Leaderboard

Pinning posts is the best way to make sure nobody sees the thread. I only like pinning things like rules so they can be referred to easily. I’d also rather not pin something about a scammer because at first glance it could look like he has something to do with the site and I don’t particularly want to see his name every time I open the forum. No, much better to just keep the thread normal 👍🏼

Time for Basschat.eu @ped

And what is this cunning plan? Well it's to use the spool clamps in the photos above, but with a mod. At the heel, all is straightforward because the sides of the heel and the freboard are both square and so the fretboard just can't move sideways at all: But here at the nut, the fretboard is tapered and so I have to mod the clamps otherwise they are just clamping the widest point, which is the top of the fretboard which would allow sideways movement of the fretboard to the neck: And so they are modded to give clearance of the fretboard and clamp the narrower neck/board join: And then - other than the G clamps - I should just need this: - Good quality masking tape for the neck up to the join - A flat hardwood clamping caul for the fretboard - a softer caul for the bottom of the neck. I will scrape a 'C' shape into this so the load is spread a touch But it's still worth sleeping on it before taking the action. And then, while this is gluing tomorrow, @Jus Lukin 's headless will be getting some attention

They're here!!!!!!

And - we're back Compliments of the Season to one and all. So having tolerated me over the past few days, MrsAndyjr1515 has encouraged me back down into the cellar. By the ominous click when I went down there, I think I now understand why 'double-security padlocks' were on her Christmas list Anyway - it was useful and, under duress, she has let me out to take some photos in the short daylight hours left. Fretboard! This build - straightforward in many respects - has some 'every ounce of skill and a decent sprinkling of luck' aspects. One is that we are trying to replace the fretboard without the need - at all - to refinish or even touch up the neck itself. Why? Well - it has ageing and player's mojo. It has cracks in the varnish. It has dints from having to escape quickly from bad gigs: And so I will be changing my normal sequence of fretting, attaching and final dimensioning the fretboard. Nowadays I normally cut close to final size, fret, sand and dress the fret ends and board top to final size, glue fretboard, scrape the taper from the fret-ends to the neck join, blending the fretboard and neck profile with scraper and sanding block. For this - to try to avoid scraping the neck anywhere but the glue line - I will be: cutting, planing and scraping the fretboard to exact final dimensions at the board/neck join line; gluing the board to the neck, finishing the fretboard sides from glue join to fretboard top; fretting; sand and dress the fret ends. So first job was to cut the board to shape leaving around 2mm oversize of the neck shape (1mm safety factor for a further 1mm taper between the top of the fretboard and the join line thus allowing the neck profile to continue up to the top of the board): Then some VERY careful work (after a few sacrifices to the Bassmaker Gods) with the block plane to add the taper to the sides so the at the join the fretboard is an exact fit: And the board is ready to glue. Normally, you would drill a couple of holes in a couple of the fret slots to put some panel pins in to stop the board floating out of position on the glue during clamping. But there is so little timber either side of that central graphite slab I'm actually reluctant to do that. I have a cunning plan...but am going to sleep on it just in case it doesn't sound so cunning in the morning

What about this Bruce?

After 12 years with a cheapie Yamaha, 20 years with a lovable Jazz, this was my first precision for my birthday this past October:

As I've said in previous threads when this question has been brought up, once the bridge has been attached to the body, in mechanical terms they become a single item, so the added mass of the baseplate on a "high-mass" bridge is negligible when taken as a percentage of the overall weight of the body and all the other things attached to it. What does make a difference is that most high mass bridges are better engineered than the original BBOT, especially in terms of preventing lateral movement of the individual saddles, but that is it. If it was me I'd pick a bridge for its looks and ease of intonation adjustment.

My stock answer to this: Most of history's iconic basslines involve a BBOT.

Dear friends, I just received a email from Kevin Johnson that my EVO-FX4 made it on the top 10 bass of the week columns for 2020! Here is the link https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2020/12/28/best-of-2020-top-10-reader-favorite-bass-of-the-week-features/

If it’s worth doing it’s worth overdoing.

There is a petition that aims to get this debated in Parliament. I don't expect that the over-privileged toffs in power give two hoots about this issue, but at least this might put some pressure on. Seek Europe-wide Visa-free work permit for Touring professionals and Artists We would like the UK Govt to negotiate a free cultural work permit that gives us visa free travel throughout the 27 EU states for music touring professionals, bands, musicians, artists, TV and sports celebrities that tour the EU to perform shows and events & Carnet exception for touring equipment. More details The UK has a huge music / event touring industry which has suffered immensely due to Covid. After the end of the transition period, we face further hardship when trying to tour the EU on a professional basis, with potentially each country asking for its own visa, that would be valid only for one trip, As a freelancer I and many like me travel through the EU countless times a year on different tours and events, this will become impossible due to cost and time if we do not have visa free travel. To sign up, you can go here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563294

I'm talking glass-mastered CDs, with production quantities of 500+. CD runs of under 500 are mostly CDRs which IMO don't count because they don't have the longevity required to be considered a reliable delivery medium.

Sounds awesome either way to me. This is interesting given it’s from the same album, same bass & rig but recorded in a different place, disregarding eq etc:

To be fair if you were the seller you’d be on here saying some c-unit was just on FB haggling me over an already decently priced BB 😀

He's 78. I don't expect to live that long, never mind be able to perform. His dues have been overpaid and then some.

but I knew I would see the day.

