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Final two steps before tomorrow's 'Chambers for the Superquads' (just you watch - Marvel will nobble that title . Expect a film on Disney+ before spring) marathon, a couple of jobs while the router table was out: Control chamber to final depth and initial back rounding: Initial top rounding: So tomorrow's job will be: - decide on the final positioning of the bridge elements, the fretboard and the pickups - create the three chambers for the Superquads. For this, I will be using the same method outlined for the neck pocket in the Wal save thread half way down Page 7 here: A Very Special Save - Page 7 - Build Diaries - Basschat Thanks for looking

Yes - there is a potential issue depending on at which stage Wal fitted the inserts - before or after adding the neck angle shim they glue to the heel. But actually, if they didn't fit the shim first and then drill with absolutely vertical drills (vertical to the body top and neck heel but, therefore, at an angle to the fretboard), they would have the same problem as well. So as long as my holes are 90 degrees to the body top, then they will align to the inserts. If I get time, for them's that have no idea what we're talking about, I'll draw a diagram Anyway - the next scary bit is done. The neck pocket. As all of the chambering, both on this build (for the scratchplate componentry and pickup) and the pickup chambers on @Jus Lukin 's headless, will be using this same method, I'll go into it in a bit more detail. Over the years, I personally have found this absolutely the most accurate and safest way of cutting chambers. Most of my fellow builders use templates and to great effect - but to me, templates usually spell problems. If I was doing repeat builds, then templates would clearly be the way to go, but for 'one-off chambers' - which most of mine are, this is the way I do it: Having marked out the line accurately, I use a forstner bit in my little drill press to hog out around 2/3rds of the depth, with the forstner just short of the chamber outline: I then sharpen my chisels because I need to chisel some seriously accurate edges!: So here, I'm chiselling away the forstner wave residue and then taking the cut, ensuring it is vertical and as accurately as possible, along the inside edge of my outline to a minimum of 10mm depth: I double check with the neck that the fit is spot-on. I also check that the bolts (which are, of course, now too long) still fit in the inserts! If it is and they do, I have an accurate 10mm vertical band that will guide the router bearing to tidy up the chamber sides and deepen it as necessary. I am using a router table here but a hand router (preferably with a decently large base for stability) would work just as well. The bottom-bearing'd router bit simply cannot now dig in anywhere it shouldn't: So the bit tidies up the sides and makes them exactly the same as my chiselled band and I increase the depth a couple of mm at a time to the final depth: Then final checks - first that the neck fits snugly and fully bottoms in the chamber: And a final check that it still all lines up: Which - to everyone's surprise and especially my own - it does So I won't go through the blow by blow, but this is how I will also rout the chambers for the truss rod access, the pickup and the electronic circuitry under the pickguard...and @Jus Lukin 's pickup chambers that will be next

Can I say here that I may well be the only person on Basschat to have had a near-death experience involving Maurice Gibb. As a student-holiday postie, I was astride an aged, cantankerous and ludicrously-overloaded Royal Mail bike, teetering along an expensive and exclusive private road in Esher one wintery day in 1986, when blatting round the corner came a shiny new Aston Martin driven, as it turned out, by the very BeeGee in question... It was at that precise moment that the enormous bag of Christmas cards decided to jump ship, depositing itself...and me...in the middle of the road and causing the unsuspecting Maurice to make lots of screeching noises ( I think it was a combination of his brakes and that very falsetto of which there has been some discussion). His reactions were admirable; none of it was his fault and I am here to relate the tale. Anyhow, apropos of nothing much, a little vignette.... And do you know, it never occurred to me at the time to ask him about R*c*e*b*c*e*s.....; I probably should have, but he seemed a little flustered.

Which IMO completely negates the point of vinyl as a decent playback medium, if you have to spend that kind of money to recreate what is already lower-quality audio. Plus no matter how much you've spent. it won't remove flaws in the manufacturing process - pops, clicks, surface noise or put the hole any closer to the centre of the record.

I put a strap on an instrument and leave it on there. Only comes off for major maintenance etc. So, every guitar gets a strap. This is the way.

So clamps off and all looks OK: The chamber will be deepened, cutting through the maple veneer you see here. And some time on the router gets the sides ready for final clean up with cabinet scrapers before I round-over the edges:

Just...

In the words of Crocodile Dundee "That's not a Jackson. THIS is a Jackson"

A friend posted this on Facebook - someone has isolated a single audio track from an SACD, giving just lead vocals, bass and drums. It makes for a fascinating listen.

Mods: we need a like emoticon for 'scared' 😟

Who did you bury under the patio, Chris?

