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Well not quite new but you know what I mean. After ogling the Status Vintage GP model and also numerous 50's precisions I decided to concoct my own version. Perhaps not one for the purists this is a MIM Fender Mike Dirnt in Vintage White (otherwise known as pale custard yellow) which I purchased from @billge along with a Status P neck courtesy of @Cuzzie (also thanks to @HazBeen who gave me some valuable advice along the way). The obvious problem with fitting a different neck onto a 50's style P is the neck heel. The 50's basses have a square heel and everything else has the more common rounded heel. A rounded heel neck will however fit in the square heel socket, it just leaves visible gaps in the corners which the scratchplate doesn't cover. Step forward GIG.ink @TimAl who manufactured me a Mike Dirnt plate with the necessary rounded heel. I'm really pleased with it. The neck and body make a great combination and after hearing lots of goods things about the '59 pickup in these MD basses I'm not disappointed. I may decide to go for another off-white or cream plate in the future but I think the black looks pretty good. 😁

THANK YOU to the Milwaukee Boat Line and the Vista King for hosting another great concert cruise last night! We had a blast as usual! Being the first of the season with the new Covid restrictions in place, no one knew quite what to expect, but we would strongly recommend getting tickets to an upcoming cruise! The staff did a great job, and with the limited tickets available and open air upper deck, there is more than enough room to move about, dance the night away and practice social distancing! The crew wear masks throughout the night, and passengers need one while waiting in line to board, and while on the lower level (because it is enclosed) which is where the bar and restrooms are located. All in all, a GREAT experience for all!! Thank you to our friend Jim Kennedy for the photos!

Or just buy a Squier and get on with playing.

Killed.

You might have seen that I recently went to sell this bass, but I started playing it again and rapidly removed it from sale. Not sure why I did that, I suppose I was feeling guilty for having recently spent some money on a watch and my man maths said it would be paid for by the sale of this bass. Deep down I knew it wouldn't happen. Also I managed to reduce some bills by calling up and saying 'I'm leaving' and paid off the council tax finally. Messing about with my phone I took a couple of snaps, thought I'd post here to share some SB-1 love. The sticker near the jack is a tribute to my first bass, which had an actual warning sign cutout placed in front of the bridge, as I was still of the mindset of a sign stealing youth. I suppose it's a stage we all go through along with taking the odd traffic cone on the way home from town. Cheers ped

...and follow it up with Fender: The Inside Story by Forrest White

A love problem, it seems.

If I was spending €2k+ on an instrument and I was anything other than 100% bowled over and any issues hadn’t been swiftly resolved within a couple of days of raising them I’d have already returned it and asked for a refund. Completely take into account (and don’t disagree really) the points people have raised but €2k is a hell of a lot of dough. That spend to then only be maybe 70-80% satisfied is nowhere close to acceptable to me...

with respect to the OPer, praps this is the best dance tune

Mmm... Fish fingers, garden beans, courgettes and tomatoes... That's better. Now, where was I..? Ah yes, the Building Site... Here's the wall that needs removing... (Our Eldest can be seen, preparing the top of his future workbench, using the ubiquitous WorkMate...) Here's the footings being prepared to receive future masonry, calculated to be plumb to the roof (unlike the present wall...).... We can't just remove the wall, or the roof would come down. We'll do it in stages, from left to right. Here's the timid start... ... which quickly becomes ... Our Friendly Neighbour helps out with spreading the rubble over the forecourt... The masonry gets started, and the double-door frame set in... Meanwhile, Our Eldest prepares crosspieces for the timber framing... I've bought some wood from a local sawmill; it's Douglas Fir. How appropriate..! Getting serious... What came down must go up. The roof is now shored up on the left... Cutting in to receive the transoms and stuff... ... and planing... Now a bit more can be demolished... ... and its masonry laid ... A good friend has some old beams we can use, so we go to collect them... Another upright in place... ... so more demolition ... ... and masonry... So far, so good... Windows, flooring, whatever... ... and we start filling in the gaps, using a double thickness of expanded cement blocks, leaving an air-gap... Here's me, contributing to the effort by taking the photos... Getting there... ... precariously... Nearly finished ... All is fitted and mostly cleaned up ... A good coat of protective paint on the woodwork; this is a year later... ... and a more recent photo... The whole job took two months, basically. It's survived three winters since, and has proved to be maybe even better than anticipated. Well worth the effort; it took me nearly three decades to firstly work out how to do the job, then gather the monies required, and finally have the courage to bite the bullet and do it. No regrets.

That conversation began in the 1980s, when valves were eliminated from virtually all consumer devices other than amps. It deepened in the 1990s, when the Soviets and Chinese began to shift away from valves in their military hardware. They'll continue to be made as long as people buy them, even though they're at prices now that are on average five times what they were in the 1970s, and that's after accounting for inflation.

