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I recently sold my 1997 Modulus Flea with an eye on putting a deposit down on a new Wal build, however, earlier this week, after a few sherbets, I stumbled across this online at a price far too good to ignore. I don't remotely need it but I could not resist no matter how hard I tried, having always wanted a blue flake model. It's a 2004 model, with the Seymour Duncan pickup and Aguilar OBP-1. It's definitely angrier sounding and not quite as clean as the 1997. This is now my 3rd Flea. I'm not sure I'll ever kick this habit!

It's like the woman who opined that Shakespeare is over-rated, his plays being no more than a string of popular quotations.

Me checking my mic level: "1 2, 1 2". Punter at the back of the room yells: "3 4"! Punter then laughs hysterically at his own 'joke' and attempts to high-five his nearest mate who just stares at him blankly. Over the past 24 years that I have been gigging I have played a little over 1500 gigs. In that time I have witnessed this happening a little over 1500 times. 🙄

Is he still doing Thomas The Tank? - He could join the model railway thread - 😎

”the bass is too loud” do people not understand that its all about me 🤨

Sorry, I didn't realise you only knew how to use presets!

"you won't get paid but it will be good exposure"

All I wanted to do was comment on a relatively unknown artist’s opinion of a very well-known artist’s work..... (he says in a very small voice, head down................) 😇😇😇

I got myself a little blue Mustang last weekend. I am no fan of short scale basses, but this one was really neat... It took some setting up and tweaking, but now it feels like mine. (Btw, the thumb rest now rests in peace...)

Hi everybody You have all contributed well to compiling a nice list of bass with the desired profile, thank you ! After a good reflection I choose my future fiancee Ibanez Musician MC 800 NT ! Quite rare, I know. I already find one in France for 600€ (discussing for the moment with the guy). Does anyone have one in a closet ?

“Dear Fender Custom Shop, I specifically requested lollipop tuners. Imagine my disappointment when...”

I used to deliver pianos for a living and every time we unloaded one from the back of the van a witty passer by would say "Give us a tune mate!" If we weren't trying to man handle an extremely heavy and awkward object we would have collapsed with laughter every time we heard this . NOT.

Managed to snaffle a used Bassman 100T after selling my first one due to size and weight. Now I have a car again, I thought I'd indulge in the valves once more! What a glorious bit of kit it is. It really sings and the drive is very versatile. Even on 1/4 power, it pushes out decent volume; I can't wait to try it at the next rehearsal. Quite a different beast to the GK in overall character and the overdrive, both with their benefits. The EQ, with its push/pull bass and treble pots, is really useful and you can get that scooped sound pretty easily. Now the question is "can I justify keeping the GK?" Might have to grab another cab and try both at the same time.....

Mediocrity?

So a never-was is accusing Clapton of being a has-been?

There are two tiny Welsh women here who want their hats back.

It seems I'm not the only one guilty of this having read your latest post. Let's agree to disagree and leave it at that

Failure to anticipate the likely consequences of your actions is no defence

Its Basschat. Bass players have a low attention span and usually drift off thread into .......oh the news is on TV........must be breakfast time...........wonder if i can get the bike out today .......

Indeed. If only it contained some incredibly bad advice to a novice bass player that would put his / her development back several years, it would be the perfect Basschat thread.

Clapton Thread: Training Wheels for New Forum Members? I'm beginning to think that this thread should be co-opted into some sort of induction programme for new BC-ers. It's a perfect example of how the forum works and how to comport oneself. Imbued throughout with the spirit of give and take and IMO, it starts with a bold contention, garners some useful critical analysis, wanders briefly into controversy (and a promptly extinguished flame war), derails across ever more unrelated issues and finally collapses, chortling like a madman, into a stream of appalling puns. The thread shows BC at its most typical and is therefore useful instructional material.

If this is a sincere belief, I despair. 'Glass houses' and 'stones' come to mind, as do 'pots' and 'kettles'. Just for balance, I'd suggest 'pardon' and 'forgiveness' as elements of vocabulary.

