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I always get the impression that these guys do very little homework and try to get by by being "geezers"! If I had either one as a next door neighbour, I'd have to move.

Nope, but you could pick it up for 50 quid!

Hi all I've spent the best part of 3 hours thinning this topic out to what could be considered relevant and uncontroversial comments. To keep this topic readable, please can we just: Keep to reported facts and updates about case progression Don't feel that you have to comment on everyone else's post Cut out the banter - yes it's funny but it just bloats out the topic to make it harder to read and harder to find relevant information Thanks

"Boredom is the mother of invention" I have been bored. very very bored. So i started thinking about the next Bass build, and thinking turned to planning and planning turned into scheming. Ive had a couple of bass playing friends reach out to me and ask in the past if id ever build a bass for them, and ive always said no. essentially i just never felt qualified to build something to a standard that i would want to charge someone for it, and ive always liked my bass builds to be suitably "home made", plus i never have enough free time to get it finished in a reasonable timescale. Plus, the workshop id normally use to do all of the work, with all the big power tools (Bandsaw, Router table, Table saw etc) has been closed all the way through lockdown, which makes the whole thing even more of a pain. but this is where i came up with an idea. i decided that what i'd do, is take the time and build a prototype, a pattern bass if you will, in order to try out all of the ideas ive had, get the design correct, work out any kinks and complications, and if anyone likes it and it turns out good, then i can use it to show people what theyd be paying for. And if i can do it in a garage on a workbench with fairly basic power tools, ill feel confident in being able to repeat the feat once the proper workshop is back open. Im certainly never going to go full time luthier, but id love to be able to do this as a hobby where i can recover the costs! So.... The design. This is one i spent most of the first lockdown (in march) planning and thinking about. i had a few basic parameters that i wanted to stick to: 1.Not crazy over the top - my last bass turned out great, and i love it, but its design is a pretty aquired taste. this one needs to be a little more universal in its appeal 2. Lighweight - whatever happens i dont want a bass i make to stay hung on a wall for all its life because it breaks its owner's back every time he/she plays it. this means making sure the aesthetic design is fairly compact, but also that the material choices and construction are considered from day one 3. comfortable - this kind of ties into the lightweight aspect, this needs to be comfortable to play standing up and sitting down, with easy to use controls and fairly normal dimensions. i dont want it to have crazy narrow string spacing or a mile long scale length 4. Unique. this is my big focus for this project. i want this to be something special. ive got a few ideas for it, that i will share as we go through the build and see what people think. in the end this is what this prototype is for, to see which experiments work and which don't! With those in mind, heres a quick rundown of the specs (although these are subject to change depending on the aforementioned experiments) Neck through construction - (experiment number one, the neck through blank will have carbon fibre laminated directly into it to save material, reduce weight and improve stability) 33" scale length, 26 frets Body - laminated from walnut, maple, Padauk with a curly redwood top (experiment number two, as opposed to a book match top, this will have a "swan matched top", i will explain below) slotted headstock - similar to Bolin Steinberger bass macassar ebony fretboard with tree/leaf inlays tune-o-matic style bridge with custom graphite saddles - paired with customised bigsby with bass guitar string and tension bar electrics: 2 Multi coil custom pickups (experiment number three) - similar in construction to sims super quads (switchable coil combinations) but with 8 individual coils (a la Wal pickups). there are reasons for this which i will explain in due course stereo filter based preamps (experiment number four) - active filters with variable frequency, resonance and independent mono and stereo outputs (these have a few interesting qualities whih again, i will explain in due course) internal, replaceable lithium ion battery pack, and integrated 24V phantom power connection and accompanying pedal (experiment number five) that will allow for extremely high power draw, hi fidelity op amps to be used in the preamps Im taking some interesting inspiration for the body design, little bit of CT, little bit of Wal, little bit of some of ther other boutique scroll basses out there: The flamed redwood will be divided along the S-shaped curve, and have a sandwich of veneers in between them. the white areas in the upper horn and left hand side will leave the wood below (black walnut) to show through. this is to show off the lines of the bass, but the cutaway on the left will act almost like a thumb rest just at the upper edge of the pickups. this is obviously a pretty rough representation, as the edges will be carved and rounded to expose the various coloured laminates underneath. this build isnt going to be happening in real time, ive been sitting on this for a while so that i could get some of the more time consuming and boring bits out of the way first, so im hoping that updates will be fairly regular moving forward. im super excited, and have at least 3 full notebooks of sketches and drawings and notes and diagrams for all of my crazy hair-brained ideas! and on a final note, there will be experiment number 6... which is i think the most ambitious and least likely to work of all of them... but i will play that one fairly close to the chest. for now ill say this: if it works the back of this bass is going to be more impressive to look at than the front Look forward to sharing this one with you guys!

