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Next month: "7 reasons you can't play metal on a strat" "How to convince yourself that watching YouTube tutorials all day is improving your playing" "$150 vs $5000 Les Paul: why only a true Gibson will do for your bedroom rig" "Dave Grohl explains why cocaine was the best thing to ever happen to him" "A look at the barre chord, and why you might as well ignore all other shapes" "Reliability is over rated - a run down of our favourite valve amps"

Really? Whilst I do agree that you have to write music for you, and not because you think audiences will like it, take away the audience completely and what do you have left, bedroom guitarists/bassists/drummers. The audience and fans are to me the major thing - what we all do means something to people who come to see us. A few weeks ago we were asked to play a gig for a guy who unfortunately had cancer - I say had as sadly he passed away recently. At the end of the gig he said to me "that made my night". I was really humbled and pretty choked by this, I felt honoured that we had been asked to do the gig. Never forget that whilst we get pleasure from what we do, it`s who you deliver it to that counts, and your music could really mean a lot to someone.

Hiho just had carbon fibre cages fitted to my neck and all's well now. No not my bass but me and hopefully I'll stay in tune better now.

Mine went well until I got a music stand out...

Up in the sticks (out past Todmorden). No bars, not even 3G!!

Zodiac BXP incoming 😎🎸 Should be with me this weekend, all being well. Whoop whoop

9:30-1:30 tonight at Traditions Pub. I'm going in with a good attitude. Blue

I've played a few overpriced disasters, inckuding an MM Bongo that played & sounded worse than the bog seat it resembled. The stand-out however was a Fender Custom Shop Jaco sig - a £3500 bass with a neck like a banana and an action you could stick your arm under, and strung with roundwounds as rough as rat-tail files. I'm sure a good setup & some more appropriate strings would've helped sort it, but it still would probably have sounded more like someone whacking a plastic bin with a 2x4 than a high-end Jazz!

And a classic Radiohead performance.

Morning! Yes we’re getting there. The newly painted scratchplate is looking great! Thanks for the steer on the ashtray - much appreciated 👍🏻

The concept of saving money in a sale on something I would not have thought of getting anyway, always tickles me. A quick way to becoming a millionaire, right?

Did a fundraiser for one of our colleague’s daughter who has been recently paralysed from the waist down. We played at work in an outdoor area about 60’x120’. Sound was a nightmare due to the walls and the marquee roof, struggled to avoid sounding like we had permanent reverb. Floor was wobbly slabs which didn’t help the sound either. Mostly colleagues, friends and family and were up for it from the off. The support band played 40 minutes then we did 2x1hour sets with them shouting for more at the end (sadly we were bouncing off the licence curfew). A brilliant night and raised a load of money as well.

Very happy with the carbon reinforced neck in my Shuker 5 string P bass. Very stable, no floppy B, and almost comical how well it stays in tune.

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Never seen the words 'stunning' and 'Bongo' in the same sentence before. However that does look rather pretty. The headstock shape does still remind me of Peppa Pig's head, though.

I'll just leave this here... https://ashdownmusic.com/collections/legacy/products/bta-400 ;-)

Soooooooooo been about 4 years since I bought a new bass. Wasn't out shopping (way it always goes), came across this little beauty in a friends guitar shop. The bass is a 2008 American Fender Precision 60s AVRI and frankly it's just incredible, sounds amazing. Turns out the bass was given away by the band Paramore during the promotion of the Riot album, the girl who won it didn't play so it's sat on a stand in her bedroom ever since. They definitely did more to it after this video, but it's structurally sound and sounds amazing. Now it was definitely a touring bass as I know Jeremy Davis uses some pretty low and odd tunings and this came strung with some very heavy strings, closest I could get to something that worked when trialing it was BEAD, so it wasn't just a freebie from Fender they immediately gave away. Anyway there it is, currently wearing some D'addario Half Rounds (as who has the time to wait for your rounds to go dead anymore), waiting for me to get the right session gig to use it Will it stay, who knows, but so far I'm pretty happy with it and I'm rocking a lot of Chuck Rainey lines on it currently

I have a fretted Radius bass and an Ibanez SRF700 fretless. While the Ibanez is a great guitar it didn't come up to the quality and balance of the Radius. So looking at my third guitar; a WAV Radius that i bought to 'trial' the Radius bass as I could not get one 2nd hand (i.e. cheap enough) when it struck me - defret the WAV! Here are the before and after shots (well I didn't have a before so that one is from a shop site) Before; After; New Macassar Ebony fretboard with fret markers in the same manner as the Ibanez and glow in the dark side dot markers. Aluminium nut. All controls removed (leaving the piezo pickup). And refinished in a satin black (as in not matte or gloss). As I can just about manage string changes all work was done by Nathan at the Brighton Guitar Workshop

Well she's here. Great condition, very nice neck, strings need replacing and action lowering. Sounds good though, I have to say. Looks gorgeous imo. Will spend some fettling time tomorrow if I get a chance. And yes, pictures too 😎🎸

1) All get there on time and do your bit to get set up. 2) Get a good sound mix with no feedback issues. 3) Play well with everybody on song. 4) Audience have a good time. 5) Bar staff have a good time. 6) Skip the songs in the set I don't like. 7) Pack away and load out with no problems. 8) Get paid as agreed. 9) Get asked back.

