Leaderboard

Well. The Guild acoustic has sold. Not really a great feeling but after an odd day, it’s time to either play more or pack up. The White Jazz and the other two are staying though. Mrs Travis says she’ll divorce me if I sell the White Jazz. So...she’s right, it must stay.

Agreed. What a bellend.

Not that many Basschatter's move any of their instruments on that often 🙄, but on the rare occasion a new For Sale thread appears, the question of weight rears it's ugly head with alarming regularity. I have just purchased this for £7.59 through Amazon (along with at least £12.41 worth of other assorted ephemera in order to qualify for free shipping ) and it is rather spiffing - and accurate. It does ounces, grams, pounds and kilos and has a nice soft noose for hanging a bass from the headstock. Just thought I would share. Here is the product link.

It was NBD last Tuesday. Many thanks to @ead for answering my call for a wenge necked ACG on the Facebook ACG owners group. It's an understated, but absolutely stunning bass. Spec and Alan's original pics here: http://archive.acguitars.co.uk/portfolio/0178-recurve-4/ Pics: Must get a pic with both of the ACGs together...

I would like to make a small point, so I sharpened up my stubby little pencil. However, it's not the size, but how you use it that really counts...! Anyway, Off We Go.....! I say that the English tongue is childishly easy if you've been raised in it, "steeped in it" like wee teabags; but, it's a fiendish language to learn. One must absorb it and quaff the brew slowly, as you grow up with it, because it boils over with euphemisms, colloquialisms and slang, all requiring years of unconscious assimilation. And it's a "borrowing" language...They never give it back, but they readily borrowed from Germans, Romans, the dreaded French since 1066 and the ancient Greeks. Even the Vikings (those Damn Danes!) altered the Goode English Tongue. You might even say that the English are the ba*tard spawn of barbaric Viking raiders... Then again, you might not if one is about, WOT-WOT! . And no language is safe from the English. All have been raided for their foreign mots and grammaires. It then turned in on itself and blended it's vocabulary and grammar into what we today call Standard Spoken English, but should probably bear the more apt title of Confused Broken English. Countries birthed and aborted by the United? Kingdom that now claim to use this language have applied it in ways that are very revealing of their own nationalistic tendencies. The Americans, of course, Revolted and Declared that everyone will "Speak American". Which is a unique form of mis-spelled English. Everything has been quickened and shortened to fit into the New York minute. In the torpid Southern Tier, English has melted into a long drawl that will never be fully recovered or understood again by an Englishman, let alone their long winded northern brothers in Washington, D.C.. Of course, in California "Nosotros hablamos Espanol!" "An pas me de chillie-dog!. The passive-aggressive Australians rebelled against their British chains and destroyed the language both in vocabulary and pronunciation until they now speak 'Strine so bad that the English will never understand them. Actually no one can. And they like it like that! The oft persecuted Irish decided to improve the language and then sing it, just to annoy the ears of those wicked Saxon Dogs; and the brash Scottish Highlanders don't even care if anyone can understand them, eh? As long as their haggis vindaloo is hot! English is safe in Scotland as they never use it. The Canadians, of course, just couldn't make up their minds whether to speak English or American. So, as befits their nature, "decided" to speak both, so as not to offend anybody... In Canada you may do your neighbor a favor or favour your neighbour and honor or honour the colour or color of her hair. Zee or Zed! It's all good... Canada uses metric measurements, British measurements or American Customary measurements. You can appear short or tall, heavy or light just by carefully selecting your unitary system. My toolbox is divided into Metric and English wrenches (spanners, you say?). The temperature today is 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celcius. Take your pick, as long as it ain't in Kelvins. And if you don't like speaking American, Canadian or British, why, you can always speak French! Parlez-vous 'en... No one understands each other here, but we always agree... so as not to offend anyone... The Welsh, hoping to hide from the English, named their towns with tongue-twisters that the English could not even pronounce without drooling, let alone remember! Names that, if repeated, sounded like wild, abandoned, drunken cursing that would have one committed to Bedlam in a fortnight! They just got together and made up sh*t like Aberbargoed, Abercwmboi, Aberystwyth, Amlwch, Benllech, Blaenau, Fffrack, Ffestiniog, Eggnog, Caernarfon, Caerphilly, Philly-Dilly, Caerwys, Cilgerran, Criccieth, Cwmamman, Come-on, Cwmbran Denbigh, Ebbw Vale, Znert, Ewloe, Ffestiniog, Laugharne, Llaughinghmearseoff, Llandrindod Wells, Llandudno, Llumbhagho, Llamgerghini, Llanfairfechan, Llackafarteen, Llanfyll, Llanphill, Llangefni, Llanrwst, Llanwrtyd Wells, Loughor, Laughcheim, Machynlleth, Meschugama, Merthyr Tydfil, Maesglas Miskin, Penmaenmawr, Pontarddulais, Porthmadog, Phrakindedogh, Pwllheli, Tonypandy, Andypandy, Billandben, Treorchy, Tywyn, Tyrone, Ystradgynlais, Ystrad Mynach, Ynysddu, Theresamaynott, Ham-on-Rye, Hay-on-Wye, and Zed. As I ponder all of this, I grow weary. Perhaps you have, too. Philologists and musicians make for strange bed-fellows. Professor Henry Higgins meets Charles Mingus.This is why a Protologist won't share an office with a Dentist... And you'll never introduce your wife to your girlfriend... I no longer care if I'm a piano player or a pianist; a drummer or a drummist; a bassist, a basser or a bass tard; a doublecontrabassoonist or a happy euphonium blower... a joker, a smoker or a midnight toker... For I am a proud and noble Upright Electric Wash-Tubbist! (So, who needs five strings when one will do!!! We don't shift, we just stretch away... TWANG!) How many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two! A bass guitarist to hold the bulb and the lead guitarist to tell him how to do it.

