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If, as a white man, you want the freedom of speech to say the "n" word then you are going to have to deal with your audience having the freedom to call you a racist. Don't worry though - you can just decide to not take offence to that. And the venue manager will have the freedom to not book you too, because he doesn't want his establishment trashed. If you can't tell the difference between a black artist using a reclaimed word on a CD and a covers band of no importance using it then I despair.

I don’t see anything oppressive in using language that doesn’t offend. Quite the contrary, words like n***** or faggot have been and continue to be used to offend, belittle, oppress and insult. It annoys me when people bring up the freedom of speech thing or decry political correctness, it’s down to having respect for people. The language of respect; which I prefer to the term politically correct, the latter implies that we're choosing terms merely to be politic in order to placate certain interest groups rather than from any interest in actually ridding our language of terminology that reflects bias and prejudice, and choosing language that reflects a certain level of respect for everyone. Like I said earlier, I would always opt to change the words.

This is an opinion that is rarely held by anyone who is: black female gay disabled Do you spot the pattern there? S.P.

The composer might have written them because racism or sexism was fine at the time. There are words that are deemed to be offensive now simply because they are offensive, personally I couldn't care less that they were fine 30 or 40 years ago, it's now that we're living in. If I was playing in a covers band, then yes I would change the lyric.

Whilst I have my wonderful ‘71 Precision, I wanted a Lakland P to go with my 44-94 & 55-01. So I put feelers out, and just so happened that Walshy of this shire has one coming to him on a part ex. Next day, deal done and it’s now with me. 2008 Skyline Bob Glaub (so pre the current 44-64 model, same thing though): Cleaned up, and setup with some La Bella flats and we’re good to go for gigs this weekend This is what I was looking around for a tort plate for. However the stock plate is quite cool, it looks more white in photos, but is actually a nice vintagey mint green! Si

I suspect even the stoutest foe of Bowdlerisation might demur at chirpily singing the N-Word down the Frog and Spigot. Besides, where's the opportunity? Off the top of my head I can only think of one song that might be played by a pub covers band and which contains the offending term, this being Mr Elvis Costello's hit single 'Oliver's Army'. Difficult to pull off without the big piano sounds, though. It is vaguely amusing that we have come so far in deploring a word that - by coyly abbreviating it - we edge towards the view that things are getting better. Perhaps the next step will be to drop the letter N and refer to it simply as 'the word'. Everyone will feel so much better. Yet the bitter, abhorrent and vengeful sentiments that underpin the N-word are just as alive and well today as if the tacit prohibition did not apply. If we are truthful, many of us do really very little about the causes and outcomes of racism beyond fervent public expressions of disdain for the practice; rather, we accommodate ourselves to prevailing opinion by making tiny adjustments to old song lyrics, this in the self-interested hope that we can continue to play a song we like without fear of 'get(ting) a kicking'.

9 here. I have worked out the perfect number to own is how many you already have +1.

I'd never change an "offensive" lyric if I was covering a song. The composer wrote those words for a reason and I think it's a greater offence to bastardise someone's art than to offend someone who deams their language to be inappropriate. It's your God given right to be offended and it's my God given right to offend you. Words are not and will never be violence; "Sticks and stones... Etc." to equate "offence" with "assault" is a very dangerous road to tread in my eyes.

I'm relatively new to bass and own 1, if I ever find any music that requires notes that aren't on that one I'll buy another 😊

Only one ellipsis please.

I love the London Bass Show and I wish everyone a great event. Cheers, Jeff

It's not a full stop, it's an ellipsis.

Things were cramped in the old house so wall hangers and racks were used,the new place is much bigger 🙂 4 x racks of 7 + 10 tripod stands in the living room, 2 are kept propped against the couch within arm's reach. Spare room hosts another 4 x 7 racks,basses unused for ages like my Curbow,Dano and Bass Collection live in gigbags in the wee cupboard. Only 51 Peaveys in this photo. I blame the double bass 😄 Happened at Xmas, Wunjos kindly swapped the Sub by SBMM for a GK Plex instead.

RIP. Chris was a true gent. I am lucky enough to have spent time riding motorbikes with him, and even luckier to have an acoustic bass he made me

That's proved you right about the black! Already the contrast with the binding defining the edge catches the eye.

Is that you, Mr Trump..? Oh, sorry; I just thought for a moment... ... No, no; let it pass.

