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I have taken the brave decision to launch a new print and digital bass magazine for the UK market. I've been publishing magazines in my day job for 27 years and think it's terrible that we don't have a dedicated magazine anymore. We launch the mag officially at the Birmingham Bass & Guitar Show next month where we will have a small stand and giving away a sample issue (while stocks last) - we will then publish quarterly moving forward. Editor is Joel McIver who ran Bass Guitar magazine and then Bass Player so no cheap AI generated content here! Website is here You can subscribe via the website - our socials launch on Monday. If you are at the show next month come and say hello - be nice to put faces to names. The cover of our sample issue is here for your thoughts and comments.

We did 3 in a row with Abdoujaparov at the weekend. They're lovely guys and such a good band. We arranged to share the drum kit and bass rig. The first night was the Golden Lion in Bristol. It's a pretty cool venue room at the back of a pub, but weirdly, the pub punters have to go through the venue to use the loo, which made the doorman's job very difficult. Even more difficult that the job was forced onto our merch guy last minute. A bunch of young guys tried to get into the gig, talking too loudly, over confident, and perhaps a gurn or two... anyway, Tommo our merch man made short shrift of them. Since starting my own venue I keep noticing all the little things I don't like in other venues. Here we had: multi coloured XLR, PA hanging from the ceiling by metal angle and wood screws, spot lights at pretty much 6ft from the stage floor (mild concussion), lighting rig attached to a thin piece of wood attached to some plasterboard... Anyway, it was rammed and we had a great time Bideford Palladium Club on the Saturday, which is a very cool venue, but kind of out of the way. The guy says he's struggling so if you're out that way please go to some gigs! The sound was awesome and the room is fantastic. Green room upstairs with a random selection of objects was good fun. Someone glued a fake Oscar to the ceiling but it was down again by the time I left. More japes - I'd noticed a parking fine on our van before the show. I waited until after to tell the others. It turned out to be a yellow PCN plastic document wallet with a random bit of notepaper inside! We have no idea who it was. I suspect the venue owner did it to prevent us getting a real ticket. The King Arthur in Glastonbury on Sunday. We knew ticket sales were low, but we know a couple of people who live in Glastonbury, and it turns out they had no idea the gig was on. They've not seen it on posters or in local press or anything. There were loads of gig posters on the outside, some from last year, some gigs coming up, and a big brand spanking new gig list with Jan, Feb, Mar on it, and no mention of our gig. We got inside, the sound engineer is the guy "promoting" the show. Our frontman asks why there are no posters around and SE says "We did have some up". Our frontman laughed and asked "Were they nicked?"... SE obviously feels a bit awkward and goes on a rant about how he's not allowed to put posters up around town any more but FFS he might as well have forgotten he booked the gig at all. Apparently his door staff called in sick last minute too, giving Tommo the job again. SE chews my ear off about drums and gear while I'm setting up, and I know I should have seen this coming, but he said he needed 10 minutes to plug everything in, so we went to the shop, and on my return this f&^%$er was sat playing my kit. This might be snobby but I spent more than £3K on my cymbals and I don't let anyone play them. I let him know I wasn't happy, he got awkward and defensive, and we got on with sound check. To be fair it sounded excellent, he really knows his stuff, but by this point I'm losing the will to live. Abdoujaparov played first, and they were great, but obviously playing to 10 people in a cold venue gives a different vibe to the previous two days. I tucked into the beers and did my best. It was a long drive home to Stoke!

Possibly the most unnecessary experiment in guitar history, but here we are

I attended the rehearsal this evening of a local (adjacent town) brass band - they've asked me to be their conductor. My main aim this evening was just to listen to them, but I did end up conducting some of the rehearsal. Looks like I start properly next week.... there's a full diary of concerts and gigs.... eek.

So yesterday I sold the last of my SWR gear. This ends what has been a thirty plus year obsession with the brand, started by my love of the bass playing of John Paul Jones. Over the years I have owned and gigged: 1) Black Beauty combo 2) Black Beauty combo with Workingmans 210 3) 750x head with Goliath III (4x10) and Son of Bertha (1x15) 4) 750x head with two Goliaths 5) Grand Prix preamp (twice) 6) SM1500 head with two Goliaths 7) SM1500 head with one Goliath Senior (6x10) 8).SM1500 with one Goliath 9) SM900 with one Goliath 10) Marcus Miller preamp (twice) 11) Marcus Miller preamp with Amplite poweramp (the setup I should have kept). I know that Fender swallowed up the SWR brand and then promptly did nothing with it, but boy would I love an SWR pedal sized preamp with the semi-parametric EQ and the famous aural enhancer (marmite to many),

Following on from this thread I have taken the brave decision to launch a new print and digital bass magazine for the UK market. I've been publishing magazines in my day job for 27 years and think it's terrible that we don't have a dedicated magazine anymore. We launch the mag officially at the Birmingham Bass & Guitar Show next month where we will have a small stand and giving away a sample issue (while stocks last) - we will then publish quarterly moving forward. Editor is Joel McIver who ran Bass Guitar magazine and then Bass Player so no cheap AI generated content here! Website is here You can subscribe via the website - our socials launch on Monday. If you are at the show next month come and say hello - be nice to put faces to names. The cover of our sample issue is here for your thoughts and comments.

