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I have just finished my latest bass build. It's the Brooks Grabbird. This bass combines the 1964 Gibson Thunderbird II with the 1973 Gibson Grabber. It features a nine ply neck through construction just like the Thunderbird. But with strips of maple veneer in between the mahogany, instead of walnut. The nickel covered humbucker resembles the pickup of the sixties Thunderbird. But the sliding mechanism in the raised middle section refers to the Grabber of course. The shape of the headstock echoes the Grabber headstock, but the ebony veneer on top is a nod to the Thunderbird headstock. The shorter headstock and the Ultra-lite tuners make sure it doesn't suffer any neckdive! Specs: - Neck through with figured mahogany body wings - Nine ply mahogany/maple neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Cherry gloss transparent acrylic finish - Rosewood fretboard - Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Handcut bone nut - Three ply white-black-white pickguard - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge plus tailstop - Spokewheel trussrod - Sliding Thunderbird pickup nickel. 9.2 K Ohm - Hipshot ultralite nickel plated tuners - Volume pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Tone pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic SRT - Kemet capacitor 47 nF paper insulation - D'Addario Nickel plated Roundwound 45-105

So she's all back together......

So finally got the bass back from being wrapped. I’m sure it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I am a Batman Fanboy. It was wrapped by a company in Oxford called Vinyl Revolution and I can honestly say they were an absolute pleasure to deal with. They have wrapped the pickguard to match the image but also wrapped the same image underneath in case I ever want to change the pickguard for a clear one. I supplied the image(found on the internet.) They did the rest. Cost £115 + VAT. It’s obviously cheaper if they just supply the wrap and you do it yourself. I think that was £30 + VAT to produce a wrap in an image you supplied but I’m not that patient or handy to fit myself lol.

Well after my disappointment with hand problems after playing my recently acquired 4003, I decided to move it on and invest in something a little more familiar.... I tried out a new Fender Original Series P Bass finished in a lovely Aztec Gold today and decided that I'd pony up for it. I wasn't massively sure about the colour when I first saw them online but in the flesh it's beautiful. I already own a couple of P Basses including the Original Series 60's model, but this one is different enough for me to justify owning it too (honest!!) A bit of a tweak and adjustment at the bridge and it's good to go.

Neck is sanded and fretted. The first attempt at fretting was a bit of a disaster and led to me having to plane down the fretboard (necessitating a redo of the inlays as well) and start again. It all seems ok now and has left me with a slightly shallower neck profile which is a bonus. I usually do the logo with a branding iron but as this wood will finish up quite dark it's not ideal, so instead, I forced the branding iron into the wood with a vice, making an indent, and put silver leaf in it. It's not perfect but I'm pretty happy with it for an experiment. I'm now using epoxy putty to try and make an accurate neck pocket template. I've attempted this once before and it worked pretty well, so it should be fine. I still need to wind that second pickup, but it's getting there!

This is an absolute disgrace. Any fools knows you keep the tumbler at the rear when travelling. This is why he has to sprag half way through to keep on target. In effect he is tracking the machine in reverse. If a track was to snap the tumbler could drive off it and then he'll be stuck with a job to get it back on. F**king amateur. Makes my blood boil

Not as straight forward as this then

So after a fair amount of faffery with GuitarGuitar (who actually have extremely good customer service!) I finally now have the full and complete matching rig in hand! And it is a MONSTER!! I've had more rigs than I can count over the years, but this thing is obscene. The volume is astonishing, I got it up to 50% volume on Thursday at Mushroom Studios and dared not go higher as I could feel the vibrations in my lungs (and I'm not joking!) The tone is simply stunning, deep and clear with crisp articulate highs. The ONLY downside is that it weighs 240lbs all in which I can forgive as the build quality is utterly flawless with no expense spared on build materials. I don't see myself moving this on ever, I wouldn't know where to start to get something better/comparable. Truly a remarkable rig, definitely need to keep up my weight training to move this one about!

Just re-visited some old Doobies and realised how much i love the simple but wonderful bass line on that track from Tiran Porter, who was on the 2nd album Toulouse Street and subsequent albums I know the vid isnt live, just the track playing over the top, but Tiran is sporting a T Bird and wondered if that was the bass they recorded Toulouse Street with On a side note, Tom Johnston is one of my all time fave male crooners

Made a template for the controls cover And I though of a solution for securing the pickup frame without ruining the clean look. I drilled holes for tiny magnets in each corner. In the back side of the frame. And I would place screws or carpet nails in the middle section of the body for the magnets to snap onto. Cut the slot for the top nut Prior to staining the body I used pore filler because the mahogany has very open grain. When the grain filler was sanded flush I stained the bass with a waterbased bright red colour by Clou. After the first layers of clear coat acrylic it looked like this I applied the water slide decals After many layers of acrylic and lots of sanding in between A friend of mine has a laser cutter. I sent him the design for the pickguard and the logo. He cut it out and engraved the flame logo for me!