Here's a couple sorry about the odd one out!

Barmaid wardrobe malfunction.

I love this pic from last night. Everyone loves a critic as they say. It’s the lead guitarists son during our sound check.

I listened to this today (not out of choice, I can’t really stand Prince, but it was on the radio), and there’s certainly a synth line underpinning it. 80s I spose.

That’s looking really nice I much prefer the White instead of the Black!! That cool naming after your daughter this time, Thats the reason why all mine say ‘Brash’ on the headstock because my little boy is called Bradley and my daughter is called Ashden (But I make my own logos with a laser printer and sellotape)

It’s the whole experience, a lot of the music I love isn’t technically brilliant but it has ‘something’, whereas I can see superb musicians doing amazing things and it leaves me cold.

Morning @BrunoBass Good to see you making progress Stripping the finish off mine's was a mistake ,awfy glad you never took that road Grabbed a couple of bridge ashtrays out the drawer this morning. For the 4 screw bridge you need the large cover (133mm wide),this fella covers it no problem. https://www.axesrus.co.uk/Large-Bass-Bridge-Cover-p/bc1.htm

@Al KrowThis link is very simple in explaining what each frequency does, read and hold the info http://www.brightonsoundsystem.co.uk/pa-hire/frequency-in-music-and-human-hearing/ I really did not want to get into anatomy, but this is a reasonable short description of the complexities of the human ear and how it works as an organ. http://www.dspguide.com/ch22/1.htm Now in relation to what people have been saying about psychoacoustics and your brain hearing one thing and making up the rest, if we look at another sense of sight. firstly the image your eye sees is actually upside down and all that you see is not there, your brain processes, flips the image and fills in a lot of what you see for you. Simply put there are 3 colour rods in the eye located centrally red, yello, green - the brain merges these things much as you do painting to give a palette of all colours, in addition your periphery of the eye sees in black and white, yet your whole vision is in colour-the brain fills it in. Now back to hearing, keep in mind how everything is processed in the body, keep in mind the simple links above, and keep in mind some of the excellent responses on sound physics and acoustics etc. Especially the posts where the frequencies isolated you are fixated about are generated and what they sound like. Put it all together and see the big picture of how Sound sounds and how sound feels, and if you still can’t see the wood for the trees, then there is probably little point in continuing the discussion on this thread. We can get back to bass tone and tone shaping in general within the context of getting a good useable sound with presence either by EQ alone, or adding effects, which is primarily what the thread was about.

My two, 1984 Fullerton and a 2008 AVRI

Much overlooked, John McVie. Solid as a rock for the whole song and then he drops that playful little riff at 2.21. I love those little moments of joy in music 😊

Ampeg may seem a big deal, but in the scale of things bass amps and speakers are small potatoes compared to the PA gear that's the meat and potatoes of LOUD. My guess is that Yamaha finally gave up on trying to crack the American market for amps (do they sell in Europe of the UK?) and probably picked up Ampeg for a song, so now they can get into that market through the side door. It will be interesting to see if they sink any money into R&D.

Have a Vigier Passion III with carbon reinforcements - great thing is, I can put any gauge strings on and not bother about truss rod adjustments etc. Love mine

Cheers, like you say, genuinely different. Clearly Mrs Ez has impeccable taste.

a slight twist on the classic look.... some right bad photoshopping!

Yeah.... that's what the JAM tribute say....

I've been trying to get a Spinal Tap tribute band together for years, but can't find a drummer.

Tru Oil is spectacularly good for the neck, gives a lovely feel.

Lovely @Dan Dare indeed. 👍🏻

Here's an old gig pic. Anyone got any idea who's playing? The guy on double neck guitar? That's Pino Palladino!!!

For those looking at both... the 4 Stroke has a really fab growl which increases with the compression, but it doesn't do full-on fuzzy. Sounds (to me) rather like a value amp with the gain set just as it starts to bite, plus a very strong eq. I like it a lot. Studio recording with mic-ed up 4 Stroke here.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone - same three notes, same pattern for the entire song, and still fabulous after all these years.