Leaderboard

I had nothing to do with it, honest! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49856320

After trying various strings and not being 100% happy I’ve just fitted La Bella low tension flats to my sandberg TT ,and they are great, i have to wind the tone back for what I play but the brightness is there if I need it ,and in passive mode it’s sweet, it took a while and a few quid but it was worth it 🙂

Beginners don’t have that confidence If they get it wrong it sounds dreadful and many or even most will give up. Make it easy for them to sound good. Using a tuner is a good crutch and it’s not an imprisonable offence Even if you sound rubbish to a practised ear just doing your exercises to a simple drum beat is a good confidence boost. Metronomes are valuable but sap the soul and confidence of a beginner. I think sometimes we forget here what it’s like to have zero confidence, knowledge, experience and guided input and adopt a very 1930s attitude to learning. Make it fun and confidence-boosting and more people will stick at it

Since the demise of my regular slot in the rock band, I've been dabbling in a bit of mainstream jazz and latin stuff - trying to get a handle on walking bass but not finding anyone to give it a go with me. Actually, I did, but after saying they wanted me to play with them, they then wrote back and said they had no drummer so it was a no go. Hmmm. Anyway I went along to play bass at the local jazz jam. Very low key, low stakes stuff. Turns out that night there was nobody else on bass, so I had to cover the whole evening straight from the chord charts. On the strength of that I got asked to be the 'house band' the following month, do a dep on a gig last Sunday, to be the bass at the next jam and to join a jazz band as bassist. Shows you can fool a lot of the people some of the time. To be fair, I know the repertoire inside out - but as a listener, or a saxophonist. I'm less secure with all the walking bass patterns - I'm sure the low riders in the audience are cringing. But the drummer at the dep gig said how much he enjoyed playing with me - so there's that. I think the point of this is that I got over the imposter syndrome for a moment and made myself just do it.

Not a gig as such, but I did do a three-hour slot on the independence march here in Edinburgh yesterday playing snare drum. I had a strong sense of irony though. I've spent rather more than I want to think about on bass gear and lessons and I'm still looking for a band. By contrast, I was playing an el-cheapo drum I picked up for 20 quid on fleabay. It was held on with a £2 belt from Primani as I was too tight to buy a sling and I had to jam every tune as I hadn't heard them before - and at the end, the band were very complimentary about my drumming and asked me to join them permanently. Funny old world!

As usual, unusual skills non understood by usual people. Don't try this at home or you'll quickly know you have no ears nor skills. Sarcastic or angry : no, simply realist and so tired. It's brilliant playing and approach of the most difficult instrument to play music with.

That's... different!

Seen those fingers, they are not like my spring rolls, or your giant geetarist - but they are not princess and the pea!

First line of my CV there, ahem...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Quality-Prince-Eyed-Bass-Guitar-Free-Shipping/183967018152?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140725135229%26meid%3Dcba7ff87e8a740d7baa40478353a1005%26pid%3D100278%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D153671484645%26itm%3D183967018152%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2060778&_trksid=p2060778.c100278.m3478

I don't mind hosting a blindfold test if Gary wants to sit behind the curtain again. It's been 50 weeks since I've heard any Kansas bass lines.

This is worth reading - https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2015/04/15/solving-bass-hum-problems-grounding-vs-shielding/

Got the speaker baffle done today, it went quite well, if not a bit noisey for a Sunday afternoon, what with all the routing involved! I need to drill the holes for the front baffle to locate and hang, and I need to get some of those T-nut things for fitting the speaker, as that's what the bloke at Vintage Blue does, I thought I'd follow his example, he looks like he knows! http://vintage-blue.com/products.html

Hi mcnach , it’s these ones 🙂

Yep - we wont do them. Our singer can set them off without a PA!!!!

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They are 042, .056, .075, .100 , i found the tension slightly lower than the la bella deep talking , but certainly not floppy ,they have a similar feel to the stock rounds it came with ,only smoother 🙂

Cab now filled and sanded. Felt glued in and ready for painting.

You won't last long with an attitude like that!!! Repeat after me...."more is better, more is better.." 😉

Thanks for the reminder Wilco!

