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Wahoooo! I finally done a bass cover! I know it is not the best but I had lots of fun, I tried doing a few little things that juliaplaysgroove does at the start, of course i'm no where near as good as her lol. Hope you all enjoy it! Best to listen with headphones Hope everyone is keeping well and staying safe

Being a Foos fan and in a tribute band I’m pretty pleased to have Nate Mendels glorious Lakland Bob Glaub ( Pretender Vid 😁 ) with tour case and also his CTM300 head custom made for him. He ordered 2 and one was plenty loud enough so I bought his spare. Also have the prototype NM pedal, again 1 of 2 in existence.

What a faff these LEDs are!! This really is quite time consuming and you really have to be patient to get everything carefully soldered and lined up. I've got some fine multicoloured wire from an old SCART lead that is perfect for this job and a very small soldering iron. The LEDs are wired in pairs in series with a resistor for connecting to a 9V battery. All the LEDs are now installed in the fretboard. They're connected to a battery and I'll leave it on for a while just to make sure everything works ok before I glue them in which is the point of no return. As soon as I'm happy with these I'll glue the fretboard on and start shaping the neck.

I’ve still got my first bass , a Jedson bought in 1977 from a friend, so it’s older than that, and it still works although the jack socket is a bit crackly, it just hangs on the wall of my summerhouse now 😁

Plays amazing, looks amazing, sounds amazing and took a few years to save up for. And the paintwork is utterly destroyed so, as my dad pointed out, is pretty much worthless and I should take it all off and start again.

Although I bought and sold various basses until I found three I’m happy with, I still have the Hawk 12-string acoustic guitar I bought new in May 1968 from Papworths (The Music Inn as it became) on Alfreton Road in Nottingham. I subsequently hardwired a pickup, tone and volume knobs and jack socket - I took a brave pill before I got the electric drill out - but apart from that and the occasional new set of strings it’s still original. I'm sure among the more senior citizens on here there must be guitars or basses owned for longer, care to share details?

As posted on the Sandberg thread but I've waited a few days before posting as a NBD to give me time to have a good fettle and explore with this bass, and I'm delighted with it. Bought on here from WillGatesBass after a few weeks of returning to the for sale boards to perv at it. 6 months old, matt virgin white, sandberg pre and pickups. A shade under 4kg. It's beautifully put together and looks the absolute business. Controls are very sensitive, a little goes a long way. I love the shallow neck and the action is really low, makes it super easy to play. Can't wait until I'm allowed to play out with the band to try it out live. Also a shout out to Eurosender. Insured delivery in about 24 hours for less than £30.

This is from Reverb

I hope he`s successful in getting it back up & running, The Odds is a great little music venue, and Brett is a decent guy, knows how to run a good music venue.

I still own a 1960-ish Hofner Congress acoustic that was the first guitar I ever played. It was originally bought for my younger sister but she quickly lost interest so it came to me. Still plays nicely, and every so often I wonder if I should do some sort of sympathetic restoration on it. Maybe when I retire...

One of my favourites (RIP Manu!)

How do you know that I'm just an "armchair expert" and not someone with with a physics degree in the relevant fields? You don't. As it happens I don't have the correct degree, but I remember enough about physics from school to realise that most of the marketing claims about high-mass bridges are simply marketing claims and not backed up with real science. If someone does know the subject inside out is prepared to prove that I am wrong and back up their arguments with proper scientific facts to show it, then I'll be happy to be corrected. But, AFAICS there has been zero scientific fact to contradict what I've said so far. When marketing departments make up claims which aren't backed up with fact, surely it is the duty of those that know to call "cow poop". It's all very well believing the marketing hype, but you have to remember that it is the job of the marketing department to sell you stuff you probably don't need. I would say that if there is an improvement in sustain and a change in the clarity of the notes (note that I said change and not improvement here) it will be down to the fact that the engineering of these bridges reduces the movement of the saddles due to the plucking and vibrating of the strings, rather than the overall increase in mass. Of course it could just as easily be due to the fact that when someone swaps out the bridge on their bass they attach it to the body better than the original manufacturing process did with the original bridge. The fact is you simply don't know because the process has not been done in a proper scientific manner. Ultimately if you believe it makes enough of a difference to be worthwhile spending the money, then fair enough, but I would suggest that any improvements are negligible, and certainly in a band mix imperceptible.

I should have kept my Hofner President Florentine, and would snap up another if ever I come across one, but the longest-owned is 'My Old Lady', my Hofner Comittee, loving restored, bought from a tat-shop, Weybridge, for £75 in '69 or '70 (it's all so hazy now...). She had the headstock snapped off thanks to me carelessly leaning her in the corner of the room and an over-active nephew, but was made good as new again (or better...) by a fabulous luthier in Nantes (Alain Raifort...) over a period of several years..! I have many guitars and basses, but she is 'The Special One'...

I was lucky enough to grab this Ovation in the Sotheby's auction of John Entwistle's gear back in 2003.....

