Leaderboard

According to what I believe is a trustworthy source on social media, this is the new Flea American Artist series active bass. As lots of us commented a while ago, it’s the signature bass we thought fender should have released. No news on preamp and pickup but is looking good.

Hmmm - interesting... Anyway, I'm promised they are on the way so I've been doing the final fretboard pre-glue jobs so that I don't lose time while I'm waiting. Truss rod installed and demarcation veneer applied: The smaller luminlay dots for the over-body dots (the main dots will be the larger ones) which are best done before the fretboard is on - because, trust me, these particular ones are a beggar to do when the fretboard is already fitted: And - as you may have noticed, I've decided in the end to do a 24th fret block. It looked a bit bare at the dusty end without. This looks better to my eye: I'm hoping the replacement pickups will arrive tomorrow so I can rout the chambers then get the fretboard on

So am I. Shame I'm 46 though...

Yes, good advice that. I have made a couple of stupid mistakes recently which would have been easily avoided, all luckily simple to get round. The nut I bought was too wide so I bought a blank, the machine heads I got got delayed so I got some more and I remembered last night I needed to get some knobs and springs for the pickups! I was lining up the bridge rails last night (which is what the red string was for, using the scale length from my other basses to work out the range of positions i need for them. I don't really need that angle but I think it looks quite good and covers the positions I probably will need. I still have to wire this up: Everything actually gets harder now I have got to the easy bit. Before it was a couple of chunks of wood and if I messed it up, well, it wasn't expensive wood. Now it is cheap wood, cheap components and many hours of work!

Haven't been here and done this as often as I'd like, but had an hour going begging, so here it is. PS: There aren't any 'wrong' notes of course - it's Jazz.

Warm up? Oh that must be a really old model when we used valve preamps in active basses

Well, they've been flying all the way from South Africa and only just arrived...I suspect they are kn******d

Due to a muck up ordering the Mother of Pearl inlays I'm still short a set so I can't proceed with the Rosewood board until they come but I did a bit of routing on the Ebony one. For my inlays I routed close to the line and then pared to the line with a sharp chisel, apart from one little bit shown below where I made a slight wonder over the line with the router. My excuse is there was too much dust around the cutter LOL. After that I put a bit of masking tape on the cutter to blow it away and it never happened again. Chiselling was the first time I really found a difference to real wood, I don't really know how to describe it but paring Ebony, it's a clean forceful sort of cut, the Ebano felt more like paring balsa but harder, that said it cut very cleanly, certainly good enough for me. Anyway, the inlays fitted a treat with no stress at all other than that one little incident of my own doing. It cut so cleanly I'm thinking I may get away with no real need for edge filling with glue and dust (apart from that one bit shown again with the inlay). The good news of the day was I got my sander back from being repaired at Festool, the switch broke and it needed a new set of gears but bare in mind it is 25 years old and has had a very hard life and this is it's first repair

Don’t get it: why is @mrtcat wrong? Poor customer service is bad PR, regardless of the customer’s intention.

They know and recognise me as someone who has spent a lot in there over the years, probably £5k to date and I've also sold stuff to staff. It was reasonably busy but it's not a customer's job to convince a shop and it's staff that they're worthy of being welcome. Everyone is a potential customer when you are running a business whether they spend today, tomorrow or years down the line. If they're having a bad day then they need to be professional and suck it up a bit like the rest of us in our professional lives.

I think what the comments in this thread boil down to is not whether analogue is better than digital but what are you favourite effects and what compromises are you personally prepared to put up with. Sound/tone is entirely subjective, and IME a lot of it is to do with familiarity, rather than actual quality (if that could even be quantified). I also think that term "modelling" does a lot of multi-effects (even the very best ones)a complete disservice. I don't know how close the emulations of the various effects, amplifiers and cabs on my Helix are to the originals (because most of the time I've never tried the originals), and in all honesty I DON'T CARE. All I do care about is that amongst the various different distortions/choruses/EQs there is one that will give me the sound I am looking for to fit into the band mix of a particular song at the particular point. Everything else is irrelevant.

Two too many knobs? It's supposedly like a Stingray - one knob for volume and two for active EQ. It's as simple as you can get for an active bass.

Not this so much, but the guitarist in my old band ran a 20 year old Les Paul into a 30 year old Peavey; soundwise he'd be on the money, but not before spending an age knob-tweaking to actually get there. I could never understand how he would sound brilliant on a Friday gig and so utterly shite 24 hours later. And yes, tweaking happened between songs.