I recall a similar conversation regarding the death of valves, soon to be totally supplanted by SS. That conversation took place in 1966.

This is the quiet before the storm. Body is ready this week (ish) and pickguard will meet it for a matching session...

My first, second, third and fourth dovetail joints! Also some bits of wood with holes in. Oops, I forgot. They're supposed to be artistically staged and photographed. Tomorrow, the second one is in it's clamps at the moment.

As a youngster I used to play on the Linoleum, but gave it up when I learned to walk.

I now have a super 12..hopefully I will be able to use it at war volume soon.

Buy The Fender Bass by JW Black. It will all become clear.

You're clearly making subliminal reference to @ped's favourite fetish of limiters I take it? Very good at dealing with unwanted peaks...

If you’re a sly and Robbie fan like me, this is definitely worth a watch, Robbie lays down some really great basslines on this, and he’s playing a stack knob jazz

Not sure if we’ve had any Anthony Johnson yet, , really nice bass on this one around 3.50

Brilliant isn't it. As well as the aforementioned Gentles, there's also Jakko Jakszyk, Lee Pomeroy and probably a load of others I should recognise (as well the host of talented regular fans of course)

Aw... I was looking forward to his opinion on flatwounds and facemasks.

Don’t say that, I was the finger excuse to cover for my ineptitude 😂

Do any of them start "Hey groovehacker"?

You missed the part where put brand new Elixirs on for the test, took them off and put them in a packet for a year. There are too many variables to say which has the most impact though.

Had a mess around with this last night just for a bit of silly fun. ABM500 with the Lows boosted and highs cut into the 610 and the CTM30 pushed into overdrive and with the lows cut through the 410.

Organisations the size of Yamaha, and the companies that make instruments for Ibanez, will hold huge stocks of tonewoods. Some will be bought to season for 10 or 20 years prior to use. So even though there is a ban, it seems reasonable to me for companies to use up existing stocks.

Agreed

Brought the amp home from our rehearsal space for some tweaking, which provided a nice photo op

There’s a relic sunburst one on Facebook - cheap too. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/665898757290759/

I'll slide it under the door! I'll have to be careful not to mix it up with the other parcels containing faeces I have to deliver today

I think with valve amps for guitar it's almost analogous to acoustic piano. Many working musicians will find digital emulations more practical in a lot of their working environments, but I feel that to really use them well it helps to have spent some time with the thing they're emulating. And there are some settings where they will probably never go away as long as they can still be built and maintained.

Done, waiting for my brown envelope.

The jazz is giving me something the others don't. Hard to describe, because while the Stingray is my go-to gigging bass I can easily do everything I need on a jazz. And there's something about a jazz that just feels right to me, maybe having played one for 7 years as my main fretted bass?

Congratulations @Bluewine , hope for us all! That's quite a monitoring setup you've got installed, i'd recommend IEM's though... 😂

Here it is now... It might go more versions, it might not. Depends what time I get. Enjoy...

I recently did a veneer job for Rog (see Build Diaries) and presumably it was an OK job because he entrusted me with his BEAUTIFUL Bass Collection 4-string to do something really scary! Changing retro-fitted Abalone dots for some ebony ones to get it back to as close to 'dotless' as possible! Here were the dots (the photos are a bit out of sync): This is not a difficult job - but it's not for the faint-hearted. Or for those who don't sharpen their chisels properly I only started taking photos after I'd already got one out - so ignore the missing dot in this shot. First task is getting a dint in the exact centre of the shell. I use a very sharp-pointed punch: Then a 1.5mm drill in the centre dint. (I told you the photos are out of sequence...here you can see the sharpie blackness Rog has been temporarily using on the other abalone dots): Then the slightly scary bit - both for the owner and for the modder...especially if they value their bradpoint drill bits - drilling out the shell! : Which gives you the new chambers: Which you fill with some ebony dots, wood-grain aligned and glued with epoxy mixed with ebony dust: Then trimmed flush with super sharp chisels: Scraped flush with single-sided razor (actually held in both hands): Which takes off all of the previous finish and therefore has to be done for all fret positions for an even finish: Followed by a fine sanding with a piece of scrap maple high-precision mini sanding block: And finished with a whisper of good quality danish oil to reseal it all: And lastly go and buy a new brad point drill

@obi 2 kenobi welcome to the club! When you feel up to it we'd love to hear something I've been spending some time away from social media/forums etc, but have done a few new ones since i was last here... even got @Bill to double up for PYT!

No, Alanis, rain on your wedding day is not ironic. Nor are any of the other examples in your song, they're simply examples of misfortune. Irony is writing a song called "Ironic" while not understanding what "ironic" means.