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Here's Freddie Washington playing 'Forget Me Nots' with Patrice Rushen at some open air event. He was the original bass player on the recording. He doesn't let up his concentration for the entire performance, and his playing is so clipped and precise - absolutely brilliant. Patrice Rushen is no slouch on the keyboard either, as this clip demonstrates later on. And I love how at around 4.30 she gets the audience to clap along ON the beat - I wonder why ? 😏 😄🙄

Right. Mega embarrassment time, plus a good dose of relief, no pun intended. First Kenny's Music have been great. Strongly recommended. I got ready to replace the original strap buttons and strings before shipping the bass back to them for assessment. I thought I'd have a go at turning the adjuster clockwise a few turns to see if the trussrod would start to function again. I shone a torch into the adjustment socket and lo and behold:- The focus isn't great but the actual adjustment Allen socket can be seen recessed about 3 or 4mm into a tube. I had been using a larger Allen key that was giving a notchy loose feel in the tubular bit and the impression that the trusrod was broken/detatched. A smaller Allen key in the correct socket is as smooth as silk and adjusts the relief like a dream. So all is good, I am over the moon as I love this bass! What a dummy. Hopefully this may help another basschatter? I've owned many basses, probably over 20 Yamahas and I've never done this dumb stunt before. Age? Peter

I have never even picked up a bass before but finally plucked up the courage to fulfil a lifelong ambition (I'm 54) and bought a Sire Marcus Miller M2 from Andertons, and it arrived ..... v exciting. I also bought a guitar stand, strap and cable from Amazon. I was encouraged to post this by the nice people in the 'Introductions' group. I wanted something relatively 'budget' to learn on, I guess if I make progress I can upgrade later. Today I subscribed to the Bassbuzz online lesson programme, successfully tuned my bass and then completed my first lesson! It definitely makes bass-like noises and I am very proud of myself! I don't have an amp, my plan is to play through my Focusrite audio interface into my computer, which seems to be working OK so far. I use headphones which seem to cope quite well and sound great but unsurprisingly my 'high power' computer speakers completely crap themselves if I try and play through them, I hate the way they sound anyway so I kind of enjoy torturing them to be honest but its not an issue, I'll just use the headphones. Here are some photos of my guitar (is it OK to call it that or is it strictly a bass?), hope I haven't gone over the top. It seems sturdy and seems to work well, I am very happy with it - but if I was being hyper critical I would probably say some of the details/ finish look a bit basic - bear in mind this is the only bass I have ever held (heh) : I am a complete beginner, watching too many videos of people adjusting their guitars on YouTube has freaked me out a bit, the 'action' on my bass at the 12th fret appears to be about 3 mm - which from what I read is OK? I have also twiddled all the knobs vigorously on my er ... bass... and can definitely hear the passive / active switch, but the tone ones not so much. Anyway, I am really enjoying the whole experience so far, on Day 2, heh Hi etc! Jolltax

Here's mine, compact and bijou. Finally succumbed to individual pedals after years of either no effects at all, or minimal use of multi-effect units.

Many have seen my 5 string build last year. Originally I planned it to be fretted, with 2 EMG MMCS pickups. As the project progressed, I decided to make it a fretless with 1 MM pup. Then the Wenge fretboard turned to not be hard enough, so I took off the fretboard and turned it into an ebony fretboard lined fretless. I have since found that my two 4 string fretless basses are all I need, so I thought let’s have some fun. So I added the 2nd pickup, replaced the single saddle bridge with a Schaller I had laying around. I did this so I can use the single saddle bridge for my upcoming multi scale 5, and fretted the thing. Since I had holes in the back from the single saddle bridge, I doweled them, and then created a battery cavity. I created a solid integrated finger ramp by routing out the cavity a little larger and creating a wenge insert between the pickups. Result as per the below. It plays and sounds great..... and I can now move on to my next build 😂

Well...now there's a story... Not me for one I gave Matt the choice of the four configurations, and he chose one of the other ones. And I - ahhummm - had already cut it before I spotted Matt's question. Anyway, Matt has been extremely gracious and says he is equally happy with the way round I've done it. One for the 'ooops!' log I reckon. That said, it is going to look pretty splendid - this is one of the best figured walnut pieces I've come across in a long, long time. Here it is with a 5-string sized fretboard cutout: Once the proper finish is on, that figuring is going to positively come alive! Next step is to cut the oak blanks and order the neck laminates and bridge

Let’s see some old banged up basses, let’s say nothing after 1990 and nothing which has been faked, just old basses which have had a hard, honest and well gigged life, and are now being loved in their old age. No closet classics for this thread! I will start with my 72 Jazz bass, she’s certainly had a hard life but she’s now getting the love she deserves now she’s nearly 50. Looks like she’s had the bridge ashtray on for most of her life as the original Olympic white is still actually quite “white” under there as it is under the pickguard, also some lovely wear on the maple fretboard. someone in her long life obviously thought that wearing a rather large and meaty belt buckle was the fashion of the time! She still plays lovely though and is fortunate to have survived to nearly 50 with no mods or alteration. Still have the original ashtrays but I don’t dress her up in her Sunday best very often! She was also lucky enough to come to me with her original case, also quite battered but still serviceable.

