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Fixed so as to correspond with your avatar.

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...

Not sure whether our Contour 'look' qualifies as organic but here's our darkest offering (rosewood). http:// Lots more pic's on our sponsored Basschat topic. scrumpymike aka Gillett Guitars Sales & Marketing Manager

I pictured you slowly screwing a silencer onto a pistol when saying that 🤭

Fantastic blog (as usual)! Brought it all flooding back. Great idea to be using some of Richard's talk for the next podcast. He was so entertaining. Disappointed at the poor quality of your photography this time though. The photos of Jack are fine, but those ones of that bloke in the blue shirt with the camera strapped around his neck. I remember him being much more handsome in person! Shame about the photos of Paul too, there are some subjects who are too much of a challenge even for the greatest photographers! 😂

Awesome funk from George. And the upright great Christian McBride. His funky fretless playing is just superb especially the solo. No lines on that Atelier Z...

Body is all cut now! Just going to start sanding and rounding off the body.........

Thanks guys for all the nice comments... if i ruin this now i fell like ill have let you all down! So the fretboard and body panels are now all glued up! yippee so ive been getting on with starting to get the inlays into the neck. scrapey scrapey.... The first wave took me about half an hour to get in, and based on the fiddly nature of some of the other bits... im guessing itll be a 6 - 8ish hour job alltogether. im really enjoying doing it though, so im going to spread it out over a few evenings and take my time. my missus is overjoyed and really likes sharing the kitchen counter with all the wood shavings. meanwhile, i managed to get the first cuts done on the body panels after they were glued up. (only the cocobolo is glued/bookmatched, the wenge is one massive slab!) not weighed them yet, but just carrying those pieces around made my arm ache... so theres a hell of a lot of material to still be removed before this thing is at a reasonable weight. also big thanks to andyjr for the tips on gluing up the cocobolo, ended up doing it with some ultra strong araldite, and it seems like that worked pretty well... again my missus was overjoyed at the smell of me mixing up epoxy in the kitchen. she is a very patient woman. also meanwhile, my electrical maestro has been hard at work with the CNC, and got a first test board for the preamp milled out: this just being the first mockup, its just done on a spare piece of the board. the final one will likely be long and thin, and use 2 dual op-amps instead of the one quad op amp for the benefits of packaging. also worth bearing in mind the idea is to get the circuit board printed by a company on the final one, its likely we can make the whole thing a little more compact with some clever design. im really looking forward to finding out how this sounds. once we've got the test board put together, the plan is to remove the ACG eq-02 preamp from the purple buzzard, and hook this up to test as the new bass will have the same MEC humbuckers. this will let us make the adjustments so it matches up well with the actual pickups that will go into the bass. speaking of which... they arrived yesterday! very exciting. (the missues is even more even more pleased that she keeps having to get up and sign for packages while im out of the house) the plan is to use the spare pieces of cocobolo from the top piece and make up some book matched cocobolo pickup covers for these, with that nice dark bit of wood grain running down the centre.

