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Do love a Sherwood Green, this is supposed to be a 61.

I really feel all you Puny Humans should bow down to the best headstock ever. Your meagre efforts make me smile with pity Behold.......

Probably got as far as I can go at this stage. Other than applying the finish to the neck maple (which will darken and amber it a touch) and fitting the trussrod cover, this is now pretty much just waiting for the hardware. Just for @SpondonBassed : The Osmo has come up nicely. Just one more slurry and wipe with 400 grit and then two more very thin applications wiped on with kitchen roll has given just the level of sheen I was after: The pickup rings will be properly lined up when the final install is ready to be done but this sort of gives the vibe: It's not over until, etc, etc, but I'm really pleased with how this has turned out

For me, this one has a nice vibe🙂

I forgot about this site! David Neely (Hollywood) did this refinish, for me. Lake Placid Blue fretless Yamaha BB5000 (1987 Taiwan). I have two white MIJ BB5000s.

TESTERS REQUIRED for a Virtual Bass Bash The sort of thing I have discussed with @jebroad and @ped would be like an interactive seminar. Ideally we would get a couple of people to present something, either a product demo, or a technique, or a workshop tour from their mobile (that would be cool), or just "show us your bass", and then there is an open forum for people to ask questions. I think this could be quite fun, and we could run them while in lockdown. The technology will work, what we need is a bunch of folks willing to see how easy they found it to use. Ahead of a proper VBash, I'd like at least a dozen willing volunteers to try it and see what they think of using MS Teams. Lots of options are available, and everyone has their favourite, but I had to pick one that I know will scale and is free, so this was it 🙂. If it doesn't suit, then we can change, but we need to actually run one first to see what the pros and cons are. I have the team set up, and have tested it small scale. The proposed date for this test, or two dates if we have enough interest are Friday 3rd April - in the evening Saturday 4th April - late afternoon or evening If you're interested then please PM me with an email address I can use to invite you into the team. Also let me know what device you would intend to join on. I'll then invite you to the team, and post a list of participants here, without the emails obviously. (If you want to maintain anonymity or separation of concerns then just set up a new email address for this. I set up [email protected] just to provide separation from my main email account) Cheers all, Rich

Can you suggest a more affordable alternative? Chamois? Parchment? A page of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

It’s all about connecting what you see when you’re playing to how it sounds. The more complete that connection, the better you will improvise. It’s not a book recommendation but here’s my tips from (now past 30 years, playing, that came as a shock when I counted!) You need something to improvise over. Jamey Aebersold play-alongside, loops from something like GarageBand, (I was going to say other musicians but that’s out!) because when you start it’s vital to hear how the notes you’re playing sound over the chord. Start building a library of licks. Many musicians turn their nose up at licks but these are the building blocks of improvising and are valuable pointers to melodic ideas. Develop your ear. A wise person once said “you’re paid to think fast, not play fast!”. This ties in with the first point of relating what you’re hearing to what you’re playing Be specific and structured when practising. It’s all to easy when you start improvising just to noodle, which may sound good in isolation but over a proper piece of music it rarely works well. Take a basic standard or a blues and improvise using only two notes. Get as much mileage as you can out of those two notes. The move onto just chord tones (and be disciplined to stay only with chord tones, it really forces you to know what the chordal harmony looks like on the bass If you hit a note that sounds bad, stop. This seems counterintuitive as when performing you’d never stop playing if you hit a bum note. This is practising and you need to explore why that note didn’t work in that context. Then work out how you can make it fit (every note can fit somehow!) Take melodic idea you like and work them out. Transcribe if you can read/write, or just do it by ear. The most important thing is to learn how to play the idea freely. Then see if you can adapt that idea to a different chord or progression - the beauty of improvising is that often just changing one or two notes in a line will make it fit over a completely different chord. Avoid starting ideas on the first beat of the bar and the root note of the chord, at least when staring out. Bass players are hard-wired for root-5th so you need to break out of that mindset as most melodic content is nothing like a bass line - unless it is a bass line, of course! As you get better, try playing ideas that go through chord changes. A sign of a less accomplished improviser is someone who stops each time the chord changes. A good exercise to develop this skill is the continuous scale exercise: start at the lowest note that first the first chord, then play 4 notes per bar/chord. When you get to the second chord, keep ascending and go to the next available note from where you are (it’ll be one fret or two frets). Keep going until you run out of notes, and go back down again. It forces you out of the root on the one mindset, too. Conversely, develop ideas that have wider intervals. Many bass players tend to play very scalar lines, one note aft the other, whereas more interesting ideas have larger intervals. Practising exercises using thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths, especially if you start inverting pairs of notes e.g. in C, play a descending major 3rd on (E, C) followed by an ascending third in the next scale tone up (D, F) and repeat: E, C, D, F, G, E, F, A, B, G, A, C, D, B, C, E and then back down again starting from the same high E. Develop phrasing. This means singing an idea and playing it. Try taking a breath between phrases - if your struggling to breathe then the phrase is too long. Think of it as a conversation rather than a monologue! Learn some Charlie Parker lines. You can take an 8 bar solo from a standard and it’s like study in its own right - he came up with so many great melodic lines, and you’ll get a thorough grounding on chord tone playing plus bebop scales and chromaticism (again, it doesn’t matter whether you have any theory knowledge; it helps but it all about the sound of a line) If you really don’t like a style or genre, don’t bother with it - use your valuable practice time on stuff you do like. Quite a bit above references Jazz but much of it applies regardless of style. Remember however there are little gold nuggets to be had in any style Finally, start slowly and precisely, don’t rush playing or fudge the timing. You can play a wonderful solo with just a few notes and impeccable timing and feel; but it’s all to easy to be too busy or vague rhythmically, and even good melodic ideas will fall flat. Less is more! Hope this helps!