Don't be so sure about that. Most rehearsal spaces are small enough that you'll get a lot of boundary sourced phase cancellations, which can make your amp sound not as loud as it will in a large room. Guitars and drums don't have this issue, as the wavelengths they produce are much shorter and are relatively immune to phase cancellations.

Yes, it is. Yes, they are. No, you're not.

Following the sharing of my Shuker Uberhorn on about two dozen Facebook group sites including Scott’s Bass Lessons, Bass Player Magazine, and loads of other player groups it’s had about a million views and coming on for 50k likes.. It is now officially more famous than I will ever be. I can’t begin to tell you how depressing that actually is...

Or you get in 'The Works' for £8.99 a couple of months after the publication date...

Well - I've got nothing to compare a 31.5" scale with but it certainly doesn't match my 34" bass, nor my 25.5" guitar, or my 24.75" guitar, or even my alto sax - so I presume it's right! @eude was after some lighter figure in the ebony. This should do nicely. This is where the fretboard will come to at its full 24 fret lines and a bit: Quite a bit of next week is going to be a bit of a disaster time-wise but before then I should at least have got my head around the neck angles, etc, to be able to start working on the heel.

I misread the thread title as "Mods...don't some sound wierd?? Discordant?" Sorry Mods. 🤣

I think that the seminars at the numerous Bass Bashes I've been to confirm that most of us can't tell the difference between gear. I scored 0 on the bass ID test at the last SE Bash (though I did identify one of the two Ricks - the wrong one) - the best score was 4 from 20 IIRC. Similarly there was no consensus on the Amp Heft test - though I stand by what I've always said - Valve amps give a warmer tone that Class D. I can identify a friend of mine's playing in a room full of players, what he's playing is a different matter. Even if you find a tone you like from a Bass/Amp doesn't mean that you'll be able to emulate it.

I suppose it's hard to imagine why anyone would spend their time doing something they don't enjoy just because they're being paid to do it. No ... wait a minute ...

Imho it takes a combination of experience and information. One could tell that these two (for example) sound very different, without knowing why, what contributed to the difference. I often get frustrated reading descriptions on BC of different "sounds" from different basses or amps or strings and not being able to hear them to fit the actual sound I hear to the description. (Which is something the podcasts could help with?...) Some of the better YouTube demos do give you the sound, and sight of playing technique, and technical specs to learn from. We aren't all lucky enough to be able to own and play a lot of different stuff, and even if we did, our own playing ability (certainly mine!) might not be able to explore the differences. For example, I love my GMR fretless, and I know that chrome flats are right for the sound I want to get from it, but listening to @Steve Amadeo play it was a complete revelation. Not that I'll ever be able to play like Steve, but it gave me new ears and new understanding. I'd relate it to having an ear for much simpler things like intervals and chord tones. One of the most important things for me about going through grade exams has been the aural tests - I've really struggled to identify, for example, a major from dominant from minor 7th by ear (although I can use them all in a bassline almost without thinking). My teacher has made me work hard on it, and I'm definitely a better player for that.

