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A bit late to the party so rather than post individual gigs I thought I'd just post a block session from the year to catch up. I play in a 50s and 60s Rock n' Roll band and we do either electric or acoustic gigs. We mostly play clubs, pubs, weddings, parties and festival. This is our first year together and out of the 74 gigs we've done so far this year, I would say we have only had 2 naff gigs, the rest have been brilliant and so much fun. We've played anywhere from huge festivals playing to a few thousands, to a train station, to a roof of a pub, bandstands in parks, a biker festival in the middle of a field, school and village fete's, a record shop for international record day, a jive club, restaurants, a hairdressers, a fire station, beer festivals, classic car shows, a beach, carnivals, a donkey derby, a bowls club, a kids Back to the Future party as well as many pubs and clubs. We are just in ths middle of a 4 week summer break and then we have 40 more gigs to take us up to Christmas. Rock n' Roll 😁

Managed to get time to finish this tonight! Stuck a Dimarzio P in I had in the spares drawer, along with a bunch of spare electronics - fitted, soldered up and so on. Assembled and strung with some TI Flats - it’s now sounding like a proper chunky thumpy P bass. Very nice. I added the costs up. Given I had a lot of bits lying around this actually only cost about £120 - but I reckon even if you had to buy all the bits it would be around £300 all up, which is really rather splendid!

Just responded to an ad looking for a low end pluckerer ... ten minutes into phone call... oh we’d rather you not be in any other bands 1 advertise the fact in the first instance 2 stop being so fkn precious 3 who tf do you think you are dictating terms and conditions of what i can and cant do in my own fkn time ..... and breeeeeathe......

