Leaderboard

Even though I’ve had this bass for a few months now, I’ve only really had time to properly appreciate it recently. I have spent the last couple of days playing it and playing with the dip switches and various compressors. It’s just a fantastic instrument. So sleek and smooth in the hand and the sound is best described as ‘delicious’ Ive taken some pics using the fake depth of field effect on my phone which sometimes works ok but often causes glitches. There’s been very little natural light today anyway so I might get some better ones tomorrow. I’m working out my recording setup and plan to get some samples up soon. Super sexy take on the jazz shape, thinner and a bit smaller. The neck is the best bit - dead flat, impeccable fretwork. I like the font! String through body and battery box. Dip switches inside cover which is awkward but set-and-forget. Angled neck heel and threaded inserts. She has a few dents and marks but black hides them well!

While I was doing the same on @Jus Lukin headless, I mixed epoxy with ebony dust and (over)filled the fretslots: In terms of buying tools and equipment, I am sure I am in good company to say that I agonise - sometimes over years - over the more pricey stuff when, admittedly with a lot more effort, you can actually get the job done with simpler stuff. Not least with sanding - because there's not a lot you can't do with a £2 cork block and a piece of sandpaper. But I suppose this reticence pays off - because when I do invest in something better, I usually know exactly why and what improvement it is there to make and - so far - have rarely been disappointed. So enter this orbital sander: Draw-droppingly expensive against the kind of things you can get in Homebase, etc. - but do I have to say worth every penny so far I still have some corners and so on to sort, and also the final work on the cutouts and neck pocket, but it will be soon ready to start staining and finishing: So next task is find the right combination of dyes/stains for 'the look'. And I have an offcut of this ash to try them on

Mark King does apparently but his teaching methods are a little too slap-dash for my liking......

Gone from spaghetti madness to something a bit neater now that I’ve finally got around to buying an actual board, courtesy of @Allaboutthebass. It’s a bit smaller than I need so have had to sacrifice the LS-2 and Spectrum temporarily (a few of the other pedals have since been sold and another couple acquired; you know how it is). Before and after shots:

A quick picture of the finished bass. I'll paste more pic's tomorrow. This bass has some freaking excellent tones in it, I wired the pickup with a 3 way on-on-on mini switch to give, series/spilt coil/parallel options for the pup, add this to the 6 way "Varitone" switch and you have 18 distinctive bass tones (all very usable), in-fact there are a couple that quite frankly immense. I can't recommend the Rautia Aria pickup enough, it is the very best sounding Aria pickup I have worked with, and with the four core wire option is in my opinion superior in sound and clarity than the originals. Add to this the new BB-NoiseKiller preamp supplied by Prostheta (which is also a great bit of kit) and the bass truly is amazing for a single pickup bass.

Growing up in the 90s it was a close tie between these and about 100 pages in of the Kay’s catalogue.

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

So I own a number of effects (around 100 😬) and in particular, a few of the EHX Big Muff variants; Triangle reissue, Rams Head reissue, Op Amp, Nano Bass, Bass Big Muff and the Green Russian reissue. Due to masses of Covid boredom, I decided to try and put together some YouTube videos showing off the capabilities of each, ending in a video which will pit all six against each other. There dont seem to be a lot of videos showing these types of pedals with bass specifically, so thought I’d share, as it might be helpful to someone thinking of purchasing? Due to my slow/new video editing skills, I’m planning to do one a week until all are finished. Hope they’re useful!

Slow progress, pickup cover done (and cavity routed, although I forgot to snap the cavity...).

The Gap - Thompson Twins

I know of somebody who is - although to be fair, they don't seem to be around too much of late. Falsifying documents is on a hiding to nothing - especially if you get caught. Anyway, funny story about somebody trying to pull a fast one. The wife of a basschatter on here used to be the claims handler for a sizeable insurance company and out of the blue, I got a message saying, "what do you reckon this is?" from the fellow Basschatter. What it was, on face value, was a picture of a genuine Fender J bass with a close up of the headstock stating P bass with maybe some modifications. He was claiming for a USA P bass of a much, much higher value. We thought it may have been a bitsa but it piqued our interest enough to have a closer look. Given the guys telephone manner, the wife had her suspicions about the validity of the claim. We mused over the photo and figured out that it was a bastardised Mark Hoppus bass and what was being claimed for was a much, much more expensive USA P bass. I would loved to have been a fly on the wall when he got the message, that despite his attempt at defrauding the insurance company, they would honour the payment out for a Mark Hoppus bass. Bet the guy thought he was quids in when he had a seemingly wet behind the ears when it comes to basses claims handler. Just goes to show eh? You never know who's eyes things end up under.

You'd be stupid to falsify the value. You never know who is on basschat that works for HMRC.

Shhh! Andy's going to be back any minute and we'll all get lines if he catches us out of our seats mucking about.

Disappointment? For years we’ve been told everyone knew what they were voting for, so this can’t come as a surprise to anyone...

All this talk of the "good 'ol days", how many of you were actually there in the good 'ol days, where hyperbole and bravado meant more that actual measured specs? First of all, when bravado claims about Trace amps being able to deliver XXX watts peak... for ALL amps regardless of brand, peak power equals exactly 2x the "RMS" power, so the AH-250 better be able to deliver 500 watts peak or it's not able to deliver 250 watts RMS. Next, since I worked for one of the companies that owned Trace before selling back to he original directors, I have more technical experience than most do about the product line. I looked up the technical docs I have for the AH-250 and the Vsat across the FETs is about 2 volts, add to this another 3V of sag at 4 ohms and you have a maximum voltage swing of 41 volts peak or 29V RMS. This equates to 210 watts RMS continuous, and with a 20msec burst rating of ~32V RMS or 256 watts RMS (burst). This is real world, and burst ratings were often used because they do represent how an amp feels. While Trace made an elegantly designed (IMO) product (especially for the time), there were stumbles in the execution throughout the company's life that resulted in reoccurring reliability issues that required a significant amount of correction. In fact, with NO real world losses (impossible to achieve) the maximum power of this power amp is a little more than 265 watts RMS. This is 530 watts peak, and not achievable with real world losses.