Yesterday, I met Bassy (Nick) in a pub near Tower Bridge, and surreptitiously slid an envelope of money under the table in exchange for the beautiful Shuker he had up for sale. This is new territory for me. Not just owning a Shuker; this is my first five-string. I've been through several fretless basses, I've owned an active bass previously, but this is the first time I've owned one with a B-string. Isn't she lovely? Macassar Ebony, apparently. I've really only included this picture to get the luthiers in a lather. Head nicely bookmatched to the body, and what appears to be a brass nut. Your starter for ten: whose strings are these? The silk at the bridge ends is all blue, but at the top I have lilac (B), red (E), blue (A), black (D), green (G). They're rounds, and feel like a fairly standard gauge. Here's where the fun really begins. The onboard EQ is quite gentle, but offers a lot of very agreeable variation, especially with the sweepable mid in that stacked knob. Combined with the coil tap and blend, I could be playing around with these controls for days... The sound is quite glorious. I fancied something a bit more modern than my usual, and I certainly got that! I'm not sure whether it's the strings, the Wizard humbuckers, or that brass nut, but there's a wonderfully piano-like quality to some of the notes. I'm surprised how quickly I've got used to the wider fretboard, but I suspect the slender neck profile helps with that. (Now I just need to get out of the trap of going for the low F and accidentally hitting a bottom C...) At some point, if you're really unlucky, I'll get round to making a demo video, so you can hear it in actionUPDATE: scroll down for not one, but TWO demo videos. Until then, is a NBD thread really a NBD thread if you don't include a hokey picture of yourself playing the thing?

And he’s finally credited me for it. Shame Bass Player Magazine haven’t. They will be hearing from my photo agency tomorrow (honestly!)

He's been a member 18 days and is already putting people in their place!!! Welcome sir, I like your style...

I'd go for the Fender 500 too. It'll do most gigs alone and all gigs with PA. They sound lovely as well and are lightweight. A winner all round. Frank.

I've recently received this markbass tte800 in a trade.. In the past it's mainly been tube amps for me, I've had a couple of SVT cl's Orange Ad200 and of late a fender superbassman.After getting my last amp(GK 1001) trying to downsize weight,I sorely missed that tube tone "heft"....so i was convinced I had to have a big valve job again. I was offered the markbass so I thought I'd give it ago since I've never had a lightweight class D head ( late to the party).....and Crikey it's bloody wonderful 🙂 It really does sound and feel like a tube amp...heft,touch,punch...the works! and God it can get stupid loud if wanted. It reminds me of the Orange tube head in tone with a little less gain on tap but with more punch. After Adding a little blended tech21 Vt to the mix .... this is feeling like it might be my perfect amp. I don't know why there isn't more love for these? I get the minimal eq on it might be a put off, but I can get a fair few different tones out of it.....i imagine with a active bass the simplicity would be a plus? It's a winner 🙂

Well, I have a lot of gear to sell and my plan is to get an ACG fiver... maybe the Finn will be surplus if I do?

OK, how much for the Great Dane then Fleabag?

That looks lovely @Andyjr1515! Great access to the dusty end and a beautiful bit of ebony too. Don't worry about the fretlines, it's fretless and I won't be playing in tune much anyway 😉 Eude

Is it true that the luthier would only repair parts one at a time to make you book another appointment for the next part ?

I see a problem here...

They are indeed! This is the 4th I've owned and they've all been excellent. Really regret selling my last one (the "Ebay Cricket Club auction" Finn 4 P bass, ash neck, rosewood board, alder body, goncalo alves top), but hopefully @Bridgehouse will remember me if/when he sells it. The first I owned had been with @Merton and went to @walbassist after me. It was a little niche (33" scale, mahogany body, 5 string Graft Recurve) but it told me everything I needed to know about Alan's work.

I kinda meant everyone is used to HB's being cheap and cheerful. How will they fare at a higher price point?

Keep practicing that line, so you can keep a straight face when you say it to the missus. "Honest love..."

WHOOOAAA -AHHH-WOAHHWOAH

Ha ha, you're not alone mate, my two (7 & 5) take 'interpretative' about as far as it can go before their dance becomes completely random movements to music

I don't have an Ella but my two girls (7 and 4) are similarly obsessed. More with putting on their own productions of it in the front room though with extravagant freefrom dance moves. I won't go out of my way to watch it but next time they put it on I'll keep an ear out for the bass!