Yeah, but they play, sound, and look great!

I have to say that a fretless is a different instrument, for me at least. With fretless I have a feel that I think about the notes and the chords in a different way. It is very good thing: most of the time my playing is more simple and closer to a foundation type of thing. Well, fast jazz is always fast no matter which instrument. Congrats to you @petedfretless is an interesting journey.

She is extremely skillful

Likewise. I keep a list of all the basses I've owned over the 40+ years I've been playing (and there's been a good few - well over 100 at the last count) which I'm still adding to. I tend to have a pool of 5-6 basses at any one time, a couple of which I've had for a while, and probably wouldn't sell. Occasionally I make a modest profit, but I usually lose a little bit when I move them on. I just view it as the cost of having the pleasure of owning and experiencing some wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful) instruments for a while. Like CamdenRob, I know what I like, but that doesn't stop me trying new things. Some people drink, some gamble, some chase women, so where's the harm?? :-)

I’ve lost money on pretty much every bass I’ve bought and sold but I don’t regard any of them as a mistake. OK so I may have lost a bit of money, no one likes doing that, but I’d happily have paid what I’ve lost in total upfront, for the knowledge I now have as to what gear works for me and what doesn’t 😊 I just regard the money lost as the price of the journey.

I've ditched my rig and gone down the IEM route, my rig is now a Stomp and a wireless IEM set up. If you get yourself some capable in ears - the obligatory ZS10's have 4 drivers each side, 2 of which are dedicated for low frequencies - you'll still get the weight of a rig, just at a much more comfortable volume, at least that's been my experience. And even if I say so myself, my rig that it replaced was a very capable set up! The quality of the models in the Stomp are virtually indistinguishable from whatever they're modelled on, the few models where I've used the physical version are so close I suspect few could tell them apart in a blind test. I've been through my fair share of drive pedals over the years and IMO the Stomp beats many of the analogue pedals that I've tried. No longer do we have to put up with fizzy, thin sounding Sims. The drives have the weight, colour and touch dynamics of the real thing. Add in the ability to use crossovers and clean blends, not just walk th drivers but with everything, and you have an infinitely configurable unit. The amp and cab models are excellent too, I've not had hands on experience with some of the amps that have been modelled but they do sound like a real rig to me. The SVT model has that low end sludge and top clank of the real thing. Last night I gigged using the Cali 400 model, the gain was set so that when playing normally the tone was clean and fat but digging in increased the saturation and gave that chewy, rich, compressed edge that valve amps give when pushed. All this at a volume that doesn't make your ears ring or put your back out when lugging your gear around.

Single coil P-basses have replaced Peavey as a passion of mine. Apart from looking great,IMHO, they sound great with flats or tapes. Another passion of mine 🙂 After trying various single coils I came to the conclusion 1 sounds pretty much like another. Bit of a blow that,especially when you like tinkering. A thread on another forum, (No Love for Telecaster Basses ?), has been a source of fun and inspiration. It was there I heard folks mention the Dusty Hill custom from Seymour Duncan. $140 + shipping + VAT and import duty ! To a fella who thinks all single coils sound roughly the same !! Madness !!! Not that mad,I knew there'd be a solution 🙂 I'd swapped the £8 single from China (very nice) back to the Bloodstone 51 and was enjoying the bass . Still had the 28K Dusty Hill niggle so got in touch with David at Bloodstone to see if he fancied making one similar. David was up for it but warned me 28K on a single coil was a big ask.Knowing nothing about making pickups, I told him Id leave the details up to him.He did explain the problems, wire gauge vs available space/gaps between coils. Only input I could give was Id heard the Duncan was bigger than a standard single coil and since I was yet to cut the body there was no fixed size. David had some 28mm alnico 5 slugs from another project then set to work. Projected build time was 3 weeks but it was done and dusted in 3 days 😎 Work hampered the new build so it went in the pine slab yesterday,sunk the pickup cavity by 10mm. It's a monster !! Not fitted in that photo,next to the 51 so you can gauge the size. Wired in series to keep it simple,Dusty's has series/parallel & tapped options Does the fella who thinks all singles sound alike still think that ? Give me a week and I'll know for sure 😀 ps David was brilliant. It was over my head but he kept me in the loop so at least I felt I had some part in it. Length of time to build,communication and the price were all fantastic. We have some great people in this country and I reckon we should look to them first.

