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OK guys the locks have been made and are getting shipped tomorrow! I'll be in touch soon RE payment!

You’re one more stupid post away from a ban so be very careful or leave. Thanks.

So it came up on Facebook memories today that I got my BB615 10 years ago this weekend. Many basses have come and gone in that time but this one has stayed. It has seen countless gigs, travelled all over the UK, recorded 5 albums, it still sounds incredible (thanks to swapping the original pre to an obp3 which got rid of a weird high pitched resonance) and while not necessarily my go to now for gigs (that's is now the trbx605) it's always prime choice for any recording work. Not too shabby for a bass that cost £299 new Here's to the next 10 years with it!

Ah - one job before that which I almost forgot. And Tom will smile at that because, on a totally different matter we had been talking about this very recently and that should have jogged my memory. That is, before tweaking the neck angle, I have to set in the saddle blocks so that they don't look like they've just been plonked on top Tools used is my Dremel with the precision router base to cut the outline and rough out inside the perimeter and the dinky hand router to make sure the bottoms are completely flat and even: And there, done:

Do: Jeff Wayne’s “War of the worlds” Don’t: Stadium Arcadium by RHCP would have been as big as Californication if they’d trimmed the fat off it (by a good 40 minutes)!

Stuck a black guard on the 48 looks a lot better to me than the white one...fair happy 🙂

Next is drilling the holes for the ferrules of the string-through. There are various ways of doing this but they are all based on the same principle - the strings must come out at the right place in the bridge and the ferrules need to look straight and even at the back. And on that basis, drilling four holes straight through usually achieve one of those aims but, almost certainly, not both! So most techniques follow the channel tunnel approach - drill from both sides and meet in the middle. My particular approach (note - not suitable for all applications. Normal warning, this is just how I have done this one and not necessarily how it should be done ) is : - I mark the positions the strings need to emerge at the top - I drill small diameter holes all the way through from the top for only the two outer string positions, using a low-runout press-drill to try to keep as vertical as possible. - I turn the body over and mark the positions of the inner two strings at the back with a steel rule straight-edge - I use a bradpoint drill in the drill press, carefully centre-ing the point in the two drill holes and inner marked positions for the ferrules: - and then turn it back over to drill the string holes at their full width. Any misalignment is then basically corrected in the middle of the body wood While the bass was on the workbench, I also carved the 'Tom's Cutaway' into the headstock: Next job is tweaking the neck angle a teeny bit to give me full saddle height range access and levelling/dressing the frets Next week is a bit of a grandparent-on-standby write off, so the more I can do in the next couple of days, the better...

I love my Japanese Beauty's, 1980 Ibanez Musician 1981 Aria SB700 1979 Yamaha BB1200 I play in a 1980's Tribute Band (Hello Felix) so these Baby's serve me well, Incredible Japanese build quality and attention to detail ......and they stay in tune ☺️

Oh come on, 20 minutes in and nobody has mentioned Tales Of Topographic Oceans? Biggest fail in the history of prog, and that's a much coveted title.

Shame, I was hoping to combine postage on the tractor, the Martin 00 and mobile catering van.

Bass Players

I'm not going specifacally for a bass player, but he happens to be one. I'm not going for someone who no-one who has ever heard of but I think is great (although there are lots to choose from!). That is just a matter of taste rather than under-rating. I'm going for someone who is not in my top list of favourite bands, but whenever I hear them I shake my head at the lack of credit this player gets................... ..... and it is Andy Rourke of the Smiths. His bass playing is as engaging (more on a lot of occasions) as Marrs guitar playing, but scarcely any recognition.

Don't Stand So Close To Me - Police

So after reading the thread about Cliff Williams of AC/DC getting a signature Stingray it reignited the want for one. I love Stingrays but have ever managed to “tame” the sound, but then I’ve only ever had the 3eq versions. I have however read that the 2eq is beefier sounding so thought, I’ll give one a try if a black/black/maple one comes along. And it did at the weekend on EBay. Sealed the deal, delivered today. Like an excited child I got home and to work on a clean/set-up and in honour of Cliff, a set of D’Addario Chromes. It’s a 1987 model with the truss rod adjuster in the headstock, and the silver battery cover. It has some nice authentic road wear on it, nothing hideous, just the signs of a 30+ year old gigged instrument. But all that doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t enjoy playing it. Well I settled down in front of YouTube to some of my fave covers and an hour and a half passed in an instant, yes, the ‘Ray passed the test, I love playing it, and yes, the 2eq is beefier sounding. Oh, the beauty in question, well it’s as below.

