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Right, photos time. My Stanley Clarke.

Stock is dictated by how much the shop buys in and it’s policies on selling - they prob have loads of Fenders in stock - doubt its a fire sale They that have paid ‘full fat’ have likely done so in the knowledge of other prices but wanted a specific spec/finish/colour etc. Used ones are great value precisely because of the quality. Yes they take a hit from new to second hand, then it plateaus shame for other quality brands outside of Fender (which is what most people go for) G&L, Schecter, ESP, Yamaha etc. Doubt half the customers are not happy with Delano’s, you have your experience and that’s fine, but I would think it’s a gross over exaggeration. I think most Nordstands I have played have been utter Gash - still a good pick up. There are other options of pick ups available from the manufacturer - may cost you more, but if for example you do a Shuker build course and want to install a pick up he doesn’t normally order/have a deal with - that costs you more as well, or you buy it yourself. Time for Sandberg to up their game.....🤔 constantly tinkering, subtle changes, brilliant QC, innovation about the best customer care you could ever ask for - when a company is emailed and asked where they can buy a tuning peg which broke on their second/third hand Electra (budget range bass) because they dropped the bass - how many Owners of the company would reply personally and send for free. I think other companies need to up their game

This is my non educated view...though i do have a materials engineering related background so it makes sense to me... Strings vibrate when you pick, strum, etc... They vibrate at a frequency and are held between the nut/fret and bridge. Everything else in the instrument acts as a mass damper absorbing some of the frequencies produced by the vibrating string. This in turn affects the vibrating frequency of the string to affect the tone of the instrument. Simply put, the materials that make up the instrument take away from what’s Beijing produced and remaining vibrations is what’s heard through the pickups.

Just got this feedback on the book from a new 'friend' on Facebook. 'Rob Palmer just so you know 2 years ago I was playing a week in Greece with the great Kirk Lightsey when I was reading it and I end up giving him the book. Kirk was a very close friend of P.C. and he fell in love with your book... this is the best proof your book is extremely valuable. Thank you for doing such a great job '! Warms the cockles.

Orion is a very comfy set-neck ride

I did a Version of Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of gold. What do you think? Cool or blasphemy?

I thought the body needed something so I decided racing stripes are the way forward to tie in the black neck and headstock I've decided at present not to use the pickguard............... Just waiting for the paint to dry then its time to get it all back together....... 😀

I'd use whatever the manufacturer says is good for bass fishing

An alternative, more visually pleasing approach would be to tie a large, colourful helium balloon to the headstock. The more neck heavy the bass, the bigger the balloon. Thunderbirds generally need a giant rainbow coloured unicorn. 😎

It’s the bass equivalent of going outside with no knickers on.

Many builders offer a choice of pick ups and charges apply according. Marusczyck do and you pay for the different pick ups as per the price it costs them. Having a ‘standard’ spec is pretty normal for a bass builder and if one decides that they want different pick ups it’s not up to the builder absorb the cost same way shuker will charge you for what they don’t normally carry as their ‘normal’ options. Lets remember the likes of Nordstrand pick ups in an Ibanez it’s very possible Ibanez wind those pick ups in-house to Nordstrand spec? It’s not quite the same as Sandberg or any builder offering pick ups from various manufacturers who have their own operational costs, individual overheads and bottom line to make. If one were to buy a Fender what pick up choice do you have other than what comes as standard on that model? Even with the latest up grade to custom shop pick ups. It’s one choice per range.

I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

A lot of these sub sonics come from the percussive element of hitting the strings. When you pluck, before the string is released, it moves over the pickup at a slower speed than a freely vibrating string would, as it's attached to your fingers. If there was no filtering whatsoever in the entire signal chain, you would be able to see the cone move just by wiggling the string slowly over the pickup.

Still can't believe I snagged my Basic 4 for about tree fiddy. Must be the name - not many people want to spend big coin on something called a 'Basic'!

It's in the diary, my first time @ a bash!!!

Here is my latest build. The Brooks Telebird. It is my take on the legendary Fenderbird that was built by Peter Cook for John Entwistle. However I decided to combine the characteristics the Thunderbird body with a 51 P (aka Telecaster bass). The specs are as follows - Two piece Swamp Ash body - Allparts Maple 51 P neck. Bolt on - Vintage blonde finish - Jess Loureiro 51 P split coil pickup - 34" scale - Tusq nut - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop. Nickel - Matte black single ply pickguard - Gotoh GB528 lightweight tuners. Nickel - Allparts push/pull Volume pot - CTS Tone pot - Silver reflector cap knobs - Telecaster jack cup. Nickel - GHS Brite Flats 49-108 I'll post pics of the build process in several answers below.

Yes a bit of googling provides an interesting read! It would appear that a single string can't produce anything lower than the fundamental, but a combination of two notes can produce a tone lower than the fundamental of either. This is called a 'difference tone'. A good example is the power chord on guitar (root + fifth). Because these frequencies have a ratio of 2:3, they generate a difference tone with half the frequency of the fundamental (ie. an octave lower). Apparently this is why power chords sound so fat.

Tell Hölger you heard he was rumoured to introduce a colour called ‘September Sunset’

Here we go - managed to track down the original post:

I've been using these for the past 3 or 4 months on Fender type basses and I'm really enjoying them - I moved over from exl220s (40-60-75-95). The difference isn't massive but the lighter gauge is preferable for me and there's plenty of bright twang if that's what you're looking for. I've been shopping around but picked-up a few sets at about £18-19 including shipping

"Babooshka" came up on a thread about great fretless basslines, and one kind soul directed us to a No Treble article with a transcription of John Giblin's sublime performance, so I've been trying to get my fingers 'round that. I'll see if I can dig up the link and share it on here. Anyhoo, it's been a good challenge for my fretless intonation, as it's not often I find myself having to play up the dusty end in E-flat. Definitely a good workout for the ears!