And of course, when you inevitably sell it on here, you can claim that it "plays like buttercream"...

Too many changes of electric guitars, then having to fiddle with his amp to get the desired tome. While I appreciate different guitars sound differently (i.e. Strat v Les Paul) there has to be a degree of practicality to keep the momentum going (I.e. chose a guitar that has both SS and HH pickups if you must). Our rhythm guitarist just uses a tele all the way through the gig and its sounds great. I usually being 2 basses to a gig but what ever I decide to play, that's it for the gig unless i have a catastrophic failure or unless a song 'really really' needs a fretless or upright bass, and I've never had this situation.

I think I have finished the finishing now, so I just need to bolt it all together (and wire it etc)

Today I cut the fret slots into the fretboards and scribed one of the neck joints to the body. I also played around with the Rocklite to see how it worked compared to real wood, in short, easier but I'll update the Rocklite thread with that The fretslots look as if they don't line up in this photo but they do (honest ) Marked out one of the fretboards for the Mother of Pearl markers. Here's what I did: Stuck a bit of masking tape over each fret gap to be inlayed. Marked the centre line of the board, marked the centre line of each fret gap. Marked the fret number on each inlay and the centre lines of each. Stuck masking tape to the bottom of each inlay and cut off the waste with a scalpel. Marked the position with a pencil of each inlay on the fretboard. Put a blob of superglue on the masking tape and put the inlay masking tape down on the fretboard and squared it off with a set square. Marked the fretboard with a scalpel very carefully. Peeled off the masking tape, the inlay and removed the masking tape from the bottom and put t hem carefully to one side. Tomorrow I'll rout out the inlay holes, I ran out of time today

Here is my contribution to the June 2018 Basschat Composition Challenge, inspired by a picture chosen by last month's winner: Mornats. Not a good month for me; there are only strained, tenuous links to the picture (the 9/8 rhythm and the virtual 'cats'...). All Kontakt stuff: a 60's drum kit, a nice nylon guitar and some Blue 'singing', created in Reaper with minimal treatment, and mastered with AAMS, 'Country' preset. Modest; it is what it is. Thanks for listening, if you already have; if you're about to, enjoy.

Well, quite, but I came to this thread to watch/listen to a band I knew nothing about, and so gave it a go (otherwise why post these topics at all..?). It turns out that, like Lenny, I was, let's say,.. unimpressed, and chose to post in that vein. It's just my opinion, and for my part I have no wish to change the view of anyone at all, but it's comment on an open forum on a subject of interest to several. I'd have thought that all loyal views would be welcome, whether for or against. I'll post again in the same spirit on any similar subjects if I feel inspired to.

Have you ever bought any bass gear which you expected to be good, but turned out to far exceed expectations? For me this would be my Epiphone vintage pro bass. I've owned a bolt-on epiphone thunderbird before and still have a pro-v 5 string, and I expected the vintage pro to be prettier version of something between the two. I've not used roundwounds since the last century, but after receiving the bass I played it for a few weeks with the stock strings and apart from the abrasive roundwounds on my fingertips I loved the feel of the bass - the 'oval' narrow neck with a slightly rounded fingerboard edge and the well finished fret-ends make it very comfortable to play. I was not prepared for how good it sounded though - the pro-bucker pickups sound huge and are dripping with tone. It is possible to a massive range of usable tones with just the three knobs and it is sometimes hard to believe it is a passive bass. The roundwounds had a little too much zing for my taste when they wrre new, the bridge pickup was on and the tone pot was open. I didn't enjoy the feel of the strings as much as I enjoyed the sound so I decided to get some La Bella 750T white nylons, hoping for a brighter variation on flatwounds, but not really knowing what kind of tone to expect from them. Once I had the strings on the bass, the smooth feel was even better than my previous favourite strings Thomastik TI-344, but what I liked about the bass's tone with the stock strings on was preserved, perhaps with a little more low end punch and without the excess brittle zing. I don't know whether the La Bellas would work this well on every bass, but they are perfect for me on this one. So this bass which cost me £450 (b-stock for a near-invisible minor cosmetic issue) and a set of £30 strings (it pays to shop around) which I originally bought mainly due to the super-cool vintage looks rather than for it to become my main bass, has replaced my CIJ mustang as my go-to bass for rehearsals and recording, it's the first one I grab to play at home, and I used it on my only gig since I bought it. What has anyone else bought - perhaps a combination of bass/amp/strings/fx/etc which was expected to be good, but far exeeded those expectations?