Please forgive the ostentatious title, some of you will remember a discussion a while ago regarding tool sharpening and my insistence that sharpening jigs are not needed; well I was asked to write this about how edge tools are sharpened in a professional cabinet making shop. Now please don't try and compare how a jobbing chippy sharpens his or her tools on site that is a different story but cabinetry and Luthiery have a similar need for tools that are precisely sharp as opposed to being sharp enough. I will honestly say the one machine/power tool I would not do without is a wet grinder, I would rather rip boards up with a ripsaw and plane them flat and to size by hand than do without that and have done in the past. Why you may ask? Well when you are trying to do fine work in wood the single most important thing you need is control and with cutting tools the only way you can get that control is with very sharp tools, not almost sharp or even sharp enough, to get precise cuts first time and every time they need to be sharper than that razor you shave with each morning and kept that way. It is a job that can be tedious if you let it be, the trick is to let it not be and to do that it needs to be quick and easy then it can be seen as a way of releiving your mind from the concentration levels of doing careful work for long periods. Lets have a look at my sharpening area What you see is a wetstone grinder, a tub of water and two Japanese water stones which a are wedged into wooden blocks to keep them from sliding in use; they are then kept in the tub of water when not being used. Above these I have a variety of gadgets that are associated with sharpening various tools but there is only one of note, the grinding angle gauge The wetstone grinder is used to give a hollow grind to the edge on a the cutting tool at a set angle which is determined by a little gauge. Mine is a 25 degree gauge which is a good all round angle for many tools giving a nice balance between durability and sharpness. The blade is clamped into a sliding carriage at the correct angle like this Then it is simply a matter of switching on and moving the blade from side to side until you have a fully ground hollow edge that is square. I've tried to illustrate that with these photos as best I can You can just make it out but notice that ragged burr on the edge. All we have done is to prepare our blade for the real sharpening: In days gone by various types of oilstones were the way to go, when I was an apprentice I had a prized set of Arkansas stones but things thankfully have moved on some since then, we have the waterstones, diamond impregnated tiles, ceramic stones.... My own favourites are the waterstones and I'll explain why. Waterstones are a man made brick for want of a better term, made of precisely graded grits, they are bound together quite loosely so they actually wear quite quickly in comparison to other types but that to me is an advantage. When you sharpen a tool you abbraide it's surface so tiny particles are removed, these can become embedded quite firmly in the stone and cause something called glazing which reduces it's efficiency. Waterstones on the other hand break up very slowly so the particles are freed stopping that glazing. The downside of that of course is that the stone can quickly wear out of true, thankfully it is so easy to flatten unlike the old Arkansas stones that needed taking to a stone mason. To flatten a waterstone just get a strip of 80 grit sandpaper taped to a flat surface and give the stone half a dozen rubs on that and the job is done, easy. Another great advantage is that water is used a s a lubricant so rather than having oily hands after sharpening they are merely wet and the stones can just be put back in the tub with not further cleaning or drying needed. I have two stones, the large red one which is a 1000 grit stone and the yellow one which is a 6000 grit, I use one at a time, they are both out above just for illustration. I don't have photos of the actual procedure but it is easy to understand. To start sharpening you stand in front of the stone (1000 grit), one foot in front of the other (important). You take the blade in both hands with some fingers from each hand on top of the blade to give it full support. Place the blade on the stone and feel for that hollow grind, there is a point where it sits flat and stable. Now you can either sharpen at that or as I do lift the blade a tiny amount so I only grind the front edge. Lock your elbows tight into your rib cage to lock your arms rigid, then rock backwards using your legs, so weight shifting from the front foot to the back foot, that stops the blade rocking. Do that four times and you should be left with a tiny shiny flat across the whole front edge of your blade. If you look closely mine isn't even, my stone needs flattening (OOPS!) but looking closely notice the burr Change the stone to the 6000 grit and do the same again, remember this must only be done backwards never forwards, the stones are too soft. So four times then flip the blade over and place it flat on the stone, slide the blade over the stone backwards four times. Repeat that two or three more times until when you examine the edge there is absolutely no sign of any burr and the back face should be almost a mirror finish. That should give you a wholly flat edge, for a bench plane you may want to give that edge a slight curve, to do this I use an extra pass over the 6000 stone with pressure on one outside edge then the other and that will be enough to give you a nice edge for a plane And that is it, just give the blade a quick dry on a towel along with your hands and back to work but be careful, that blade will be sharp and i mean sharp. The grinding procedure isn't done every time, just when the sharpening procedure starts taking longer as the flats get bigger; typically I sharpen four times then regrind. Even with regrinding a single blade can be processed within a couple of minutes. I keep four to six plane blades above my bench and sharpen all of them at once, that way I am less likely to be tempted to use a dulling iron when it is so easy to quickly change and it is quicker to sharpen six once then one six times. I hope you can see the logic in that method, every cabinet shop I have been into uses that exact method so I assume that it is probably the best and easiest way of doing it, being quick and easy you are more likely to want to do it and the more likely your work will improve. One last thing and this is actually the very first thing with any flat blade. The back face of a cutting tool needs to be flat, when you buy it it won't be, not even close. The first job with any new chisel or plane blade is to flatten it; how depends on how bad it is. Sometimes 10 minutes on a 1000 grit stone will do it flattening the stone a couple of times, if it is really bad then some 80 grit carborundum powder and a piece of glass it the way to go. Once it's flat then it will stay flat as long as you keep your stones flat but that back face MUST be flat to get the best out of your tools. Very briefly the reason why: A chisel is used mostly but supporting the back edge on work that has previously been cut, either to the side or behind the cutting edge. The back of the chisel is used as a rest and as a guide for progression, if your blade isn't flat then it will either dig in (blade concave) or ride up (blade convex) and that will never ever let you produce good work. Plane blades Other than you wont be able to sharpen properly a bade that is hollow along it's length one of the most important pasts of a bench plane is the cap iron, unless that is in intimate contact with the blade face it will clog up and even with the sharpest blade in the world that plane will not work or certainly won't be capable of quality work but more on that again.

Heh... 1. Yes, girls can play instruments too. That guy who said to you that girls should either sing onstage or do b**w j*bs off stage will remain a nobody forever, deservedly. 2. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated by the sheer size of that acoustic guitar your friends play. There *are* other instruments. 3. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated by right-handed instruments. Don't turn them upside down. Lefties do exist - look for them. 4. You will fall in love and live with a guitarist for the best part of 20 years. He will be grateful to you for knowing how to listen to him playing, being by his side, and waiting for him offstage. You will be grateful to him for getting you into music big time. You will even end up being grateful to him for eventually dumping you - that will be the trigger for you to start playing bass. 5. Regardless of point 4 above, don't wait until you're 41 before taking up bass! 😮

It's not plywood - it's a carefully built alternating-grain laminate of painstakingly chosen tone woods.