Get that old 'dodgy kebab' alibi in first 😈

Damn you're good at this. First you have me on tenterhooks then you start reeling me in

Sorry, did I say fishing line ? Of course I meant my patented (ahem) ToneConduit music tether. Want to know why all the session players use it ? You'll be amazed at the answer !!

Sorted, bought an Ibanez SR500 of a fellow BC member. Thanks Stuart!! Off to find an amp!!

You forgot the 'unboxing' part!

Here's an early Tokai Jazz (c.1981?). Originally fretted, the bass has a small issue with the truss rod so a few years ago, while the repair chap had it on the bench, I asked for it to be converted to fretless (now has a nice Indian Rosewood board).

As the list stands- all room costs plus some extra for food and bits are covered

Excellent news ...I was struggling to find the time to read the pdf you kindly sent me. Now I have ordered a copy you get to splash out spending the massive royalties on a debauched life style, and I get to read it without lugging my laptop around. A win/win I believe!

I paid £300 and spent the rest on vodka. My bass looks as good as anything out there after 1700 quids worth of vodka.

Fresh off the plane. One for flats, one for rounds.

Maybe the amplifier/speaker working more efficiently alters the tone, like it’s more honest with the sub muck removed? I tend to use processing when mixing songs that removes stuff below 20hz - makes a huge difference to the look of a waveform. Certainly makes compression work betterer.

Really like that and it matches the film clips really well. The harmonic touch at the eye close ups was nice. Cheers for posting. Dave

This is great, thanks!!

Neck dive? What's that?

Why not tab plus ? Normal rhythm staves joined to fret positions

Move from anti-gua to pro-gua? I must admit I always thought that finish was just a bad sunburst. I am now traumatised by seeing it applied around f-holes. It's a sort of 'dirty sanchez' for guitars...

Check out the other threads about it and see what ‘we’ think 😉 I had the first one (or one of the first) in the country by all accounts, sold it and brought it again.

Sounds like you've really thought this through, and hopefully it'll be a winner. I'd deffo rock up if I wasn't 500 miles away. One suggestion though - you could make the set list and chord charts available in advance, rather than hand them out on the night. That would give people the chance to have a noodle in private before turning up to play. Best of luck with it!

Some really interesting posts here. this is what I'm attempting so tell me if I have this right. I'm trying to do two things, get a community of musicians together, people who have gigged and are winding down a bit and people who are working up to forming bands. Giving them a chance to network and to make music. It's got to be open and welcoming but giving people the stage time they want. Above all it is about playing in a band, there are plenty of acoustic nights round here so I'm clear I don't want solo acts, apart from anything else that's only one person having fun. For the pub and audience it's got to be entertaining and attract an audience, a good atmosphere and lots of customers for the beer. So it's got to be reasonably slick and organised. I going with a house band, someone has to play if no-one turns up or rescue the evening when everything goes **** up. Apart from kicking off the evening though they are there to play for any singers and support the other musicians filling in for incomplete bands and so on. I'm going to look for another bassist so I can do front of house and work the desk. I've filled the first session with friends, some decent singers from previous bands who'll do a session with the house band and a couple of bands who'll do four or five songs each. I'll end the evening with a jam session of another four songs to make people feel there is a chance for them to join in. I've got a set list for god's sake. Is this too controlling? I'm going to try and have chord and lyric sheets there, people can take them away and learn songs if they want or join in and at least know what key it's in. I'll collect any details from any musicians who turn up, fit them in if I can but try and book them in for future sessions and offer short showcase sessions to any local bands who fancy it. good ones invited back. Beyond that I'm expecting to have to adapt to whatever turns up on the door. I want to try and keep it to 4-5 song slots to keep the gap between acts down and give people time to enjoy playing. It makes no sense to me to get people up for two songs, have them warm up and then have a break only to call them back an hour later to spend five minutes re-tuning and adjusting the drumkit. I'm hoping it's going to be busy enough to let me run a book each month and keep the musical standard up. I'd really like to see people having their first band experience here but I want to attract the best musicians I can and keep a proper live audience coming back. I wouldn't expect good musicians if all they hear is c**p. Lot's of ideas on this thread I'm going to copy, and I don't expect plans to work out exactly or even roughly but what do you think?

Shielding May be an issue, but if it goes when touching the bridge or strings that may well be a grounding issue. Believe it or not the shielding will be really easy to do yourself, and you don’t need to disconnect any wires. if you unscrew the pots from the front of the bass (normally just a nut and washer) the pot and wires can be fed back out. You don’t need to unsolder anything and I would probably leave the jack in place. Now you can get some copper tape and line the whole cavity. Regarding the ground wire - there needs to be one from the bridge - if there isn’t one, one is needed, if there is one it may have come loose, so it may take a while to find in the birds nest! That pot at 6 O’clock has a blob of solder but no wire into it from what I can see - that may be the culprit. Sorry I am not near you to help!

John Hall is looking well 🤭

Good choice on the Rumble. I was a little alarmed to see people recommending expensive, powerful stuff to you. Whilst the advice was sound, I felt it might be overkill for the requirements you set out in your original request. If you do need to make more noise and like the sound your Rumble makes, you can always add an extra power amp and cab at a later date, or even buy another Rumble and link them. Have fun.