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Apparently they could not work out a way to record together as both refused to wear masks....

Lots of gigs I've wanted to leave early from, but it's generally frowned upon if a member of the band doesn't complete the set 🙂

Well maybe Lars doesn't count too well 😐!

A bit of an update. I had the opportunity to play this with my blues band and, tbh, found the tone was lost in the context of the band. it sounded fantastic in isolation but just kind of sat underneath everything without any presence. I decided to make a few changes to make it more useable, but also make sure the changes were reversible so it could be put back to stock one day if necessary. I chose the Artec pickups - they do versions of both neck and bridge. The bridge is a drop in but the neck is a different size, so I handed to work over to the guy who does all my bits and bobs, Leighton Jennings. Top chap. This then necessitated a new pickguard which he did, too, that encompassed the hole from the (for me) redundant palm rest. I thought I'd upgrade the bridge to a Hipshot Supertone. I've had the 3 point before, this is the 2 point. After some shenanigans over what screws should/shouldn't be included I eventually got around to trying to fit it, only to find that the two mounting screws weren't fixed to bushes in the body but via a small threaded hole in the bass plate of the original bridge. So Leighton fitted some bushes in. Just picked it up today. I have to say Leighton made a cracking job of the work. Those Artecs sound just exactly like an EB-3 should and the bridge, of course, is a proper job. So the whole thing is now a lovely useable gigable bass in the context of my blues band with a lovely vintage vibe. But everything is reversible, if needs be.

Im not sure im familiar at all with wishbass? not one ive come across before, although as you can probably tell im a big fan of basses for an "acquired taste" Im getting straight on with the leaf inalys as well off the back of getting the branches in These are just laid on the top, but will give you an idea of their final positions. the plan is to use some evo gold fretwire, so lots of gold on this neck! Im hoping these wont take me too long, but im enjoying the process as i go. woodwork that you can do in a comfy chair in a nice warm room is the kind of woodwork i like most Meanwhile ive cut the neck blank down to the rquired thickness front and back. i first glued an extra block to the back of the same pattern as the ends of the marquetry beam, and then cut the back off so that its nice and flush. this was another job that wouldve taken 20 seconds on a bandsaw, and instead took 20 minutes of elbow grease. keeping me fit during lockdown though! for the ffront i used 2 aluminium beams as a flat and stable guide for the router, and slowly took it down to the correct depth (well nearly, i left it a few mil proud of where it needs to be so that i can plane it flat to the wings once theyre glued in place). this depth is to accomodate the redwood top that will be on the front of the bass. speaking of which... using the 2 laser cut templates you saw in the last post i got the 2 pieces cut and routed to the exact shape they need to be, and started adding the veneer strips as you can see the curve here is pretty tight, so its a matter of soaking the veneer in hot water to get it to bend round and behave. i did have a little help however, mitre bond now make a pen for superglue activator! genius stuff, just apply to one surface and the CA glue to the other and they bond instantly. need to be a bit careful with it but it works like a charm: after the first white layter was on, i repeated the process with a black dyed veneer: soak first, then apply with glue and activator: and then again with a third white strip: this came out fairly well, and fit perfectly together with the other side, giving me this: one redwood "Swan matched" top! albeit with a couple of cracks. overall though im chuffed, and i think itll look really good when shaped with the rest of the body: starting to look like a bass a little more now! this will all be glued up and then the neck area routed around the bottom of the neck template, ready to accept the top, and i can't wait. once its all together i can start shaping it and thats when the personality starts to come out in the meantime though ive got plenty to keep me happy, ive now got both pickups and preamps all finished, although a few of the components may change once ive got them into the bass and tested them for real. these component values soung great on one of my other basses, but that might not be the case for the multi coils. i bought plenty of spare PCB's though, so no worries there. and my little sticker for the bigsby arrived! not the biggest or most important part i know, but little touches are what help make the bass my own creation top to bottom.

I don't have a problem with it. Assembling a bass from parts, kit or separates, finishing it, setting it up and then playing, or seeing someone who's asked for it to be built playing it, is a VERY satisfying thing to do. Designing a bass from broad requirements, choosing the timbers, solving the 'how-to' challenges, finishing it, setting it up and then playing is a VERY, VERY satisfying thing to do. Building from components and kits is also a very instructive thing to do to understand how the instrument actually operates, those things that have to be right and those things that you can take liberties with, and I often advise folks who want to try a full build (that's how I personally refer to them: full build; part build; kit or bitsa build) for the first time, that they should build a kit or bitsa first to learn those essential differences. This is our old gits band a few years ago before infirmity set in (I was the youngest...it wasn't a good look ) All are Andyjr1515 guitars or basses. In the way I would describe them: 1 Modded 1 Modded Kit Build 1 Bitsa Build 3 Full Builds I played the modded kit build for years (in fact I retired an own-design full build to play it) - and was very pleased with it. So I'm cool with it. But don't get me onto how a guitar company that makes copies of classic models are allowed to call their company 'Vintage'

Can I add one I want to leave early? I foolishly bought tickets for Michael Buble for last year and the show was rescheduled to 12th July at Hove cricket ground. My partner thinks he's great. I don't.

