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I’ve had this for about a month now, it’s a seriously amazing bass. With the exception of a very brief period in my first year at university, I’ve been playing six string basses for at least ten years. A lot of the players who influence what I do are playing fives tuned E to C, so I thought I’d try it. Apart from a bit of jazz, I mostly play solo stuff, which this is perfect for.

Never heard of them before, no idea why. Superb playing, enjoy!

I see this years Download turned into the usual mudbath, why do people go? massive queues, way overpriced drinks, sanitary conditions that would shame a 3rd world country, miles from the stage ( and if you do get anywhere near idiots think it's good fun to throw pints of fosters) and iffy sound depending where you're standing, and that's before the lottery with the weather. I wouldn't go to Downpour of Glastonbury if you gave me a ticket. The only reason I'd be there was if I was playing, and that's about as likely to happen as finding a sub £5 pint of watered down lager

Back from a week in the Scottish Highlands. 7 hour drive back but the first thing that I saw, despite being completely kn******d, when I opened the door was @TheGreek 's bass and it made me smile Today, I've been stripping back the test stain and doing the full stain on the neck, followed by a couple of coats of Danish Oil. It'll take a couple more to fully seal the wood and the stain and then I will 'satin' it with a very light slurry-and-buff. Then it should be just a case of transferring the electrics, polishing up the frets and reassemble. The plan was to stain the neck to a similar depth of colour of the unstained wood body with a colour tone different but complimentary to the top and back. In that the final finishing will soften everything a touch and the neck will end up the same satin look as the body, I'm quite chuffed with this. What I'm particularly pleased with is that - certainly in real life - it looks more like a well cared-for original rather than a full blown contemporary makeover. Excepting last minute surprises, ETA is that it should be all sorted before the end of this coming week.

I think this is beautiful.

You only need one guitar??? Doesn't that depend on how long you want to keep your fire going?? Go on...chuck another one on...

Is their sound or what they play? If it was just their sound you'd able to tell from a single note, but I bet no-one here could identify any bassist from a single note, so the note choice and phrasing must be equally if not more important than the sound itself.

Done my first gig in 20 years yesterday, outdoor stage at a local Highland games festival, doing some covers. Strange sort of experience as the weather was very, very windy, cold and the audience was about 50 yards away in a beer tent. Still, done now and we have a gig a month over the next 4 months, so it might just be worth doing.

None. I need food, water and air. Everything else is an indulgence. You only need one pair of shoes, one jacket, one knife, one fork, etc. Who lives their life like that, though? Soon, we’ll all be dead so do what makes you happy and don’t worry about what other people think.

I got this from @stewblack I hope he doesn't mind me using his 'before' pic: This is the non-active version. read any review of a 1A and people will say 'I use it with the active switched off', because these basses come from before the days of active-optimised pickups that sound weedy when used direct. It's definitely a bass, the old strings sounded dull, I replaced them with new Elite Stadium stainless and it sounds much nicer but still doesn't sound bright. The output is very high too so I suspect these pickups have LOTS of windings - they have a reputation for sounding more like a precision than a precision. I haven't done much: Generally cleaned it all, including the crud off the fingerboard (acetone) which I then oiled. Most cleaning was with 'grip filth' wipes although it wasn't very dirty. Lots of dings and varnish worn through in a couple of places. Took the bridge and knobs off and eventually got the lacquer off with an overnight soak in nitromors. Then pickled in vinegar and salt, then brasso, then Windsor and Newton lacquer (which will come off with white spirit). One intonation screw was snapped sort so i replaced them. Evidence of a different bridge before the old one put back. The three non-brass screws seem to be replacements for sheared off screws so teh brass-colour ones i put in as replacements woudl only go in at an angle to avoid the stub of the old screw , ho hum! Added a couple of straplock buttons, then fitted the elite strings. I could see the marks from where the bridge used to sit, used these a a guide and took little effort to get decent action and spot on intonation despite rather worn frets. Bootiful and a lovely blast from the past.

One more than I currently have.

It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever have 3 Mustangs in the pack again, so for the brief period that this is the case I thought I’d grab a quick pic...

Some patches for you (in attached Zip) Green is based on Mike Dirnt's sound in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwVKj3whFcs Duff Slap is trying to get a tone like Duff MCkagen circa Velvet Revolver Blood FST started out trying to be a sort of Royal Blood thing but then went a bit 'Satan's fairground Organ'/'Choir of Angry Robots' DrFkenstein is basically the sound of 1970s blacksploitation movies. And some Guitar Sounds too! Stangry is an attempt at ST Anger Period Hetfield Gun is a Slashy cocked-wah solo tone. There are screenshots of Zoom Guitar Lab for each in the folder too. Have fun!Basschat.zip

middle aged is young to me

Not a Spector design but this is by far my favourite super Jazz with Aguilar pups and pre:-

Erm... Worried now It is very white though

Peter Hook is pretty unmistakable

Spectracomp - cheap, unobtrusive but gives that nice fatness

I think it was his "Compression 101" post - https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/30431-is-a-compressor-of-any-real-value-in-fast-rock-music/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-1148269

Update on this work of art! This pic is from a while ago, only just got round to putting it on here. The bass is really taking shape. Chris and Al doing a great job!