I’ve still got my first guitar. I paid £4 for it, second-hand, in 1972. It’s quite hideous but it got me started and we used it on our first DIY punk recordings. Once I’d saved enough to buy something better from the Bells Catalogue I passed it on to my younger brother. He did the paint job. Once I’d got a family he passed it back to me - one daughter is now a drummer the other a guitarist/singer so it still has a bit of magic in it.

We Are Family by Sister Sledge, possibly Chic's best album and in particular this little beaut. Check out Nile's nifty little guitar solo from 1.55. Also as usual the bass is always on the money

I should perhaps clarify, there is nothing wrong per se with temperature controlled irons. My worry is that people set an iron for the melting point of the solder being used. That is a recipe for a disaster as the iron cools immediately it touches solder and the work. Then the solder either does not melt OR does not melt fully. That joint would not be reliable. Although it is counterintuitive, a cold iron is more dangerous than a hot one. Also a cold iron can easily cause components to overheat as they are in contact for longer.

Why the rush?

Geddy’s book is bass is good for relics, loads of images and sandbergs as well. I decided to look at how I wear the bass, where I play it and carry it and how and do I think I would wear and tear it. So........Completely blank bass, I stained the whole bass (similar to what @hooky_lowdownsaid tea or if you soak wire wool in vinegar for 24 hours that solution produces a certain colour ) I used an amber and brown wood stain mix to get the colour of the wood, applying and sanding till correct after flaming the grain to bring it out. white primer, gold over I wanted gold to wear down to white, to wear down to wood. i used a mixture of heat/freeze, wire wool, sanding, stones and carrying it around to get this wear pattern. works for me

I was wondering how much love there is for Afrobeat 'round these parts? Not just the classic old school Fela Kuti and Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou and The Funkees and Tony Allen etc, but also the modern day revival acts like Antibalas, Vaudou Game, Fanga, Newen Afrobeat, Bixiga 70 etc? I used to play percussion in an Afrobeat / Jazz hybrid outfit and it was some of the deepest, funkiest, most life-affirming music I've ever been involved in. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Please share some of your favourites, old and new, if you're a fan of this stuff. Afrobeat, African funk and soul, highlife, anything 😎 The band that kicked off the current revival was probably The Daktaris. Martin Perna and co. recorded just one studio LP before evolving into the band that became Antibalas, but that whole album is killer! The video is the most boring YT video ever but the basslines totally hit the spot 👍 Vaudou Game are a great live band, I saw them twice midway down the bill at festivals and they absolutely destroyed it for the poor bands that had to follow them: The Budos Band's output varies a lot, but when they're on an Afro tip they totally nail it: And from France, Fanga. They often had Tony Allen sit in with them and, again, a devastatingly funky live act: Please if you're into this stuff feel free to add your faves to the thread! Cheers - Lee

We like music for different reasons, when we're broken hearted, doped up, in the mood for lurve, etc but what would you put on to really lift your mood. For me it's Manu Chao and Radio Bemba Sound System doing their thing live

Tung Oil, so nothing thick Appreciate the input, thanks!

Best Free VST Plugins ... DSK Music ... Vst 4 Free ... Well, I tried to warn you... (Stay away from Synths, though; three lifetimes won't be enough...)

This song - as I remember seeing them live at B'ham NEC in the 90's - spine-tingling live "I saved my money"

Longest-owned instrument is a Columbus SG copy which I bought used in 1980 - my first guitar. I'd been playing bass for two years when I got this: Nice, playable slightly better than budget quality Japanese guitar which I learned a lot with. That one's not mine - These are guitars with very slender necks & no volute, and bad things can happen when headstocks hit walls. This is mine...

Did a few things over the weekend, it is always surprising how many hours you lose “fiddling” about. - Input jack hole - Pickup routed - Neck routed The neck cavity is a perfect fit, although annoyingly I messed up somewhere and I need to route another 3mm deeper (not an issue, just annoying). Slowly getting there.... Question for @Jabba_the_gut and @Andyjr1515, do you reckon the fact the neck has square corners at the heel there could be a risk of the body cracking when the neck is installed/strings tuned to pitch? The solution would be to add a 2nd pickup so the heel pushes against the pickup, not wood. What do you think?

Wow! This one is a monster. Jeff Berlin's part for Land's End, a 10 minute 'epic' from the Gradually Going Tornado album. There are some very 'vague' passages int he middle around the piano interlude but, with a little poetic licence, you should be able to figure this out. Some monstrous grooves at various points in the performance. I remember trying to work this out in the pre-Transcribe days and got the first few bars of the 'funky' bit but, after that, no chance. It is a thrill for me to be able to put these things down later in life and to see what he was doing. Remember, this recording is now 40 years old so JB was about 27 when he recorded this (he is 67 now) and was probably the era's most technically advanced bass player. Things have moved on since then (he would be the first to admit it) but this album remains a major influence on mu electric playing. I have only one more tune to do before I have transcribed the whole album Lands End - Jeff Berlin.pdf

I've just bought my old bass back. I bought it new in March 1989, but used it to cover an outstanding storage bill at our rehearsal studio about 10 years later. I've always had the option of buying it back, and I finally got around to it today. Needs a clean and some new knobs, but it still feels like my bass.