...about your band. Apologies if this has been covered in other topics but I searched and couldn't find anything. I'll start things off with a few... Our male singer never turns up for rehearsals (it's his band and he books most of the gigs...) The band spend hours practicing a new song at the rehearsal the singer never turned up for to play at a gig the following weekend then the singer decides he doesn't want to sing it because he hasn't rehearsed it... During every gig our drummer always asks "what's the next song?" despite everybody having a printed set list (which is more or less the same every time) and he's supposed to start most of the songs... Our lead guitarist always plays a bit of the next song before we start it - he says it's so he can remember the key - which means every gig is like "name that tune"... Our female singer sits drinking a bottle of white wine playing sudoku before each gig whilst we're setting all the gear up... She sometimes drinks too much white wine and forgets where she is in songs and sings the chorus during verses and vice versa (not helped by being as blind as a bat but refusing to wear her glasses so she can't read her songbook...) Our rhythm guitarist has the most expensive gear in the world (Taylor acoustic, AER amp, PRS custom electric) but still needs to read the chords off his iPad despite playing 75% of the same songs from when he started the band nine years ago... The bass player (me) strolls in 5 minutes before soundcheck and tries to sneak away as soon as the gig finishes to avoid helping with the PA and lights...!

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F273299538126 I bought this a few weeks ago and returned it. Although it is a very nice instrument neckwise the electrics didn’t work and it was filthy with ancient strings that were certainly not doing it any favours. The seller was ok and did politely accept a return but initially told me to turn it on as the actve circuit needed to ‘warm up for ten minutes’ I pointed out that the passive option didn’t work either. So if you do buy I’d ask a few questions first.

Hi everybody. I'm looking for some comments on choosing a new PSU for my pedalboard. I've been using a daisy-chain type 3A PSU that i bought from "effectpowersupplies.co.uk" almost 10 years ago and it still works fine but i'm up to 6 pedals now and i'm starting to get noise from lack of individual isolation in the outputs. My pedalboard is a Harley Benton, copy of a Pedaltrain and has space and fittings underneath for a PSU. It's this one: And here's a pic of the real thing: I've been looking in Thomann (it's better for me as i can get a joint order with the rest of the band and get free shipping) and i'm between these two PSU's: https://www.thomann.de/pt/harley_benton_powerplant_flex.htm : https://www.thomann.de/pt/harley_benton_powerplant_iso_1_pro.htm : I'm leaning for the second one, the ISO-1 as it clearly states that all outputs are isolated, not sure about the first one, no info on that. The powerplant Flex seems to have a better layout to link the cables though. So, what would the BC community choose? What are your thoughts about them? Does anybody has either of these and can make a small review? I'm also open to other sugestions that would fit in the pedalboard and won't cost much more than the cheapest pedal in that board Thanks for looking Marco

I had two made by Jon Shuker to my/his specs. And both were/ are for sale on here. Incredible basses! Shell pink is outstanding!

I've had numerous conversations with other bass players (and geetarists) about what draws them to particular instruments in the first place. It is surprising how many times you read/hear the comment, 'Ooh, that looks nice,' and the lust, the need, the craving for ownership starts from there, a wanting that kicks in without any perception as to what the instrument will play or sound like. I've been there (from the first time I saw Overend Watts with his white Thunderbird and Johnny Thunders with his Junior) and I've worn several t-shirts, but my desire to own my first Thunderbird was driven simply from the association and way it looked; I had no idea how it (or the dozen or so that followed) would sound or play. I got lucky.

"Made in Dominican Republic"

Thinking about it (I do this occasionally, though it doesn't always help) the Multiamp is pretty long in the tooth now, so I shouldn't be surprised that other things are overtaking it. I've already decided that when it can't keep up quality wise, I'll switch to the ipad for everything, including live. Amplitube max just blows me away, you can make choices based on what you think the amps will sound like and you get the sound you want - ANY sound you want pretty much - really quickly. In fact, by the time I get bored with the multiamp it'll probably all run on my phone, or we won't have phones any more. I think the software and the hardware are converging more as well, so you can have a dedicated unit with pedals etc and a bit of resilience to have on stage, but work on presets and setup on a tablet or PC and then just load them up. I'm guessing some stuff already does this pretty well, but in future it will be the gear that has a good software interface as well as good sounds that wins.

Did you think to tell them that you were interested in a bass? Looking from the other side of the fence it is sometimes hard to tell the genuine customers from the (many) timewasters who will take up your entire day and spend £20 - or nothing. I’ve worked in a music shop, albeit a long time ago, and the ratio of reasonable/chocolate starfish customers was about 10%/90%. If you feel you had poor service tell them there and then - the worst that can happen is that they’ve lost a customer. Maybe the guy/gal was having a bad day?