If you can find a used Skyline Lakland Precision (Bob Glaub, Duck Dunn, 44-64), that’s about as good as you’ll find for that £750 IMO. Si

I picked up the original Subdecay Quasar DLX. It’s great. Don’t get to use much Phaser, but it’s so versatile I decided to keep it around. Tap Tempo, (or expression control of sweep/rate) plus all the different waveforms, and a clean blend make for a really cool pedal 👍

The best thing is to transcribe lines yourself, use them along with the chords in the lead sheets. That’s how I learned anyway. It is an art form, one of my tutors at uni showed us a formula for creating walking lines, it sounded like a formula too, there was very little beauty in it. A good album to transcribe from is Bill Evans live at the village vanguard. The way it’s mixed puts the bass on it’s own in one channel. Scot LaFaro is the bassist, wonderful lines.

I put fresh rounds on my old Yamaha RBX774 when I first acquired the bass. Those strings stayed on for the next 8 years and boy did they sound good!

That’s all given me an idea - I will design & 3D print one for my Warwick Streamer Jazzman - the angled J pickup doesn’t lend itself to a normal ramp shape.

I have two of the Alto TX10s, I use one of them for home practice sometimes and I have very occasionally used one on a gig but that's purely to point right at my face for personal monitoring only. You'd have to have a really nice 8" or 10" frfr cab to hang with a band, the cheaper ones won't do it IME.

How lucky am I to be doing this again after a 25 year break?! Enjoy it while it lasts!

Last night I was thinking that the 60yr old drunk woman dancing right in front of my mic was really drunk. And I kept repeating the phrase "avoid eye contact, avoid eye contact!"

But ultimately had it not been for the whole mid-70s punk thing, they would have just faded into obscurity. Incidentally, on the subject of The Stranglers, a few years back I was at the wedding of one of my mates daughters. At the reception, I was sat next to Paul Roberts, the guy who took over vocal duties from Hugh Cornwell. Never having been a fan, I didn't have a clue who he was. It was a surreal experience. He kept on saying, 'Don't know whether I'm going to eat, I have a gig in Birmingham tonight.' Then the food came out. He nibbled and just said, 'Right, here we go,' then procured a radio microphone from his jacket, got up, walked over to a corner of the room, turned on some big band music and then crooned his way through about a dozen Frank and Dean songs, whilst walking around the reception and inviting people to do the odd line of Fly Me To The Moon. He was fantastic. In the evening, he did a medley of Stranglers tunes to about 30 people and a load of kids, then left and drove up north. I actually joined in on No More Heroes. Like I said, surreal.

Very uncomfortable when one sits down, however.

It is pretty much te same pre as the DoubleFour, with a 100w instead of a 70w D class power amp. It will be clean, not brittle and build quality like all PJB stuff will be good. For the right price a good amp. The DoubleFour already was quite loud and this amp has bigger speakers (the 30w more will have minimal impact on extra volume, the bigger speaker surface area will).

Dead Roundwounds is a good band name.

Well with ply sometimes it goes one way, and of course some times it goes another ...

If it sounds ok it is ok. If it looks ok that's even better.

I'd be tempted to change your playing style, if you keep hitting the jack. I can't imagine in my wildest playing how on earth that happens.

I hope I didn't follow through when I slipped that one out

Voted! Extra credit to Douglas for this:

When you're last minute depping with a band and at the gig have a complete mental blank about the next song that you apparently ran through with them at an impromptu rehearsal that afternoon. Singer, to me : "we're going to do ' Be My Bad Move Dreamer' next" Me: Blank look.................. Singer: " It starts with the bass - remember??? Me: Errr............File not found Singer: "do-do-dar- dum-dum" (Pulls a bass face and plays imaginary bass) ..........."Remember ?" Me: 😥 Guitarist: "No, actually we never did go through that one" Me: ............🙂.....................☺️😊☺️

The worst for me is when I think ‘wow, really nailing this tonight’ 99% guarantees the next minute will be crap.