After weeks and weeks of sunny weather the day I want to spray starts off misty It was forecast sunny later on so lets go for it Started the day off sanding the tops again after the grain filler, just went over it with 240 and it looked fine. I had a close inspection and all looked well (I thought). I masked the binding with the tape @Gilmourisgod recommended and masked the edges with normal masking tape and waited for the sun to come out and dry the air up. Had a cup of tea... and another cup of tea, some lunch, another cup of tea and then low and behold, the sun came out, yey!! I set the spray gun up, it's a DeVilbis SRI if anyone is interested, it's been a while since I last used it, I was a it nervous about using it again, especially with black nitro as I only ever use it with clear as a rule. I thinned the black nitro with anti bloom thinners, it was getting warm and I was a little worried about any moisture in the air given the weather this morning. I no longer have a spray booth so I sprayed outside with a 3M mist, dust and vapour mask on. I put 4 thin coats on and left it at that. It seems that my grain filling job wasn't quite as good as I thought, there is a tiny it of grain showing but it is only tiny but made worse by the finish being black gloss, by the time the clear goes over the top it will flatten off nicely, I've sprayed lumpier orange peel than that in the past LOL. I'm a little disappointed the surface wasn't quite as flat as I hoped but at least it doesn't need refilling and it will be fine after a few top coats of clear. I stripped the masking tape off after cleaning the gun and there were a couple of little patches where the regular tape had peeled off and some over spray got it, it's got sanding sealer under there so no problem, there's a couple of tiny patches too where the paint got under the 3M tape and that will need scraping tomorrow perhaps, I'll see how it looks after the finish has settled overnight. After one coat Waiting for paint to dry!

That's what rock 'n' roll is all about. There's enough bland, generic and inoffensive music out there to choose from, if that's your thing.

I watched the BBC feature this morning, it was quite a shock and very sad. Back in the 90's, I worked with Jim quite a bit. I was in the side band that would back him on CSE (armed forces shows) in various obscure places around the World. Extremely witty and funny man, with a great imagination. He was very serious about his music.

We were playing a fundraiser the other day with our acoustic trio at the local hospice. Halfway through our Ace of Spades I realised the lyric ‘That’s the way I like it baby, I don’t want to live forever’ was coming up, but the vocalist was committed and she belted it out anyway. We skipped the next number, Locked Out of Heaven.

Kirsty MacColl regretted using the word "faggot" in "Fairytale of New York" and even when performing it live in the same year it was released changed the word to "blaggard" She never got a chance to re-record it as we know. I love the song, and I amend it as the writer did. There is a difference in preserving history as it was and actively presenting outdated terms as entertainment.

Well, I can understand, to a degree, but anyone who is into The Blues will know the song and understand you are not speaking from a personal point of view but merely covering an old classic. I am a married man, so should I avoid covering any song that mentions attraction to a woman who is patently not my wife? I think things can be taken too far. It didnt stop old blue eyes singing "Something stupid" as a duet with his own daughter. Its a love song by the way.

I’m not sure this thread is quite going in the direction I intended it to, as a documented P build....!

Used to have 3... Now I only own 2, lost the Sterling and made my own HS from a Ray35... Can't say enough good things about them. No 5er plays like it, no bass holds its ground in a mix llike it, the low B is better than that of many 35" instruments, fit&finish is like boutique quality but with a tone that's full of personality (a feat many boutique instruments lacking, a sound of their own).

I own 4; my "main" bass, my "back-up" bass, my "front room" bass and my "toilet" bass. 😂

Not one to go for the usual.. and liking the more, ahem, unusual build.. I’m actually not sure how this one is going to go. One of the two PJ builds I did last year isn’t getting used - so I’m disassembling. I have a nicely subtly relic’d neck and tuners, a bridge a pickguard, and some other bits and pieces for a P bass. I contacted Graham, body and neck supplier extraordinaire and he said he had a P bass body “second” - it’s got a minor repaired split in it. Swamp ash.. nice and light. Dead cheap. So it’s ordered. It’s the one on the right: And here’s the repair:

I also love, and play, vintage gear, but due to re- occurring back problems, I have tried to shed some weight. I've found some pics of my earlier attempts. Cases ,( yet to be covered ) are poplar ply, replacing manufacturers boxes made of lead. Pre-amps ( SVT,s ) are Ebay purchases, with added power supplies, built by myself. Power amp to taste, depending on gig, but I've often used a B&O 500 watt module, bought from Bigwan, or Hypex modules. I've also cloned some speaker cabs in poplar ply, but often the easy way to lose weight is to go for neo's. Certainly work in my Ampeg and Mesa 2 x15's. I'll try to list recent, more finished photo's, when I can work out how to get them off my phone .