I have to ask. Does anyone stay to the end of a Malmsteen gig?

You mean the ones where I destroyed the 3/4 finished bass with the router and had to start again? No, it's OK, he doesn't know about that. Oh...wait a minute...

Since a long time I've been latently lusting after a proper EB-3 bass: shortscale, set-neck, 4-way rotary switch. With the emphasis on latently. The prices on Gibsons have exploded the last 2 years, with even playergrade late 1960's EB-0's fetching 4-figure sums, and since I'm a rather picky person, I wanted an EB-3 with the pre 1965 specifications (deep-set heel, wide control spacing), which would further bloat the price. I was aware of the Japanese versions of those (Greco, Burny, Orville, Epiphone), but those seldom if ever appear outside of Japan, and if they do, top-money gets asked for them. So I let that idea of owning an EB-3 for what it was. Then I started browsing eBay in search for a deal, and there I saw a Japanese Epiphone listed with a very short & poor description, but also at a rather low price (just a smidge more as a regular longscale Epiphone EB-3 would cost in the local store), located in Kyoto. Four people were advertising that bass so I had my suspicions it might have been a scam, as one seller had a low price, and the others were asking nearly double of it, more alike the other offerings of different instruments. So I asked the cheapest seller how that was possible, and he said that it's a central pool of instruments, and each independent seller can ask their own asking price, and the instruments are also sold locally outside of eBay. His ratings were absolutely perfect, with almost everyone saying his packing & protection was superb. It would need to be, because it's an all mahogany instrument with a Gibson-like neck (1 piece mahogany, 17° tilted headstock, big hole for the trussrod), and no case included. So after pondering on it for some weeks (hoping Epiphone would announce something for Winter-NAMM, which they didn't), I noticed 2 Sundays ago he offered a 5% discount on top of his already low price, so I thought to myself: "you know what, fck it, I'll bite. His ratings are good, I'm paying via Paypal, so I do have decent protection,...". So pressed the BIN-button, paid and then wholeheartedly expected to receive a message stating "yeah, it sold locally, I'm sorry"... But that message never came... instead I received a thank you for the payment, and a promise the item would ship on Thursday via FedEx. Could it be that that bass didn't get sold for more than 2 years, at that low of a price? On Thursday morning I received an SMS that FedEx received my package, and it was scheduled to arrive next Monday... Then a delay in Memphis, so it would be Tuesday, but on Tuesday no-one is home here, so I had to postpone to Wednesday... And on Wednesday, a white van stopped and delivered me a sturdy cardboard box (all hail FedEx' method of pre-paying customs & duties, so it clears fast). In it was a layer of bubble plastic, a layer of newspapers, another layer of bubble plastic, a gigbag (got that for free), and inside that a shape that reminded me of an instrument, in a layer of bubble plastic & foam... I peeled away the protective layers, and there it was, undamaged. I now also have enough padded plastic foil to last a lifetime. A quick test on the amplifier learned me the bridge pickup was cutting out, unless I pressed on it, meaning that a wire was shorting somewhere, but the pickup itself wasn't dead. So I opened up the patient for an overall inspection and a bit of cleaning, and saw an exposed wire touching the baseplate of the pickup. Insulated it, and the pickup worked again like it should... But then I noticed someone had been tampering with the wiring. The bridge pickup is the original GOTOH PAF-bucker with plastic-coated coax cable, but the neck pickup had been changed out for "something with a really old braided cable"... So I removed the cover of the neck pickup, and I was greeted there by something that was distinctly not a GOTOH-version of the sidewinder pickup. It was old, dusty, had a wooden spacer between the coils and measured 30k Ohm... Yep, that is a vintage Gibson mudbucker. So now I have a proper EB-3, with a really chunky 1960's neck, and the one thing the Japanese versions are considered "inferior" for (the weak neck pickup) already been replaced by a vintage Gibson unit that absolutely blasts. Ordered a set of shortscale flatwounds, will then further dial in and adjust to my likings. These crisp roundwounds aren't doing it for me. Also DIYed myself a string cover and wooden tugbar.

