Leaderboard

Thanks again as always guys, really glad you're enjoying the thread! @Kiwi Im hoping that the hollow areas inside the neck will contribute to a nice low weight and good feel. the rods in the neck aren't solid carbon, meaning that a fair amount of space inside the neck profile is hollow space. youre right im sure getting it right is trial and error, but thats what this bass is, all experiemnts! as for the filter sweep range, i think the balance really is going to be getting the range without the controls becoming over sensitive. you8r point about the 250 hz low end i think is pretty much spot on. that experimental board i showed a couple pages back let me try a bunch of different sweeps, and i learned 2 really key points: 1. the low end being too low wastes a huge amount of the pot travel. with the low end down around 100hz about 1/4 of the whole pot turn makes almost no difference to the sound without boosting the resonant peak to ridiculous levels (18+ db), which, as @Hellzero pointed out, at that low in the frequency range isnt very useful 2. the top end of the sweep being too high means that diling in midrange-boosty sounds is really tricky, as a tiny amount of pot travel results in a huge difference in the tone. im sure there are people for whom this would be ideal, but for me its a bit too tricky to dial sounds in accurately when working with 2 seperate pickups and preamps. Thanks for the heads up on the fret noise! alongside this setup i was doing some work on a multi-filter (low pass, band pass and high pass filter modes) with a pick attack, and i was surprised how low in the frequency range the boost needed to be to get the growly pick attack noises that still sound natural. Back at the workbench- ive started work on the headstock (finally!) the headstock is going to be farily simple in terms of its look, but its a look im absolutely in love with. the Bolin steinberger bass headstock is my personal favorite of almost any bass, and the relatively low break angle of the strings means that it works well for tuning stability using the bigsby the first step was trimming the back of the headstock flat, and then planing it ready to accept a redwood cap. on the back i want the walnut/purple rope to run all the way to the top of the headstock, with redwood either side, and then a simple redwood face on the front. I picked a nice piece of my redwood offcuts to make the front and rear faces out of. on the headstock i want the grain running vertical up and down, with the ripple running straight across. The rope patteren actually extends up into where the rear cap will be glued in place, but im hoping to create a nice carve in the back of the headstock so that the pattern matches up perfectly at the top. this will involve a lot of carving, but so far ive enjoyed all of the carving so a little more is no bother! on the front, i also needed to add in the small wooden blocks in the gap between the rosewood that makes up the sides of the neck. this is the point of no return for adding extra stiffening to the neck. up until this point the circular holes in the carbon rods were exposed, and wouldve let me run additional cabon down through the neck and set them in place with epoxy to increase the stiffness. i even went so far as to buy some solid 8mm carbon rods, and som 8mm cabon tubes with a 2mm wall thickness, but ive decided not to add them. this neck with the ebony fretboard in place is now noticeably stiffer than the hard maple neck i used on the last build, and so theres no need to just add extra carbon for carbon's sake the first piece has a hole drilled through to allow access to the truss rod nut. most of this will be carved away: this piece and another block are glued in place and planed flat. this picture was taken for reference so that when i cut the central hole there would be a good reference picture for me to use. and then the facing is glued in place (with 2 layers of black and white veneer to demark it from the rosewood) and then the rear stripe is once again cut and planed nice and flat The first step after this was to start the archeological dig to expose the rope pattern again ive got a good idea how i want the rear carve here to look once its finished. the thickness of the neck and headstock at this point, along with the fact that the carbon extends about an inch beyond the end of the pattern into the headstock means that this area should be plenty stiff and strong regardless of its final shape! my first cut through the headstock was a very conservative one. you can see here how the front cap will need to be cut away beyond the nut. the face is pretty mcuh flush with the top of the fretboard, which is a little different to the steinbereger ones, but i think it'll add a really nice smoothness to the overall shape, as well as meaning the headstock won't appear overly thick when seen from the side here you can see the carving shape im going for in the back, the walnut and purple stripe will be a sharp peak in the middle, with smooth curves out to the sides. i want the stripe to really look like a rope with the the rope pattern wrapping around it. a bit artsy fartsy i know, but just a little touch that adds a bit more interest to the transition where there would normally be a volute. this is where it ended up: im pleased with this overall, the colour difference between the rosewood and redwood should add to the look here once finish is applied round the front i rounded it over quite a lot, giving it a nice soft shape. you can see the hole for the truss rod here, as well as the white and black veneers that sit between the redwood and rosewood. this need quite a lot more smoothing and the tuner holes drilling an d things, but having removed nearly 3/4 of the length of the rosewood block with the hole, a normal allen key fits in there and is able to do about a 1/4 turn at a time on the truss rod. i think its subtle enough and in a dark enough wood that a cover won't really be necessary, result! now we're getting towards the routing of the body cavities for the pickups and controls, and then onto final sanding and shaping! the end is slowly approaching!!

