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I don't normally do these type of posts but it's been a good number of years since I owned something with such a wow factor. A few weeks ago I had an incident that left me without a working bass at a gig. Luckily I was able to drive 10 miles down the road from the venue and borrow a bass. It was an unusual one that I hadn't heard of before, built by the Bass Workshop and it was a simple P bass with one volume and no tone control. Now I've been a Jazz guy for quite a few years now, in between the odd Stingray or Sterling. I've always wanted to like p basses but could never find anything that I liked. I now found myself in the unusual position of having to use a bass that I'd never played before, with old strings, no tone control, badly needing a set up and not even close to what I had brought to the gig - my Warmoth/Status Super Jazz with EMG JX pickups and a 3 band EQ. I found that I really enjoyed playing it. I think that I had missed the interaction of digging in and getting a more gnarly sound. It didn't matter how hard I played the jazz, it always sounded good but I couldn't get that digging in clanky growl that I could only get from passive pickups. That set me thinking so I decided to get my Squier 40th P bass out of the box, set it up and took it to the hogmanay gig. Absolutely loved it. I had one of those rare moments where the sound was amazing, not quite 100% what I wanted but close. I decided there and then that I'd like to get myself something special and maybe keep the Squier as a back up bass. I only had one prerequisite - it had to be white. After much searching I found a Japanese imported special edition 60s P in white pearl at Fender Fever. Anyway, it arrived today and I have just taken it out of the box and it's even more spectacular than it looked in the pictures. The rosewood board is so deep and rich in colour. It's probably the nicest rosewood board that I've ever seen that wasn't on an actual vintage 60s Fender

Those are super cool basses. You know when you can tell something plays well just by looking at it! Folllowing on with the basses on the carpet theme here’s my herd - I tried to take a picture like yours from above but I couldn’t get high enough! I’ve got the Musicmaster (fretted) pretty bang on, setup wise, now. Labella flats (.050 - .110) and some truss rod fun and it’s playing really nicely.

This just arrived! I’m letting it warm up before I do a bit of a setup and clean. I couldn’t resist plugging it in - it’s going to be great fun. The circuit is original and therefore very dark - about like a P bass with the tone at 20%, when the tone on the Musicmaster is at max! Due to this there’s very little rf noise. It’s getting some heavy flats this afternoon!

Christ, I can't remember if I've posted these or not, apologies if I have, fretless and fretted @Jabba_the_gut builds. The ultimate shorties, even though I've just gone back to long scale thanks to obtaining a Fender Precision Thinline PBAC. The fretted (spalted) bass might be up for sale in the near future.

Hadn’t played a BB for years… BassBros is extremely bad for the wallet by the way😮 Now I have taken the pickup ramp off, given it a good polish, and had my tech stone the frets it plays like a dream. I was looking at a rather sexy blue AVRI ii Precision at the same time but the BB very easily won for both tone and playability. Sorry for spoiling the picture of the bass with my ugly mug 😂😂

I had to learn this a few years back, loved it. It was a challenging number for the band, I can still clearly remember how pleased we felt when we first played it. I can also clearly remember how unimpressed the audience were and how much happier they were when we moved on to Mustang Sally, Alright Now and Love Shack 🙄

Have you tried throwing it in the river? Worked for my bagpipes.

"Dear Deirdre, I think my husband is building a loudspeaker behind my back."

I have it on good authority from an industry insider that over the next 12 months fender plan to release another jazz, precision, strat and Tele You heard it here first

Sei bass incoming, should be finished either this month or Feb...

Today’s experiment with zero practical use but a ton of fun at home: I’ve wired up the OC5 so the Direct Output goes to the Dirtfixer Input and the Output goes to the Longsword > Model FeT and back into the Dirtfixer return. This lets me blend in some +1 octave with a tone of distortion with my normal bass tone. Sounds filthy!!! Disabling the Dirtfixer also bypasses the OC5. As fun as it is I think I’d rather have my normal drive tone.

