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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 ;-)

always no sign of money when you need it

All basses. Mostly. Spector get away with their black headstock as it's part of their identity. And technically they're non-matching, unless on a black bass... And if you think that's racist or something, go and live in bloody China! See if I care!

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.

Barmaid wardrobe malfunction.

There's a new Player series coming up, made in Mexico, with a choice of maple or pau ferro fingerboard, and apparently not just black and sunburst either.

Hanoi Rocks. Lords of the New Church. Johnny Thunders. Dogs D'Amour. This was pretty much the soundtrack to my teens & although my tastes have broadened over the years, I still regularly play those bands now

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

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.

"I think the main objective is to move people, make people think in their heart. I personally am not interested in appealing to other musicians. To me, it's more inspiring to move someone who doesn't know anything about music, but has a feel. They can say, 'I don't know what you're doing, but I just feel that's something there.' That to me is an incredible compliment, as opposed to, 'Well, you've just run up and down the fingerboard. That's wonderful, very fast.' All that means is I've just practiced the hell out of the guitar and I'm not really saying anything. I'm going from A to B, but not seeing anything on the way." Ritchie's right on this though. Especially applies to bass playing, methinks.

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

According to the specs the Barefaced cab in question is capable of producing the fundamentals that you are referring too. But as @Skol303 and @Jus Lukin have already said, the sound that a speaker outputs is not linear across its quoted frequency range. In other words while there will be some of that 30Hz frequency in the sound, if you play an open B string through the BF cab, that part of the sound spectrum is much quieter than the higher harmonics and therefore we do not hear it so well. But it is still there. In order to hear the fundamentals clearly you have deliberately EQ it to sound that way. And for most of us that is not something that we want. Plus you'll almost certainly need a club sized PA to crack it up to any significant volume. And as @Muzz says, that has nothing to do with Barefaced. Or any other cab capable of handling 30-40Hz. NOTHING WHATSOEVER. A speaker will put out what you feed into it - within the limits of its own inherent abilities and voicing. Most guys prefer to attenuate these super lows as it reduces mud - which in turn increases clarity - of the lower notes. But if you feel that this will have a detrimental affect on your own sound then don't do it. OK, so here's a little test you can do at home with the gear you already own as a little practical experience may help to explain what this thread seemingly cannot. It's not particularly scientific or absolute but should hopefully give you an indication of why the fundamentals in question are not overly sonically useful; Take your Mark Bass combo and eq it as follows; Bass at maximum, low and high mids and treble at minimum. The mid scoop (VPF?) Should be at minimum too. You can also try running the vintage speaker emulator (VLE?) at maximum as that also reduces the higher end. With the bass eq centred at 40Hz and boosted as much as possible (usually around 12db) and everything else cut as much as possible you have a crude approximation of the fundamentals in question. Next set up a patch on your Zoom B3n using the parametric eq to boost at 30Hz with a narrow Q. Boost this to the same degree as the bass eq on the amp, around 12db. Plug this into the front end of the combo. Next plug in a 5 string bass through the Zoom. If it's passive roll the tone control right off. Better still use an active bass and completely cut the treble (and mids if you have them) on the on board pre-amp. Experiment with the bass eq by starting at the centre position and boosting (but not cutting it). Now play the lowest notes on the B string. How does it sound? Now try turning the combo up so the sound is of a comparable volume to that which you gig at. This will require running the master volume much higher to get these lower tones to the same perceivable volume, if indeed it is possible with that particular combo. Assuming that the combo, and indeed the contents of your colon, do not liquify in the process, ask yourself if the sound you are hearing will make you and your band sound better if you were to add it to your existing tone. If you think that it will then start looking into expanding your bass rig to include a sub or 2. But most importantly of all, report back here with your findings.

@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 😊

Thought I'd chime back in with a photo of my solution: It's a bit "Class D" compared to some - it certainly doesn't have any heft! Took about half an hour to make with a left over bit of 6mm ply and a mini circular saw. The feet are self-adhesive. Weighs next to nothing, and the hole in the middle means I can carry it on top of one of my cabs. Total cost about £20. And if I'm feeling particularly juvenile I can tell people I have Sorbothane balls!

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.

Carbon weave on the G-bass,carbon reinforce with the Cirrus and Millennium basses, think it's 10/90 mix on the Vigier. Fully carbon neck on the B-Quad. Bright/dark,punchy/lifeless ?? I don't think it makes a blind bit of difference soundwise.

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.

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.

Here's one I just thought of...

Sounds promising that they largely hold their price though....a rarity these days Si