Hello from France, and sorry for my poor english. I've just register on the forum in order to give you a few advices. I'm a specialized teacher working with pupils who have severe learning difficulties, including dyslexia for a lot of them, i've starting playing bass last week, and i suffer a very mild dyspraxia, enough to make playing guitar or any other instrument more difficult. Well, dyslexia... I can only give you advice on the "reading letters" side, but there are things you can transpose to reading music. A few ideas : - bigger pages (a3 instead of a4) - larger fonts (16, 18 or 20 instead of the basic 12) - larger spaces between the different notes of your tabs/sheets - larger spacing between the lines (on your tabs or music sheets) - (much) larger spacing between the different parts of your tabs vertically At least, start with photocopying the sheets you give them on a3 papers. It would be a good starting point. For the colors, as it's been said, it's different for everybody, but you could start with one line of your sheets/tabs = one color (choose contrasting colors), or at least alternate between two colors (a black line, a green line, a black line, a green line...) and the same thing for the notes/numbers (from left to right, one black note/number, one green note/number, one black note/number, one green note/number...). The colors i give are just exemples, ask them what color they are most (un)confortable with. If it's not enough : - if you're using sheets : one note = one color - if you're using tabs : one number = one color If possible, avoid red, and maybe yellow. It's not directly dyslexia related, but some of those pupils have a condition, not always detected, that makes it very difficult for them to "read" some colors (nothing worse for them than trying to read red letters on a yellow page). To sum up : SPACE, CONTRAST, and MORE SPACE again, since they need "stability". A part of dyslexia (not the only one, and not everytime) is that letters (and notes, i imagine) seems like they were mixing / escaping. Have a look at this, it will take 3 seconds, and you'll see the things differently : https://gfycat.com/classichardinsect My two cents, and only a transcription of what i know about the "reading" side. But i'm pretty shure it could help. There is an Open Office addon called "lirecouleur" in french : in one click, it adapts any text for dyslexic people (spacing between the letters, the words, the lines, bigger fonts, different colors for every letter / syllable / word / line, depending on your settings). It's very, very, very usefull, it can make miracles - not always, but it can. A lot of my pupils couldn't read without those adaptations. I have not much IT skills, but the developper explained it's been very easy to code, since it automatizes really simple multiple tasks. My guess is that it wouldn't be really difficult for someone with coding knowledge to do the same thing with "guitar pro" or any other sheets or tabs software we use (including the "ultimate guitar" interface). That would be really awesome. Sorry for the long answer, the poor english, i hope it'll help you or anybody who'd read this. Au revoir 😉 Gael

That's enough of an upper body workout for one evening! Starting to get there, though:

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.

Had this for a few weeks now after acquiring it in a trade, just been sorting a case for it! I thought my trickfish bullhead was the holy grail amp, then I played through this and was totally blown away! I've done very unscientific comparisons and the trickfish gets close but is just a little bit dryer in tone and less articulate compared to the warmth, girth and clarity of the Hellborg. I tried the bullhead into the power amp which did sound very nice and gigged the preamp into the bullhead last week. But its the combination of the pre and Poweramp that really is something special. Yes it's heavy, but not that heavy it's unmanageable I think probably 24kg without the case. Sounds great with the trickfish cab and it looks very cool. It's also has a nice tube like feel when playing through it, almost like a nice subtle compression. Now to decide if I should keep the trickfish bullhead .5k as it is a marvellous amp!

You are - of course - entitled to your opinion but I would in all friendship counsel you against expressing it in public. The consequences would be insupportable.

If it helps the first time I played it I had a similar face on, ten minutes later I was in heaven.

Amused we are not.

Yep another Christian McBride vid. I love Redman's sax playing. Nothing flash just KILLER groove bass playing from McBride on that Jazz bass and ahhh some open strings he's using.!!!. Drum and bass alone at 10.00 minutes..

As it should look...

Of course, I’m not wishing to blacken their name, I was just interested if anyone had used the option. To be honest they worked really hard to try and make it work. In the end they said they would put back the strings for me until next week when I get paid and still honour the bog off offer. That is superb service in my book. Rob

It's the string winding on the D and G strings that let that one down

Easy, a combination of money and unrealistic expectations.

Let there be frets! Frets I tell you, FRETS!

No. Great bass that.

Lovely work there! Thank you!

Seven, it's seven crows that are needed, in most instances anyway...

The long-awaited blog is finally HERE!

Wow, look at you. so important that even your chair has a stage!

She's beautiful. Very intelligent and just the right amount of naughty. Here she is with her fave 'big ted'

Not if that is what you want to do. There were a few periods of life where I didn't touch an instrument - its not compulsory and sometimes the desire just isn't there.

Some great replies here, especially from Gael. As well as being dyslexic my boy is also dyspraxia, though probably not as severe as some children. However, like the new character in Dr Who, he does have problems riding a bike! Not good at catching a ball either. With regard to the coloured paper, many dyslexics now wear glasses with special tinted lenses, like my son, Many opticians now can help greatly with dyslexics, so it might be worth suggesting to students they talk to an optitician. Rob

I don’t know, I’ll just go and count them! Sorry!!!! Spelling was never my forte, neither was typing on iPads!

How many crows do you need?

I did! The link to my “Road to Easterbrook “ album in my Bandcamp Page is there, and there is a video within the gofundme page. I tried to think of everything!

There will never be a better music video than this,

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

It's well looked after

Just realized I’ve subconsciously constructed a cheap version of one of the fantasy Maruszczyk I spec’d on their website!