As promised: NBD! I love the bridge pick up! It's an absolute beast! Was initially overpowering the P which was completely unexpected, but after tweaking pick up height they seem nicely balanced. I'm new to 5 strings, it needed a fair bit of setting up (still does), there are some sharp fret ends above the 12th, and the strings are beautifully gunked up with some other guy's skin, but...with a bit of love, I think it could be a thing of beauty. And of course, the picture:

Quite surprising how many templates I've ended up for these mini basses whilst trying different things out!!

This is a board I’ve put together in the last few weeks. A board for all occasions was the cornerstone of this set up so;- Wired or Wireless > HXFX > backline or Wired or Wireless > HXFX > backline > DI to PA or Wired or Wireless > HXFX > Bass Fly Rig > PA The HXFX does a cracking job of covering all the effects I need & is a very easy to read tuner! 😆 The board is a Pedaltrain Novo 18 (with flight case) It is powered by a Strymon Ojai R30 & I have got to give a big shout out to two BC’ers for helping me out with this; @obbm for making an excellent current doubling cable to connect the Ojai to the HXFX (two 2.1mm outputs into a single 2.5mm input, centre negative polarity) & @Jack for responding to a thread I posted & pointing me in the direction of obbm in the first place.

Here they are :

This must be some sort of disease... This is already outdated 😳🤪

My new pride and joy : the only Noguera Yves Carbonne 8 Fretless right handed...

