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Squier's an actual, proper name, from the Olden Days & everything: https://www.houseofnames.com/squier-family-crest The Squier brand originated in 1890 - string manufacturer V C Squier, which was acquired by Fender in 1965. Obviously what's happened is that The Internet has realised that a gross spelling mistake has been being perpetuated for several centuries, and using the power of popular usage of the correct spelling, predominantly through its Ebay instrument, is righting that wrong. This is, of course how all language evolves. In the future it'll be perfectly normal and acceptable to have a Squire base gitar with a frettles kneck and bone knut, fitted with upgraded turners. You'll need a chord to plug it in, too.

Is it still for sale? i may ask for photos....

Never been to a bass bash and this isn't too far away.... would love to meet you all.

Inspired to add a picture. Leaving out the Thumb fretless. Stage 2 1991 Stage 1 1991 Thumb 1989

Do you have any datums to back that up?

Or it's plectrum, or pick, or flatpick ... you can call it what you like. 'Hey Charlie, I've forgotten mine, can I borrow a pick?' 'Sorry I've only got plectrums.' 'You're a tosser ... just lend me one of your plectra.'

That's a whole big truckload of nope.

Hi Dazed, Your story does not sound much different than my own. In and out of playing due to work/college/family and so on. Now the career is good, family has grown and I have time to myself again. That is why I signed up to SBL. To relearn some of the forgotten stuff and to grow past where I was/am. I am not in a hurry to join a band but I want to play and be better at more than just pop, rock and country. So to the "Shed" I go! And like Scott says: "I'll see you in the shed" Best of luck (to the both of us)

Today I spent a bit of time looking at layout and making templates. The bass is going to be 33", so I've reduced the overal size of the body slightly, and because the bridge will be right up againt the edge of the body (to improve balance) I've also re-worked the lower horn a bit to allow access to the upper frets. For the pickups I'm going to stick with traditional positions for both the P and J pickups. For the P that's 84% of the scale length away from the nut, and for the J in the 60s position, 92%. I also prepared the neck blank. It came from David Dyke and it's fantastic. I cut out the neck and thicknessed it down to 20mm and it didn't move a milimetre. Look at this for symmetrical grain.... Tomorrow, neck pocket.......

Well I wasn’t expecting this much feedback, many thanks to all that have commented so far! My reasons for posting were to gauge if people had used the lessons, improved, and felt there was a worthwhile improvement from the financial outlay. I know from my own experience, good and bad, you only improve by putting the time and effort in but also focussing and not wasting your time widdling (guilty). I started off as a child, aged 8 or 9, playing guitar and having weekly lessons at school. The lessons definitely helped - good teacher. I gave it by senior school and a couple of years later picked up the bass and taught myself. I’d learned to read earlier on guitar to an ok level but over time stopped reading and learned everything by ear. I played with a large brass swing band for a year or so and realised my reading was pretty awful! Instead of practising reading I left the swing band, although my girlfriend at the time also sang in the same band and her leaving influenced my decision. Looking back I should have stayed with the band 😂 but that’s another story At 15/16 I started playing in bands, mainly original material with the very occasional cover gig. Of course at that age I was too cool to have lessons and carried in doing my own thing for 7 or 8 years, slowly getting further into a rut and not really improving my playing, knowledge, theory or reading. At some point in my twenties I had a few lessons from a quite well known bassist/ guitarist/drummer a very talented musician. The problem was I didn’t know what I wanted to get from the lessons and as we were friends, the lessons became more of a coffee and a chat. He did teach me about modes, which I vaguely remember and occasionally practice them. Life became busier as it does, music became less important and the bands I’d been playing in fell apart or imploded as we all moved onto other things. I stopped playing for a long time, ten years or so, bands and all the politics had left me with a bitter taste. For whatever reasons I kept all of my gear and eventually the urge to play returned. Anyone who has been through this will know the feeling of joy but also disappointment that your abilities have severely diminished! This brings me upto the last chapter of my playing, the now slightly rounder shaped, more disposable income, post mid life crisis, bedroom noodling, accidental bass collector (yes I do blame BC!) attempting to learn and actually understand what I’m doing. I haven’t really progressed with any theory or reading, though that is still a goal and I haven’t yet found enough courage or nerve to look into playing with other people or in public, but I haven’t complete ruled it out either. Through other tragic life events I’ve found myself with vast amounts of time to fill. A while ago I went back to what I enjoyed and set myself a few tasks of things to learn by ear. As much to keep playing as to help me through a massive depressive phase, which it really did. Sticking to a rough schedule of daily practice I did make a lot of improvement, surpassing my previous form in some areas which was encouraging. Again things got in the way and that all tailed off. So here I am again, staring at my collection of more money than talent, giving myself a bloody good serious talking to, to get rid of all those shiny things, but keep a couple and concentrate on the playing . If you’re still here reading this, I thank you, you’re very patient and I have signed up to SBL. I may even post updates to publicly shame myself into keeping at it.....