@Bobby D has 3 preamps with DI’s for sale on here right now, one being a Sadowsky......

This looks great. It's a very similar colour to my SB465, both the top and the staining.

Tech21 DP3X is the nuts. You want cheap as chips and bombproof 1st Gen Hartke VXL (normally around £50 second hand) with great sounds, Not my cuppa but some of the Darkglass pedals have DI outs - out of all of them the AO is easily the best. Two Notes LeBass Aguilar Tonehammer For a straight DI box you could go REDDI or Khan to enhance your sound. My vote is the Tech21 DP3x for having it all in a tiny package, so good I think @Dood did 2 reviews on it!

Pete mentioned above about checking out Gary Karr (highly recommended) Somewhere on YouTube there is a video of him in his front room playing the Rachmaninoff piece, 'Vocalise'. I think it's the last of the romances he composed (14 in all). It's stunning. Very moving the way he plays it on the Bass. I believe he was 73/74 when he played it and still had his chops together. A couple of wobbly bits, but a lovely sentimental performance.

Tort on black works for me, but then so does white pearl. Only one thing for it.....fight!!!

My much loved mojo machine. Not much of the original finish left on it.

It’s why I love the Rebellion Festival - 200+ punk/Oi bands over 4 days, INDOORS! All stages have decent loos and the drinks/food in there whilst not cheap is ok, and being smack in the middle of Blackpool town centre all your regular fast-food establishments are within easy walking distance. And they say us punks/skins are the stoopid ones!

Must be a young persons thing. Not for me either. Dave

Saw them on that tour at Glasgow. Was hugely impressed by Max Webster. Bought the album and their bass player was a great player as well as a bit of a showman.

I'd completely forgotten about this Max Webster ('Flex Lobster') track. I saw them supporting Rush at Hammersmith, they were promoting A Million Vacations. Good band.

I think coffee table legs on this bass might be a mod too far!

Beautiful job. I have a soft spot for all things Westone Thunder

I won’t argue with your points, but that tone is still that tone. It is a classic design but not without its faults and tonal limitations. The Hofner Beatle type bass and Gibson EB3 are also classic designs that are really not going to achieve the ‘suitable for any genre’ nature of Jazz and Precision designs. People don’t buy Rickenbackers, or Hofner Beatle basses and expect to be able to play them with the ease of say a Dingwall, Sadowsky or Spector or for them to deliver the same variety of tones. People don’t really buy Rickenbackers if they want a bass that is going to need to cover number of different styles or tones. They just buy a Rickenbacker bass because they want it to sound like a Rickenbacker bass. They are always going to be marmite basses and the way that they company operates also makes them difficult to root for on forums such as this.

I think I might have just solved the decent looking badge conundrum for us too

I dunno where you woz taught, but I woz always taught, a guard on a 'burst Jazz has gotta be tort!

Jean jacques-Burnel, the one, the only

Yeah, Danny’s tone is instantly recognisable. Pino’s fretless playing is also unmissable for me. Mick Karn’s is another. Perhaps it’s an unfretted thing.

To be fair, it is a signature model for a player who made his name (to the extent that underground stoner bassists who play tuned down to C can make their name ) playing the old style 4001s. It was hardly going to be a massive design change in terms of ergonomics and features. It is a bass designed for a specific player who really likes the original classic design. It is no different than the numerous ‘signature’ Fender Jazz and Precision models which are barely any different from Fender’s normal line of Jazz and Precision models. it is strange though that Rickenbacker have never ever bothered to try out an entirely new bass design. They pretty much found one bass design in the 1960s and have pretty much stuck it ever since, warts and all (and there are a lot of warts). Also, the green inlays are basically kind of an in joke on the basis that Al Cisneros smokes a lot of weed.

If it doesn't need to be specifically a Fender, the Lakland Skyline 44-64 Custom is a P bass with a J pickup at the bridge and a J neck.

I was on holiday in Minorca a few years back and this guy walked past me and said, 'You look familiar, I think I know you.' We had a beer that evening and tried to work out from where. We didn't live in the same area but after a few minutes, we both admitted to playing bass; turns out we both used to frequent the same rehearsal place in Lambourne, near Swindon and he recognised me from load in/out periods.

Haha, i just wear my 80’s jacket with the 3in shoulder pads 🙂

It’s got a chambered body which gives it a nice mellow tone. I’ve played a few of their basses in the past, I’ve always been impressed with them. Here’s a short video. I’ve got a broken little finger on my left hand here, so excuse the playing.

white as is, nice

"It's not mine...I'm just borrowing it..."