For live gigs,. I've just changed all the intros to a click, hi-hat or kick drum, or a 1/2 bar intro. It mixes things up so it doesn't sound too repetitive, but still ensures the band have a reference. Then if it starts with a solo instrument, I either keep the tempo going with a hi-hat or similar, or just go for a stop/start with the footswitch.

Sunday reggae thread update time! From Brazil, Buena Onda Reggae Club: and from darn sarf, The Skints. A band I was in supported them once and they were brilliant live, defo want to see them again: and a bit of an old school UK favourite on Greensleeves, Reggae Regular "It's Coming", the flipside of "Black Star Liner". Always loved the bass on this, he's pretty much freestyling it all the way through. Around 3:01 when the bass comes back in after a drop out it makes me smile every time: Enjoy, folks

I noticed he was using a guitar on both occasions, maybe if he had read the title of this thread he might have used a Ukelele

I used to own this Sadowsky that was initially owned and played by Mark Saunders of Florence and the Machine and played at Glastonbury etc.

Abso-'kin-lutely. Who can remember, even knows or cares about the hyper fast pentatonic scales produced by errm? All this glorification up of hyper technical shred seems to mostly be gushed over by American teenage nerds hiding away from girls in their bedrooms. I'm no Queen fan but old Brian has certainly dished out plenty of tasty riffage and soloing in his time.

Tough decision as I’ve had a few crackers and still have some too! I think it would have to be my ‘66 P. It’s had a refin and I’ve swapped out the pick guard ( still have the original ) but the sound is mighty! Probably the best P I have ever played or had. Ideal for my Nate Mendel role, even though I have his actual Lakland BG too, it’s always the one I reach for first. Don’t know why but it just works and feels right every time.

I gave him three weeks to research it. I didn't think I was being too impatient

Ah OK Mark, understand its hard to part with something you've put your own sweat in to restoring. Well, I'd hazard a guess that if you ever did want to sell it you'd be able to buy a same period RH case and have a wad of cash left over.

Thanks hellzero and bluemoon. Pretty much as I expected. I’ve agreed a purchase from Switzerland and we’re jumping through hoops to finalise a deal. If I wasn’t so set on the bass I would have cried off ages ago. I’ll post the results - if it happens!

Hohoho

Well it is easy. But there is a story to tell even if it isn’t very exciting. And as English is not my first language at least I get some practice time:-) I love Spectors. Started out with an Ibanez SR and quite liked the sleek body and neck. My first mid category bass was a Czech made Spector which was an unbelievable upgrade for me both in terms of sound and ergonomics. A couple of Czech Spectors later I quit playing for a short while and in the process I sold much of my stuff, Spectors included. When I started again a year later I made it a point to try as many different basses as possible to gain experience about what is out there and what fits me sound and ergonomy-wise. Long story short a couple of dozens basses lates I got another Spector, a Czech one again and I came to the conclusion that there are so much great basses on the market that it’s unbelievable but Spector is where I feel at home. Around that time I have seen a picture of a US made Spector NS-5XL with an marvelous and exquisite buckeye burl top and while I have seen some great combination of these specs this was the best for me ever. Having a pro photographer taking the pics didn’t help the case either. I felt there is a forbidden yet very real love affair taking off so guess what was the locking screen photo on my phone for a year or two? Some time passed after this and much to my surprise and utter disbelief this very bass came up for sale. Let’s just say that I have never before and after paid this much for a bass nor for any bass have I driven a roundtrip of over 2000kms. But I had it in my possession after all. This Spector NS-5XL turned out not only as much beautiful in person as it was on the pic but it proved itself to be my best sounding one, too. For all my recordings in the last three years this is the one that ended up getting used because it has a great combination of clarity, sound and dinamics all over the board and in lower tunings, too. It just works really well for the music I play. I am fortunate to have tried and currently own a selection of instruments from some of the best makers in the industry and I have basses that are close to me for the history we have shared on and off stage but if I were to keep only one this would be it. Spector NS-5XL buckeye/walnut with EMG X series DC pu’s and Hazlab preamp. Now enough of my ramblings let’s get to the best part! Thanks for reading this far🙂

As a massive, lifelong Ramones fan, if money were no object I would buy it, I saw him use it live at one of those life changing gigs. Was Dee Dee a great bass player, no, but he certainly played in a band that influenced a whole bunch of future musicians to pick up a bass or guitar and start playing, that for me makes n him an "actual" musician!

I have this. Aria Primary Bass, 1978. The bass was in pretty poor condition when I bought it, but it had Schallers fitted, although beyond that is was just a body and neck. Everything that's screwed into the body is new. I just decided that every time I took it out of the house I needed to put a ding in it. It's way worse than this now.

I'd have thought that bass players would appreciate Brian May's talent, as it's based on musicality and inventiveness rather than how many notes you can play in a second. There will always be somebody who can play faster than you, but crafting the kind of solos that Brian May produced is much more worthy of respect, IMO.