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So, this little beauty was dangled in front of me recently and I couldn’t resist 😃

After many years of chasing, I've managed to buy a Fender Jazz Plus. It has been an itch I've wanted to scratch for 30 years. I love the concept - slightly downsized body, slim neck, Lace Sensors and a Kubicki 9v preamp from a time when Fender still tried new things. It's been a long, long time since I saw a black and maple one which hadn't been modded in some way so I felt now was the time. This one is a 93 from sunny Italy. Now, the waiting game while it tries to survive the courier lottery.

Having played slightly-wrong basslines to famous songs for years, I see this as a chance to come back to them 'fresh'. 😎

And for the next instalment. The grain on the top is lovely and very closely matches the body grain as it was made from the same blank and carefully aligned by Mike.

Over the years I've owned a bunch of 5 string basses, not out of necessity but because I wanted to have the option. I have owned Squiers, Peaveys, EBMM, G&L, Lakland... Some were really sweet, like the Lakland 5502, some had the sound I wanted (EBMM SUB5), but I never really gelled with any. My girlfriend bought me a Harley Benton MB-5 SBK (the Stingray style one in satin black finish) for Xmas... and I haven't played anything else since. At first I made lots of mistakes, and my muting left a lot to be desired. But the bass felt great, it's light (8.6 lbs, which for a 5 string is pretty good), and it sounds good too. Because it felt and sounded 'just right', it didn't feel like homework... so I made the point of using this one exclusively so that I get used to the 5th string, and within 2-3 weeks I have improved a lot. I still make a mistake here and there, and occasionally I get the wrong string(s) ringing, still lots to do, but I'll get there. Ok, so that's the bit about getting used to the ergonomics of a 5-string. What about the advantages? I didn't really care that much for having a few additional lower notes available to me, although sometimes it's nice (very nice), but I really like covering so much ground *across* the strings. It's actually easier to play without looking at the fingerboard because I have to move a lot less up and down the neck and when I do it's typically one position (3-4 frets) higher or lower, which is easy to shift without looking. That is nice. It also gives me more note options easily, as the octave (higher or lower, depending) is just there at your fingertips much more frequently than on a 4-string... I seem to be able to break from my usual patterns more easily too. I played one of my 4-string basses yesterday and it was familiar territory and comfortable and all, but I missed that low B string, and the ability to choose say between an F on the low E 1st fret, or on the low B 6th fret: one sounds tighter and the other sounds fatter, so you can pick one or the other depending on what you're playing. I can't believe it took me this long to 'get it'. I knew, of course, that the extended range available 'sideways' across the strings was one of the selling points of a 5 string, but because I never gelled with any 5-string bass I never played them long enough to really absorb it into my playing. Now I feel like I'be been missing out a lot

Two bands regularly on the same bill, two 1990 Warwick Thumb basses, two bass players, I thought his sounded better than mine, he thought mine sounded better than his, everyone else in the two bands raised eyebrows and shrugged, we swapped, much happiness.

I watched a street vendor in Jakarta carving these things from bits of old plank using a crappy little knife and a few files. He asked the equivalent of 30p for this one (it's about 8" tall) and seemed surprised when I didn't haggle. I'd say they're pretty good with a piece of wood

In pictures, @BassTool : Here's basically what I use: I position with the steel rule: then I use a sharp ended punch to mark the entry point for the bradpoint drill bit to avoid any wander: then drill a few mm deep - taking care not to 'wiggle' the drill: After a dry test fit - ideally it is a tight push fit - a drop of gel superglue on the end of the stick: Then it is pushed fully home and the excess glue wiped quickly away: Personally, I find the x-acto modellers razor saw the best to cut it off: Finally, I trim it flush with either a very sharp chisel or a single-edged razor. With an unfinished neck, I would just sand it flush as part of the final sanding but I don't want to accidentally catch the varnish on this Wal: 2 1/2 done, 8 1/2 to go! :

I think it looks really nice without a pickguard would that be an option?...... 👍🏻

I have been after a Burgundyglo 4001 Ric for ages, but never seen one for sale within a budget. Something made me look at Bass Direct tonight, about 15 minutes ago and this popped up. All original and its a 1975 ( my YOB ) so its now mine, or it will be when it gets delivered. Man I am super happy. Don't think its a bad price either at £2250. I now cant wait for it to arrive 😁

Obviously I have reported this knee/drill potential injuryfest to H&S who will be in contact forthwith.