Cheers to @kodiakblair for the heads up after looking for some guards to be made, Brian Pilanz is your man sent him the originals to copy and turn around was roughly 6 days for the 4 guards in the picture. Top row is for a 70's Jazz without thumb rest/pup guard holes, btm left for a Jazz Pro & btm right Sandberg 48. Well happy with them and way cheaper than WD 👍 https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/earlpilanz

The Corvette is finished......well apart from cocking up wiring and a broken pot so no output at the moment lol Before...... After...

Another vote for an Aria SB! They’re lovely (if weighty) basses. Here’s my SB700. My first ever bass. Still love it!

I can't read all of this, but Beedster, do you realize Geddy Lee was EXTREMELY influenced by Chris Squire? And all the high singing is Chris, above Jon.

Sorry for the tardy reply but I've been a bit busy. In my enthusiasm to post I'd assumed that what was in my head would have been easily understood by all, however, what is is in my head is quite often not understood by even me so my apologies for not explaining properly. To answer your questions, A couple of reasons really. The laser only cuts a slot 0.1mm wide so although the slots would be perfectly spaced they'd still need opening up with a saw, also, although the laser in a precision machine in operation, setting the work pieces in place isn't, so a great deal of trial and error is involved getting things square. This isn't a problem normally but if I wanted to cut fret slots square to a fret board, I'd only know if I'd got it right after it's finished cutting. Secondly, The varying density of the wood being cut effects the cut which means that it is not uniformly consistent over the whole piece of wood, so a hard bit of wood in the middle of a fretboard would result in a slot being less deep than the others and could even end up burnt. I have used the laser to cut a fretboard for the long term P bass that I'm making and here's a photo of the results. When I say P bass, I don't mean precision I mean Pallet, as in made from pallets. If I eventually finish it I'll post its construction. To answer the other questions, here's a photo that hopefully illustrates the principle behind my thinking. That's not actually a fretboard, it's just a bit of wood that I had laying around.

I wanted someone else to do that one! Use your Illusion : 1 album of great songs spread across 2 discs

Do - Stones ‘Exile on Main St’ - one of my favourite albums Bruce Springsteen - ‘The River’ - ditto. Many seemed to think it would have made a better single album but I like it all. Derek & the Dominos - ‘Layla and other assorted love songs’ - not loved much on here I believe, but a great piece of work IMHO. Don’t - Lou Reed ‘Metal machine music’. Dreadful album following some other great ones, I believe it was to fulfill a contractual obligation.

How about a Washburn Chicago B-80 !?

Not a prog fan myself, but I thought Genesis version of “Can’t hurry love” was very good.

Hi Ho Silver Lining

I saw that Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx nominated himself for this the other week

Mesa Boogie/Bass Gallery - I've told this tale before but it's appropriate for this thread. I bought a pair of Subway 15" cabs as soon as they came out. Due to the way production works there, I received the first one in November and the second in the February after. I thought I'd wait until I had the pair before I ran the full rig up and immediately noticed that there was a rattle on the first delivered cab. I checked the tightness of all the screws (it was similar to a rattling grille) but it persisted. It became apparent that the fault lay with the speaker. Gently pushing on the cone gave no indication of an issue there (I was checking to feel if there was any grating from a misalignment). Eventually, it was evident that the speaker was the issue and Mesa agreed to change the speaker. They arranged to send a new speaker over so they could be swapped over. The cab was bought through Bass Gallery and the speaker was due on a Saturday. This was the same day that the guy in the shop was going ion holiday. Entirely for my benefit, he came into the shop and waited, with me, for it to arrive. When it did (already close to the time he needed to leave) we removed the old one, only to find the rattle was caused by a block of 4 staples that had fallen out of the gun (the operator had clearly refilled it during the process of fixing the wadding). On removing the staples, it was apparent all was now fine. We put the cab back together and I went on my way - complete with the spare speaker they had sent over. Given the cost of the cabs I shudder to think how much the speaker was but the level of customer service was off the scale from both Mesa and the Bass Gallery. The chap put his holiday at risk in order to help a customer.

I agree. Aria models will always get my vote and if you don’t like the necks on the standard SB models, look out for SB-R versions - more traditional neck dimensions and far prettier fret markers too! EDIT - Just to clarify I’m not talking about crazily priced SB-1000 models. The 600/700/900 models or R60, R80 equivalents are amazing quality and still to be had at sensible money.

Mine..