The bass, the neck and the joint have been rock solid too. I love this bass @Andyjr1515, thank you for bringing it back to life! Eude

EURO 5LX PJ RAS-LAYER Not sure about the Nord pups vs trad EMGs and those plastic knobs are meh. But the reverse-PJ format in a 5er is lush. Only available in Japan?

Also just in from their website... PS please also note a bass is not a car: don't assume it will necessarily go faster just because it's red ...I'd best get my hat now

@Hellzero is quite right. As long as the neck heel is fitted to be properly against the back of the pocket it's the 'lift' you need to bolt against. Do you remember this one - I fitted a neck to one of @eude 's schooldays (?) projects. It was the shortest pocket I ever did (by necessity) - and it was a 6 string bass! The pocket was even shorter than @benh 's present one: For that, because I had no idea really what extra pull forces might be on a sixer, and the floor of the pocket itself wasn't all that thick, I went belt and braces and fitted an unglued dry biscuit joint into the front join area: It held fine and, to be honest, I think it would have been OK with just the bolts: So, @benh - best to extend the fretboard a touch in any case, as much for the 24th fret security as anything, and the resulting neck pocket should be perfectly adequate

That's really good news! ...Even if it does mean we're allowed to pull your leg a wee bit... Just seen this on their website: WARNING: anyone using the wrong sized Allen key to adjust a truss rod - please note: it may not work and you do so entirely at your own risk. If you choose to still go ahead, please don't ask us for a new bass. 😁

Sounds like the pickups might be out of phase, try swopping the wires over on one of the pickups and see if this puts it back to normal.

Sly and Robbie day today

Thing is if your amp is already giving you control over 40Hz with the bass tone pot (or something thing pretty close) having that flexiblity of another less “boomy end“ related EQ point say at 70hz or 80hz onboard the bass would be more sensible or certainly give you another option to cut some ‘boomy end’ and still give some poke or punch down in that region (while still creating a nice space for the kick but that’s into studio/recording/mixing levels of geekdom). Fitting an on board EQ which covers 2/3 of what you amp is basically doing seems less useful. The example I’ve used recently - my Fender amp - its 40-400-4k. If I were fitting an on board EQ I’d be actively looking for additional flexibility not mimicking what’s already available on my amp so an Aguilar would be off the radar as it’s only really offering one different option (plus my amp has a semi para mid too so I can tweak the basic BMT further anyways). It’d be like buying a DG AO pedal and setting the drive up on it exactly the same as the drive setting on your amp DGAO amp You’ve talked a lot about eq over the years and I think this is you’re first refit of the electronics on a bass so why not be bold and give yourself the option you’ve been on about for quite some time😀 I think you discussed the East Unipre or it has been on your radar too so no surprises with the features and flexibility it offers. If your never gonna gig the bass and it’s only gig home use then the logic would be have it set up to do something different and be that super flexible EQ - you’ll be well familiar with your home rig and how each bass sounds to notice what something like the Unipre offers - you’ll really be able to get into and the most out of it. If you’re gonna soup up a ‘bargain’ you might as well go for it! It’d be a teal wasted opportunity when so much has been said about eq points over the years that the default is go with what’s already available on the amp. Plus the AO amp’s graphic must have given you a few good ideas about what those EQ points do to the basic sound which would inform what an on board should bring. Again if your Gigi g amp already have a bunch of eq options it’s be good to work around those and have that added control for when it’s needed.

Just for reference, a Fender type bass neck pocket for a 4 string is typically around 95mm x 64mm (give or take a couple of mm) so using that as a benchmark, you are a fair bit shorter than that at 68mm. Consider also how you are going to bolt the neck on (neck plate of individual ferrules) and how are you going to finish the edges. By that I mean are you going to round over the edges a little or a lot? If you were going for quite round edges (say a 12mm radius) then the line up to where you can put the ferrules or neck plate moves back into the body by that amount so they don't overhang the curve. Then have a look at where the mounting holes would be as you might find them to be quite close together. Hope this makes sense! If it was me, I would extend the pocket into the body by another 20mm or so. This would give more contact between the two, give you more room for mounting screws and also give a bit more fretboard on the body side of the 24th fret - there's a risk at the moment that the bottom left hand corner of the fretboard on your drawing might chip off when you press the fret in (I've done that before!). Cheers Jez