While awaiting my dream build (aka saving the pennies), I did this.... Lovely to play, hear and look at.....what a treat!

I've been spending a bit of time getting @Jus Lukin 's headless to the finishing stage - probably another couple of days to do - but while I was doing the Luminlay on that one, I used the same equipment (such that it is) to also add the luminlay to @Fishman 's Wal neck I won't repeat the full how to (that is covered fully in the other thread), but it basically involves: drilling an accurate hole; popping a drop of superglue on the end of the Luminlay 'stick'; inserting said stick; cutting flush to the fretboard; trimming with a sharp chisel. Couple of the above steps: And done: When I've rounded the fret-ends and filled the tang slots, I will give the edge a final sand and then add a very thin wipe-on finish to the edge, including the wood exposed when blending the new fretboard to the original Wal neck. If I get it right, it should be a durable and invisible blend With the headless soon moving into the 'add a coat of finish and then leave for 24hours' stage, the build progress on this one will accelerate over the coming week

Happy Jack's attempt at claiming Newcastle heritage comes to the fore, as he plays bass in the snow, wearing a tee shirt 😜

On a much lighter note, here’s my cat seeing snow for the first time - she’s only 7 months old. She hated it, she howled until I picked her up and took her back inside.

The Israelis are reporting that the vaccine doesn’t appear to be as effective as claimed, certainly not with just one dose. They’re also reporting people catching it despite having been vaccinated - not surprising given that it only offers between 30 and 50% protection. This is from their health minister on the Andrew Marr show earlier: ‘First dose of Pfizer shot does not immediately prevent Covid infection, confirms Israeli health minister.’ ‘We’re just in the beginning of the campaign, we unfortunately do see cases that after getting the first dose, people do get sick, get the coronavirus.’ This is the important bit, and the part I hope our government takes note of - hopefully they have learned their lesson from last summer - I believe they might have done, and realised that trying to open everything up, encouraging people to visit pubs and restaurants seeded a lot of the problems we currently have. This adds to my belief that allowing live music - certainly live music indoors - will be one of the last things they’ll allow. ‘Vaccination is not a panacea, Coronavirus is still with us, and we’ll have to live with this reality for a long time.’ Personally, as much as I’d love to be performing and playing with other people - it’s been a huge part of my life, it really is the only thing I’m any good at - but there’s absolutely no way I’m going to, until I know that it’s safe and that I’m not risking my health, and more importantly the health of my parents.

Agreed, 100w and a minimum 10 inch speaker is the least that I'd consider. That may seem like a big jump, but to sound twice as loud as 15 watts you need 150.

I scavenged the internet and found some gems. Thought I'd share. First up: Mk V

My second play-along a I muck about with a new channel. Not sure where it's going yet but I'm having fun upping the production values inbetween homeschooling!

is it this lot you are after? (sorry they're upside down...it'll add to the air of mystery)

I have both a bezel and the zero mod thumbrest on mine. Ironically my band calls for mostly pick playing these days. I like playing a Rickenbacker bass with a plectrum, ideally with a clip on headstock tuner, so I can guarantee that at least 75% of players online will be irritated! 😀

Nope I’m a nurse who has done some additional training in vaccinations/immunisation- helping out with our annual flu jab clinic and some community immunisation stuff a few years back. We have a lot of concerned patients who want to discuss all aspects of Covid 19 so it’s important to be informed when they ask us about restrictions lifting, when they can go see their family or when their delayed discharge will eventually happen. We’ve a couple of folk who would have moved to their own accommodation by now (back in March in fact) so you can imagine the frustrations. I’d love to tell them my ‘educated guess’ is they’ll be moving on in May but I can’t really pull a figure out of the air. Instead we’re all dealing in the reality of the situation and we’re all trying manage that as best we can. My missus is studying microbiology as part of her degree course so I’m getting some great info and discussion (vicariously) through listening in on her lectures - some of her uni lectures are involved in Covid research (I ask her to listen to her online lectures without headphones so I can earwig in).