Think it’s tail end of Feb I’ll be there with Walshy. we do it every year, like a bass version of brokeback mountain

I'm a huge Talk Talk fan, probably in my top 3 of favourite groups and I listen to them most days. From a bass perspective, listen to Living in Another World, probably one of the best Talk Talk bass lines. Not super hard to play but certainly super interesting. Also have a listen to Tomorrow Started and Today. My favourite album ever is The Colour of Spring and the late Danny Thompson played double bass on it. The album is being released later in the year as a half speed remaster. My favourite Talk Talk song ever is It's Getting Late In The Evening which was just a B SIde but should have been of the album as its incredible. Its not a bass specific track but simply the most beautiful piece of music ever. Mark Hollis was an absolute genius.

So, what have we learned? That the solution to argumentative threads is... to get argumentative in a thread? Or did I miss something here? Love, peace, health, prosperity and rainbows to you all. Free hugs if you want them, but you pay the delivery costs.

If you bring something in from outside of the UK then you take the item price, then add the shipping. Then add VAT to all of that, and then add the import duty for the thing. Import varies depending on what class of item it is. But guitars are about 3% ish. Then when it lands there is a load of HMRC paperwork to do - however the UK courier will do that for you and charge you between £8 and £15 for that depending on item value. A lot of people complain about the admin fee but TBH it is a godsend. Before the couriers were able to do it for you, you'd get a notification that your item had arrived in the UK and forms would be sent to you to complete. You'd then send them back in the post and then in about 3 weeks they would be looked at. Then they would send you a bill to pay. You'd pay it, and then in another 2 weeks they'd finally release the item to be delivered to you. The item would sit in a customs sealed warehouse for over a month. These days you get an email, pay it over the internet and it only adds a day or 2 to the process. And you never get the forms being returned because you didn't do them properly - the couriers have people churning them out all day. So whatever item you want, assume that to get it into your hands will cost 25% over the item sale price and you won't be far wrong. Unless it's something you can't buy in the UK the savings are often minimal and of course if something goes wrong with it you are at the mercy of the seller country laws and regulations. Many of them don't offer warranties once an item is exported, or you'll have to pay return shipping and never get that back. That being said, I've had a few things from Ishibashi in Japan and they are superb. Amazing service and excellent packing.

Decided to bypass test's and simply mask the cabinet up in the kitchen. and paint it. As the CFO is out and it is still below freezing, I masked the cabinet up before painting. In hindsight this was a mistake, I grossly over estimated how thick the paint covering is. Whilst it's like tar in the tin, it spreads thinly and evenly. A simple mask rather than masking sacrificial parts would have been far quicker but you live and learn. Managed to get two smooth coats on the cab in the celler. The textured coat is last and I may get that on tonight. The red corners are sacrificial so don't care about them. The real ones will be attached using no nails as I didn't want screws showing. It's still wet in the photo Rob

Did a bass swap before the New Year and picked up this Aria SB 1000B re-issue. Always wanted one and was a little scared about picking up one of the older ones reading so much about them having pick up problems. This one is a joy to play, love the ebony board and the low pass filtery type pre-amp. having the 2 octave neck is also nice. Weights in a fairly comfortable 4.4kg. Hopefully I can get to use it in anger... Got practice next week, think I'll take it along. Anyone else out there got one of these?

Yep, that could happen, but I've made so many mistakes, it would have to be a hell of a new blunder to find with the second cab

Ive just let mine go today, it was pretty good especially in the studio but I have gigged it a few times and it was 'fine' and with tweaking I thought it could be better. I used it direct to FOH at the City Hall in Newcastle last week and it was good, not magnificent. However I plugged the SVT in and the 8x8 Ampeg Cab to quickly try a bass out and my what a sound! Ive realised digital modellers are good but they are just that and nothing more. . They're never going to replicate the real deal in my eyes. Analog all the way now baby.