Check out the video the lad posted above. He's a youngster who obviously has no technical background. Looking back at this thread and the soundonsound one it's pretty obvious that every time he asks a 'simple' question he gets long answers that make him, in his uncertainty and insecurity, start worrying about other issues. I feel sorry for the guy, he's branded a troll when I can't help feeling its the '15" speakers are for discos' and 'you need to look at the SPL not the wattage' posts that are putting him in a spin. The Thomann boxes are ideal for what he wants to do, the only advice he needs is to find someone who will help him set it up to suit his style.

[b]Compression 101[/b] (ish) - or "The pestering has paid off".... Compression need not kill your highs, nor your attack, or lead to tone suck or mud, or be inaudible (although it can be inaudible and still work). You dont need a dual or multi-band compressor to do this (although it can be a mighty tool indeed in the right hands), and they can lead to overcomplication in my view (note the [i]can[/i], all you exponents of multiband compression). The keys to getting a compressor to work for you are, understanding what you are trying to achieve before you start, having the controls on the front of the compressor to achieve those goals, or being lucky enough to have a less tweakable device where the parameters you cant tweak are exactly right to meet your needs - doens thappen very much. First thing is to get a decent enough compressor to do the job. IMO you are best served with a comrpessor with all the controls (preferably with the right names on too), silverfoxnik's dbx is a great little table top unit, Joe Meek do a floor compressor with all the controls on (although they are named wrong, slope is ratio, compression is threshold), the Markbass pedal is the real deal too. Live you cn get away with a noisier unit, but you dont have to. IMO its really worth getting a rack unit (and a good one too) but if you cant, you cant. The reason is as much about what the metering on a rack compressor will tell you, and without it you wont be able to tell what the hell you're doing. You need to see the input level (needs to be enough and not too much or the unit wont be able to work properly), the amount of compression going on at any goven moment (you wont be able to hear much less than 6dB pf compression with a lot of settings), and the output (so you can get the level the same with the device on or bypass). And a single LED or 3 for eacjh of these is anadequate. Next, to really get the most out of a compressor you absolutely need a limiter as well. And I've never seen a compressor pedal with a limiter as well. So you want to change something and you think a compressor may help? Listen to your bass sound, ask yourself this, does the attack transient of the note vastly outweigh the bit if the note just after, is the level just all over up and down when you play? Is it that some strings a re louder than others (look at pickup heights and string gauges before getting a comrpessor in this case - then get a compressor if that doesnt fix it). Do you want to make your sound smoother (think tube amps, R&B phaaat bass sounds etc etc) or really groinky and agressive (Ramones, Stranglers) or thick and punchy as heell (Tony Levin anyone)? Do you play fast or slow mainly? Is your bass active or passive, do you change eq settings on your bass through a gig, what about pickup settings? All of these effect the settings you will need for a live compressor set up. Really! In a band setting if you can lift your average volume through the length of a note by even 2dB you will make a huge difference to how much you are heard. 3dB even more so. I am not talking about turning up your amp to twice the volume, I am talking about getting the sound from the bass to not decay in the same way, to increas the volume of the end of the note, to lessen the rate of decay of the note. Even across milliseconds of time this can make a significant difference in the audibility of your sound in a mix. Why? Because you are fighting against the big bad kick drum and the nasty snappy snare drum, and they are very voud for a very short time. And you play intime with them.... Compressor basics:- Ratio and Threshold TOGETHER determine the amount of compression. A low ratio and a very low threshold results in the same amount of compression as a higher ratio and higher threshold, but it will often be less audible. Aim to get a solid 3dB of compression going on to begin with (you may not even really hear this) Make up gain, use this to bring your compression level up to unity with no compression, switch the compressor in and out whilst you adjyst. Any time you change the ratio and threshold you need to fiddle with this. Attack determines how much of the initial transient comes through by delaying the compression - start off with it pretty open (at least halfway up the dial) whilst playing with the threshold ratio combo, then close it down until you hear it choppni ght eattack of thenote down. Now we have a stylistic/taste decision - if you want to be super smooth set it really short (note that too short may bring in some nasty distortion artifacts), if you want to be super aggressive open it up, BUT if you open up the attack with a big bunch of compression the make up gain is going to send the transient through the roof, watch your output level! This is why we need a limiter to control the attack too.... Release, determines how fast the compressor disengages. In order to allow the attack of the next note through the compressor must have disengaged, if you play fast and want a big attack then you need it to disengage quickly. Watch for pumping or distortion artifact sif it si too fast. If it is too slow you wont hear the attack on the next note. Start of with a couple of hundred ms and play with it from there. Knee - a soft knee compressor comes up to the ratio you set over a couple or 3dB below the threshold level, they sound far less obvious than a hard knee compressor, which may, or may not, be what you want. Practice setting all kinds of different sounds and learn what they controls do, run music through it not just bass and set up the controls on full mixes, just to learn what it does better. Train your ears to hear the compressor and setting it up becomes trivial, and then you get heard, win the best gigs, and all the lovely ladies will want to get to know you.... Simples!