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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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I'd been following the thread on the PMT sale and had almost pulled the trigger on the Ashdown 300W valve head. Ive been gassing for an all valve giggable head for a while. I play in a Classic Rock band touring medium sized venues and had been using either a Trace 300W head or my Bugera Veyron 1001T - both of which have served me well, but neither of which thoroughly scratched that itch. I'd been put off using an all valve amp due to weight and cost. Well weight isn't too much of an issue as we have roadies, and when I saw a Peavey VB-2 in the sale - B-Stock - for £389, the cost argument went out of the window also. So I pulled the trigger last Thursday but didn't honestly expect to get the amp given the amount of people who'd posted about not having their order fulfilled. I phoned up on Friday and they confirmed that the order was indeed mine and that it'd arrive on Monday. To my surprise, I got a message from DPD yesterday saying it would arrive in the afternoon. It arrived safe n sound in a Yamaha box with no instructions but well wrapped. No tinkling thank goodness and absolutely immaculate - not a mark on it. I immediately set it up on top of a Big Baby 2 and started to have a play. My first mistake was to plug into the low gain input. Underwhelmed by the volume I realised I need to put it into the high input and all was good. Ive had a further play today and so far so good. It's incredibly versatile but takes a while to get to terms with the EQ. It's got low, mid and high controls with a four way selectable mid set at 2, 4, 6,and 800Hz. However what isn't in the manual is that altering the mid frequency also alters the frequencies the low and high controls work at. The EQ on this reminds me of the EQ on the Hartke LH500 where if you turn all the controls to zero the volume pretty much disappears. There's also a bright switch along with Presence and Resonance controls. According to the manual, these act like high and low controls on the power amp side. Talking of the power amp, this utilises a 12AT7 driver tube/phase splitter, 6 JJ EL34's and an oversized power supply pushing out 225W. It's certainly not short of volume. i've no doubt this will provide enough volume for any of the gigs I'll do. Usefully it will also drive cabs down to 2 ohms using the three way resistance sector. Pre amp is served by two 12AX7 tubes. It's a two channel amp with an overdrive channel that has it's own gain control. This is switchable from the front panel or a (not supplied) footswitch. I didn't spend too much time on this. I wasn't too impressed - sounded a bit fizzy to my ears and not overly versatile without it's own master control and eq. Plugging my Precision in and the gain set to full on the clean channel, I could get that lovely, just slightly breaking up tone. Less so with my Ric, which isn't as hot as my Precision, but I've no doubt that once I've got my pedals in front of it I could dial in drive to taste. I had a play with the all the settings and tried the suggested settings in the manual. I t didn't take long to find the tone I was after, which for me centred around boosting the mids on the 200Hz setting. I think the thing with this amp is to not be afraid of using extreme settings on the tone controls - they work well giving a wide range of tones. On the back there's two speaker outs on jacks, an XLR Di with pre and post switch and level, sockets for a footswitch and tuner out and a selector for 2, 4 or 8 ohms along with a power input and mains switch. While I had it set up, I thought I'd see how it compared with a real old school valve amp and my Bugera Veyron BV1001T. I have an old Laney Supergroup 100 from the late 60's in the arsenal. It sounds lovely but I've always struggled to get volume out of it without it breaking up at gigs. Having had a play with it today I've realised that using the bass input rather than the treble input, gives me less top end but lets me get it louder before breaking up. It's obviously nowhere near as versatile as the Peavey, but the tone is to die for - really mellow and rich, very hard to describe though. As for the Bugera - this is pretty versatile too. Again not as versatile as the Peavey, particularly in terms of mids and tops, but the tone is definitely nice and valvey. What it lacks though is the dynamic range of either of the valve amps. Even with the compression off, it kind of sounds dynamically smooth - and not really in a good way (in comparison) whereas both the valve amps - hard to describe - you can kind of feel the notes coming and going . . . . dare I say . . . . .exhibiting heft! It has to be said that all this waffle has been done on the basis of playing this stuff in my spare room at relatively low volume levels. Nonetheless, i think it's fair to say I'm pretty happy with my purchase and can't wait for all this covid malarkey to be over so I can get this bad boy out into the environment it was built for!

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!!

Gorgeous Lionel VS4 just in at BassDirect https://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Sandberg_VS4_Tobaccoburst.html

I've just gone to look at my natural finish DJ5 as I'd not ever seen a join line, turns put it's a three piece body, but the grain lines have been very well matched and I could only tell from looking very closely at the end of the bass. So, suffice to say, Lakland Skyline can do it, it's just unfortunate that this time they did not. I love mine, so it's a shame the OP's didn't work out, glad he's happy now though.

Peterson (spelling ?) Combo... I always wanted one of those when I was a youth. Cool.

Seems to me the OP just doesn't like the look of that bass. Which is fine. IMO there is no reasonable way to extrapolate that dislike out and start questioning the quality and build of a manufacturers whole output. Lakland is a quality act, but we are talking about a manufacturing process and in QC things can slip through the net. You can even order a bass and not like the look of it when it arrives. Is that covered by QC? The OP is happy now, ironically, with a bass from a company that historically has had serious QC issues.

I put one of my Barefaced stickers on in the vertical position, so I ave both options going for me!

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

Ahhh - yes, when "shed" is mentioned, I guess the assumption is that it will be on timber. We keep the ride on mower in there though, so it is really more of a garage (it's single garage size - 3.6m x 6m). Forgot to say, this initial coat was thinned with white spirit as per the instructions on the can.

I nicked mine from a hotel.

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.

Odd that, rather than him sorting out his issue, everyone else is expected to fit around him. I'd wager that, far from using a Brian May tanner, he is using a light pick and digging too hard into the strings. Used to play with a guy who did just that and who always broke strings because he pushed against them with his thumb in order to compensate for the fact that his cigarette paper pick would bend rather than shift the strings. Could never get it through to him that he needed to use a heavier pick and to improve/lighten his picking technique. But then, he was a guitar player...

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

I have regularly played with musicians who I considered/knew were better than me. Being inspired by the guys you're playing with is the fun part of a gig. That doesn't intimidate me, but taking notice and raising your game, trying to climb on their shoulders, is what makes you a better player.

Where do the 'B' strings break..? Most likely culprit, if it's at the bridge, is a slight burr on the bridge string saddle. A simple fix for a guitar tech, and easy enough for a clued-up guitarist, too. The best solution is to get the guitar fixed. It's worth it, as it's not, in itself, a bad guitar, and deserves sorting. Of course, if the fellow doesn't want to do that... Just sayin, hope this helps.