Gosh, I didn't know Zoe was married. Is he building a loudspeaker as well as me? I'll ask him for advice and see if he can help. She knows I'm building it, but rarely goes down in the cellar. We have a biomass boiler and the hopper has just been filled so even less likely to go down to check on pellets. Just down the last (hopefully) top coat using a cut down textured roller. It looks quite nice, but patchy when wet. I've cut the textured roller down to 2" from 4" to allow it to get between the various sacrificial parts. The Armacab dries very quickly so should be ready to look at this evening. I've learnt a lot about building a cabinet. Lots of things not to do when I build the second one. Rob

You're right about the savings on imported goods being minimal. That was my experience when I recently bought an Aguilar pickup set from Sweetwater in the USA - and that was only because I was able to get a really cheap international delivery with a US delivery broker called PirateShip. I ordered and paid for the set online, had it delivered to a friend in California and she dropped it off at her local Post Office. As you say, doing this is really a last-resort way of getting something that's not available in the UK/EU - like the Aguilar pickups and the made-for-Japan Mustang. You're also right about the warranty. Danny at Bass Japan Direct confirms that there would be no warranty, which is why he inspects and sets up all basses before he exports them. The price he quoted includes his £70 service charge.

It is mainly fun....trying not to fall out with 8 other souls!!!

Thank you, that is all essential, excellent advice.

IMO, rolling eyes are an aggressive form of communication devoid of facts or analysis, and the person using them tends to remain free from responsibility. IMO, rolling eyes are the tool of the coward. Also, @BigAlonBass's words "they deserve nothing less" tell a lot more about him than about these people. Who are you, BigAlonBass, to judge what people deserve? All I know of you is that you consistently have trouble understanding simple humour in the Funny Memes thread, and that you consistently cry out loud, demanding that people dumb down their humour so that even you can understand it. Do you REALLY think that YOU are the person to judge what other people deserve? My stomach turns.

That said nowadays, companies building valves/tubes are quite sparse as most of them have now disappeared: JJ in Czech Republic (JJ, Telefunken), New Sensor in Russia even if it's an American based company (EH Gold, Electro-Harmonix, Genalex Gold Lion, Mullard, Sovtek, Svetlana, Tung-Sol), Psvane, formerly Shuguang, in China (Psvane, Shuguang), Western Electric in Serbia (former Ei Niš factory), but it's an American based company (Western Electric). That's all, except a few very small manufacturers "building" to order or only for themselves. All others brands you encounter are simply rebadged valves/tubes or NOS... So knowing this, you can buy your ECC82 valves/tubes here: https://www.hotroxuk.com/matched-valves-links-page-12ax7-6l6-909-0/12au7-ecc82.html?product_list_order=price And your ECC83 here: https://www.hotroxuk.com/matched-valves-links-page-12ax7-6l6-909-0/preamp-valves-12ax7-ecc82jj-12ax7m-hot-rox-uk-1885-0.html?product_list_order=price Using the same brand for both of them is the best.

Well, as i have no experience with building basses, I told Martin how I wanted the bass to sound and play & asked him to use his expertise in selecting the best woods for that purpose, rather than me choosing random woods because they look pretty. Same with the electronics, I did specify a John East preamp (which he agreed would work well with the woods) and then he's going to look into some soap bar pickups that sound best with the John East and match the tone i described.

You could get a ‘player’ Mustang and replace the P pickup with a J (in either the front or back split coil position) with minimal routing and a new pickguard. I’m not sure what the spacing would be, or indeed what the spacing is on the Japanese one. To me, that’s really key to a good J sound. Both the above options aren’t that much cheaper than importing one of these Maika basses tbh but you could use whatever pickups you like…

Nowadays, even the ABSRM syllabus is not entirely classical. For Grade 3, students have 48 pieces to choose from. I am learning Henry Mancini's Moon River, and a simple ragtime piece from the 1950s. And, I confess, the entirely classical Chanson Italienne by Tchaikovsky. There is also a choice of Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now), something from Oliver, a piece from Spirited Away, the Muppet Show theme, and Can You Feel the Love Tonight from the Lion King. Admittedly, even this is not really cutting-edge and modern, but they are recognisable tunes (well, not when I play them, but you get my drift).

£721 quoted by Danny at Bass Japan Direct which I assume includes everything except 20% UK VAT. Although I have a feeling it would be worth it in absolute terms, can't help thinking about what else could I buy for £865.

