Leaderboard

I don't know what you'd call it actually. Two things inspired me. The back pack vibrating box thingy you stick on your strap, and the board you sit your chair on which is a big flat vibrating bass speaker thingy. I baulked at the price of either but got to thinking. The result of my cogitation? This is a 100w 4ohm audio exciter or transducer or something like that. Cost about 14 quid delivered. Screwed it to the underside of my seat. Hooked it up to an amp. Sent a line out to my headphone amp (Zoom B1on). Stuck on my headphones... and there was a small explosion 💥 Not really. It actually worked. One of my inventions is actually brilliant. I live with an elderly relative who sometimes dislikes it when the peas dance off her dinner plate if I'm rehearsing. So silent practice is the norm. This takes it to another level. It's extraordinary. The bass becomes complete. Mids and tops in the cans everything else everywhere else at once, and barely audible in the room. It's wonderful. You can have any setting you want, from mild buttock shake to full personal violation. I'm off for another go.

Short scale Tele Mahogany body , Spalted Maple top Set neck Cream binding Smoke p/guard ..sort of transparent dark red Supro pickups Lollipop tuners String through Series / Parallel pull / push middle knob Tbx tone control Picked up from Jon's workshop on Monday...😁

Driftwood Junior made by my son from wood found on an Essex beach. 1936 Regal Parlour 1931 National Triolian I don't play bass anymore if I can help it - I just sits myself down, sticks a glass wine bottleneck on my pinkie and whine away until her highness tells me to shut up.😎

I feel as I've come full circle. When I started out on BC in Nov 2014 I had acoustic basses exclusively and it's been a bit of a whirlwind trying, buying and selling lots of solid bodied electric basses looking for one that stuck. I should have learned my lesson in May 2018 when I purchased a fretless Rob Allen Mouse from @WishIcouldplay, I loved this bass totally. So, this morning I headed, oddly enough, back to see @WishIcouldplay in order to buy his fretted Rob Allen Mouse which is now in the rack at Chez Blank, both the ACGs are on their way to new owners which leaves me with a brand spanking new Ibanez SRH500 which I only bought because I'd given up on a fretted Mouse ever becoming available, it'll be up for sale soon. So is this set up, fretted and fretless Mice, Hx Stomp and a QSC K12.2 the final GAS killer? I suppose we shall see...

There's lots of trialling and checking involved with an acoustic build. The bone zero-fret string guide will be shaped before fitting, but the slots are basically in the right place: Then, with the two outer tuners popped on, and a couple of spare strings from my bits box, I am able to first determine where the guide would be fitted at the nut end to give me equidistance from the fret ends, and then, popping the strings through the outer holes in the bridge and pulling them tight, where the bridge will go left/right-wise. Ignore the kink in the bass string - I couldn't pull tight and press the camera shutter at the same time!: What I am happy about is that is has confirmed I got my bridge peg holes in the right place Once I've cut the saddle slot in the bridge, then I can position it forwards/backwards-wise and then glue the bridge! (Again, not the sequence you will see in the text books...I will explain my logic later As always, thanks for looking and for your kind comments. Always greatly appreciated

I'm a huge Peter Gabriel fan and if there is one track that is my 'favourite song of all time', this would be it. When I was asked to be part of a collaboration to create a lockdown version of this track, I didn't need to be asked twice. I'm immensely proud of this and it was an honour to work with so many talented folk (please check the description and the end credits). For a short time, I get to be Tony Levin, complete with hammy, deep bass, vocal part.

Frankly, I'd be simply terrified of standing in a garden near a drummer huffing and puffing his way through a set. If a virus molecule thing were - as is highly likely - to alight upon on his crash cymbal the consequences could be deadly. Out of the chorus, tom fill, crash, and whappo! the virus goes shooting off across the grass at 250 mph, over the dahlias and up the nose of some poor, vulnerable individual blithely unaware that airborne death is incoming. The obvious solution is to place some perspex screens around and over each of the musicians then put the whole band in a fruit cage and drape the structure with multiple layers of horticultural fleece so that it's effectively one big mask. It's still taking a chance but it's a balanced option until we can find a way to safely encase band and audience alike in individual resin blocks.

15 Hz and under around 105 -dB – instant brown note.

What an idiotic thing to say. Perhaps you should be the one weighing up the rewards and risks. The statistics and science speak for themselves. And one thing you might also want to be mindful of is that the ongoing impact of this virus on people's health is very uncertain: there seems to be an increased clotting risk associated with it and I'm not sure yet how relevant this is to the increased number of sudden cardiac (and otherwise unexplained) deaths that I've been aware of. But why not disregard all that, formulate your own risk assessment and tell anyone who disagrees to "man up"? I despair, I honestly do.