Commenting about under-rated musicians is an over-rated pastime 😁

Decision time.... I am going for the individual saddle bridge. First one fitted, spot on, so now to get the rest right as well.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road would’ve been better slimmed down, but getting it to a single, vinyl album would’ve been tough. Quadrophenia is a great double album and Tommy isn’t bad either (I’m not a Who fan boy BTW). I think The Wall could be shorter, but again, there’s more than a single album’s worth. Physical Graffiti is one of my all time faves, but they should’ve released the HotH tracks with that album, as that would’ve been epic.

a) Wash your mouth out 😂 b) You are both wrong and right. JG 1 (single). JG 2&3 (double - released together). All later remastered as a triple boxed set.

Uneven string volumes with peizo strip are usually due to uneven pressure being put on the peizo strip. Check that the slot the strip sits in is clean and free from any wood debris. I've evened out string volumes by putting a piece of paper under the peizo under the quieter strings to increase the pressure on the peizo. Even moving the peizo strip towards the treble end of the slot if there's room. Tiny adjustments make a big difference with peizos. Obviously it won't help if you just don't like the tone.

IMO playing ahead of the beat doesn't work when everyone is doing it, or you all speed up. You have to have someone to be ahead of! Leaning into the beat was my way of pushing bad or dragging drummers along and trying making the song sound more "alive". Thankfully I haven't played with a drummer like that for many years, but I can quite enjoy myself playing behind the beat, in the right band.

Spend a bit of time watching this YouTube video - To keep time/production costs down the band (Tyler Bryant And The Shakedown) recorded the rhythm guitar, bass and drum tracks live in a single take - Vance explains some of the techniques used to avoid bleed (even then, there is some as it's inevitable but as there are no rhythm overdubs this isn't a problem) and then goes through some of the signal processing and tricks used as the example track was produced. I mix on AKG K702s or KRK monitors at home - the room is pretty flat but untreated (for now) so I do the bulk of the mixing on speakers then go to headphones for the final polish - you really do need to have some quality headphones or monitors in a good room to mix with sadly.

Hi All, attached a few picture of my new EVO-4 & EVO-5 Bass bridges.

Well...bass picked up Wednesday past & delivered to Belgium today, arrived safe and sound and buyer ( Elie Kh ) happy

For an encore I wouldn’t do anything that radically dropped the pace on which the set finished.

I prefer when the drums lead - mainly because the other people in the band are more likely to be listening to the drums and not the bass.

The key is properly seasoned, dried wood, cut at the correct angle and properly joined. A laminated neck is no guarantee of stiffness or stability. I had a Warwick Streamer a few years ago, 5-piece flamed maple laminate with contrasting stringers and that neck would never remain stable. It would go out of tune every couple of days even when left at the same temperature. A good look by a luthier suggested that it was indeed soft and spongy, probably down to insufficient seasoning or different moisture content in each laminate. Which begs the point: if you’re going to make laminates with flamed maple. At least make a cursory attempt to match the wood grain! I guess the Uber-expensive custom shop basses do now but they’ve not got a great track record, especially with maple necks, where it’s more obvious. Both Fender Dimensions I owned were single piece necks (with carbon fibre rods I believe) and never required re-tuning. Aesthetically I prefer this as on many multi-laminate necks with different woods you can feel the joins as the different wood species move in different amounts.

I would have said my Jim Dunlop Bass Wah. It was awesome but in a 2 guitar band it wasn't getting anywhere near the use it deserved and I am happily living without it. I always scoffed at amp sims and cab sims for people who played through amps and cabs. Possibly because my first experiences of them were in a Zoom BFX708 so that's... 20 years ago. Now, even though I have a very good amp, the main effects I use are essentially EQ effects based on amp and cab sounds! A Trace Elliot simulator is my main one at the minute, but there's also a "super flat" amp sound I used a lot with a lot of compression that really sounded awesome with my Sire active jazz, there's an effect I'm just going to call "Duff" which is essentially my copy of Duff McKagans tone that is mostly amp sim with a chorus I can kick in. When I had a Fender Bronco bass amp I didn't bother with the on board effects but loved going through the different amp sims to get different flavours out of the bass. All I have now is a Boss GT10B old but solid tech. I don't know if the audience can hear any difference if I change from Trace Elliot to Super flat or if they even care, but it makes me happy.

Westone Thunder? Lovely basses, loads of different versions. Heavy as hell though. I have the Thunder II with super boomer pickups, through neck, xlr input added and I don't think it is a stock colour either. The Westone forum is a good place to go to see differing models.

For me, this is exactly like trying to think about what your feet are doing as you run downstairs ... guaranteed to end in a train wreck. I never, ever think about whether I am leading or following the drummer, and I suspect that I'd be very hard-pressed to tell you if I actually tried to work it out. I play "whatever feels right" to me at the time. Not suggesting that this is in any way clever or better, it's just what works for me.