If we're going down that road I'll nominate 'Toots and the Maytals'.

And I have a new arrival in my family, went to see Mark in September whilst the lockdown had eased and look what showed on this Friday😁 I can't sing Marks prasies enough, I am over the moon with every element of this beauty

It was the 'life flashing before your eyes near death experience' I remember the most Mind you, useful in a way. I remembered where I'd hidden my pocket money a few years earlier...

Or you could go for this multitool - it'll do most things:

Tonewood

I have a few from some bloke named Jim Dunlop. Can't remember the gig or what band he's in

I have to say that is LIVE meaning a live performance, not LIVE meaning the opposite of Die. I don't like his music but I don't wish him dead. Just in case, your honour.

And given Andy's skills and experience, the matter rests there.

A less honest luthier would never draw attention to those inevitable issues that occasionally crop up. Best of luck, may the fix go smoothly.

I'm not sure if it's been said yet, but I feel like the amount of cost and effort that it's justifiable to put into resilience measures (like backup gear) varies greatly with the amount of pressure and the money involved in a given gig. So I could picture myself taking a lot more precautions with certains kinds of function work than I would for a laid back set in a scruffy pub.

So thought I’d chime in with a new addition to my collection, a Serek Lincoln, made in Chicago. A very nicely put together bass with 4 way switch for a range of tones including series and parallel options. The sounds are very different to what I’ve come across in any bass I’ve owned and offer me something different to my Fender and Rick mainstay sounds. The craftsmanship is like nothing I’ve had before - sublime! Just need to get it out for a test run now and out of the office chair!

Music from the '40s, don't you mean..?

What..? You don't know..? You don't know what sticks your drummer uses, and why..? You're not on speaking terms or what..? What kind of bassist has no interest in his partner in crime to that extent..? I'm surprised, shocked, and saddened. Yes, saddened that such a potential for fine complicit teamwork be compromised by such a cavalier attitude. Time to wake up, in the interests of making Good Music together..! ...

Operators

Indie-go Girls

I got this before Christmas on this very forum - not my first ever five string, but the first one I’ve kept for more than a few weeks. But it's taken a little bit of a journey to get it sounding and feeling right for me.... So first up it needed a set up/fret dress etc - the original nut slots seemed to be cut quite high, and then restrung with some D'Daddario nickel roundwounds. Result was ok, but still not really doing it for me, so swapped to some D'Addario Chromes - much more my sort of thing. Picked up a secondhand Fatfinger headstock clamp thing, to add a bit more mass and help that super low end. Kind of worked, but still just so-so. But then the plastic nut broke - back to the repairman who replaced it with a bone nut. The result was night and day compared to the original nut - bass now feels more resonant, and the notes tighter, punchier and more focused, especially on the low B string. It feels like the plastic nut was the weak point on this particular one, and changing it for a better quality, better fitting one made all the difference and hugely improved it (maybe stating the obvious, but I've never had a nut replaced to compare before v after.) So after a few teething problems, the bass now sings. I love the overall feel in terms of string spacing, its relatively light weight, scale length etc, so I'm glad i've been able to make it work to my tastes. Haven’t bothered re attaching the Fatfinger so far either as it sounds so full and even now without it. Result I’d say.

Everyone knows that the look, scarcity and cost of timber are what influence the tone and playability of an instrument more than anything else. If stiffness, rigidity, strength to weight ratio and consistency were important characteristics for electric instrument bodies they would all be made out of plywood. 🙂

Reading through this, you are hoping to achieve pitch-to-MIDI for you bass somehow? IME pitch to MIDI for bass is all but useless. The laws of physics are against you. The very best pitch to MIDI converters require a minimum of 1 1/2 cycles of the waveform in order to be able to identify the pitch you are playing and most of the time they will require more for warble-free note generation. On top of that you will almost certainly have to modify your technique to produce clean and accurate notes, as well as work extra hard on silent damping to prevent ghost notes and glitches. I gave up on pitch to MIDI a long time ago and taught myself some rudimentary keyboard technique. The great thing is that for most synth bass lines you don't need to be brilliant keyboard player. For me it was a much quicker route to getting the sounds I wanted, and I didn't have to worry about whether it was the technology or my playing technique that was letting me down. If you are absolutely set on using a bass guitar as a controller there's always the Industrial Radio MIDI bass, which uses fret sensing to get around the latency involved with pitch to MIDI.

I just look in the mirror. No need to add music.