Dink? 🙂

Yup. The thing I find most frustrating about all of this is that the decisions made on this were driven by a decision by people who have not got a Scooby Doo on how any of this works - as proven in this thread. Its easy to say "buy British" - but the the complex pieces of string that hold all this together are far from easy to work out. We will see the fall out from this for many years to come... Some people have got very rich from it though. So there is that. They'll be paying all the taxes on their new found wealth... oh no. That will be stashed off shore. But as you say, blue passports... for what they are worth at the moment. Killer form of ID down the post office though I guess.

He’s back...

This, always this.

Is the EU purchasing programme a fiasco? I didn’t think so, I didn’t see anything about that. The rollout for sure is and has been handled much better in the UK. I remember reading that the UK buys each dose of Pfizer vaccine for 28 (euros or GBP) whereas the EU buys them for 18 (euros or GBP) - economy of scale.

Put some EMG's in my Bullet and changed the pre to the EMG BQC. I think i prefer it over the Delano's...the Delano's were OK but love having the mid control on the BQC. Had to change the crappy EMG plastic knobs - now sporting much improved chrome knobs.

Looks big but is only the small bedroom 9 foot across 2 and 3/4M, but its an active home studio, almost every day, i love the sound of it, releasing tracks at the mo, im just doing the brass on a funky Reggae type track, just waiting for my living room ceiling to cave in 🙂 so in order to gain some space im just in the middle of making one of these, but with racks at the bottom either side as well.....

Which Jackson designed it? Pollock?

I had a feeling this would turn into a discussion about sound quality, I've said it before, most people aren't that bothered about the nuances of the sound, took me a while but I realised your mood and the atmosphere are more important when listening to music, I bet most of us have really enjoyed a track more, played on a crappy pub jukebox because we've had a couple of beers and out with mates. If putting a record on a turntable and listening to the stylus hitting the vinyl increases your listening pleasure then so be it.

Hold my beer...

Can you please explain why a better turntable will reduce pops and crackles? I thought that these were due to manufacturing flaws or damage to the record itself. Also while reducing wow and flutter should be a good thing, IMO the relationship of the hole in the "centre" of th record in relation to the grooves is by far the biggest contributing factor. The problem for all analogue music reproduction systems is that they rely on the real-time extraction of the information from the playback media, and any fluctuations in the mechanics of of the playback mechanism will adversely impact on the final sound.

I thought I’d posted a couple of pics of my ‘bic ages ago, but looks like I haven’t. 1976 long scale S1 with birdseye maple facings; imported from the US (in the days before customs charges became crippling). I tend to gig with my Warwick (LX Streamer Jazzman) these days*, but the S1 is a lovely old beastie....... *Edit: when we actually were gigging, of course.......

Either one of these will do for me ☺️

Right, I've done the sensible thing (a hard thing to do!) I've picked up (local and socially distanced) a 1yr old pre-owned Millenium MPS-850 with a Mapex stool, and a few little extras for £275 all in. I think at that price I can really give it a good go, and if I want to go for something Roland etc in a few months I can always shift this on an break even fairly easily.

I’m loving my Ashdown little bastard for rehearsals and small gigs. Only 30 watts, but 30 valve watts gets pretty loud through a decent speaker. It is just an altogether different thing to my GK mb500.

Just looking on the EU website, there is a touring visa which allows non EU nationals to travel in the shengen area for 90 days without additional requirements. So I assume this is what was offered. It is a lot easier to offer something you have already established the rules for.

Which to me sounds like they didn't want to roll the standard contract out, they wanted to wrap up touring musicians with business travellers, which I don't think is the same sort of thing, and would have complicated it. Seems very much - here is our standard cut and paste musicians scheme we already do for the rest of the world, can we have that - yes / no. Not like they had any other time to negotiate as it had been left so long I have met DJs who believe they fit in the musician category. Obviously free to talk about what you want, but we have done the vaccine and covid to death in other threads, and to avoid al riding in here on his spitfire to save us, can we sort of have a thread where we can talk about touring musician issues rather than end up at the same (locked) thread about b*xit?

Yep I start with all flat. Shape In or Out depends on what I'm playing and who with. Quiet home practice etc it tends to be in, but as I get louder and need to cut through the mix more I take it out. A little bit of drive and compression, crank to ear-bleeding level, grin from ear to ear.

There was a wanted ad for a SansAmp yesterday on FB and a number of people replied warning against the fraudster, including one or two I didn't recognise. I can't see the post now, so maybe it's been taken down.

Your impression is exactly correct, all models within the Subway line are designed with similar phase response, sensitivity and power bandwidth to work well together. The engineering and math have been done, listening tests agree with the predictions, and it's not influenced by the marketing department. Note that this is not true mixing the Subway cabinets with other manufacturer's cabinets, nor mixing cabinet models from Mesa outside of the Subway models (for example, PH and Scout cabinets may not mix well with Subway cabinets). The most common combination is the 115 with the 210, but the 115 with 112 is not far behind.

