Naaah, none of that here... But in all seriousness, I just want to see how much bass you can get for £63. Excellent tip-off, Michael

oops, bought one of these too experiment you understand

Imagine a banjo, an accordion, a bagpipe or the three of them instead... That day could have been Armageddon for you.

That's what I was reading too. Fred and some of the other guys from Peavey are regulars over there and actually did quite a bit of Q&A with Trace enthusiasts while they were developing the TE-1200. I think an 800W version of the head is the sweet spot - sell it for under a grand, then make some cabs that you don't need an enormous car and roadies to move around, and they'll shift a lot more of them. Assuming they can sort their distribution out, obviously...

Just in case you’re wondering what other earth-shattering events took place on that fateful day, here you are: Key Events & Themes: Austerlitz Reenactment: Thousands gathered in the Czech Republic for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Austerlitz. Ebola Discovery: Scientists identified fruit bats as animal reservoirs for Ebola in Gabon and Congo. China Tax Abolition: China announced it would end its national agricultural tax in 2006. Hurricane Epsilon: Became the 14th hurricane of the record-breaking Atlantic season.

Hi Al, I wouldn't worry about this, though as ever real world experience counts for a lot so I'd always respect anyone who has tried both. I think in your position you need to be looking for quality and practicality, you have great tops so don't cut corners with your sub(s). From the looks of your videos your band should make decent money so cost shouldn't be too much of an issue. I have a pair of Wharfedale EVP 15" subs. Old, heavy and reliable but they onle get used once a year on average. In smaller venues they are a liability, sonically and space wise. Last year I picked up a nearly new RCF 905 AS Mk3 and its rated output matches that of the pair of Wharfedales. I've done small outdoor festivals with those so that's as capable as I'll ever want to be. Indoors I don't think I'll ever need more. A mates soul/funk function band are going round with a pair of 2x8 FBT subs and they sound great so size isn't everything especially with that sort of music, which is close to that which you and I play. I'll add a second 905 probably if I see one going cheap but that will be for the look and the odd outdoor gig. I don't think I'll ever need it but is would give me the opportunity to run cardioid subs, if I ever get the space to set that up. I don't think you'll ever need it but you could run with a single decent 15" sub for quite a while and then judge if you need a second. Your tops are rated 133db and the AS905's are rated the same you could go to the RCF8003's which are rated 135db to match both your tops with a single cab but at the expense of a 43kg lift and an extra £500. That's the same as my Wharfedales and they are quite a carry, one of the main reasons I upgraded. So the only reason for going for 2x12's is to get the 'look' of a sub each side and a lighter carry. The look is important to a function band though. A pair of 12's is going to give you plenty of output but so is a 15 of the same quality. It's going to cost you more and may or may not be more convenient to transport. Basically I'm saying don't base your choice on speaker size. Look at the spec's but be very sceptical of them, the specs are advertising not technical measurements in most cases but they help within a brand for comparisons. Each brand exaggerates but by a fixed amount. Look at functionality, quality gear from the likes of RCF, FBT and Yamaha aren't going to let you down.

That's a fantastic clutch of T-40s and T-20s you have there! I hope you have a suitably re-enforced body brace for playing them live! Thankfully, I tend to be pretty pragmatic when buying/selling basses. I usually sell what isn't earning me money as a bass player, so thankfully manage to avoid huge amounts of instruments that way. There was one regret, the best five string Status S2-Classic I ever played, which I traded in for one of the Music Man Classic Sabres at the time. Huge regrets over that one. I've never seen it up for sale again in about 13 years, either.

The Helix will allow the control of each parameter in a Preset to be attached to one of three expression pedals, or one of 11 footswitches, or any MIDI CC between 4 and 127. It also allows the value of parameters to change with each Snapshot in the Preset, which is how Line6 do glitch-less sound changes. And it is possible to control parameter values using the volume and tone controls of a Line6 Variax guitar. It won't allow parameter control to be based on the sound of the instrument which I think is what @MrDinsdale is saying. For me this wouldn't be of much use because I don't play in any sort of controlled way and having the sound change due to how hard or soft I'm playing would be a complete non-starter. I'm sure it sounds great on the factory sounds that use it, but I wouldn't be able to play accurately enough to control it. What would be useful to me would be if the triggering of the noise gate and filters could be controlled by MIDI note information instead of the incoming audio signal. Can you do this with the GT1000? The other thing I would find useful would be the ability to have time-based effects synchronised to MIDI clock for periods longer than 1 bar, particularly phasers and flangers

It’s worth having a good compressor in your pedal chain, especially if playing with fingers. Experimenting with dynamics is fun. Like everything, you’ll make rapid progress with structured practice.

This is my last gig of 2025. I’m not playing (by choice) NYE this year, which is probably the first time in nearly 40 years. In what was supposed to be a period of winding down gigging a bit, still managed to play 95 gigs this year and 2026 is already looking quite promising. 😀 Happy New Year to all BC’s gigging fraternity!

I think the Trace uses a modified IPR power amp module based on what’s been said in Talkbass

We bought my daughter a HB copy of a PRS guitar last year and its great. She was loaned a budget PRS (double the price of the HB) for a few months and preferred the HB. The only issue with it was the neck was really dry when it arrived but a couple applications of lemon oil and it was sorted.

I’ve been doing a bit of staining myself. used a Spirit stain and currently doing the Tru-Oil finish. It was a normal unfinished slab body and I did the arm and belly carves. I purposely didn’t use a grain filler after sanding to 320 grit as I wanted a bit of a reclaimed barn wood look. 2 coats of stain, then gently sanded back to smooth / remove nibbling and to reduce the stain thickness on some edges just for some variation. Then Tru-Oil. Currently at 4 coats of tru oil. Tomorrow I’ll be getting the 0000 wire wool out to very gently smooth it and to see if I need any more oil coats. If not then I’ll hang it for 2 weeks to let the oil cure properly and to rock hard, then polish it. Or I’ll do another couple of coats.

Pah, speak for your own band

Paging @0175westwood29!

yep Toneriders are excellent. Pots easy enough to change etc I can fret level now, so should be all good really

https://www.facebook.com/share/16VSpnBZ34/ I'm speechless.

Yeah the input levels are more use for side chaining so like the noise gate example you can adjust the threshold relative to the device input rather than the noise gate block input level. Super handy for higher gain patches. It’s really fun for modulation though so when you dig in hard you can have parameters react differently. I set up some fun tape delays where digging in harder past a certain level would give more Wow and flutter etc the harder you played so the effects are a little more dynamic.

I'm not saying 2.4Ghz doesn't work, there are 1000's of regular gigging musicians using systems on 2.4 and many rarely have an issue but when I was using 2.4 I was plagued with drop outs; I put it down to our desk being 2.4, everyone else in the band using 2.4 AND most of the club/pub systems had stuff running at 2.4. As soon as I changed to the 5.Ghz range (in fact the MiPro system) I got zero drop out, the downside is that the range is reduced but I've never had a problem as most stages are quite open with no major obstructions. As a side note, today I'm off to do a multiband 4 day theatre gig and the techs requested to know in advance who was using what radio/IEM gear and on what frequencies bands.

And that's how it grabs you and then you're hooked for life. 🤩 Dave

I've had extreme experiences with Royal Mail/Parcel force in September. I have a lot of rare plants in my garden. When I say rare, I mean some are growing nowhere else within these isles. I collect the seed, give it to a lady who runs a nursery and she then lets me have the pick of her stock for my garden. A nice arrangement. I posted off all this year's seed and, after one failed attempt at delivery, Royal Mail say they have lost it. I posted something to Texas, it arrived inside of a week.