Just want to say, Paul is a great teacher. He taught me at ACM many moons ago and I've returned for private lessons to fill the gaps in my knowledge. I point vaguely in the direction of what I want to improve, he has it all laid out on a plate waiting for me. I digress with something vaguely related, he ties it all back up. Couldn't recommend him enough.

The tinted neck originally intended for the yellow Jazz is now on “the P Bass that started it all”. Pretty happy with how that looks. The headstock on the paler maple neck has now been sanded back and re-lacquered with a new decal. Will probably leave that overnight before giving it a tickle with some wet-and-dry just to knock it back to satin rather than the high gloss it currently is. Took the opportunity to fit a new Tusq nut as the original one was pretty crappy plastic. Once the lacquer is dry I can get the machine heads and string tree fitted and complete the yellow Jazz build. Sadly I won’t be able to get it strung and set up until payday next week as I’ve got about a tenner to last me until then!

My definition of new music is 'music I haven't heard yet', which could be something brand new or something written 150 years ago.

😂 There’s actually something to be said for that…! I think it’s called the ‘limp bag’ approach, where you deliberately choose a lightweight structure (e.g. wooden building) to allow the low-end frequencies to escape the room more efficiently. In fact, mixing in a tent would probably be ideal. Well, some of the time…

So a violinist is really a violin player, a flautist is a flute player? A drummer is a drum player? A vocalist is a git voice user? etc etc etc.

First of all - 'Yeah! You CAN do that' I agree - given a specific and identical set of woods, dimensions, shape and electical componentry, then there is less scope for building in a little bit of extra sonic excellence on a solid body. Loads of scope in terms of feel and finish, but less so in terms of actual sound. There is, of course, always scope for tailoring those factors to an individuals needs and taste. With acoustics, every piece of wood all has it own physical characteristics. The experts in this field not only choose specific pieces of wood ( which the good mass producers also do) but then are able to tweak things to make that piece of wood do the best that it's physically capable of doing. And the difference that can make is quite large, as you can hear in the back end of the video. Bear in mind that his top was starting where my top has finished. So the guy in that video would be able to absolutely transform the way my own build is going to sound. And conversely, an amateur like me is capable of actually making it sound worse than when it started. The mass producers of acoustics therefore are looking to consistent woods, machined to a high standard to produce predictable and replicatable tones. Having said that, surely it can't be far away that someone directly links a vibration spectrum analiser to a cnc router to mechanise the present realm of the craftsman?

Have you tried giving the trussrod a small tweak (say 1/8 turn clockwise) to make sure it's under tension?

My Stingray only does one thing. I tried it as a toaster, a car jack, a ladder, a cheese slicer and a hammer... but it was totally useless so now I only use it to play bass.

I don't like to talk about it. And I hardly ever bother to mention that I am young and gifted.

I decide I need a compressor so I buy one, use it and then decide I don’t need it so I get rid of it. Then a year or so later I decide I need a compressor so I buy use it and then decide I don’t need it so I get rid of it. Then a year or so later I decide I need a compressor so I buy one use it and then decide I don’t need it so I get rid of it. Then a year or so late I decide I need a compressor so I buy... (repeat ad infinitum)