But a big thumbs up from some people😀

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I spent some time with slapping and tapping as a younger player but long ago realised that I don't really like pretty much ANY of the music played using those techniques. So I stopped investing in those techniques. I listen and learn the same stuff mostly. If I don't listen to it, I tend not to try to learn it.

That was fun - kinda like a Bob Ross episode but with a headstock instead of a painitng.

My 5ers

Lovely. I have some of my Grandad's stuff. One of my favourite things in the workshop is his pocket knife. He always seemed to have it on him. Seemingly on a whim, he would get it out and prune the raspberries, roses or owt else that needed a sharp knife. He'd have it back in his pocket by the time you'd realised what he was up to.

Ha the good ole days....bass playing goodlyness... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-8HHrvB2Jw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTev_FDh_Ik

As others have said Bandcamp or direct from the band web site. Bandcamp waive their revenue share on the first Friday of every month, so if you want to maximise the amount of money that goes to the artist(s) wait and buy everything on 5th February. Also buy a T-Shirt. IME from producing CDs/Vinyl/T-shirts for my various bands, there is a lot more profit to the band off a T-Shirt sale then there is from a CD or record. Unless the T-shirts and very complicated multi-colour design and the CD/record packaging cheap and cheerful, most artist make 2-3 time the profit on a T-Shirt sale as they do on music.

My latest

Song for Mildred - Gurr

I would personally wait a few months and let Rob at Status have a look at it. Less likely to effect the resale value as much compared to letting others have a go at repairing it.

Five strings ftw, I've sold all my four string basses and various budget basses that never got played and condensed everything down to this. This is my 11th year with the Blue SR5, it's just a proper tool for every job and does everything I'll ever need, but you've got to have a modded Jazz too so that's staying forever too. I think I'm done buying anymore basses. Five strings and active, job done.

Time for Betty!

Another fine crop of compositions 😎 I shall set up the voting thread on my return from work this evening

Bandcamp.com, no doubt about it. On Friday the 5th of February they are waiving their fees again so bands get even more from sales on that day.

Good evening, composition chums, here's my first attempt of the year. I've taken on board some of the earlier comments in the thread, namely that the tune doesn't have to have any bass or be musical at all. Sat there staring at this fake elephant for far too long without any inspiration so just chucked some randomness at a single chord and hoped for the best. Instruments included on this catastrophe include an unbranded electric guitar with only three strings, a persian setar, my trusty electric saz and drums fashioned from large, upturned glue tubs. Add a smidge of some metal objects for cymbals, an elephant sample and a vocal that leaves a lot to be desired and you have my usual unmethodical approach to this monthly musical mash-up. All recorded in Wavepad and Audacity for that raw (i.e. cheap) feel!

Bernard Edwards ripping it up on Chics "Everybody Dance". Played on my old Musicman Stingray - strings are a bit bright! Edwards used his thumb like a pick to get that nice percussive sound, I can't, so. I'm using a double thumb technique to mimic his style. My transcription is attached below. Everybody Dance TAB.pdf

See, this a very interesting observation to me. When I was using EBS and helping out at the shows and stuff, I used to literally scream at them, they need a lightweight, tiny head to go up against Markbass and the emerging small heads. EBS at the time simply weren't interested. They eventually caved, about 6 years later... with the Reidmar - which despite being an awesome amp, hasn't got the same small factor appeal. Their best selling amp at the time was the Classic 450, a big retro 14kg head. They were shifting loads of their gear in Sweden, Germany and along with growing sales in the US where the TD650 was where it was at. Their stuff, especially the Classic 450 and their valve amp (T90) was literally doing nothing in the UK because everybody wanted portable. Pretty much only the HD350 was selling in the UK, albeit in small numbers. According to their sales figures, these heavyweight amps (and bigger cabs) were selling great in their homeland and Germany... just not in the UK. So if you look at Peavey and their immediate demographic, where the Americans love big and heavy, maybe it made sense for them to not change the formula. Then when they realise they failed with what they had... they went with the Elf after a bit more market research.

You're all very naughty boys!

Yes, I hear that £350 million extra for the NHS is going down well.

At the last SE Bash we had one hooked up to a Vanderkley 2x10. By the time a decent volume was attained the red light was on constantly and there was some obvious compression artefacts. It's a jazz gig amp.

Theres Bow Finishing near Lingfield - 01883 744391 12th fret in Horam Simon Farmer of GUS Guitars in Heathfield

Basschat composition challenge January 2021, as promised yesterday! Piece inspired by this month's photo. Any fans of Janek Gwizdala will be familiar with his Baby Elephant sound, which is what I'm using here, played on my new Mustang bass, with half-round strings, it's first competition outing. The usual poorly played drums and a couple of guitar tracks on the Eggle (Berlin Pro)and that's about it. Mostly in a slow 12/8 but slips into a bit of 13/8 near the end (I just can't help making things bloody difficult for myself!) and a bar of 13+1/4 / 8 just on the drums where I got a bit confused.

Nikki Sixx responds, you don't learn anything bass wise - but become addicted to heroin and die?