I've pushed the baffle in place whilst i wait for all the glue to dry and I've gone over again with a damp sponge to remove excess glue. At this poing it's just a waiting game for the glue to dry. The instructions on the glue will tell you how long to wait/ Now to deal with the speaker and port cutouts. Measure twice and cut once. This is the photo I sent Stevie, I'd positioned the horn and port centrally to keep the structure strong but acoustically it is better to have the horn as close as possible to the bass speaker so you'll see we ended up moving it in the later pic. Here you go, the cut outs for the smaller holes were done with a jig-saw. there's some discussion about blades earlier in the thread. I used a thin blade to cut the round port hole and then used it for the horn cut out which was wrong, It's hard to cut a straight hole with a thin blade and you can see it isn't as straight as I'd like. Fortunately the horn has a lip that will cover the wobbly cut. I've also rounded off the cabinet edges (I'll add more on finishing later) So this is the final cab before fitting the speakers. It's had a single coat of Tuff Cab paint, which I strongly recommend. It's genuinely tough as well as Tuff and easy to apply, You can get a professional textured finish with the special rollers or a linen like effect with ordinary rollers.

Am I having Deja Vu???

Good evening one and all 😁 Long time lurker of the basses for sale section and thought I'd make the jump to fully fledged member! Havent been playing bass as often as I'd like over the last several years due to, well, life and responsibilities I suppose. However I've had my EBMM StingRay for, jeez, nearly 20 years from new and im looking to expand the tool kit to add some variety to my sound for when we can all finally get back to playing live in bands again. Must admit, I've been looking at Modulus FUs, Lakeland Skylines and good old Fender Jazzs recently and I honestly wish I'd won the Euro Millions so I didn't need to pick just one 🤣

Think I'm gonna stick with the Tbird. Its become too close and personal as well as being far too much of an individual to let go of. My piggy bank will be gun inspired from now on....

Always!!

La Donna e Mobile - Luciano Pavarotti

So for muting all strings I don’t have a closed hand, my little finger stays pretty straight, becomes an extension of the palm and spits a very long palm/finger bridge Thats just me

This is one of the reasons I prefer narrow string spacing, even on 4s (16.5 mm). But as for ‘a while of sounding awful’, isn’t this pretty much the case learning any new technique or instrument? FWIW I think many bassists seem to approach pick playing with the wrong mindset, thinking they’re going to struggle in some way before they’ve even started. Give it time and practice, and relax. 😉

Yes, but the shorter the distance of the pocket, the shorter the distance between front and back screws and the less surface area to spread the load of the strings. But regardless, everyone is agreeing it makes sense to extend the pocket.

I’ve played a couple and they neck-dived like crazy, like proper headstock-hitting-floor. I particularly struggle with neck dive due to neck and spinal problems, it’s an absolute no-no for me. I was fairly gutted as I’d planned on buying one. I know Andy T has said the replacement bridges (Babicz and Hipshot) help with this though. I would have thought too that the tuners were maybe replaceable with lighter versions too?

So..... providing you never needed the bit between 17th snd 18th fret, and it didn't protrude above the top of the fret to either side, you could hold the neck on with a jubilee clip... I may try that one day, but it would need to be a proper rat bass style over the rest of it.

Gone to SpondonBassed...

Great purchase! I own a P7. Sire make some fine basses. If you're ever wondering what else is out there in the online bass lessons department: I wholy recommend Mark at talking bass. I've learned a lot from him.

Got some more contouring and routing done today! Still lots more sanding to be done!!......👍🏻

Very nice indeed, love the colour! Here is mine. When I got my Dingwall I put this away but since the first lockdown have been playing this exclusively (until my MTD fretless came along) and am in love with it all over again. I did post this here back in 2015 but must have deleted the photos. 2014 Century Signature. Aguilar OBP-3 pre amp and Aguilar PUs.

While I'm at it, here's a video of how to upgrade an FI (it's for v3.04 but the process is exactly the same): Here's a video of the reset you should perform after upgrading to v3 for the first time:

So this is the kit of parts, you can just about see my table saw and everything was cut with that. Most people don't have access to machine tools so I'd strongly recommend you get everything cut for you. Machine cutting will give you straight cuts and square edges and make assembly a doddle. The square batten is stuff i cut myself but you should use timber described as PSE (planed square edge) which is usually better quality redwood and the planing guarantees a good 90degree angle Time for marking out, mine isn't accurate as i went to felt tip as my pencil wasn't showing well in the photos. This is the top and one of the sides. Ive marked a line set back 30mm for the baffle (front panel where the speaker goes) and for the back panel. Those lines will be used to line the battens up . The top has two other lines as it will sit on top of the sides with the outer edge aligned with the sides.

Sometimes I do, then again, sometimes I don't. More often than not nowadays it's what I think fits.

Numerous times but that’s because I’m an absolute c***.