And so preparations are afoot to fix the bridge. I should point out that the sequence I am following is NOT what you will find in the text books but it is what I have done on the last couple of acoustic builds and works much better for me than the conventional methods. The main difference is that I will be doing all of this with the back still off. As I have recently learned, the spacing at the saddle and nut of a bouzouki between each string and between each pair has to account for the string widths so that the distances from string edge to string edge are even. I have used a string pattern from one of the detailed internet sites of bouzouki specs and then scaled up the relevant dimensions to work out where the centre lines are. Clearly at the bridge, it is the spacing of the string retention holes that determines the string positions and here I have the additional requirement of two staggered rows of hole, like on a 12-string acoustic. I used a 12-string bridge to double check that I was getting the row spacing right and then used some schooldays arithmetic and 'avoiding accumulation of errors' precautions to mark out the hole positions, which equate to the string centre line positions just behind the saddle: Drilled using my small drill press with an accurate bradpoint - and then the acid test - do all of the holes line up exactly with the intended string positions: I'm pleased to say that they do Another Phew! So next challenge is how to cut an accurate saddle slot. I'll have to have a ponder on that one...

Ibanez Musician MC800 (apart from the finish) but you're not having mine - if I went down to one bass, from 10, this would be the last one.

2 things 1. I think I have hit the brief “it needs to be red” 2. I clearly had a hole in my glove..... 😂

Can we agree on the term “chair” - things may otherwise become confusing and potentially very messy indeed.

Nice one Stew. I've made 2 Bass boards, one with 2 of those transducers and one with 4 of them. I also used to use a ButtKicker clamped to a stool when I couldn't stand for long periods after surgery. As ped says you have to try it to believe. Your next project is to productise and market it.😉

This is part of the problem, I feel, when folks, in all innocence, pass it on to more vulnerable folks without even knowing they're infected and infectious. It's not themselves that will bear the consequences, but those who pick it up from them. Still, anything's better than feeling like a fool wearing a mask, I suppose.

Dear Friends, a lot of people like to judge, comment my design in comparing with others great brands on the market... I’ve started designing Basses when I was 12 years old ... today I’m over 50 & I’m honoured to be compared to guys like Michael Tobias “MTD” Wishing you all a nice weekend 😉😎

Um... can we still called it practising with headphones? It's more like practising with a bum woofer! You've got to be careful who you say that to.

You gave me the idea, that and a guy on YouTube making speakers out of flat sheets if balsa This is the exciter https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002LQAHPE?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share and I will be bringing the love seat to the South West Bass Bash. Honestly, like Ped says until you try it you can't imagine how amazing it is.

Rumble Seat ? Groovestool ? Vibr-o-Perch ?

Well the new amp is on the way, should be with me mid week the latest. Hopefully this one will work. So then I can get practicing!

The idea of this protection is not really for oneself, but to avoid passing the bug on to someone fragile, unwittingly. The bloke's doing it right; respect and kudos are due, not brickbats.

Drummer and myself just had a session in a rehearsal studio next to Holloway tube station (our guitarist has some vulnerable family members so isn’t joining us yet). ‘Storm Rehearsal studios’. The place was very clean, they clean the rooms after each session. They opened up this week and are struggling as very few customers are walking through their doors So I am giving them a plug. They have Ampeg, Marshall and Blackstar amps; there was a lovely SVT & 8x10 in my room. Last week we couldn’t go to Storm rehearsal studios as they hadn’t opened so we went to a place in Muswell Hill, N10,. This place shall remain nameless but there is only one place in N10 so google it if you are interested. The place was disgusting, hadn’t been cleaned in ages, so we won’t be going back there again. If anyone lives in north London and wants to use a rehearsal studio, Storm is a good place.

YOU. WILL. GO. BLIND. (Great idea !)

Just sayin’

Recently joined the Sandberg club after buying this one on here and another one coming in a couple of weeks (from here as well. Keen to know what the Cali VM4 is like?

Power, quality, responsiveness, EQ, additional feature sets (drive etc), price, tone, weight, size, finish, reputation of brand / reliability and design are all factors I take into account to a greater or lesser extent. Sure tone can be a very important factor when deciding to get an amp, but it's certainly not the sole factor (for me anyway) particularly as my amp doesn't have the biggest single impact on tone in my signal chain - and that's by quite a long way; a single drive or filter / synth pedal can easily swamp the nuance of tone that one D class amp brings to the party compared to another. Equally, and just to reiterate, the volume (i.e. size rather than watts!) of the unit wasn't really meant to be a major thread discussion point, it was more just an observation: other things being equal my preference has always been for compactness & portability and these have been key reasons in e.g. me taking a BF SC to rehearsals and gigs in place of my IMO significantly tonally superior Fearless F112. It's the same point about lightweight basses for some. We all have different priorities.