Couldn't find a Spector thread so........

PIL. A truly memorable night.

Small Clone is a chorus, I presume you meant the Small Stone! Both the Small Stone and MXR Phase 90 are great on bass.

I’ve seen this before. It’s not necessarily play wear but can happen if the string are pressed against the board for a long period of time in a soft case resting against something else, or if they are banged against the board (bass fell over perhaps?) I see it as another piece of history, but if it were a clear board I would have been disappointed too. If it’s minor wear then it’ll come out with the appropriate fretboard oil.

Sorry for late reply, the 300e is an excellent guitar and really great value. In my opinion a good all round instrument. If you buy one you won’t be disappointed

If you can do it and your diary works, all is good. It may play hell with someone else's diary, but best of luck.

It might make it interesting. I'm sure we'll have ten of the top basses there. Just play them and see whether anyone can identify them.

My thyroid: Half of it went. Fortunately, it was just a cyst. My thyroxin will need checking periodically. The prostate cancer - I have a page on my website about it and ALL you male bassists should read it. It's on THIS page. There's an explanation of what happened to me and a radiotherapy blog. To cut a long story short: After I finished work to just do the band thing, I spent a lot of time with my wife who remarked I was going to pee a lot. I said it's just all this coffee I drink. You pee a hell of a lot, she said. Get yourself checked out. She said this many times, until I cracked and went for a 5 minute blood test. Then the doctor called me in. PSA level = 19. They would have been happy with 4.5. Finger up the bum time. Lovely lady Doctor. could have been a lot worse. Then another doctor. Then a biopsy. Then sepsis. Then a week in hospital, trying not to die. Released in time for my diagnosis. Given options. Chose surgery. A few weeks later I had my prostate gland out at the Christie cancer hospital in Manchester. Some months later, they told me the thing was "fried" (their word). Quarterly reviews clear for nearly a year, then small recurrence of the cancer. Radiotherapy earlier this year followed by one clear review.

Man goes to the doctor, says, Doctor Doctor, every time I poke myself in the eyeball I get this shooting pain and the Doctor says, well stop doing it then. Glass, bottle, bottle, glass. (PS: the lowest profile pancake jack I can think of is the vintage-type Fender speaker jack with the plastic moulded F cap).

once recorded a jam session where mushrooms were consumed by all. Thought it was the best music we'd ever played. Til we heard the recording lol

Aah, hindsight and reinvention is wonderful thing.

My Wal is sort of made of plywood...

Not sure cthis comment is for this thread. So weird, last night Saturday night I was loaded my bass into my car and getting ready for my gig. I remember doing this same routine when I was 12 years old. I'm still doing it at 65 years old. I'm blessed, there's no real down side to this. Blue

I would also nominate Loleatta Holloway but she really didn't get the song writing team behind her for anything other than this. Which some may recognise.

There is no competition. Ive had 4 now 3 5 strings and a 4. The best bang for your buck Jazz Bass is a Sire V7. The preamp can go from passive to active with no volume change. There on the most part very well made. Look amazing, Sound epic. Imo Sire's are hands down way better than any squire, or even a USA Fender imo.(unless its a American Vintage 74) They sound like a boutique jazz bass.. They are a no brainer..If they charged £1000 for a V7 I wouldnt think I was getting a bad deal.

Just played my first gig with my new band this afternoon and all I can remember thinking was "bloody hell I have remembered more songs than I thought I had!"

Great thread, I can relate to many of these! 😁 Last night, towards the end I was mainly thinking 'my toes are going numb, I wish I hadn't worn these high heeled boots'

"Hmm, how can I make this bit different yet better. Oh I know, I'll ... oops. What key is this in again?"

Blimey, that’s a lot of gigs, you must be pro, surely you don’t have a day job and manage nearly three gigs average a week as a hobby.