Finally have finished all the routing for Speakon connectors and handles. Sides, top and bottom already glued, Now doing front and rear glueing and clamping. Next steps tomorrow, let the glue cure overnight, a bit of filler (ahem), sanding down, put a 6mm curve on the edges with the router, two layers of smooth Armacab on all external surfaces, one top layer of textured Armacab but masking off any rebated areas, measure for black 3d printed corners, print them overnight as eight hours , assemble all and test for Sunday (hopefully).

That's a great question and I had to think about the answer. Part of this is that I rely on experience, I've spent a lot of time building and modifying cabs. When I build pairs of cabs I'll often try modifications on one cab and then A/B them next to each other so you do get an instinct about small changes The first thing is that the efffects are slight. First of all most of the 'sound' of the speakers is what goes on above 200Hz and the box modelling is about the response of the true low end below that frequency. The other David has tried the cab out as a sealed cab andit 'works' and it probably sounds OK, even though he will get 3db of boost of the low end with a port plus a lower roll of frequency. Secondly the calculations give incredibly percise answers but in real life it's a bit messier. Manufacturing tolerances mean measured speakers vary and the published figures I use can't always be trusted. Thre are always air losses from a cab which are allowed for in the calculations but I use a 'standard' value of Ql=0.7 which is middle of the bell curve. Importantly I then build the cab so ay significant error would show up. I'ver no control over how accurately people build the cab so calculating port sizes to 3 decimal places doesn't make much sense. You can build the cab successfully even if you make small mistakes, which should be reassuring Anyway I've looked at the responses with the same tuning and the box sizes increased and decreased by 10% but tuned to the same frequency. This is the box you are all building with the Fane in blue. You can see that increasing the cab by 10% (red) gives you a bit more bass but reducing the cab 10% makes a smaller difference. The red trace gives 1db extra at 60Hz and you'd hear that with the cabs next to each other but only just. You wouldn't be able to detect the difference with the smaller cab in this case. This is a 2l shift in volume and the increase in port size is only 0.2l so insignificant. It looks like my instincts were good in this case, Phew

Tungsten hexafluoride is best for heavy metal.

I prefer a bit more helium in my tone air, for the high frequency response 😂

Tone air, it's the newest thing.

Not at rehearsal stage yet but new Celtic Rock/Folk band now has Bass, Drums, Guitar and Vocals all brought together in last week so its starting to shape up. Still few others to find to get a truly authentic Celtic sound of course. No idea who the guys are or their ability but we'll soon find out once we get a few songs learned and get to rehearsal stage. Drummer is the one putting it all together. Fingers crossed. They are aware i'm in the Glam band but seem ok with it. Dave

Our guitarist/singer couldn't make it last night. He's had shoulder pain since before Christmas and has been on some meds for that waiting for a physio appointment. And he let us know yesterday that he was in such pain that 111 had advised he call an ambulance. Turns out the shoulder pain meds were not playing well with the cocktail he also takes for his back and it was giving him chest pains. Glad that the doctors know why he was having that issue. Doesn't sound fun and needless to say, he couldn't make practice last night! So a bit of an odd one. We hope he's well enough to at least sing at our gig on Saturday the 7th. I decided to bring my Fazley jazz bass along to practice with my Spector to see how they compared. I did the first half with the Fazley and it's such a lovely bass to play. The neck is super quick and very playable, but it wasn't quite cutting through. I also missed my high C string for my usual CGCFC tuning. It just brings an extra element that I feel is part of my sound for the band when I'm doing big open three octave hits. The Spector for the second half just cut through perfectly. The sharp fretboard edges are quite annoying though. I'm going to need to roll those. I've been spoilt by the entirely rounded edge of my Dingwall! I also put the Mojo Mojo and Bass Big Muff back into my effects loop of my GX-100 for practice yesterday. It's a different texture to the options I have in the Boss unit and I fancied having that available again. I think there's one song in particular where it works better. There were other bits where I think it didn't work as well as the fuzz I've got from the GX-100. Completing the gear was my trusty Laney Digbeth DB-500H head and the practice space's Ashdown 810. It's such a joy being able to use an 810 regularly! I love big cabs!

Ordered someLaBella double ball black tape wounds on Sunday , arrived early Tuesday morning . They look and sound fantastic, rekindled my love for the Steiny .

More pics... Shape oversize cut prior to routing...