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...😁

Me testing my mic during set-up.. " 1-2-1-2 " Comedian in the audience ... " Drummer's IQ " Stern look from our drummer

TONY LEVIN!! Don't fob him off with some OLP. Give him a proper signature model. Like that 3 string one-off Stingray he had. No weak G string on that!

Very nice Foxy, and well paired with the barefaced 👍

I waited before sharing my impressions of this until the cheque had cleared, and I'd had a chance to play it in the context of a band rehearsal. Not an unfamiliar bass to many of you I'm sure, but for those who don't know it, it has a lightweight chambered body with a slim neck (jazzy at the nut), and at first glance has no pick ups. In fact it uses the AeroSilk Piezo bridge system which utilizes an active tone control and leaves the front face with a beautiful clean look. The knobs are like little wooden hats of the type favoured by Welsh women on spinning wheels. Particularly tiny Welsh women. The bass is insanely easy to play, and hangs from the strap heavy as a gossamer net of feathers. On the moon. The end of the f-hole provides a thumb anchor for those who require such things (I used it probably 50% of the time) but the real eye (ear?) opener is the sound. Supplied strung with D'Addario ECB81 Flatwounds I assumed I was buying an acoustic sounding bass with a nice percussive thump. I was so wrong. I have never known a bass strung with flats to sparkle so brightly. I reversed the onboard tone all the way and still had to knock off the treble on the amp. This thing has zing! Now, I always thought I was rubbish playing slap bass, and to be fair I am pretty awful at it. However when I took my thumb to the SRH500 I was magically transformed into the illegitimate offspring of Larry Graham and Mark King. I am quite serious here, a semi with flats and the tone rolled off slapped and popped with more zap and kapowww than the liveliest Stingray, the jazziest Jazz or the twangiest Warwick. Not that it didn't suit mellow fingerstyle too. Just ease off, play softly and the warmth is definitely there. I've said before while reviewing an instrument that my acid test is to pose this question: If this was the only bass I was left with would I be happy to go out and gig with it for the rest of my days? A resounding 'hell yes' to that. Which surprised me. I bought it because let's face it, it's a thing of beauty. I thought it might have a distinctive sound which I could use on certain recordings or in very specific, more stripped back, musical environments. Don't be fooled by it's disarming looks and gentle beguiling contours. This is a true all rounder, with a potent attack, resolute defence and very creative midfield. What's that? Shut up and put up the pictures? OK OK...

I’m wondering if there’s any possible combinations left for Fender to exploit 😂

Maybe he is less innovative and exciting nowadays, but that doesn’t necessarily make his playing mediocre. And I agree, audiences tend to go to concerts by ‘maturer’ artists to hear the old stuff anyway. eg, Barbara Dickson is one of my favourite female singers, but I went to one concert where she had a very small band, and hardly played any from her well-known catalogue , instead concentrated on traditional folk stuff, with weird bagpipes and the like. Quite disappointing.

Unless I could something more expensive............................... that's fab

Which is of course the key point here. I imagine in about 18 months time she'll be cancelled when her mutterings about Clapton are scrutinised in the context of the emergent 'Ageing Rock Stars Feelings Matter' movement

Bridges are funny things, nearly everyone I know who understands engineering tells me that all of the alleged improvements over the basic BBOT design and materials should make very little if any difference to tone, sustain in the grand scheme of things (all other things being equal in terms of structural integrity and dimensions). But I agonise over bridges, whilst my cognitive/executive brain tells me I shouldn't, my emotional brain appears to believe firmly that the magic bullet of tone is the bridge. Call it cognitive dissonance or a placebo effect, but I'd buy the Gotoh. Unless I could find something more expensive

So much knowledge of model railways on this thread i've now started a Model Railways thread in OFF TOPICS. Save us derailing @Baxlin's thread. Dave

Difficult to tell from the tiny photo of the cheaper bridge, but IMO the important difference between the two is the presence of grooves in the base plate of the Gotoh bridge designed to prevent lateral movement of the saddles. If you think that is worth paying extra for then go for it.