Drilled the holes for the bridge studs Drilled the holes for the tuners Center piece almost ready for glueing the wings I had a nice slab of curly mahogany for the wings. First I glued the lower wing. Then the upper wing. No pics of routing the control cavity in the lower (sorry) Cut the rough body shape to get ready for the router to cut along the template. I have no pics of the planing of the wings to make them taper (just like the Thunderbird wings do) But here's a (not so clear) pic of the taper in one of the wings. You can see I had to fill up the gaps between the wings and the template because of the taper. Routed the body shape

No I haven't , but I did modify my JCS a bit. Inspired by the first generation of the Les Paul Signature bass

I'm about £100 into this and it's nearly finished. Just some light tarting up and adding the stop ends to the feet and the wooden end cheeks.

Setup sorted for the foreseeable future!

Your basses always look like what Gibson should’ve done in the first place. Brilliant.

I grew up on Tin Pan Alley, so the standards are ingrained in my soul. I 'know' every likely number that is called, but my bass/music skills (lack of talent) are such that I can't just jam along without the chords. The 'feel' is not something I struggle with though, having listened to that stuff all my life and also having played sax in various jazz outfits. Since I'm not playing jazz sax in a band at the moment, I do noodle to the Hal Leonard jazz series stuff. I've got a small stack of those books and I love the bands that are on the recordings. They play in the most supportive way, obviously. The great advantage is that the books cover all the instruments, including bass, and the recordings are with or without top line or keyboard and bass. This way, I can listen to the basslines which are laid down really elegantly but in a no-nonsense way by the professional guys on the recordings. You don't have to buy the books - there's plenty similar on YouTube. One of the things I do is look for saxophone versions of standards like these on jazzbacks and then I add my own bass.

Or anything by Oscar Peterson with Ray Brown on bass. Jazz and walking in its purest form.

Goes to show how different people react differently. Me, I was mainly impressed with her incredible musicality and precise timing. How she dealt with this was very good, and I am gonna ask her to marry me, but that timing...

somewhat unintentional...but they’re all MHS

Reinvention. It's funny, isn't it? Man has reasonably successful bass guitar business making copies of guitars made by another business, sells out, starts another business doing pretty much the same, then enters into business doing the same again, then resurfaces again doing pretty much what he started out doing in the first place. It's almost like this from Red Dwarf: Kryten : It's the old story: droid meets droid, droid becomes chameleon, droid loses chameleon, chameleon turns into blob, droid gets blob back again, blob meets blob, blob goes off with blob and droid loses blob, chameleon and droid. How many times have we heard that story?

Feeling a tad chuffed with myself tonight so I thought I'd post on here (because my wife doesn't really care). I got a call from a guitarist I knew yesterday asking me if I'd stand in as bassist at a jazz jam night he was going to this evening. I've never really played Jazz in a band setting before, though I've been listening to a lot of contempory stuff lately so I thought why not. This is very much out of character for me, I'm normally pretty introverted - shy and reserved and dont do anything unless I'm well prepared / rehearsed. No idea why I agreed to this. Anyway, already feeling way out of my comfort zone I rock up tonight and get informed by aforementioned guitarist these guys used to be the house band for a local Jazz club. Anxiety levels shoot through the roof, here am I this imposter who's been playing for just 4 or 5 years or so in low key rock cover bands now having to hold my own with these guys at 24 hours notice and no practice time. I set up and they throw me a book of what must have been 100+ numbered chord charts and started calling out numbers. And that was it, we were playing, no prep and no song played twice. 2.5 hours later we finish up, I lost track of how many tuned we actually played but I was exhausted. I've not had to work that hard in a long time!! I had to keep things really simple just sticking to roots or basic arpeggios. If I tried anything more complex I'd lose myself on the charts but I survived it and it was an amazing experience. The guys were a really lovely bunch, really warm and welcoming and no judgement on my playing and numerous mistakes. The drummer even commented on how much he liked my tone :).

I like it! I can see that in black or gold like a Les Paul, or sea foam green for something a little different.

No problem Andy. Send me the specs and I'll make you a quote.

Great player who seems to know how to devise bass lines that just work. Not too flashy, but always spot on in my opinion. He can make simple sound like an "art". For example, the track "Taking It To The Streets" from the album of the same name. So simple, and it works beautifully.

I thought the Musical Box were far more authentic the times I've seen them. When I last saw Hackett it was basically a bunch of guys playing Genesis songs, but not really sounding exactly like Genesis, although in both cases it may depend on who is playing in each band. I'm afraid that I always prefer authenticity when it comes to my favourite bands. I don't want to hear someone playing Supper's Ready unless it sounds EXACTLY like Genesis. Although just to muddy the waters I prefer the Seconds Out version to the Foxtrot version, probably because I heard it first. To me, it has far more power and emotion.