John Peel used to champion the composer Basil Kirchin, who made extensive use of birdsong in his work. Might be worth a listen.

@mcnach I hear you loud and clear. I’m in the same sort of position. I picked up a Yamaha TRBX five string just before xmas and have been noodling around the house on it continually. After a couple of days the different dimensions etc felt more familiar and I find myself playing not so much the low notes but the other positions across the neck. Feels like a door has opened in my understanding of how things all interrelate. I’ve briefly owned a few five strings over the years but quickly lost interest and sold them - too big, too heavy, didn’t like the sound or feel etc. Suddenly the penny has dropped tho. Great!

Sixer next. 😉

Wood, it's that simple. It's why bitsas and custom builds often make the best instruments, because the process of trial and error that results in the best neck ending up with the best body - and then hardware to suit (bit toppy so put on a BBOT not a Badass etc) - is not something that mass production allows for.

Yeah. It will come down to the player too - apparently some very famous guitars (greeny’s LP springs to mind) are alleged to be absolute pigs...but some people seem to be able to make them sing. We used to get 4/5 American standard P and J basses in at a time - they would vary. Wood species all the same etc, weight (density?) would change resonance and therefore feel in hand and overall sound. That’s a whole can of worms though, so.

We used to order the same Gibson acoustic guitar 6-10 units at a time, for whatever reason, the Montana acoustic dealership orders always came through us at Manchester shop. we’d sit and compare them and even same day of completion, same spec, out of the box guitars sounded different. Better/Worse is always subjective but some were vibrant and alive, great for strumming, some were dark and woody/dead which was crap for strumming but ace for flat pickers. Anyhow, that’s my anecdote on production variables.

They were everywhere in the early / mid 70's Dave, you must be too young.....😄 Most common finish was sunburst I think, and it was either that or cream/white IIRC. They did a matching guitar too.

MT Power Kit. Super easy and fast to set up.

Yeah, that didn't turn out anything like I thought it would. As we all know, mechanical elephants look sweet and cutesy-poo but will turn on us some day. Fact. The technical stuff: Pearl Export drums recorded by Thomann's cheapest mics into a Behringer preamp. Hamer bass and Eggle guitar (tuned to D, very fancy) directly into an Avid Eleven. Demented circus oompa piano bit courtesy of Reason. Mixed in ProTools.

Oh I am not that great on valves, I grew up later A valve such as a 12AX7 can be powered from anything really as long as its heater is on (it can be run without it but that is a different discussion), however the linear amplification region of the valve is a small percentage of its power supply, so where as at 300V it is something like 60V or so that is linear, at 12V you are talking something very small, 1-2v, outside of which it distorts a lot. Maybe you want that distortion in which case that is fine, otherwise you need to make sure the signal is small on the input and the output has a traditional solid state amplifier to take what comes out of the value up to a decent level. But I am guessing you want it for distortion, or why would you bother with a valve there!

OK, I’ll bite. IMO Barefaced cabs are better designed than your average cabs. Is Trickfish an average cab? I don’t know, like most of us, I’ve never heard one. Eminence provide drivers to BF’s spec, the cabs are tuned exactly to those drivers. The bracing exceeds anything found in other cabs. They are light, loud and have a great tone. Others might have different views, but I have a list of cabs longer than my arm that I have used in the last 20 years and BF are in the top 2.

Why would would you want to push it underground and make sex workers subject to potential abuse? What gives you the assumed right to take a person's livelihood just because it is not palatable for you...? Presumably you also realise that the back packing and scene that Amsterdam is a keystone for tourism and it's economy...? If anything, the regulation that Amsterdam offers, provides greater safety to those that choose to partake. Close down the coffee shops and the spliffs will be cut with any old stinky poo and by closing the red light district, the trade won't disappear - just pushed into an unregulated underground scene.

