Leaderboard

I threatened you with this warned you politely about this above. I've kept it short for mercy's sake: ExtractAnotherBrickInTheWall.mp4 Played with Vol and Tone open through my Laney RB3. Tone is flat on the combo and the gain set to trigger the compressor (such as it is) most of the time. Recording is via an LG 'phone camera. 30mb for a few seconds of video is a bit more storage than I wanted to use so make the most of it.

Thanks! Here’s a picture which probably gives a better idea of the colour of the bass. When the light hits it it’s really golden in colour and the grain jumps out. I don’t think there’s any ‘colour’ applied, just a clear finish, so I guess it’s the Ash that just looks so nice. I was playing it until well after midnight, enjoying every fizzy growly note that jumped off the fingerboard. We watched a scary film last night and normally I’d be a bit scared of going down to the office in the dark to play with my back turned but on this occasion I thought evil spirits be damned, maybe we can jam?

It is something bass players seem to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

This came in the post today!! I posted a wanted advert here a few weeks ago asking for a Jazz Bass with 70s spacing. I had lots of messages and offers of all sorts of basses from vintage Fenders to modern super jazzes. I ended up going for this one for a few reasons, mostly from good experiences with Atelier-Z in the past, and the fact the bass exhibits none of the weight associated with 70s examples (certainly those that I tried). The body is chambered and a sandwich of alder and ash. It sounds superb; full of that 'breathy' quality of the best jazz basses I have tried. Slap is pure Marcus Miller territory when you want it to be, but I especially like the way it sounds with finger style and the occasional pop accent. The pickups feel great - very powerful and a muscular gritty detail when you dig in. Here's a pic of the chambering ...and here are some pics of the bass in my garden shortly before I walk Sybil and no doubt cause a rainstorm I'll do some sound samples once I have played with it. Cheers ped

That's how I fee about a lot of neo-prog (including latter-day Rush), but with the likes of Yes, Genesis etc. it's actually songs - even if the arrangements are complicated, there's a decent tune behind it.

WOW.. 40 years of playing and its a 2 piece body and your shocked and never even plugged the bass in. I would be amazed if its that bad. Got any pics.? Lakland are usually awesome on their build quality. Hey guess what some fenders are 4 piece bodies.

Is that seriously all that was wrong - that the body was made of two pieces of wood? That’s hardly unusual. What about the rest of it, the stuff that matters - the fit of the neck pocket, the nut, the fretwork, the electronics, the general build quality, and how it sounded?

No, but the guitarist might be. I don't see this as good reason to down-tune. Down-tuning should be done for musical reasons, not to work around gear issues.

I had a long overdue listen to this today. IMO it's a rock masterpiece. Every track is excellent. The title track is sublime. That gorgeous flanged bass. What a band. Phil at his peak. Superb.

Probably the opposite. Sympathetic vibration of the timber is going to sap energy and reduce sustain. Imagine a string fitted to a rigid iron frame (piano) or a wooden fame (harp). Which one has long sustain and which one has a plinky plonky sound?

2019 Vintera

My newest setup 😁

Boys calm down - she's got a steady boyfriend now (it's not the guitarist) 😂

ZZ Top can be so entertaining...

Probably because it wasn't. Book matching, in luthiery, is usually only done with decorative tops and veneers - which are split along the length, and then folded open like a book so the two pieces exactly mirror eachother. Two-piece bodies are the norm in solid body bass and guitar building (and often more pieces, Fender has already been mentioned). I can imagine it being disappointing if the wood selection doesn't match up to the price point, and maybe the body on yours was better suited for a solid colour. But then again these new Skylines are Indonesian factory-made, and not built by a skilled luthier who loves his job and takes great pride in his product. I think you can hardly blame that on quality control, that has much more to do with fit, finish and playability.

It's been 9 months since Alain M. posted anything on YouTube, until yesterday that is: Brilliant reggae bass tone as always from him.

A well built instrument can transfer string vibration into body/pickups more effectively and with less loss, hence giving more sustain. I would argue sustain indicates effective and efficient transfer by a good neck/body joint, nut, bridge and quality wood. And therefore sustain = quality (to a point). But do you “need” sustain? Often no.

I asked a question on the repair section and among my friends about replacing the truss rod in a Fender neck (previous owner had snapped the nut off), too much hassle was the cry, especially as it`s a bound neck.....bugger! So here I am with a Fender Vintera 70`s Jazz bass in Inca Silver, the body is truly immaculate, anyway I tried several reputable websites including Fenders own and no new Fender neck of the same spec are available. I turned my attention to Northwest Guitars, they did a very similar bound and block neck but with rosewood rather than pau ferro and a bone nut rather than synthetic, get in my basket! These necks are now also out of stock as it happens so i bought mine just in time. I contacted a mate of mine who does refinishes and set ups and got him to refinish the neck in the correct tint and also apply the decals (yes I know its not a genuine Fender neck but the rest of the bass is so thats my argument) anyway I picked the bass up from him yesterday and oh my what a pretty thing she is, I think it`s a keeper despite the relatively low output of the pickups (im used to either humbuckers or active or both) the neck feels every bit as nice as the original in the hand and it just looks lovely, all this for a swap for a cheapy bitsa, definitely my score of 2020!