Bump

Just received this text from DHL; "Your DHL Express shipment with waybill number 8280254640 from ANDERTONS MUSIC COMPANY is on its way. We will require a signature at the time of delivery. The current estimated delivery is Tue Jan 19 2021 before End of Day."

Over the years I’ve owned five of them in various combinations of 4 and 5 string, HS and HH but my current one is the first single H I’ve owned. Thought I would have to sell it to purchase the Valenti Jazz I recently got but swung it that I kept the Bongo too. Glad I did as well. It was the favourite and last Bongo sold from a seller’s personal collection. Which was thirteen years to the month after I sold him my white Bongo 4HS. In my opinion they are great basses and I’m currently enjoying the bit less thunderous tones of the 3EQ single H. Sterling Ball said the single H is point and shoot and that’s about right. I was forever on the EQ controls with the two pickup ones. This one is more plug in and play and has a StingRay vibe but the sound is smoother and to my ears doesn’t have the top end ‘clank’ of a 3EQ Ray. The bass is also very light with a super fast neck.

Ah, thats interesting, i thought the lower horn was big enough to give a comfortable curve over the knee, which way do you think it will slip? im less concerned about access to the upper frets, the thin horizontal line on the neck is the 26th fret position, so the 24th is actually above where the lower horn meets up with the body. And also an intersting point regarding the jack socket position, i hadn't planned that aspect yet. ive never thought of jack socket positioning to be a big deal ergonomically, where is the ideal spot do you think? not one ive thought out fully yet, but it will need to be as this will have two output sockets, one for mono and one for stereo with phantom power. Here are a few pics of the first stage of laminating: the centre is Padauk, and the first strips on are a constructional 2.5mm Cherrywood veneer. I ran a bead of liquid CA glue along the edge join to make sure there was no splintering or chipping out as the edge was planed flat. The plan is to laminate 3 edges of the padauk with cherry, and then repeat the process with a layer of 2.5mm black walnut The idea is to create laminations that give good contrast along the carved edges, but also when looking at the upper and lowe edges of the bass, similar to this: In the first picture above, you can see in the background a mitre saw and a big collection of cut pieces and CA Glue, these relate to experiment number 6, which is well under way! Im also in the process of drawing up the neck inlays: the falling maple leaves will be made from abalone and Gold Mother of pearl, which im hoping will create some good contrast with the macassar ebony fretboard. Ive sent this drawing off to Bruce Wei, the guy who normally does the inlays i do, hes a great guy to work with and always produces amazing stuff, even from drawings as rough as mine! Next post ill run through some of the pickup design/some of my initial work on the preamp as well, so stay tuned!

Three of my favourite basses are here (2 Rics and the grey Warwick). Three more of my favourites are here (white Ric, orange Precision, Status graphite headless). None of them cost over £1k.

Todays tasks are about doing the final main features on the body blank before doing the final tidy up of the edges and then the round-overs (always last otherwise you lose the edges that you might want to use with a bottom bearing flush router bit). First was a repeat of my preferred 'chamber method' to fit the pickup: Next were the two cutaways. For the forearm relief I used a hand-plane: For the back waist scoop, I hogged out with my trusty Veritas Pull-shave and then finished off with a microplane, minus the handle and just held between two gloved hands and finally tidied up with some emery wrapped round the micro-plane. The whole job could have been done just with the micro-plane blade and emery, just with a bit more effort:

These are my cheap basses, and each one has been my main gigging bass at some point, the Squier for almost 3 years of gigging every weekend. Its still my second fav bass that i own. The guitar is just there for effect lol. .

I do understand all that, and to a degree it's understandable, but it does give them a get out jail free card for, at best accidents, at worst theft. I'm a panel beater in a large accident repair centre. We can't increase our hourly rate when we work on an expensive car. Whether I'm working on a brand new Aston Martin or a ten year old Dacia, the hourly rate is the same (there are variables but that's down to who you're insured with, not us), but the financial risk of rectifying mistakes is massively different. Also due to the far greater complexity of more expensive cars over budget brands/models, the risk of mistakes is also increased (in general). You don't take your car to a bodyshop and ask for their hourly rate, to be told it's a sliding scale from £35p/h on vehicles valued below £1000, to £500p/h for vehicles valued over £100,000. So would it be reasonable to ask for the customer to take out an insurance policy to cover any extra cost due to any mistakes made? The kind of thing I'm talking about is, for instance, say I was doing a front end repair on a car and while removing the headlights I dropped one (like a courier parcel). Some headlights are £200, some are over £2000. Plus the dearer one will more likely need to be programmed if a replacement is fitted, at more cost to ourselves. Sorry for the borderline rant, but I just feel it encourages the couriers to care even less about your parcels. I'd like to add that all my regular delivery folks are brilliant though, it tends to be in the sorting depots where this stuff happens. I'm guessing low paid, night shift workers who just don't want to be there.