That's very much strawmaning my stance but ok; how do you assert causation from this pattern you've uncovered? That's what I'm saying, we need freedom of speech so we know who people really are, then we can make informed choices as to how we interact with them as individuals. Just so we're all clear, I'm defending what I see as a right and one of the most important mechanisms for the evolution of culture and society; the conceptualisation of freedom of speech as seen from what I guess you'd call a "classical libertarian", I'm not advising we all get up on stage dropping N bombs. Personally I don't even like playing covers regardless of lyrical content, but I'd die to defend the right of anyone to verbally/artistically offend me. (Sorry if there's typos I'm on my phone and I've not got time to proof read)

So lets get the most important issue out of the way first. A Yurt is not a tent. (It is really, but we can't call it that). It's a take on marquee... but marquees are awfully common darling, especially for a wedding (so we can't call it that later. No, a Yurt is a way of elevating the fact that we are all sheltering from the UK weather in a tent of foreign origin... but it's Turkish, not Chinese... cos Chinese is cheap tat, naturally. Now that's out the way... Yes - you can get bogged down in profile/setting overload... I find that it's best to dial something in, live with it for a bit and then go off and do something more interesting... and revisit regularly with fresh ears. Ears tire. Same as when mixing tracks. If you are running your FRFR at any sort of volume, they will tire more quickly. The danger with modelling, is that you can have tweakability anxiety. For some people, the less buttons and settings to mess with, the better. For some, the ability to tweak to the nth degree is a God send. Same still applies, little and often until you get to where you want your tone to be. I'm glad you've seen the FRFR setup as a bass rig though. That's one of the first challenges. It doesn't look like a bass rig, right? So in a lot of people's minds, it's not a bass rig. And you are probably right - all it is, is a load of processing, an amp and a speaker. The processing however, is nothing like modelling and DSP of yesteryear that people seem to remember - we are now in an age where code is king and the result of that silicon based code is very pleasing on the ear. It's just a modern take on a rig that is now about 70 years old in it's concept. The interesting bit for you now though, is price for price, you're going to start getting a lot more from a PA setup than a traditional bass setup. I am waiting in anticipation for your opinions after using it out in the wild... Just think, you could let your PA do all the work and ditch the backline completely... or if you aren't into inears, you could use a wedge as a mean sounding monitor but have the added bonus of getting vocals and everything else you'd want to hear through it to. Lets face it, do you know anybody who puts PA foldback through their bass rig? Anyway, good and interesting update to read!

of course, and no headstock means you can swing about without hitting the walls. Beats Jimmy Hendrix and his playing in the bathroom while cleaning his teeth

Hoping to come. If I can I'll be bringing the items below: 1) Cetera - Spector NS2 & Legend 4X, Dingwall NG2, Epiphone Vintage Pro Thunderbird, Yamaha BB3000, GK800RB head, Genz Benz Neox212 cab, Tech-21 Dug DP3X preamp/pedal 2) Ezbass - Maruszczyk Elwood L 4 string fretted (J pickups), Maruszczyk Elwood L 4 string fretless (MM pickup), Rickenbacker 4003s, Rob Allen MB2 fretless, Phil Jones Flightcase + PB300 3) Happy Jack - AliKat DB #004, Mike Lull 54P, all I need to play a doubling gig (that evening) on those two instruments 4) BlueJay - Eminence Upright (left-handed), loads of camera equipment 5) obbm - TBA  6) Nancy Johnson (Paul) - The Big One, rack (GED/poweramp), possibly the dUg DP3x. A bass. 7) MacDaddy - Shuker bass(es), Snapdragon Folding bass, Flattley Bass Poison Ivy. 😎 prowla (Paul) - Maybe a Ric or two and fakers, maybe a couple of Statii, maybe J- & P-basses. Probably a Markbass amp & cab and a pedalboard with some FX. 9) Stingray5 - Old faithful Stingray5; Tune SWV4-BB bass; Eden EC180 1x15 combo. (I also have a gig that evening so may leave the Eden in the car but happy to bring it in if anyone asks). 10) TrevorR - Wal Pro II E, Wal Mk 1 Custom, Aria SB700, MarkBass LMII and Traveler 2x10, pedalboard. 11) TheGreek - Mesa M Pulse 600 head/ Powerhouse 1x15 cab and The Psilos bass built by Andyjr1515