Just bought a stunning SR1205 Premium on a whim and plugged in this morning. Absolutely blown away by those big singles, can’t wait to get it in a band mix next week. If all works out well I may look for another. Can I join the SR club? 😉

I was doing fine.......and then I saw THIS!!!! I have 7 Jazz Basses I don't need another.... I'd replace that pickguard with a cream or mint green one though. https://shop.fender.com/en-GB/electric-basses/american-original-60s-jazz-bass/0190130872.html

@LukeFRC @Stub Mandrel Frequency of comments: I am very appreciative of the fact that users of Basschat UK took note of us small builders from Vienna and raised questions, which in turn gives us the opportunity to make our point. Thta said, as much as we are trying our best to stay on top of things happening online, we are only a small team and we've got basses to build, so we don't have the physical resources to monitor and comment on everyhting about us, so please don't be too harsh on us on this count. Also, some posts, such as on Youtube or FB, can be commented on in passing while others would need a quiet weekend morning to consider and respond to. @binky_bass @prowla Union Jack: My sincere apologies. We changed the flag. I hope the one presently on display gives no further cause for complaint. @BigRedX About the headstock: - Is a straight one cheaper to build than an angled one? - Yes. - Is a straight one less prone to snap one day? - Also yes. No leverage working against one's beloved neck. - Is a straight one "better" for sound? - My desire to keep replies short and simple may have gone down the wrong way with some, so here's the long version: We take neck stiffness extremely serious. Our headstock is thicker than the conventional standard (routed at 17 vs. customary 15mm), we leave extra wood under the nut as pictured in my earlier statement above, and we also shifted wood from the neck pocket bottom to the neck heel (neck heel thickness 28 vs. customary 25,4mm) so that the neck screws have some extra stretch to "bite" into the neck (if done properly, the screws are never supposed to "bite" into the neck pocket bottom, otherwise you won't achieve direct coupling). Why all these efforts to make the neck thicker, while leaving the playable stretch as thin and comfortable to play as everyone is used to? A tuned 4-string set exerts a tension of 1000 newton (100kg). The neck spans 2 thirds of the scale length and its cross section measures only a tiny fraction of the body's, so in terms of wood, nothing matters as much as a good, stiff neck. We consider a strong, present, resonating growl the most important sound property in a bass. Others may have other priorities, we don't judge, but strong and well-defined output is ours. That's why we went to great lengths to develop our own pickups which generate 1000mV output (as opposed to an average 300mV of pickups with comparable passive design). Without the support of a solid, stiff neck, a strong pickup is of no use. We found that we could implement OUR sound intentions best in a bolt-on, straight headstock design and that's that. Sceptical anyone? Of course you are, you've never heard of us before. Whoever wants to try our sound and building quality, you can do so in Vienna, New York or the comfort of your home, as we offer a generous return policy, you'll find all info on our front page. @wateroftyne @binky_bass Headstock shape: You may have a point, I have to say interest notched up notably since we introduced the short headstock and even more so its matched version which we offer without extra charge. Generally speaking, it really would have felt wrong to us to be the 100th builder with a 4-left headstock just slightly different from 99 others for trademark reasons. We felt way more comfortable with 2-left-2-right and our distinct bite, but here's a question, how would you go about "offering a more traditional headtsock"? @Skybone Here's our take on custom: in many people's minds it is tantamount to handmade, not in ours. We never pinned "handmade" to our chest. By contrast, we consciously bank on means of digital production (and transparently say so), thus yielding the benefits of consistent quality, cost and time efficiency, and it also enables us to explore new ways of applying artwork to the bass guitar. That body surface together with the pickguard is a big area. We are trying to make something of it in our secret menu for those who want options beyond our configurator. Here's a glimpse on what comes out of it. Quite a number of orders come into being by way of the ASK US A QUESTION button at the bottom of our configurator. People make use of configurator options as much as they are avialable and then hit this button to ask us if this or that can be done beyond their selected configurator choices.

I don’t like matching headstocks with maple fretboards but it works so well with rosewood.

I said be nice!! There’s no need for that kind of language!!😀

If you're bringing your mother I'll leave it at our shop - it's a lovely garden centre near Ludlow...

So today’s the day I pick her up!! Beyond excited!!

Here's a selection of wiring looms 😉

In all fairness, "the day" was nearly 50 years ago.

proper update

I use a 1x10 with a drummer, and another 20 brass and reeds players too. No no issues at all.

Most of those who write the ad copy and so forth don't explain it because they don't know what it means themselves. The larger the company the more likely that is, as the engineering and marketing departments tend to not be in the same building, if even the same country. If you've read anything Alex posted here in years past it's obvious that what's in his literature he either wrote or approved, so with BF you're getting it from the horse's mouth, as opposed to the other end.

And to think ........................