I just received my new Metro Express 5 string jazz bass. I have the same horrible noise problems as everyone noticed. Being an electronics geek I had to look in to the problem and stared poking around inside the electronics compartment. I noticed that if I touched the blue or green wire going from the treble control to the input of the preamp the noise would increase. It looked like the problem was at the input of the preamp. I went to my electronics parts bin and found a .01uf bypass capacitor. The type used in most circuits to suppress (bypass) RF signals to ground. I placed it between the blue wire (lug) and ground (lug) on the bass control. Amazingly this fixed the problem and now I have a very quite Metro Express. One thing that is notable. Sadowsky already has a bypass capacitor between the blue wire and ground. So adding my capacitor placed it in parallel to the stock one. The fact that adding my capacitor fixed the problem tells me that either the stock capacitor was defective or it was not large enough to suppress the noise. Also, adding only .01uf on the treble control will not roll off audio frequencies.

Something different. My faves BabaZula are 27 mins in but if you fancy a bit of a bass workout go to 1 hr 24 mins for Ilhan Ersahin's Istanbul Sessions.

I wouldn’t personally. the preamp is a reversible mod. The pickup routing is not. Find a more battered aria for that. You've made me cry about my sb700. 😞

For anyone who's dealt with Tommy before, word on the gata is that he's still aiming to get back to work. Appreciate he's going to have to graft to regain confidence, but I'm glad 'cos I talked to him a lot, and got pretty friendly with him. Let's hope he's building again soon.

Most of my best paid work in the last 10 years has taken place in the EU, probably by pure luck more than anything else, and I think it would be a massive shame if UK acts were priced / carnet-ed / visa’d out of doing a run of European gigs. Apart from function gigs in the UK, it was always the European ones where me and the guys would get paid decent money and get really well looked after. Audiences round Europe have often been great as well, really up for it. We’ve got to at least get visa-free travel for UK artists to make it worthwhile. Unless you actually are an established top tier act, but even so...

You mean a blue passport doesn't solve this? Ye gods....

Far too fragile? What are you doing with them?? I've just catalogued my vinyl collection with the Discogs app, which sounds incredibly boring, but nevermore will I end up buying doubles!!

Here you go, Al... One he made earlier....

Such a shame. Our creative industries are a multitude larger than our fishing industry.

Jingle bell? Ring my bell? Bell Bottom Blues? Hells Bells? Pavlov's Bell? Morning Bell? I'm here all week unless I go on Tour....

It's almost as if the general public don't care about that kind of thing........

Birthday boy with pressie (under his feet).

Unbelievably, that turns out to have been Post #13,000 by me. You couldn't make it up.

Might as well finish the Moving Pictures album; this is 'Witch Hunt'. The Bass Bites website has just passed 26,000 hits since it went public on 6/7/20. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/witch-hunt-rush/

Hi Guillaume, to most people the Sire U5 will be good as it is without any work by a professional. If you are a nitpicker like me you might want to upgrade the tuners and pickups at some point, but that's a very personal thing and mostly a matter of taste (I even mod >2000Euro basses that already have quality hardware with other quality hardware, just because I prefer a certain brand of tuners and/or pickups.. I just like to work on instruments in general, so a lot of the mods I do are not so much out of neccesity, but rather to give my personal flair to the instrument...). The gigbag I use for my U5 and other short scales is this one (a perfect fit!): https://www.thomann.de/be/thomann_gigbag_deluxe_egitarre.htm As to the Labella strings I prefer to use the La Bella 760FL-S Deep Talkin Bass shortscale flatwound set on my short scale basses as they have just the right amount of tension to compensate for the sloppiness that often comes with the shorter scale, yet they play effortlesly and have a great sound to them. Again, this is very subjective, but if you like playing on flatwound strings you can't go wrong with Labella i.m.o. https://www.thomann.de/be/la_bella_760fl_s_deep_talkin_bass.htm Hope you enjoy your new bass! Kind regards, Don

Considering we're only 2 days away from this kicking in. There seems to be little to no real information around as to what the new rules will entail. I've still no idea what I would be expected to pay shipping goods out of the UK into the EU. Or the other way around. My wife who runs a small Etsy business has now taken the UK off her shipping list altogether. I will never understand how anybody ever thought this was a good idea. How are business supposed to deal with all this cr@p with less than a weeks notice. Another appalling mess from Boris and his chums.

@GH63 I doff my Harley Benton cap to you. I need to up my game if I really want to be considered as a proper HB fan!

never mind – we're doing it again 😊

@Al Krow

Blue passports though

So my incredible other half surprised me on Christmas morning and gave me this incredible Sandberg that I had been drooling over since it landed at Bass Direct. I feel very very lucky indeed to have a girly that would do this and the fact that it is the best Sandberg I have ever played or owned. My older two (one I sold a while back) were the first generation ones and I had only played one of the second generation ones a few years back and had noticed the improvements they had made. Safe to say this thing has blown me away with how good it is and I love it to bits already. I just thought I would share some porn shots with you. My old TM2 is now hiding scared.

He was playing it fine. It was just an arrangement / mix choice, that’s all.