Joel McIver is a fantastic editor (and author) to have in the hot seat and, it was between Joel and our @Mike Brooks that I have to thank for my job and many years working with them with my own column each month in Bass Guitar Magazine and later Bass Player Magazine. Wishing you all very well in this new venture ☺️ @Gunsfreddy2003

Violin and glam? There is precedent...

We will only be selling via a direct subscription model (print and/or digital) too niche a market to get any meaningful newstrade distribution I'm afraid.

It says quarterly in the OP's post.

Wishing you all the very best with this venture 👍

Hi Mike, I've never played one of Bernie's basses but I know enough about them to appreciate the quality is top-notch and with a sound to match. I've heard you playing yours and the sound is up there with the best. It's just that they're not a brand that appeals to me. I couldn't give you a rational reason why but I've just never fancied one. Buying more basses for me at this stage in my life is more about wish-fulfilment than addressing any practical needs. I've been playing the bass since I was twelve years old and I've always gravitated towards the best instruments. I love playing the bass, but I'm not ashamed to say I love the gear, too. I've got some nice basses, and I'm going to get some more when I see something I like. I've realised recently that, not only am I not getting any younger, I am actually getting old. Maybe that's why I'm looking at the basses from my youth and thinking about what I might enjoy revisiting, or finally getting my hands on. Which brings me back around to JayDee. I remember back in the mid-1980's when Level 42 and Mark King were at the zenith of their success and the demand for JayDee basses was at it's peak. If I understand correctly, to try satisfy demand John Diggins had to set up a kind of production line with a few apprentices and helpers to keep up with the orders flooding in. Where I lived there were two shops with Jaydee basses in stock. Across the UK there were retailers with Jaydee basses in stock you could cash and carry. Availability was plentiful. However, I think John would admit that, with hindsight, quality control suffered as a result and a lot of Jaydee basses from that era are not as well-made as they should have been. When I got my custom JayDee a bit later on John told me that time had been a bit of a nightmare and he was very glad to be back to building basses mainly himself as a smaller concern. The point of all this is that it's a double edged sword when it comes to hand built boutique basses. We all want bespoke quality, but to get that level of craftsmanship it takes time and you're probably going to have to wait. You can't have it both ways. If it's handmade then it needs to be made by skilled hands, not just anybody. That means very limited supply of labour. I'm not trying to condone shoddy business practises, if and when they occur, but John's sons will be well aware of the pitfalls that came from lowering quality control to increase production. Maybe they've made a rod for their own back to some extent by insisting that the basses they put out are of a consistently high quality. Hence the wait times and pushed back delivery dates.

That's because the main component of the sound is the steel or nickel strings driving a magnetic pickup and the traditional guitar amplification.

Heh, Les is so lovely and mild mannered in person. I'd never heard of Carter USM but after I met the guy I looked them up and what a wild ride! Tackling schofield on Smash Hits 😂

I remember Les (Fruitbat) breaking his arm at our party in our insalubrious Georgian housing co-op house on extremely salubrious Vincent Square, Pimlico. I don't think the other residents liked having a row of what looked like punk squatters overlooking their cricket pitch-centred square - they called the police!

Check my YouTube channel for a video later today. Exciting times!

I think they're awesome and can't be beaten for price. All my basses use only HB strings now, i don't see the point in spending silly money on other brands when the HB strings do their job well enough for me.

Anyone needing a fat fingers mod, you can get these from thonk and they work great. You can either honour the original colour scheme or go rogue, your choice!

Pretty certain that was either related to Mac MIDI studio (or whatever it’s called) or your interface settings. I seem to recall someone else using the same interface had some issues with other devices. The new firmware will let you do loads without ever needing the computer.

That will trach me to read the post in full not just visit the website ! ha

If you don't like the DRs now, you are unlikely to think they have got any better in another couple of weeks. When I first started to branch out from what was available in my local musical instrument shop I bought a selection of DR strings because they were getting a lot of love here and on the US forum. I couldn't get on with any of them. I didn't like the feel and I didn't think they sounded particularly good compared with what I was used to. It's a fact not every string suits every player, and not every string suits every bass and price has very little to do with it.

Not particularly practical but definitely an interesting experiment. And always with these things it doesn't seem to matter how radical the design is or how little body there is, let alone what it's made of, it still sounds like an electric guitar.

Doobie Experience (Doobie Bros tribute) rehearsal yesterday (just the core members - no brass/percussion). Sounded great, but man that stuff needs concentration. Intricate arrangements at times and so many different styles (rock, rnb, blue eyed soul, country,soul etc). Raised on Journey (Journey tribute) rehearsal this afternoon. More straight ahead but still needs to sound tight and lush. Debut gigs for both bands coming within the next month....!