Compact and shiny compact and very shiny Compact and matt finish Compact and Old Smoothie!

Drop a teeny drop of water off a pin or nail tip into the dint. Get a piece of cloth and wet it in a small area. Put the dampened area over the dint. Apply the tip of a hot iron to where the dint is. Don't hold it there more than a few seconds - you don't want to scorch the wood. Repeat a few times. The wood that's been crushed will expand to try to return the its original form and, with luck, completely refill the dint back to its original level

Officially the happiest song of all time.

I'm am retired. For all of my working life I was an Occupational Psychologist specialising in the assessment of intelligence, personality, aptitudes, motivation, values, in HR settings such as recruitment, development, mergers, succession planning. I've assessed people for a huge range of jobs including Astronaut, Assistant Chief Constable, mortuary assistant, canning line operative, warehouse packer, sales, and umpteen managerial positions. I worked for various consultancies, and then myself. I retired aged 50 and, for a few years, was heavily involved in developing and trialling race yachts, as a semi-pro racing crew. Fully retired from everything now. Loads of time to play bass to my usual mediocre level, and write bad poetry.

Fancied a bit of anger!

The Daddy of the Ray's my 77.

I'm an unashamed fan of great pop music. This one always puts a spring in my step.

One of my hundreds of happy songs and posted here because I was listening to the album earlier tonight.

Love the shape of a thunderbird headstock with its gorgeous trim.... And I've heard them get some stick on here, but I'm also a fan of the g&l headstock......

The old (larger) Smith headstock is one of my faves, I love it.

Got some new patches up; here's a taste:

Holdsworth himself said that he was ok with 20%of those that listened liking his music. Me - I've loved his music since Soft Machine and Gong. Main problem with Jaco was the pale imitations he inspired.

Well that escalated quickly. Good job I didn't mention the dirty knife

Just joined this forum and wanted to say 'hello' to everyone! I'm a late starter at this game - always wanted to learn bass but never got around to it until now! At the moment I have a short scale Harley Benton (sometimes you think you might like to learn something then discover it's not for you - didn't want to spend too much to begin with), but I like the Sire Version 2 Marcus Miller P7 with its precision body and thinner jazz style neck. I am learning with a pick at the moment, but think now after a few lessons that I'd like to learn to play without the pick too.