Personally I really like the headstock. I was referring to the stringing in my earlier comment.

No, you hard of hearing fool, we're doing naked spaghetti macramé specifically to avoid being on the pace.

Excellent as always. Great pictures.

There’s a a bizarre theory among the Ric Partisans that the crooked pups are “meant” to be that way, and that the 1mm or so misalignment somehow enhances tone. If so, my straight pup is “defective”. If that tiny misalignment had any positive effect on tone, why is Ric the only manufacturer who does it, and why do they vary from straight to way off square bass to bass? No mystery here folks, no “ tone enhancement” it’s simple bad QC. Note also that the Tubeampoligy bezel has a straight opening, not crooked. Presumably they checked out a few pups prior to investing in injection mold tooling? I love Rics, that tone has no equal, but the QC issues are ridiculous. The clearcoat issue lifting around the bridge has been happening regularly since 2010, really, 8 years to not solve a blatant manufacturing defect? This is made all the more galling by Rics requirement that any warranty repairs must be done in the CA factory, with shipping one way at your expense. In the US, that usually works out to $100+, lord knows what it would cost from U.K. The finish warranty starts on date of manufacture, not date of sale, so it’s possible for your warranty to expire before you even get the bass if it sits warehoused for a while. Not surprised to hear they are just as divisive here as on Talkbass in the US. Love the bass, loathe the company.

I’m serious about the danger of gas - not playing but having nice basses is ok if you can afford it - it’s crap if you spend more time talking about basses online than you do playing

In fact, John’s uni pre has separate gain trim pots on the volume board to adjust the balance between them which is flippin’ useful!

Hi All, I hope this is deemed acceptable - I have run fowl foul of another instrumental forum trying to post this. I am trying to raise money to get my second album recorded. I have fallen on tough times financially just lately, having had to take up some 0 hour contract supply teaching. I won’t go into all the ins and outs- I explain in my gofundme campaign below. I have already made a start on my album, having recorded about 10 tracks. I’ve got about 4 more to go. I am not asking for something for nothing- any donations will enable to sponsor to have an album free of charge when it is finally completed. There is a lot of work to go- once recorded I will then need to spend some time mixing, and possibly adding the overdubs (bass and mandolin) that I would like on one or two tracks. I will then need some money to enable artwork to be completed and the whole project finally duplicated on to CD. As I say in my gofundme, if there is any money left over I would like to be able to buy an instrument again. Currently I am borrowing a Brook guitar from a very good friend, and an acoustic bass very kindly lent to me by a forum member. I have tentatively reserved some rather special wood at Brook with a custom build in mind, but this may not happen for another couple of years. Anyway, here is my campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/robbies-second-album&rcid=r01-154046240432-c9eceaff9a034c3f&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w And here is a link to my first album, to give you some idea of what is in the works: https://robbiej1.bandcamp.com/album/the-road-to-easterbrook-and-other-journeys Thank you for reading, Robbie

I used to have a VM fretless Jazz, and it was an amazing bass for the money. Actually, I now have an MIJ Fender J fretless, which is also lovely The Fender cost considerably more than the Squier (obviously) but IMO, it isn't 2 or 3 times better (not that I'm now complaining about the Fender - I'm keeping it, it's my "forever" fretless) I must admit, there have been times when I wish I'd kept the Squier - it was rather good Re Sire, I only recently tried one (admittedly a fretted version) and was blown away by the quality of build, especially given the 2nd hand prices I've seen some of them go for. So my only other suggestion was to maybe swap the electrics on a Sire - possibly with some second-hand passive pickups + circuitry. Then again, that may add some further cost into the equation..... IMHO, a decent 2nd hand Squier VM is the best option I've seen. Again, you could upgrade the stock pickups (though the ones in mine were OK) Let us know what you decide, and good luck with your search EDIT: As ezbass suggests above, the Vintage fretless is another option. I did try a fretless one, and was impressed - though I do recall it being quite heavy compared to the Squier

Another day and another old Fender collected from Si! This was our third transaction and as always, dealing with Si was a pleasure. Top man who knows his vintage basses and is highly recommended. P

Get yer sampler out! 😁 Lovely looking bass...