I just checked the Khruangbin Rig Rundown on Premier Guitar ans Laura says that the SX is her only bass, although Mark Speer did swap out the pickups for Dimarzios. So it’s not stock like I thought. https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/27261-rig-rundown-khruangbin At 16:40 in the video you see her live rig which is just SX bass through a compression pedal into a Fender amp. There’s a copy of a Hofner violin bass that she has as a backup which she’s used on recordings and says it’s easier to play, but she might only have used it at one show. I read she played a Fender VI on the Leon Bridges sessions, I need to check that out with headphones I think. The production on it is so straight yet beautiful. Got me looking at green SX’s now 😆

This. Just makes me sigh looking at it. Just need to start saving now...

Hey Bassy folk Just received a fantastic custom oak stain bass stand I ordered off Facebook in the post Christmas blues :-S and while typically I keep my buying on more " official platforms such as here or face to face" I was very impressed by the guys photo's and prices and I figured that as i'd had a disappointing Christmas of bass stuff .... Why not treat myself. It arrived this morning tracked Royal mail and for even someone who Got a GSCE "F" in woodwork was an absolute doddle to assemble , The build quality is excellent with lovely soft foams to protect the bottoms of guitars its also waxed rather than stained to protect the finishes and my floor , I'm rather pleased , more than enough to recommend him but obviously this is no way paid or asked for so I wont link directly. His prices and dimensions are as follows , he's based in wales and was willing to do collection withing reason but teir 4 may have scuppered that. hipping to me in London was extra at cost . 3 bay 522 L x 758 H x 465 D £78 4 bay 643 L x 758 H x 465 D £82 5 bay 764 L x 758 H x 465 D £86 6 bay 885 L x 758 H x 465 D £90 Reply or message and i can pass his details on.

There are a few players who were on ‘everthing’ back in the day Jamerson/Babbit, Duck, JO. Their playing has had an indelible impact on bass playing generally and how we define a style or fill the space. There have been many great innovators since in various genres from funk to punk but there are ‘signposts’ in this and other classics which as a bassist we must have in our vocabulary. Finally what a magical thing to hear only bass, drums and in this case exquisite vocals. Something about the bass and how it flirts with melody, rhythm along with the Vocal

it is indeed a right load of Jackson.

Dink n ting, sounds like a good name for my new band 😁

It's quite easy. CDs are a lot smaller, feel smooth and you can fit your pinkie into the hole in the middle.

One thing to be mindful of if touring in the EU, don’t take sandwiches as in the news today EU border controls are confiscating them from lorry drivers.

Like I posted a few days ago, many people don't realise that many independents source their (non fender/gibson) stock from big online sellers. As I understand it this can include Squier guitars. It was getting really tough back in 2019, two shops told me Gibson were insisting shops held a five-figure value of Gibson guitars if they wanted to stock Epiphone - practices like that were far more damaging IMHO.

Oooooh, that top one in that gloss finish, but with the black hardware of the one below! That would look incredible.

@TheLowDown - I spoke to Thomann this morning actually, they said that they're currently using UPS for UK deliveries over £135. Their current experience is that UPS are delivering items prior to customs taxes being paid. A week or so after delivery you'll get an invoice from UPS to pay the 20% customs taxes plus a £12 handling fee. Thomann also said that deliveries are currently averaging at 3 - 6 days.

Thanks for posting. Doesn't affect me but useful information in general. The 'Pin 3 = Signal +' convention is/was (?) I believe used by Shure Microphones ? But a Shure Mic XLR output will likely be balanced so the only issue would be polarity reversal. As you point out - if you unbalance the signal at one end then you have a problem as you are 'grounding' the only signal. The 'proper' AES way is, of course.: X(1)= Screen (and it should go directly to (metal) chassis but that's a slightly different subject) ; L(2) = 'Signal +' (ie the signal - original polarity) ; R(3) = 'Signal -' (ie the signal - opposite polarity). Now 'balanced' outputs may not have signal on both pins 2 and 3 if they are 'Impedance Balanced' or 'Ground Cancelling' so they will also have a problem with non-standard wiring. Personally I'd recommend rewiring to standard if practicable. Obviously it's a lot easier if connections are wired (just swapping over two wires) rather than on a PCB (where you'd need to cut and patch tracks). But then you'd be able to plug in anything - mics or other 'balanced' or unbalanced sources - and it should all work. On another point from the thread - I'd recommend Caig DeOxit products for contact cleaning etc. Basically remove oxide with DeOxit stuff. And remove grease/oil contamination with Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA - but not the sort that comes in cans/bottles 🙂