JJ Burnell's 1979 solo album "Euroman Cometh"

This guy has +11,807 likes. So what he said.

Ladies, Gentlemen and everyone in between: I proudly present the Brooks Thundervee. A hybrid between a Thunderbird and a Flying V. - Neck through with Korina body wings - Nine ply Korina/mahogany neck - Ebony faceplate on headstock - Red Mahogany stain. Gloss transparent acrylic finish - Rosewood fretboard - 23 Jumbo frets - 34" scale - Handcut Buffalo horn nut - Three ply black-white-black pickguard - Wide travel Thunderbird bridge - String through body ferrules - Hipshot ultralite nickel plated tuners - Spokewheel double action trussrod - 2 x Sixties repro Thunderbird pickups nickel. 9.2 K Ohm - Di Marzio EP111 toggle switch 4PDT for serial mode - 2 x Volume pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic - 1 x Tone pot Bourns 500 kOhms logarithmic - Kemet capacitor 47 nF paper insulation - DR FatBeams 45-105 Electronics circuit by BQ Music Pics of the build process can be found here This is what she sounds like:

Just a FYI for those interested. It just came up on my timeline.

God knows when I'll get to gig this, so for now it's just clips on YouTube 😞

I think you're right. I like custom basses (when I have saved enough up) as I can have what I like and in the certain knowledged it will be made by a person for the most part. My most expensive ACG was still about £1k less than a Custom Shop Jazz and dare I say a bit prettier too Maruszczyk basses are interesting and for me are more mass customisation than boutique but no less worthy by any standards.

Just to add a counterweight to the depressingly huge numbers of bad stories. I had a bass booked with DPD via Eurosender to go from here in SE Essex to just outside Glasgow. Pickup was Monday 11th. No-one turned up. I sent an email to ask what was going on and got a reply from Eurosender at 11:58 to say they had just been told by DPD that they couldn't do the delivery because the main office for them was in Luxemburg, even though it was going to and from UK addresses. Another Brexit casualty. I then went onto Interparcel and booked TNT. I was surprised to see that, even though it was 13:02, I could still expect same day collection. At 14:02 the chap arrived. 10:02 next day the bass was delivered. Astonishing!

Ignoring my bitsas (as the missus tries to....), my longest keeper bass was also my cheapest - I think I paid £200 around 20 years ago. Factory fretless Ovation Magnum 1. It probably wouldn't be seen as a budget bass now, but nobody wanted them then. I'm lucky enough to also own a Wal mk 1 custom fretless and Kramer 450B fretless, but if I had to go down to one - it would be the Ovation staying.

Folks may know I'm partial to an ACG. Alan made this for me in 2015 and it has been a faithful companion ever since. Hard to see me ever letting it go. Pretty much a 70s J bass configuration except the passive electronics are V/T/4-way switch. This gives me either p/up soloed or both series or parallel. P/ups themselves are overwould single coils. Cracking bass, and about 8lbs in weight too. Cost less than a new Fender US Std too

The best 115 cab I’ve had was a Peavey that had a Black Widow speaker. Just that cab and my Trace Elliot AH300 was plenty enough to fill a venue with bass, the kind you felt as well as heard. At the time living on a second floor flat with a 90lb cab and no lifts in my 30s it was manageable, wouldn’t be anywhere near capable of that now.

I don't think I ever put my fretless ACG on here. It's a Krell SC E Type, headless, fretless, chambered, 6 string and it's a 31.5" scale. I absolutely adore it! Eude

Yes. There's a bit of final tweaking still to do at the final sanding stage which will widen it a touch (a la 'you can take more stuff away but you can't easily put it back' ), but it is quite a tight and deep scoop: The V in the grain pattern makes it look a little tighter than it actually is. If it ends up too deep, I'll be encouraging @Fishman to drink a few more pints of beer

I chuckled at that. Almost like they don't quite understand what they're talking about

No problem. One cool thing is the separate channels. Me and my son both plugged in to mine (so guitar and me on bass) and then fed two wired speakers, one each. We effectively had two systems running and had separate EQ for each. So i guess you are getting two for the price of one.