Not strictly true... Gibson killed Trace in the early 2000s. Peavey rescued them and originally released a range of 7- and 12-band amps etc around 2005, which they kept going til around 2012ish. IIRC back then they were slated for NOT trying something new and cutting edge*. Yes there was a brief period then where the brand didn’t seem to have anything new to offer but we now have the Elf etc. I’d say Peavey have actually handled the brand quite well in recent years with the reboot. Sure, the range is limited and we would all love to see some bigger powered heads and an SMX style preamp but maybe that’s all in development, or maybe Peavey have just aimed this range at those looking to downsize and/or use in-ears. Trouble with a brand like this is that there’s so much affection for the older classic stuff that Peavey are almost damned if they do and damned if they don’t. *not that I’m calling the “range” cutting edge btw... there’s still some work to do To get to that haha. But I see this set of gear as aimed purely at those looking to downsize and/or use in-ears. Which let’s face it, is becoming the norm more and more...

Haven't we got to a point where country of manufacturer is borderline irrelevant? The advent of super advanced CNC machining means quality will be uniformly good across the board from most reputable manufacturers. The origin of manufacture may have meant something 15-20 years ago and beyond, but now? . . . I don't think so. Any issues nowadays tend to stem from time taken to finish and set up, and that's not something that is location specific, but rather £££ specific.

My first bass was a Columbas Jazz bass which i gave to my mate to defret when i bought a Shergold twin neck 4 & 8 back in late 70's. I removed the name and made a mess of painting my name on it. He kept it, removed my rename effort and did it properly using stencils which was very neat, refretted it and his daughter learned bass on it and altho he still has it and offered it back to me i refused as he put all the work into it plus his daughter was still using it altho she now has an Overwater. Here it is on the left of the pic.

Without wishing to sound dismissive, I honestly think you’d be better to put any money you were thinking of swapping speakers in your combo towards a combo thats a bit more gig worthy. There aren’t many gig situations that a 15 watt combo will handle for either electric or upright IMHO. You’d be better with something at least 100 watts plus, and there are other threads on here with recommendations as to what’s best. Personally I’d go for a Fender Rumble combo - I’ve got the 100 watt model and it will cope with small gigs just fine, so long as the drummer isn’t a maniac. Good luck, cheers.

Unfortunately for the "plucky Brits " story, there absolutely is a playbook. WHO has one that was followed by New Zealand. Anyone know what the current COVID stats are in New Zealand?

I’ve got Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, American and Mexican bits of kit at the moment. Long ago realised that good quality and bad quality kit exists regardless of price point or country of origin.

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Still Of The Night from 1987 Whitesnake album. No matter how anyone might have played the main riff since, this is what I played, following what John Sykes wrote & played when we did the backing tracks in autumn 1985. There was overdubbed fretless playing chords during the middle section, which wasn't used on the final mix. The fast bass runs at the end of the track are completely buried in the original mix - a bit easier to make out on the 2017 remix version but still very hard to hear what I play during the end fade-out - if I'd still been in the band in 1987, I would have played it from memory then and would still remember it now (or would have had a tape with what I played much more audible) but I've only played Still Of The Night once or twice in 35 years. Still Of The Night.pdf

This, just this.... love this woman’s sound, funk and talent.

Not experienced that, not even sure where any noise could come from. There is nothing to them really, just hardwired sockets. Ultimately, there is nothing about the MOD that I NEED, it just makes life easier. Thomann reduced it to £20 so I just grabbed it. The boards look fine without one though 👍🏻

This! We’re going to live with Covid most likely forever, so we need to adapt our lifestyles to it. Life WILL have to resume. Hopefully vaccine will decrease the risks of catching it and dying.... but in reality, it’ll still kill some fragile people. Just like the flu does. I was reading an article from a scientist who said that yes, Covid will still kill, but if the number of deaths per year can reach a number similar to flu deaths, then the society will “accept” it and life will get back to a sort of normality.

None taken , I was totally joking , it really isn’t class 😁

So long as the V5 and V7 range don't start increasing in price to match that. We've already seen EB, Warwick, Fender and others do the let-make-the-workhorse-bass-a-halo-model thing.