Enough scripture-talk please, gents.

Does make me laugh, I wonder what Sterling Ball thinks. Flea moves from EBMM to Modulus and gets them to essentially make him a Stingray (well, Cutlass), and them moves to Fender and gets them to essentially make him a Stingray. IME Fender make great basses (all two of them) but often pretty crap active circuits, certainly compared to those that go into Stingrays and Moduli. Interesting to see how this lands.....

The Manta works with a standard expression pedal if you hook it up to the hub (which is brilliant as it allows space for 128 presets across up to 5 SA pedals). The Xerograph Deluxe also takes a standard expression pedal. The version on here that sold (formally mine) simply lacks the extra footswitch present on the newest version which allows the expression to be switched in or out without having to remove the cable. Wonderlove has expression (with its own button on the newer versions). EHX Qballs Enigma has expression control and is a great filter. Moog MF-101 sounds amazing but has very limited envelope control but very flexible expression control. Massive form factor though.

Playing lots of private parties (we don't get paid enough to refer to them as functions) we often get treated as if we are the jukebox for just one awkward person in the room: "can you play some Republica?" "No, we don't do any of that, sorry, but we do have some 90's songs coming up". "Great, play some Verve!" " "No, we don't know any of theirs..." "Suede! Surely you can do it it goes like duh deeee, duh duh deeee" "no, sorry can we get on with the gig?" "Play some 90's indie like supergrass" "No, sorry. Look well do some 90's in a bit... On with the show, sorry to keep you waiting" "Stereophonics, yeah!" "Ok here's one by Bryan Adams, hope you love it as much as we do..." Irritating. And it's usually not the person who's actually paying!! And they're usually uncomfortably close to the singer, or grabbing their leg so they can't just ignore them to play the next song. And then they stare at you like you're on the sex offenders register for the rest of the gig. Or they claim they can play guitar/ sing/ play drums and so-and-so would love it if you let them join in as if we're a playstation and it's guitar friggin hero.

So much for the combined knowledge of the BC Collective!!! Next time I have a question I need answered I'm going to ask BassTractor's Mum...🤣😂😆

I just bought a Jazz Bass from them over the phone on Monday. All went very smoothly and I had the bass the next day.

But it isn't Chic, not just without him but also without Tony Thompson on drums and Alfa Anderson and Luci Martin on vocals. They were too definitive a line-up. Tony Thompson was a fantastic drummer and an inspiration to me. A master of the hi-hat -snare combination and his playing was tighter than a gnat's chuff

I've always felt that an audience appreciates a good gig with real momentum and excitement, more than they give a monkey's about tiny differences in tone. Maybe it's because i play bass and acoustic guitar, both of which involve just one sound thru the whole gig (fingers/pick and tone control etc doing the rest of the variation).

Thank you. You took the hit for me by responding before I had the chance to say "Peppa Pig". That would have been seriously embarrassing. IOU 1

This site edited my 'S H I T E' to 'stinky poo!' - I've been censored!

But we usually only start something new because we've left a band...keep doing what you've always done and you'll only ever be able to do what you know how to do already?

That's lovely. My 2007 JC is Peerless-made according to the serial number. The Peerless own-brand one looks like it has a shorter headstock and smaller tuners, so might even help tackle the neck dive a bit.

Failed promises?

Solved! 🙂 Before registering on Noteflight, I called my mother, and "sang" it to her. "I hear it in French", she says after filling in the rest of the melody for me. Then, after some more singing and thinking, she continues: "Cent mille chansons", and after a pause says "Frida Boccara". My mom is 86 years old, and claims she hasn't heard this song for decades, but used to love it back then. She was also in a choir singing Bach cantatas and the like. Wonderful. I love this stuff. BC to the rescue again! Er... sorry, mom! Mom to the rescue again! 🙂

Sign me up for anything in Tidepool. Beautiful colour!

Vintage - I`ve been very impressed with the Tony Butler Signature Precision I picked up recently. Just think the name makes looking for instruments a bit difficult, vintage bass, vintage guitar etc, end up with any old pony bit of gear.

Reapting myself again. Bought a £76 Harley Benton PB-50 just to see what £76 got you. Turned out £76 got me a nice looking bass with a fantastic neck that sounded great. Put Status Hot Wire tapes on it and promptly ignored my other basses. Bought another,strung with TI's this time. 4 years later I still mostly ignore my other basses.

Right here we go;