Phil, many thanks for the help, it's much appreciated. As I said, for me as I have the ply and no drain pipe it might be simpler. I've now loaded the driver into the cabinet as it is and at low volumes it sound great, although I only completed this today and have only had the chance to try it with my Ashdown Rootmaster 800 (at low volume). I'm ging to see how it sound with the TC Electronic amp later this week. Still waiting for the grill to arrive too. I have a ruminate over which path to take regarding the port and let you know the results. I really appreciate all the work and support you and the others involved in the development of the BC cabinets, thank you. Regards David

Here’s a video demo of some of the forthcoming v4.5 features: 25 Years History of Bass Guitar Synths: From the Past to the Future Impact V4.5 The free software update V4.5 for the V4 and V4 VIP models fulfills the ultimate dreams of all bass players. To complement the FI's Virtual Analog (VA) sounds there are now 99 DX7 compatible FM bass sounds. Importing FM sounds is supported in Yamaha DX7 cartridge SysEx format. Via the new Setlist Mode any of the VA and FM sounds can be rearranged in arbitrary sequence without a computer. It is even possible to specify which instrument mode is used on each program of the list. Copying and swapping internal programs is now also possible on the pedal itself; indispensable for creating a variation of a program and storing it to a new slot. The Factory Default Programs can be restored anytime with a press of a button and are now built into the firmware. Another new and much-requested feature is the ability to apply portamento to the VA sounds when triggering via audio. Back by popular demand is the ability for the pedal to automatically switch between audio and MIDI triggering, depending on which input signal is detected. The V4.5 software comes with a set of completely new sounds and improved tracking, designed to fulfill the wishes of musicians who want to play bass parts of famous songs. Just as before, the software comes with a high-quality tuner, MIDI output capability to drive external synthesizers, CV/Gate output to drive analog synthesizers, and MIDI input to use the VA sounds from any MIDI source. The new 4.5 software will be available early March 2026. These are the sounds that we designed to cover famous songs: VA: Michael Jackson - Thriller Ginuwine - Pony Parliament - Flashlight Herbie Hancock - Chameleon Madonna - Holiday Björk - Army of Me Bruno Mars - 24K Magic Michael Jackson – PYT Weeknd – Blinding Lights Muse - Hysteria Rufus & Chaka Khan - Ain’t Nobody Nine Inch Nails - Head Like a Hole New Order - Blue Monday FM: Kool & The Gang - Fresh Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal Madonna - Live To Tell Berlin - Take My Breath Away Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up Mr Mister Broken Wings Michael Jackson - Another Part of Me a-ha - Take On Me Madonna - Live To Tell Some of the most famous users of the Future Impact: Mohini Dey Chris Wolstenholme (Muse) Doug Wimbish (Living Colour and The Rolling Stones) Bootsy Collins Etienne M’Bappe

Yep, often people come out with this rather than just say it’s not their thing. I've even found it with bandmates, with people in one band reluctant to come and see my other band for example.

A good description of my band!

NOOOOOOOOO!!! I’m reclaiming orange back for decent folk.

The crowd are very generous with the bucket. Which is why the management's short-sightedness is going to lose them a great earner. I like the Welly boot idea. Nice one. We also have a card reader, which gets used a lot.

Stop worrying about the diameter of the speaker, it's only one of many things that affect the sound. Smaller speakers are less directional so easier to hear if you are playing close to the cab. Bigger speakers are more efficient all else being equal, Any speaker can be made to go low at the cost of reduced efficiency and most of the sound of an instrument speaker is about the midrange not the bass. In terms of cone area a 2x8 is bigger than a 1x10 and nearly as big as a 12 so I'd expect a 2x8 to give a similar maximum output to a 1x12 all ese being equal again. In fact Markbass have the 2x8 as 99db/W and the 1x12 as 100db/W so youd barely notice the difference in sound level. The NY121 is smaller but heavier and the 2x8 an easier shape to carry. The 2x8 has a less powerful amp. The only way to resolve this is to try them both.

I was up in Scarborough last night with our acoustic duo, playing at ‘The Lookout on the Pier’. We were a bit concerned with the weather, as the waves had been crashing over the end of the pier where we park to unload, but the tide was out when we arrived so no dramas. A full house of dining punters, with some familiar faces and some newbies which is always good. We run the gig as request based, and had some good ones including ‘Dead flowers’, ‘Walk away Renee’, ‘Budapest’, ‘If you could read my mind’ and ‘Stormy Monday’. ( Also nice to see Chris from ‘Knight’s Music’ shop in the audience - a great place in Scarborough.) I used my Fender Kingman bass into a Rumble 100 combo, perfect for venues like this. We are back there next on February 15th, so looking forward to it already. Just hope the weather has calmed down a bit by then.( Apologies for the boring photo, but Mrs CP was too busy socialising and forgot to take any.j

Their rivals are utterly chaotic. AD/HD.