Awaken is, for me, the greatest piece of music I’ve ever heard.

This looks really nice, big and... complicated... Has the signal found its way out, yet?

I changed out the BBOT on a Jazz bass for a Babicz. Much as I like the Babicz for it's engineering, functionality and complete lack of sharp edges, I have to say I didn't notice any glaring differences or improvements in the tone, sustian or overall playability of the bass after I fitted it. YMMV.

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Been chatting to a couple of BC mates and it turns out all three of us either still are or previously have been in bands where the guitarist was the better bass player. Any of you been in a similar set up and, if so, how did that work out? In my case, I'd only been playing bass for a couple of years and had just started a 50s/60s rock n roll band. The guitarist was a seriously good musician and with respect to my current and previous crews, the best guitarist I've worked with. In the end he had a major crush on the singer who didn't feel the same way and ended up leaving. I did occasionally find it annoying at rehearsals when he picked up my bass without asking!

Back after 20 odd years!!

If I take a geeky engineer-type view, than (like most things) it all comes down to energy. You put energy in to the strings when you hit them, and it's dissipated in various ways: starting with the acoustic sound coming off the bass. I could go on in too much detail, but something like a Steinberger, or neck-through Status or Modulus Graphite, would be my ideal configuration, because they are the most stiff (carbon fibre composite) and have no neck joint. I still agree with the Modulus Graphite folks, who started the whole carbon fibre bass thing, that stiffness translates to less energy loss and therefore more sustain. We talk about "high mass" bridges, but if you had one made of lead, it would probably suck the life out of the sound. So it's not about weight as such, but more about stiffness. Energy can also be lost in the connections too, which is why I would prefer no neck joint at all. The energy loss is not uniform across the frequency spectrum either: a structure has one or more resonant frequencies, which depend on the mass and the stiffness of the material as well as its dimensions. Lower and stiffer mean higher resonant frequencies, so (as I understand it) something like a Steinberger XL (being so light and stiff) has resonant peaks well above the bass range, meaning it doesn't absorb bass frequencies as much. But that evenness may be why a Steinberger bass sound has less "character" than e.g. a Fender Jazz.

That's why I carry Viagra. I find that definitely increases my sustain.

Has anyone told you that you look just like that @SpondonBassed off of Basschat? His beard is a bit longer though I think.

When I returned to playing after, a very lengthy gap, the first gig I did the guitarist used one of those. It worked fine...until the derrière forgot to switch it back to standard tuning for the next song.

I think you’ve just won yourself the ‘sustain cliche’ award.

Depends on what you want to achieve and the music you play. My fretless will sustain for days but I can also successfully play staccato finger funk on it no problem..... It’s all in the fingers.

So you’ve been in some where they didn’t 😃?!

The way I have always interpreted the comments about sustain is that it sets certain basses apart from those that very little sustain i.e. the ones that just sound dead and lifeless. A muted sound has its place, but not a bass without foam under the strings.

I'm a carpenter and think routers are wonderful tools 🙂 They are also the tool I'm the most careful with when using 👍

Well just to update re this, have managed to score a 1987 2eq in my favoured black/maple colour scheme on the ‘bay.

I've given up with expensive upgrades. There's a general concensus about what should, and shouldn't, be good. Certain standard bridges that people swap for other bridges as an upgrade, certain body and neck constructions that are better than others, a pecking order of parts if you like, to achieve that holy grail of bass attributes, sustain. I recently bought an early 70s Kay bass, widely regarded as an utter piece of shite, and not without reason, a plywood neck screwed to a thin plywood body. The original bridge had been replaced with a cheap BBOT with the wrong string spacing. I fitted a Squier Bronco bridge as it had the correct spacing, these were routinely upgraded as they were considered a very poor design. I've refinished it with several thick layers of poly which should dull it's tone as well. Out of the 15-20 basses I own the Kay has the longest sustain and is the most resonant, it rings like a bell when played unplugged. This makes a mockery of all the accepted theories of bass construction and hardware.

@Doctor J love that - much prefer the 2+2 headstock shape on that body!

Yessongs, the triple album, is still my favourite musical performance after all these years. The epitome of what 5 different musicians can bring together. This is not an opinion, this is fact 😁

The attached doc gives a useful scientific explanation of dead spots and is worth a read. They occur where resonant frequencies in particular parts of the neck happen to coincide with exactly the same position as a fretted note of the same frequency. Read on to become demystified in this much misunderstood topic! Dead_Spots_Bass_English.pdf