I’ve decided that I’m going to do another neck thru build with a slightly different body shape I’m thinking of doing an Ice Tree Veneered top on it left natural It’s probably going to be Sapele neck and wings again possibly stained black I haven’t decided as yet I’m thinking black hardware would look best and maybe an ebony fretboard???🤔

I've played Sax on and off since I was about 12. It was always my "proper" musical instrument and was the one I learnt to read music on and learnt musical theory too. I was quite successful, playing in a few bands but had to give up just after university having lost my front teeth playing Rugby and although I always played Bass from about the age of 14, playing the Sax was some thing I really missed (I was always better at it than I was on Bass!) I had to stop playing Rugby a couple of years ago, so decided to try and re-learn the Sax. I've recently landed a Baritone Sax gig which I'm really enjoying, so I guess I can say I'm half-way back to being a Sax player again. Anyway, here is my collection: they're all Mauriats (don't remember them existing when I first played) and are super quality and very easy to play.

Simple, but effective 😎

Then you need new glasses, not less basses.

A few weeks ago I bid on and won this handsome Farida Jazz bass off ebay for a princely sum of £128. I have played on one in the past and thought what a nice bass it was but being more of a Pbass player I've never really looked out for one. But I spotted this for collection reasonably local so had a punt on it and being the only bidder, won! After putting much needed new strings on and setting it up is plays fantastic. The neck is so comfortable, the finish is excellent as so is the whole build quality. Now I know exactly nothing about these basses. Where they're built, body woods etc. and how good the pickups/electronics are (although it sounds pretty good to me). I did replace the BBOT for the Gotoh bridge just because I had one knocking around. The only 'downside' is that I can't get the action as low as I'd like. As the base plate of the new bridge is thicker it's resulted in the action being slightly higher. The E string saddle is as low as it'll go. But aside from that it's still very playable and if it bothered me that much I'd simply put the old bridge back on. So if anybody else has one and replaced pickups/electronics or made any other mods I'd be interested to hear what you've done. Overall I'm pretty chuffed with my purchase.

The King & Queen of sound....it must be STUDIO ONE! Happy Friday 😎

Cos I got it for 40 quid 2nd hand! Plus... what's the fun in that?!

The LB100 is another Leo gem, shame they aren't recognised as such by the masses. I've not tried any of the Tribute range of basses but do own a couple of Tribute guitars and they are very good.

We just watched Beverly Hills Cop. During one scene, my wife (being an ex pro dancer) jumped up and started dancing to the below track (without breaking her leg or any furniture). My two boys just sat there with their mouths open, then burst out laughing, in unison, loudly. It did make me laugh out loud as well....Happy times. 👍

Here's a few from the collection: Buttercream Blueflower and a cheeky Telecaster one:

Also lots of Northern Soul Classics, there's just something eternally hopeful about the genre. I had a major cut back of the bottom of the garden yesterday after not being touched for a few years, it was on list of stuff to sort in the summer but now seems like a good time. I had a bonfire yesterday evening to get rid of the waste and had a little shuffle around the garden by myself to some tunes like this.

Normally when you try and compare two basses people say 'yes but different woods, different finish, different fingerboard etc make more difference than the pickups' So here's a way to show how the 60's and 70's spacings sound very different ON THE SAME BASS! Sadowsky have a pickup with switchable 60s and 70s spacing. Watch this vid. The text is wrong, but the first sample is 70s, the second is 60s and finally a parallel mode. As you can hear, the positions sound quite different!

Dare I say it, but I’m a bit of a closet fan of Haircut 💯, and I like this tune 😀

This for me but it only really works in context

I can confirm this to be true ...

Tune....

And following on from that, here's an interesting earlier (1967) version of Dawn Penn's 1994 hit!

I just thought I’d share this version of Poor man style , and at 5.11 it’s barrington Levy ,which he released around 1982, he’s always been top of my list for vocals, such a cool tune and a really nice Bassline to play.

This often gets cited in "worst headstock", but to me it's perfectly functional, minimalist, and sculptural

Hi All, Here is a small gallery of my basses ... hope you'll like it