Been browsing top woods for quite a while and decided to do some photoshops to see what would work. For this bass I have chosen a piece of Spalted Sycamore Maple for my top. The photoshop below shows what it will look like on the bass. Look's like a bargain for £40! Thanks!

Updates! Slow week, been so busy with work, but have found time to start the neck carving and adding of the volute! Didn't expose the truss rod or eat up the fingerboard edge so success! I will have to do more work on shaping the neck once I'm sure about how the body wings blend in to the bass. The upper horn travels up to the 12th fret meaning I have to leave that area flat for the join, the lower wing starts at the end of the fingerboard approx. 10mm after the 24th fret meaning I could round the lower section of the neck all the way down, means the neck is slightly asymmetrical after the 7th fret, feels very comfortable though. The headstock veneer has been glued in place and the headstock cut to shape. I drilled out the tuning peg holes and sanded the shape to my design. So far the woods look brilliant. I spent a couple of nights designing a new bridge and tested it out on the bass, however I didn't want to commit and in the end I've order a Schaller bridge from Thomann so all I need to do now is wait for that before I can do some fine tuning to the nut and bridge heights and make the cuts to accommodate those. Next! I should have all the hardware for the bass once my Thomann order arrives so I'll take some snaps of all of that to show you what's going on and in the bass. I need to give this whole neck and headstock a lot of sanding with my orbital sander probably go in with a relatively high grit so I don't remove too much material or lose my shape, I used a cabinet scraper to get my final profiles so that's removed alot of the marks already. I need to start thinking about my final body wing laminates, I don't want the swamp ash at the front of the bass as the contrast is too much so I need a top wood ordering, at the moment my heel thickness is at 35mm, so I'm thinking of a sandwich of 20mm Swamp Ash, 10mm of Wenge core, 5mm top wood. Then the slightly hard bit of preparing the sweeping blends on the back of the bass joining up the upper and lower wings through the neck heel. Thanks!

Just an update folks....I have got an Aguilar ag4m pickup which I will install along with the east mmsr pre and see what we have in terms of string to string balance... when I get round to it 😁.....oh, just to say, the pickup pole pieces are all flush with the cover.

I wouldn't recommend it. Seeing how luggage is treated in general, I would be worried even if it was in a flight case. If it's valuable to you, pay extra as hand luggage or, if not allowed more than one item, find a way to put the contents of your hand luggage in the hold and have just the bass as hand luggage. Absolutely don't risk it.

☹️ Sorry to hear it's still not sorted. I'd contact @KiOgon who can supply you a solderless loom very quickly and very reasonably. He supplied me with a replacement for my SB-R60.

This is the reason I sold my Stingray a few years back. Adjusting the pickup height didn't seem to make any difference to mine. Adjusting the EQ did, but that was useless, as I was then limited to a sound I didn't like. Real shame as I loved everything else about that bass.

Something we BCers are possibly failing to see here is, this woman whose name escapes me, moves in different circles to us. We've been considering Clapton's history of recorded work. She may, of course, be talking about his current style of playing in concert performances. After 50 odd years of playing, yes, maybe he is less innovative and exciting. But then what people book Clapton for is to see the old stuff.

A very interesting read and I have seen that first hand (60's legend picking tomatoes). I was a taxi driver between tours.

I would look at a Spector with EMGs rather than the Barts. Different kettle 'o' fish and the stand out by far.

There is no new music. There are no new harmonies, tonalities, or rhythmic devices. That aside, in terms of 'popular music', there was music released in 1969 that would not be mistaken for music released in 1959; there was music released in 1979 that would not be mistaken for music released in 1969; and there was music released in 1989 that would not be mistaken for music released in 1979. IMO we can not say the same for 2010/2000 and 2020/2010. Has there been anything new in popular music in over 20 years?