Doesn't mean it's fit for purpose, either. If bass players are getting themselves noticed, they probably aren't playing for the song. All those bands with a 'feature' bass player such as Cream, Yes, Rush and so on - ground-breaking as they undoubtedly were - aren't necessarily the best examples of what a good working professional sideman should be.

Saw the film and thought the songs were dull and predictable. Maybe it’s just me though.

As promised I have visited Moollon and It was a great experience and very interesting. I'm not a review writer so I'll stick to the facts. I am also not getting anything out of this. The Moollon workshop is tucked away in the suburbs of Seoul and would have been hard to find without the kind assistance of Andi Roselund who fronts the company to the Western Market. He collected me and drove me to the workshop. Super nice guy. First thing to say it that it is absolutely clear that the story that YJ makes all of these instruments himself is 100% true. There are other guys working on pedals and other projects buy YJ makes that guitars from scratch, metalwork, wood, wiring pups, everything. This is love. YJ was gracious and generous with his time and let me try out pretty much the whole range of basses but for me the stand out instrument was the new PV. I would say that I already have a JV which is frankly a tone monster. So I tried the 55 P type on flats, the hollow body 50's type ( you may have seen Michael League playing one), the B524 which is a modern passive twin hum bucker type but with a Les Paul type circuit with a PUP selector switch. So baseline........ Firstly I am no authority, I'm just an average player, not an expert nor can I claim to have any great skills to test these instruments to their limits. Having said that I am lucky enough to have a collection of Pre CBS basses that Include a 1960 Stackpot, an early 1962 slab board Jazz, and 1965 p. I'm not saying that to show off I am saying this because the Moollon niche is all about presenting sounds from that era in a usable and available form. I don't have early 50's instruments but I've played some. I have and have worn in a Moollon Jazz for over a year so I know it very well. Things to know about Moollon. Firstly the classics are finished are all Nitro. They chip and start showing wear quickly within months just like the originals. There are no plasticote under-coats so chips and finger wear appear quite quickly. Having said this its 20 thin coats of nitro and that's sweet if you ask me. I didn't ask about the sparkle finishes - sorry about that. maybe someone who knows better can fill in. He will distress for you so you get a vintage look. personally I'm letting my fingers do that for me. The one issue that I have with my JV is the lack of a notch for truss rod adjustment. YJ will put this in for but he makes a small charge for it. Its not period so he doesn't do it. If that seems fussy its just how he does things. His clear love for the original pre CBS sounds goes to analysing original metalwork and making all of his own hardware to that original spec - he can do that because he is a qualified metallurgist. If you live in a dry hot climate I'd get that done. 1955 P type. The one I tried had a V tech profile ( not too fat) and flat pup. It looked and felt and what is more sounded like the real thing. It was a 2 colour sunburst with white plate. This one of YJ's own and it was worn in and sweet. The sound was just right, neither too aggressive nor at all flabby. Its hard to offer any criticism, it was as good a representation of the real thing as I have found. As with all of the Moollon's i have tried eve with the tone right off there was definition. I get that with my 65P, its fat and warm but has just enough cut. This 55 type had that classic middle tone and played so well. Turn up the tone and you got all of that cut, with a pick even better. The hollow body type 50's shape, again was sweet but a variation on the theme to me its a cross over instrument and was a bit of both worlds, old and new. I don't really feel qualified to say much more that to say its playability and tones were sweet and the looks are all there. Just listen to Michael leave playing one, don't worry about my thoughts. The B524 is the double hum bucker type again passive but not a classic fender type. I thought of it as a passive Fodera type bass. I didn't get enough time with it to really get a proper feel for the instrument tbh. The tone control set up was a bit unusual in that it was based on a Les Paul type configuration with a pup selector switch. I was interested as it has separate tone and volume controls for each PUP so you can switch between a pup with tone rolled off or the other on and then have both. Its a bit like a stackpot circuit. It wasn't for me as I was looking for something to complement my JV. Having said that it was a very versatile instrument and felt great in the hands. I suspect in the hands of a better player some of the dynamic range of the instrument would come out. Goran Delac has a vid of his 524 on youtube. The outstanding instrument for me was the new PV. YJ has taken one of his soap-bar type 5 string pup's and put it into a P configuration. What he has managed with the J V type he has now done with the P type. This feels like proper P and the thick tones go all the way down to the bottom. This works. I had a moment getting over the idea of no staggered PUP but once I did it just sounded which and deep and like nothing else. I had a reel vintage vibe with bite when you dig and definition with the tone rolled off. Having said that the slap tone was also nice and this bass can be solo'd - its got bags of high end detail. The outstanding thing is that this has the kind of thickness of tone I get from my stockpot on flats. Not found it anywhere else on anything else - and here it was. That is the highest compliment I can offer and not one made lightly. Playability was great the neck was much more comfortable than I thought (bit of a J man here) and the body is a standard p size no increase in the size so the weight is kept low. Please don't ask me what all of the weights were because I didn't take scales with me. So questions. Will he make a PJ?- no. Fender didn't pre CBS and he sees no reason to do so. I also think it would be a lot of R&D risk without any likely additional return. Will he put a P neck on a J body - yes if you ask Will be put a J neck on a P body - yes if you ask Summing up. Both Andi Roslund and YJ were super nice and cool to deal with. They gave their time freely and were really helpful. Knowing what I paid previously for a Moollon I don't really think that they make a lot of money; this is about the love of doing what they do. YJ could easily charge more, perhaps market better, put a few dealerships out there with instruments people could test drive; the thing is he's doing ok, he's easy to deal with and he's the real deal. He doesn't have to with player like Tim Lefevre, Scott Devine and Rufus Philpot as clients. I like YJ and he makes some really nice instruments with authentic sounds. For the money I think they are hard to beat so long as you know what you are buying, that is pre-cbs tones, built in a pre-CBS way, in a modern instrument. For reference: I'm the fat guy in the middle YJ to the Left and Andi Roselund to the right. YJ is on his own holding the new and deeply awesome PV which I want......a lot.