This Hamer FBVIII came up on a group I'm a member of; I know there's some multi-string bass fans here and also guys who are doing the Cheap Trick thing, so there's probably a few people reading this who are drooling now. Anyone who knows Tom Petersson's gear or are a member of the Hamer Guitar Discussion group will know this bass (I've been aware of it for a good 25+ years). So anyhow, as I have some inheritance money coming through in about six weeks, I sent the seller a PM for his cash price as his ad quoted he was either looking for an 'unbroken Thunderbird II' or a cash sale (he hadn't quoted a dollar price). I explained as I didn't have a Thunderbird for swapsies, perhaps he would like to give me a price. A few minutes later he pinged back a price. I'm not going to go into the price, but while it was a lot of $$ I didn't fall off my chair and it would be easily doable in a few weeks. (When the inheritance comes in, let's just say I'd be able to buy several of these.) I asked whether it came with the original case (yes) and would he mind sending me some better photos. Sensing a sale, he turned around the photos in under 30 minutes and then, unprompted, said he could provide a load of stuff to prove the basses provenance, then PMs arrived containing links to YT videos where Tom Petersson is playing this bass. He was obviously sniffing a sale. Everything was cordial at this point. I'd spoken to a mate in New Hampshire who offered to bring it in on his next business trip (which could in theory have saved me a fortune in tax), so the final hurdle was my wife. Hands up, I'll admit I've spent a lot on gear in the last two or three years so after a bit of a chat (and because I like my testicles), I thought better of it and as much as I'd have loved to own this bass, sadly decided not to proceed, but added if it was still available in a few months I would hit the seller up again. At this point things got a little weird seller-side. I mean, if you're selling something, you'd expect to at least send some photos and enter into a bit of dialogue about things, wouldn't you? When I apologised and told the guy it was a no, I was on then on the receiving end of a couple of strange, angry messages; '[I] didn’t think you were serious. Just another tire kicker wasting my time wanting pictures of my bass.' and 'Don’t bother me again unless you are serious. I hate when people waste my time. This is the ONLY ONE of its kind. If you don’t want it, someone else does...' He also remarked that there was the Hard Rock Cafe (the guitar graveyard). I dunno, I just found his rhetoric strange. I've sold stuff here, I've had stuff on sale where you email photos out. It's what you do. If the guy at the other end doesn't want what you're selling, they say no, so you just go, 'That's fine, no worries and thanks for your interest.' and the matter closes. Man alive, if I wanted photos of the bass, there's loads out there already; I really couldn't care less about whether it was one of a kind or not either. I've never been called a tire kicker in my life (I think this is what hurt the most!). Ack, there's no happy ending here. I just wanted to vent off how stupid and dumb some people can be (not me, folks).

I was travelling home on a long drive at the weekend and took a couple of caffeine tablets during the journey to help stay alert. When I reached home, I noticed that my hearing was odd and also that I'd almost completely lost the hearing in my left ear. 3 days later and my hearing still isn't right so I made an appointment to see my GP and since I have no sign of an ear infection she's blaming a combination of a lifetime of abusing my hearing (loud concerts, playing in bands, etc) and combined with too much caffeine. I've been told that if I cut out the caffeine, there may be a chance that my hearing will return to normal (or maybe not 😦 ). When I got back, I Googled "caffeine and hearing loss", and apparently research has suggested that caffeine can stop the ears from recovering from the effects of short term exposure to moderately loud noise, which is something that I never knew. So, seeing as most people here will be exposed to this sort of noise through bass playing, etc, it might be something that you want to bear in mind before having that post-gig Red Bull. BTW ... can anybody recommend a particular brand of decaf tea bags? The Tetley ones I've bought are OK but don't have a lot of flavour.

I guess the debate is ended if everyone wants to get a banana.

Big difference between being a great artist, being talented, being good and being born with a gift. Aretha Franklin is one of the few born with a gift. Poor quality but worth watching, she smoking on the Fender Rohdes. Blue

I found an OC2 isn't a bad sound for this track

It is indeed, CTM100, I was tempted with the Handbox too but £500 man, seemed too good to pass up. Yeah I’ll fire some questions if needed when it lands, ta mate

I'll just leave these two pictures here.

Maybe that’s what I want you to think. One day you’ll be lazing in bed on a Sunday morning only to catch something with your big toe, only to find you’ve kicked a synth stick and triggered a tsunami of octave filter mulch that’ll give you diarrhoea

Actually, I have the FI and the SYB-5 on my board - partly because the SYB sounds amazing with an expression pedal on it: some of the distortion tones are huge sounding, and one or two of the synths are really good too. The FI is supremely configurable, but the expression pedal support (I am using MIDI / FCB1010 with Uno at the moment) is limited in what controller IDs it can respond to. Hopefully PandaMidi will continue to update software on request 😉

Are you sure now?