The price for the Maika Mustang listed on Fender Japan's website is JP¥104,500, i.e. about £495. Some quick googling tells me that Japanese prices are quoted inclusive of their standard 10% tax, suggesting the base price of the bass is about £450. Cheapest I can see via ebay is in the region of £720 including shipping. I've never imported instruments from anywhere*, so tried both ChatGPT and Google for estimates on total potential cost including duty and tax. They both came up with figures in the region of £900, ChatGPT just below and Google just over. Either way, that's getting on towards double what the basses actually cost. I'd like one, but not that much! *edit - unless you count my fretless U5 from Thomann, but given they do all the complicated stuff transparently, that feels like cheating!

Roger (Mr THG Knobs) did some absolutely outstanding work on Binky (my 10 string bass) during its build. He did the truss rod cover, the knobs and the tuners. That was 20 years ago but the truss cover is still on his website.

First gig of the year and back in Stramash,Edinburgh. 3rd time for our band SHOUT! Not as busy as before but still a decent turnout! Mild amusement in the dressing room as our trombone/trumpet man told us how he got told off and nearly ejected from a city centre pub for using a vape! He then proceeded to stand just offstage and do the very same thing! Cue fire alarm and knock on door from security! Lucky for us he was ok about it! Been in similar situations and a couple of fire engines have pulled up outside! All good though! Black Is Black SHOUT! Live Stramash,Edinburgh.mp4

First gig of 2026 up in cold Manchester at Band On The Wall, was ace. Surprising number of people showed up for a two day mini-Americana festival celebrating the 10th anniversary of the bigger Buckle And Boots festival held at Whitebottom Farm near Stockport. Katy Hurt had a 45 min slot on Saturday evening and we played pretty well I think (save a few little fluffs from yours truly). It was LOUD onstage but actually very well balanced. Bass was my ACG TKO, which interested one fan to the extent that he’s contemplating commissioning one purely to hang on the wall…! Rig was house-supplied TC Electronics something with an Ampeg cab, so I just used my Digbeth pre for the FoH and to sculpt the onstage tone. We had a blast, got back to Katy’s house around 1.30am and now I should probably get out of bed 😆

Oh, this is wonderful ! 👍 Youtube wins again. Drummer plays a tree, and special guitar solo is at 3.40 Enjoy.

I really, really don't need a BBP34, but if a vintage white one came up at the right price I'd really struggle not to buy it.

I built myself this little gadget a while ago to end battery anxiety once and for all:

They're too f*cking expensive like everything else 😉

Whelp, trigger has been pulled, and now I wait.

I have an irrational prejudice against stainless steel strings. Who on earth likes the things?

Personally and with some personal experience I'd say the link between creativity and drugs is mostly nonsense. People with the creative spark have it whether they are taking substances or not. Just because in previous decades a lot of successful and creative bands were known to take drugs it does not mean that that the drugs made them succesful and creative, it's just a classic example of correlation does not equal causation. Although the myth that drugs were responsible for the creativity probably encouraged more musicians to experiment to see if they could unlock some sort of hidden potential. In fact generally when you look more closely at the history of a lot of these bands the excessive lifestyles were far more disruptive than they were positives for the careers concerned and in many cases were directly responsible for bands either breaking up or members being sacked or, in the worst cases, band members not living to make more music.

In a related vein, it's definitely worth having a listen to Storm Corrosion - a 2012 collaboration between SW and Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth. And counterintuitively - it's very much not a metal recommendation!

It's interesting that just because you're a musician in a band it's assumed you're into drugs. Most musicians I know are stoned cold sober and it's the audience who are stoned. As you say, not everyone is into it.

He's wearing a Slayer t shirt, what a poser. A real metal head would wear a shirt with a completely indeciperible logo and deeply offensive slogan. Im not sure too much weed is possible in certain sub genres of metal. I went to an Electric Wizard gig and there was no smoke machine but I couldn't see more than two feet and had severe cravings for chilli heatwave Dorritos