well the inlays arrived, and wow they look stunning, the pictures don't really bring out the colours but they really loads on the pressure a bit to get it right... but a bit of pressure is probably good. in other news - i managed to get the fretboard off the old neck with no major hiccups, as well as doing some research about the preamp that is going to hopefully go into this bass steamy steamy... as for the preamp, the idea at the moment is to go with a setup along the lines of the "anderton super tone control" from craig anderton's book "electronics projects for musicians", albeit with a couple of modifications. (anyone bored by electronics can switch off for this part) its an SVF based preamp, wired up with 6 controls: High pass, low pass, band pass filters, frequency control, resonance control (basically Q control) and a high/low resonance switch. in the config above it also has a volume control wired in, but this is either going to be omitted completely or replaced with a trim pot that is just set and then left alone. there will have to be a couple of changes to make this work well as an onboard preamp though. the circuit in the original book was rated at 7ma power draw, which is a little more than i would like. so "IC1" which is the quad op-amp is the low noise version, but there is also the TL064 available, not as low noise but much lower power draw. i guess we'll see, im going to build one of these things outside the bass and test it first, then make any of the necessary changes after that.

Didn’t they fight with the Daleks on Phrygia?

John Entwistle hated being called a "Bassist", he always referred to himself as being a "Bass Guitarist".

Agreed! It set me on a path with Alan too, I currently own two but did have a third, and I have a stupendously awesome Finn spec in my head for early next year too 😎

I played a Mesa Subway D800 recently and was blown away by how good it sounded... would love to see a comparison!

Rockfield, the epicentre of Welsh rock'n'roll! Ever get down to visit Kingsley et al?

I would also say, have a look in the for sale section on here, things don't have to be new. Although as you are putting prices in europe I am guessing you aren't in the uk - you don't have a location so hard to say.

I rout the weight relief chambers once I've carved out the back and know how deep I can go. It would be embarrassing to rout through into fresh air! Starting with the lower wing, I started with a No 5 Stanley plane: Then started the curve with my Veritas pull-shave Then put my newly acquired Ibex thumb plane into action. They are diddy and quite expensive, but they are brilliant! That's got the bulk out. Tomorrow, I will deepen the curve, then start on the upper wing. Finally, I will smooth it all off with a swan-neck cabinet scraper

None of them, a set neck is a glued neck up to the closest pickup, in general, so close to a bolt-on neck that would have been glued instead of bolt. This is the typical classical and acoustic dovetail glued neck, but on electric instruments, the dovetail is almost non existent due to some lack of wood.

Ah memories. Been a resident of the same London borough for nearly 3 decades now. Got me a 12 string acoustic from there in the days when my view of bass guitar was err.. for folk who couldn't play proper geeetars. Oh how the mighty are fallen! 😂

If you fix the copper leaf, you might get a similar effect to sanding by rubbing lightly with printer/copier paper. It should leave a brushed witness without tearing through.