It's all completely improvised you know!

Does the resultant beanstalk have heft? 😄 In my defence, I did manage to return my Cali 76CB comp to the store for a refund...

I love that $$ with the maple neck 😎

I hope its not just me, but I hate getting all excited when you see a Fender precision advertised for around £150 and it turns out to be squier by fender. If its a squier, sell it as such!!

It's turning into one of those plucking threads again.....

Hi, I use these flatwounds on my s/scales, they're not too over polished in feel to the finger and have a good deep tone.

No no no! It was Huey, Jooi and Louis ...

I remembered that I had 3/4 size squier strat in my dad's loft so I've decided to finish this one and probably try and sell it and refinish the squier instead I'm going to finish it in purple glitter paint so it will be nice and girly! it might even have a unicorn on it somewhere if she's lucky 😀

Funnily enough I was discussing almost exactly this point with a guitarist I was having a jam with this weekend - it was actually his issue because he's been working on a new technique where he uses a pick for the bass strings and finger style for the treble - the problem wasn't switching styles between songs but different volume across the strings. He tried using a much lighter pick and that largely solved the issue. The OP's issue isn't one that troubles me personally, but I'd have thought that if it's purely a volume issue then the solution is simply that the volume needs to be adjusted somewhere, whether on the bass, amp, or somewhere in between. My own personal solution would be to use something like an MXR MicroAmp, a straight forward clean boost pedal that you can kick on whenever you switch to finger style.

Onto the installation of the rosette and purfling circle. This is a bit scary because it's got to be spot on. And it involves routing a couple of mm out of a top that is only 2.7ish mm to start with! First was to use the asymmetric holes in the centre of the cut out rosette as the template for a couple of similar holes in the top: Then remember not to cut out the centre until I've routed all of the other bits! First I routed the edges of the rosette - the inner using one of the pivot holes and the outer rout using the other one : So - what's going on on the right hand side? Well - it's a good illustration of a little tip for acoustic guitar rosettes: leave the join lines / gaps and test the rout position always at the neck end of the circle. Why? Because that will be covered by the fretboard And so if you pink torpedo up your measurement, measuring from the wrong side of the router bit: ...then you can correct it for the full circle and the pink torpedo up won't show because the fretboard will be over it Anyway - trying to remember which pivot hole to use far which area, I indexed the router a couple of mm each time each way to clear out the wood in the centre so I could fit the rosette Then a 1mm slot on the outside for some purfling: Then installed the purfling - it bends easily round this kind of radius dry and cold - and then some very careful scraping to bring the whole rosette down to top level and finally a deeper rout to cut out the sound hole. And here we have it: It's lucky that the c**k up slot is going to be covered, otherwise I'd have had to have added another piece of laminate as a 'feature' But luckily, on an acoustic, the fingerboard (or in my case it will be a stick on end magnetic pickup from a Shadow dual system) goes right up to the sound hole: I've said it before. Many regular builders will agree that we still make as many c**k ups as when we were beginners - it's just that we get more skilled at sorting out the consequences and hiding them!

A few recent additions to my board has inspired me to give a bit more thought on better ordering my chain and I've reset my board as follows: 2 inputs (AB-Y) [allows easy switch e.g. between electric bass and EUB] -> Compressor [Cali 76CB] -> Octaver [Valeton OC-10] -> Synths [Matryoshka & MB SS] -> Gated Fuzz & Drive [Mastotron & SA Aftershock] -> Filter [SA Manta] -> Modulation, EQ & HPF [Zoom MS-60B] -> output / amp Somehow managed to get them all onto my Metro 24, which was a relief!

It doesn't get far off, and I'd happily use the HX on its own (and did when I first got it), but side by side it still doesn't have the same feel as an actual OC-2, if that makes sense. Especially for the classic oct 1 setting, which is how I keep it set. I do use the Octave on the HX for a 'normal' octave effect, set with a low mix to beef up certain parts. The HX is fantastic though, takes a bit of time to learn all the routing options but it's well worth putting the time in.