Further progress! - Neck and headstock cut/routed to size - Truss rod channel cut - Fretboard also cut/routed to size

I think the bass I’ve owned longest is, technically, one of the ones that cost e least but only because of the state I bought it in. It’s a ‘64 P that had been stripped and refinished in a horrendous natural lacquer that looked & felt like Ronseal. The neck was particularly hideous and sticky (although the fingerboard is lovely). I bought it in pieces from the USA where someone had started a restoration but ran out of money. It turned up, in the original ‘64 case that’s obviously been gigged within an inch of its life, with all the bits in little ziplock bags, right down to original screws and wiring loom etc. It sat in pieces whilst I tried to think of what colour to have it finished in. One day I was randomly chatting to a luthier friend and asked who he’d recommend for the refin and what he thought of possible colours. He asked to take a look and found traces of the original Olympic White in the neck pocket and cavity routing. He had officially stopped doing refins but, by complete chance, had one last quantity of nitro left and it was Oly White! He volunteered to finish it off and put it all back together at a ‘mate’s rate’ price. Took about 2 years before he was entirely happy with the finish but he did an amazing job. The nitro has aged quickly and is already fading and checking beautifully. On a personal note it has an attachment as it’s the bass my gorgeous grandson chose (out of a rack of about 12) when he told me he wanted to learn to play when he ‘grew up’. Unfortunately we lost him later that year but I’ll always remember that day and have a pic of him trying to play it somewhere. Can’t imagine I’ll ever sell it.

Two Brooks sisters, side by side Grabbird and Thundervee

That's just the opposite, Mick. Leduc idea since the mid 80's... But that's not the point as it's, to me, the best location for the output jack as it works perfectly sitting or standing. The bad positions are on the side pointing to the ground, at 45 degree or 90 degree. The Fender output jack on the table is a good one if there's a metal plate holding it. An excellent position is on the side pointing up à la Ibanez AFR, which is my favourite design ever for a bass. Look at the ergonomics. Yes it's mine. Original one from the early 90's.

Have you really found many cheapo Yamahas or Squiers that were that good? I know that some early Squiers or Tokai basses were reckoned to be better than some of the new Fenders at the time (which in the 80s wasn’t saying much), but I’ve yet to find any that were anything special – gigable, maybe if you swapped out the pickups, but not great by any means. My go-to bass is the one I paid the most money for, which was why I paid so much for it (secondhand of course). It’s got plenty of dings now, but who gives a f**k. It plays / sounds great and the reason that I bought it was to do gigs, not sit in the corner of a room…

I can't see this being a problem 🍺🍺

How we suffer for our art 🤣

No matter what's being played through youtube clips always sound like the teeny tiny speakers in my laptop.

Don't feel bad, I have almost enough spare equipment to set up a practice studio, and I can't even play the drumkit 😳 I'm the sort of person that stuff sticks to... My plan once divorce and Covid are over is to combine forces with my two brothers (one of whom is in a band, the other sometimes gigs as a duo with his wife) and set up such a studio as we have plenty of stuff between us to do it. We reckon the annual cost will be covered by what we save in rehearsal space costs and we can let trusted friends use it as well.

Well you boys are immensely helpful for dealing with any guilt issues for me having a dedicated home rig separate from my gigging rig!

Good question! I currently have 3 rigs, 0 rehearsals and 0 gigs and zero prospect of that changing soon. Proof that I was never good at maths, ratios, algebra, budgeting and forecasting.. 😁

I was having a good dig through my photos and aside from a couple of vanity shots done for insurance purposes, these are the only decent photos I have of my old one and I suspect I only took these when I put it up for sale. These were taken June 2012. You can see how close the string spacing was at the nut and how the lower bout gave really easy access to the dusty end. It was a thing of beauty really.

Here is the track that turned me onto fretless bass. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UOrxSRMPumc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I recently bought a state variable low-pass filter with variable Q from Helmuth Lemme. Details here - https://www.gitarrenelektronik.de/produkte/aktive-elektronik/state-variable-filter-detail. High quality electronics and reasonably priced. Intended for onboard installation but I configured mine as an external pedal to have the flexibility to play around with different basses. Works great. Freq range is from 300Hz to 5kHz. Q factor is continuously variable (weak to strong) with a pot or you can use a 3-position mini-switch. There's also an Alembic style filter called JTEX Distiller made by a chap in Canada available on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/JTEX-Distiller-Alembic-style-Resonant-Low-Pass-Filter-for-Basses-VIDEO-DEMO-/233803173958

I had two of these and I liked them very much.

The one who always has spare cables and insists that they are properly wound up and put away.

I tried to you use one at open mic, but they took away the mic before I could. I then told them "my mate Dave had a fancy boss EQ pedal" but they came back with some cr*ap about my "needing to be able to play or sing"...or something. "What about equal opportunities?" I cried. Not for bass players they retorted.

Re basswood, I had a lovely light Precision a few years back, very resonant and toneful. Having decided it was a keeper I made the mistake of stripping the body to find it was ply. Wood’s a funny old material, I really wouldn’t worry too much about it