Hi everybody! I have three basses, so I decided to compare them and recorded this simplistic loop. Sorry for bad skills, the goal was only to compare the sound. What do you think, which of them is the best and the worst? AN.wav VM P.wav Y P.wav

If money is tight why not go for the CMD 121P Combo which is an LM3 and NY 121P cab? Likely to be cheaper than separate Amp/Cab and they pop up s/h on here all the time. As mentioned already the Little Mark series are a better bet than the F1. If you go this route you can add a 2nd NY121 and you have a "full fat" 500w rig that should be loud enough for any occasion.

I honestly don’t know, but thinking about it, the principle would be the same either way around Best to try on a bit of scrap if you can When I get home later I’ll get Googling, I love digging up stuff like that, it’s like the kind of thing Ritter would do to the extreme!

I have to wholeheartedly agree with you on that. I’m quite a fan of the Lakland headstock too.

Top notch tribute act. Thanx for sharing.

Nice! What's the nut width on these Si? I owned the 5 string version for a while and it was lovely...

That's a really lovely bass - as heretical as this opinion may be to some, I've always thought Lakland's P basses look even classier than the original design they're modeled on!

I gig with an RM800 evo/BF Super 12 and this combination fills any size space with luscious tones. In a pub I can't have the volume knob higher than around 10%- 20%, and even then my troosers are flapping. Really good combination and great tones.

It totally depends on the type of band you're in. Acoustic trio or typical covers band? For pub gigs with two guitars bass drums vox, go a 500 watt head. Get two 210 cabs, small gigs you only need one, larger gigs stack both of them vertically.

Excellent choice 😎 I picked up a Squier telecaster bass body last weekend,almost did a wee dance when I saw the huge pickup cavity. Do I fit a mudbucker ? a split P-humbucker ? Nope. Warman jazzbar is the perfect size and arrived today🙂 Shame I've a few weeks yet before the rest of the parts arrive☹️

Hello. Neither the Bullhead 1K nor the Bullhead .5K have a fan. The amplifiers are convection cooled by the vents on the side and the amount of open room we have inside the chassis to allow cooling to occur. The Bullhead is not the smallest amp out there, this allows us to not have a fan but also allows us to use full sized knobs spaced in a way that making adjustments on the gig is easy. Sometimes we just have beat or two to reach back and make an adjustment and having knobs you can see and turn easily is nice.

I just weighed it at 8lbs. The same as my P bass. My Jazz is a pound heavier.

The head has a smoother top end and I believe some sort of rounding off of the higher frequencies. The CN cabinets are awesome but do have a bump in the upper mids that may also be part of the problem. I found that this combination (though I had the CN212) liked top heavy drive and distortion a great deal. I wouldn't go for a mellow bass tone or flat wounds with this combination personally unless I took some of the lows out and kept the drive dial right down. The treble knob is around 4khz, so it wouldn't hurt to push that a bit higher than usual. Interestingly my Berg HD112 cabinets, I set the tweeter control at +3 as I too like a bit of brightness that would be afforded by the likes of MarkBass and Eden heads. The amp is great but I'd say swap that out first for something a bit more 'hi fi'. Hopefully you'll get a chance to try something else out before you part with any cash!

Digitech Bass Whammy or Ricochet EHX Nano Pog or Pitchfork And there are clones of those, too. Pair any of them with some overdrive for a bigger sound.

What a pity, Si! We'll miss you. @Hamster, @silverfoxnik, any update on talks/events etc. for the bash?

Just wish I could play like him Roger! One thing I did find is that it had to be a 2EQ - for some reason I could never get the sound I was looking for in my head with the 3EQ on the fretless Ray.

I have an ACG version. Top rock bass (for me at any rate).

I've been meaning to do this for some time, so here is my collection. L to R: Zoot Boudicca fretless5 , Zoot Boudicca 5, Tokai Hard Puncher 4, Wal Mk2 5, Status Streamline 5, Sei Flamboyant headless 5, Spector Legend 6. I also have a Wesley acrylic 4 which is currently on loan to my son.