Can you monetise it as a constipation cure?

Awesome, I enjoyed that on many levels. Such a moving song too.

I think anyone not using their own Mic in the best of times is just odd. But during this pandemic, you must be absolutely crazy to use a mic used by other people. Or just show an entire disregard for the seriousness of the situation we are in. No amount of cleaning will ensure virus particles don't persist within the microphone. And if the excuse is sometimes people can't afford their own mics, with respect they're not going to get very far if that's the case.

Isn't that all the better reason for rehearsing, to keep the flame (and chops...) alive..? To some, rehearsals are just as important, musically, as gigs (it's certainly our case; we don't 'play out'..!). Feeling grumpy this morning, are we..?

I would never have thought that the comparative volume of a small amp would be much of a consideration. Surely if you are dropping a fair bit of money on an amp (from whoever) the tone is the main thing that matters. Otherwise get a TE elf or something

Are you on commission @Cuzzie ? My goto font of all Sandberg knowledge and always appreciated. Dave

I missed out on the one that was for sale on the forum last week and I think that for the first time ever was genuinely disappointed that I hadn't seen it sooner so set about looking for another. A casual browse on Facebook marketplace brought up one about 20 minutes from my house and another two PMs from members on the forum who had them as well. I decided to go with the one on Facebook as it looked really nice in the red ( I must admit that I also like the green and blue ones ) and picked it up. I gave the fretboard a good clean with lemon oil and the body a wipe down with a clean microfibre cloth. This was followed by a new set of D'addario Prosteel EPS165 strings plus a 135 B that I had bought separately some time ago A quick play revealed that it badly needed setting up and when I got the capo and feeler gauges out I discovered that the neck was poker straight with absolutely no relief at all. The truss rod nut was quite tight so I gently moved it and thankfully it began moving no problem at all ( I wonder if this was why it had been so straight, maybe tightened really tight and the owner couldn't loosen it) I had to remove the little black plastic thing that protects the body from the allen key as I couldn't get the allen key in properly with it in place It is in incredible condition, I can't quite work out how old it is. I tried one of the websites and was told it was 1989, 1999 or 2009 by the serial number. The plastic is still on the control cover. There are a couple of light dents in the paintwork but no scratches and the only damage to the paintwork that I can see is on the headstock. The hardware is a little tarnished in places due to age but everything works I absolutely love it and the only way that I can describe the tone is that it is very 80s and will really suit a lot of the stuff we do with the band when the time comes to gig again. Anyway, enough waffling - now the pictures:

None too shabby here, getting to number seven, and your's truly was in the sales team that had to sell it as a new release!

This is looking fantastic man! I've been lusting after a pink like this too and currently planning a build from scratch with the help of a local luthier in a similar colour. I actually resprayed my Yamaha BBN5 with Montana Black during lockdown! Best spray cans I've ever used hands down! You said the finish feels a bit fragile - I sealed mine with a couple of coats of matt polyurethane after, and it's rock solid now! Might be worth looking at.

All that can be done is to open the door(s...) and use a big ventilator in the doorway, blowing out. Not ideal, but it's all there is, I'd say.

Hey hey! I've unceremoniously chopped together a handful of snippets from the DVD. Check it out...

A shortish, quiet spoken bloke - just comes in twice a week for 2-3 hours.

I know but I have a real problem with sending stuff back, I don't know why but its a whole psychological thing for me I think, I have the funds sitting in a separate account ready but just haven't managed to buy, there is also the small issue that my wife thinks I don't have room for another instrument and I'm not sure what I would could part with to make space. Matt

I think that you offered me your original pickguard when I was moving on my Mike D Gav, many moons ago! They are cracking basses but the one I had weighed a bloomin ton. It was bought on here, I think I swapped it for a 60`s Jazz and moved it on after a while. Another one I regret moving on and seeing this one with a Status neck puts me right in the mood for another one.

Bas bought an MXR envelope filter off me and all was good! Enjoy Bas

Looking at the blurry picture of the body last night it occurred to me that I could only describe it as "dirty brown" . You may be surprised that I work at a piano shop and we often strip and refinish pianos. You'd be amazed at how many times a maker took the trouble to cover a piano in beautiful figured/flamed veneer only to hide the whole thing under a generous layer of brown gunk. See bellow: I took a chance that I'd find something nice under the gunk... Promising... Bingo! Onto the neck....the template (you'll never guess what I made it out of). The trimmed neck:

What a load of old tosh. There's no racism on here. We're all far too busy being sexist. 😘