I have switched my Sire V7 fretless V for this absolutely stunning MTD Kingston Z5 Fretless:

This is the holy grail Al, I have had no real success with it over a few years now. The sonnus does the job but to me it is a very mechanical process, not seamless at all. Sonicsmith had the squaver product which did enable direct pitch to midi (alongside their own synth module), it was good - a definate improvement on the sonnus - but still not there yet. Not sure if their latest product, I'm not sure it's out yet, will really hit the spot or not. Then there is the midibass and variations on this theme. Bottom line - it's either doesn't work well or it's very expensive or both. Personally I'm accepting that there are some great options out there that work really well with the bass - the C4, or FI or various pedal combos. Direct control of synths over midi is just not a realistic option though - much better controlled with keys or other dedicated midi controllers. It does mean that you don't have your bass chops as such but perhaps this is not a bad thing. A lot of these sounds work because of how they are played rather than the sounds as such so there is almost a requirement to change the approach to achieve the result perhaps.... Others may have other views of info of course, this is just my take on it based on my experiences

I'm toying with replacing the tuners on my 414 with Ultralites - when I've done it in the past it's always been a good thing; the actual weight reduction isn't much on paper, but because the weight's out at the end of the neck, I've always noticed how much lighter the bass feels. There'll be an extra hole to drill, and there'll be a couple of empty holes, but I've never minded that...an easy job. I should add my 414 is my only bass without Ultralites...

I played yesterday in an acoustic vibe gig. I played with my Epi Jack Casady with flats and with the Ashdown Preamp. Nothing else. No amp, no pedals. I added a little bit of overdrive with the valve. I was really happy with the combination of the two. Vintage vibe. The soundguy came after the show to compliment how good the tone of the bass was.

Here's a weird one and showing my age. Leeds University, around '68... Love with Arthur Lee. They ended the set with a very long improv and I had to get a last train home. I still think Love were even cooler than the Doors back then. Still are.👍

Hang on, we'll have our seasoned timber in a matter of years! Indeed. Some have only a screwdriver and a borrowed soldering iron!

plectrwm

Oooh....Imagine a Wal pedal with the pick attack filter. I'd bite their hand off. I would

Done, To be polished and reassembled now.

I loved Mouldy Old Dough when I was a kid.

Being rabidly pedantic for a moment, does that mean I have to seed my own tree, cut it, treat it and shape it. Mine and refine my own metal and plastic, wind my own wire and forge my own frets? Actually.... Hand forged frets may be an interesting experience 🤔 I do take your meaning, those who commission something and then keep us updated but are just the customer, not the luthier. But at the end of the day it's, to me anyway, all interesting and entertaining and I see no harm in discussing it, or even how hand built is a kit bass. It's all part of the conversation in this forum and we're all civilised enough to take others view's on board without getting in a tizzy over it. I need to carry on with my bitsa really. 😉

Where do we draw the lines? A luthier who winds his own pickups might consider everyone who doesn't is just buying parts. I doubt any of us have the equipment to make it all from raw materials.

Thanks @Deedeefor the robust defence of my 'not trying to find offence'.. 😁 As it happens @Jakester, I know what protected characteristics are having spent the last 17 years working with people with a wide range of them. Just to be clear, I was jokingly responding to @Maude 's earlier comment about how long before '.. someone comes along and starts shouting discrimination'. But beyond that, I do think there's a serious point to be made here about musicians (and artists more broadly) having been treated very badly over the years on this country, not just now as a result of the fall-out from Brexit, impact of Covid:lockdowns etc, but way beyond that. I can remember when, as a young professional musician in the 80s, it was nigh on impossible to get car insurance for all sorts of stupid reasons thrown up by the insurance companies. And t wasn't until the Musicians Union fought quite a long battle for change that things started to improve, with General Accident eventually working with the MU to produce a specific car insurance policy for your average working muso. I was an MU Committee Member for about 3 years when I still lived in London and the number of cases we dealt with of musicians being ripped off and being treated like 2nd class citizens was unbelievable! Anyway, back on topic... That's kind of the point being made by this lady who's set up this cafe in Bristol - as I see it, she's responded quite brilliantly IMHO to that same kind of disregard and lack of understanding/appreciation of what artists/musicians bring to this country. As the actor David Schneider said recently: "Hard to believe that the government utterly screwed the £112bn creative industries for the sake of the £446m fishing industry. Which they also utterly screwed."

It's snobbery based on the fact budget instruments were typically plywood. Curiously, it's much less common now, your £100-odd (well, pre Br*x*t they were) Harley Bentons & such will tend to have solid timber bodies. On the whole your neck, pickups, bridge & strings don't give a stuffed rat what the plank underneath them's made of. 'Tonewood' zealot outrage incoming...