Launching Basschat

Evening all, Last night, I fulfilled a long held musical goal of mine; namely, I attended a clinic held by Jeff Berlin at GuitarGuitar Glasgow. It was something of a drive to get there from Northumberland, being a 300 mile round trip and faced with torrential rain on the way back, but I would do it all again. I hope that I can collect my thoughts here to advise my fellow bassists on why I found this clinic so enjoyable and informative. First, a small precis in which I will explain how I ended up here. I have played bass since I was 13 years old, though when I was about 24 I hit a short slump and picked up a guitar. I never enjoyed myself like I did on a bass and I felt the urge to go back to playing bass. I had always loved the music and playing of Jeff Berlin and I knew he was a respected teacher, but I knew little of what he taught and advocated. I felt like I needed to really change the way I looked at my own playing and what I could do to improve and I ended up seeking out information on the way that Jeff taught. I felt like my playing had hit a plateau for years ago, and despite transcribing ever-more difficult pieces, I felt like I wasn't getting any better or worse as a player. At the age of 27, I picked up the bass again and began to follow what Jeff would refer to as 'music only' education. Following that, I took strides forward in my playing and improved at a rate that I hadn't done since I was a teenager. It was both a musical liberation and rebirth for me. In time, I came to chat with Jeff online and I took part in his reading course and the conference Q&A sessions that were held for the first to buy into that course (which taught me to read music, perhaps my biggest musical failing). Jeff became a friend and I knew that, if he ever did come to the United Kingdom, I would go and see his clinic or show come hell or high water. So, enough about my own journey to this point. I went to that clinic knowing what to expect, though what I want to do is put you in the shoes of one of the forty of fifty people there who perhaps didn't know exactly what they would hear. Entry to the event was ticketed, but free, and was sponsored by Cort guitars. Jeff was funny and warm, breaking the ice and putting everyone at ease. I could feel the room relax as he started talking and he was the perfect host. Although the venue surprisingly did not have any chairs to hand, we were all happy to remain standing and we did so, utterly captivated for around 90 minutes. Jeff kicked us off with a solo piece, asking the audience to name four notes. He then proceeded to improvise a beautiful piece based on that four note progression and he would refer to that four note phrase on a number of times when he played. When he clicked that chorus pedal on, I could not help but grin. The tone and the playing was sublime. I felt as though magic was happening in front of me. Further on through the clinic, Jeff played 'Runaway Train' from his 2000 album 'In Harmony's Way'. He later treated us to an improvisation on a theme from Beethoven's 9th, which had me floored. However, Jeff did not make his playing the focus of the event. Instead, he invited members of the audience to take a seat next to him and would ask them to play something. What followed was straightforward, honest advice that measurably improved the playing of everyone who came up. As Jeff advised and corrected each player, he would ask us in the audience if we could hear an improvement in the music being played and we all replied positively. I appreciate that it must be nerve wracking to sit in that chair in front of your peers to be critiqued by one of the luminaries of our instrument. Like I said, Jeff is so warm and friendly, so adept at putting the student at ease, that every player quickly settled down and started to improve. In focusing his attention on that player in that moment, Jeff demonstrated the sound academic principles he has so long advocated and how they can reap reward for anyone who follows them. As the members of the audience continued to come up, Jeff held two demonstrations that were paticularly impactful and really had the room engrossed. He invited a lady up from the audience who was not a musician and had her take the Cort Rithimic bass provided for the guests. Jeff had her play an E in straight quarter notes, demonstrating that everyone has a sense of time adequate to become a musician. Jeff improvised a piece over her bass line and there and then, not only did she become a musician but she was backing Jeff Berlin in a clinic to a room full of people! The highlight of the educational side of the clinic for me was when Jeff called up a guy who been playing for 25 years but didn't read music. Jeff called for someone to grab a load of sheet music from his gigbag. It was in fact, package 1 of his five part reading course (he did not mention this in attempt to make a sale but I think he could have done so, as it is a great course). Jeff then asked his guest to identify the notes on the page, if he could, and as they worked them ou together, the guest played two bars of his first etude read from the page. As per a show of hands earlier in the clinic, there were a lot of non-readers and rockers in there. I looked around the room and there were smiles all around me as this guy played slowly, out of time, as he read each note. Every mistake was addressed and corrected and the guest had just read his first music, in front of a crowd of strangers. I am not lying when I say that the room was on tenterhooks between every note and you could have heard a pin drop. The round of applause that followed was utterly heartfelt. I left that clinic feeling better about myself as a player, inspired to continue reading, inspired to continue trying to improve. I am sure everyone there felt that same inspiration as me. This really was a clinic for everyone, as there was no barrier to entry. It wasn't just for academic musicians, jazz or fusion players. There was something for everyone; advice that transcends your level of playing and cuts to core of what is at the foundation of being a good musician. Therefore, I would recommend players of all genres, of all levels of skill and experience, to seek out these clinics where they can. Following the event, my brother and I said hello to Jeff. He recognised me from the chats we had had online and asked me why I hadn't introduced myself sooner. He signed the back of my Cort Rithimic bass and we took some photos. I will post these below. I am holding my Rithimic and my brother is holding his 1991 Ken Smith BT5. My brother is also a big fan of Jeff Berlin and a huge fan and supporter of great music in general, so it was really cool to go on this trip with him. I would like to thank Jeff for putting on a really great clinic and for being a gracious host, Cort guitars for sponsoring this clinic tour and to GuitarGuitar Glasgow for giving us an excellent venue. [

I’ll come along with my Kolstein travel EUB, ex Clarky, ex Dave Swift. Plus a Genz Benz combo.

Thanks, I'll have a rummage in there. I've tried blasting them through the holes in the back of the pots with switch cleaner and wiping the pots from end to end and that gets them working flawlessly for a time, except one which feels a touch *gritty* so I think the track on that one is truly spent It would be much easier to tear into if I got that other bass, because I'm dependent on this one working to play it.

Oh good, at the time it was just a hypothesis that OBBM could do it better than the current doubler>polarity inverter>size adapter ridiculous combination that everybody has to use. There's plenty of stomp users that would benefit from the neater solution. Pleased you're happy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there were copies in the early 70s. This from a '72 catalogue: Never seen one in real life & this is the only catalogue appearance I'm aware of. Not really a lot more accurate than the Eastwood - the Rick style tailpiece is curious.

Bought a Micro Pog from Paul. Arrived safely here in the Netherlands. Very friendly and quick communication. Pleasure to deal with. Thanks Paul!