I just wanted to make a mention of the courteous way we deal with each other. The feedback section is excellent and shows how pleasant it is to buy and sell on this forum. However, not all communications end with a sale but these exchanges don’t get into feedback. Courtesy and friendliness is still observed so I thought I would just post up to say how much I appreciate this community. I have been a member since the Bassworld days and have thoroughly enjoyed my membership. It’s a good place to be.👍

Night Boat To Cairo - Madness

It's been a long journey BassChat Then BassChat Now

Reminds me of the 'What is It?' sketch from Airplane where Leslie Neilsen says to the air hostess: "This woman has to be gotten to a hospital ' And the air hostess says " A hospital - what is it? " To which Neilsen replies : " It's a big building with patients " IMO, Basschat is that big building and we're all the patients! 😁 On a serious note and in very general terms, I've always believed that Basschat is such a great forum because of the fundamental temperament and personality types that most of us bass players have/are... i.e. collaborative, team-players, grounded, non ego-driven etc, etc.. Except for @ped of course! 😉😂 Oh, and here's that Airplane sketch...

In my experience, Trade-in prices from music stores are appalling. Like, ridiculously low. Of course others may have had different experiences. My advice would be to sell them on here. There's a trusted community of members with pages of feedback that you can check against.

No. Like the Banksy thread demonstrates; ownership is about vanity, price paid, basking in the glory, bragging rights. It does make me chuckle when people are looking for a year of birth bass; honestly, what is the actual point of that? Vintage instruments aren't going to make you play better but they might make you feel better about yourself. Will anyone really care you're playing a 60s or 70s bass? Nope. Will anyone be able to hear the difference? Almost certainly, no.

So... the guitarist had my delay pedal for years, and it returned. I bought a Thumpinator from @GisserD coz the C4 Synth puts out crazy sub bass. Max at SFX Sound sent me a new label coz it was shagged. Good work SFX! Thus, rewire and more power required. Had an old Thomann PSU, rewired it with thinner cable and an IEC plug which “folds” away with a bit of Velcro! Glued a shelf to mount it underneath with No More Nails. Board now powers up with one of those Y-split kettle leads. Tuner > C4 Synth > Soul Food > Chorus > Delay > Thumpinator > Comp. So, aiming to keep dynamics through the chain and squash them at the end - comp kicks in on hotttest dry notes and then helps tame the madness when the synth is running! USB hub to save running two cables to the board when programming C4 and MC6. Which is probs overkill for controlling one pedal but it’s a killer controller and it’s let me replace octave, filter and muff. Points deducted for: not having enough patch cable left to make a hidden run from delay > Thumpinator. That green run is visible from overhead 😞. Not buying a shorter USB lead for the C4 and thus having to coil it under the tuner. Not buying a few shorter DC leads. Space after the tuner for (I think) a looper. And I’ve left a 200mA outlet spare. Quite pleased with this one 😎

30 years ago today, we lost Leo Fender. Thanks Leo. That's all.

Another name that deserves spot-lighting, in a different vein, is Danny Thompson, on upright bass, here with another Great : John Martyn ...

Thanks, triping error.

***** Stingy old Skinflint ALERT******** As a Zoom B1 Four Fan boy I thought a small powered cab with the B1 Four would be ideal for the odd pub Jam & Open Mic nights down the Dog & Duck. I have been toying with the idea of building a powered 1X10 for a while, but the cost of Plate amps and ICE Power modules seems very expensive. @Chienmortbb As a @stevie & @Phil Starr follower I have been waiting for the Basschat Easy Build 1 x 10 cab ever since @Stevie teased it last year. My personal bass tone does not demand any top end so I decided to use just the speaker. So I started my Mini Combo. The baffle dimensions were already fixed as I had salvaged a front grill off an old Carlsbro PA cab. So after buying a Peavey MiniMax from here I decided that I would go for an 8Ohm Celestion BN10-300X speaker as the MiniMax output was 300W at 8 Ohm and 500W at 4Ohm. I played with WinISD to get the final dimensions and port length, and since I had a Roqsolid cover I tried to work within the covers dimensions so I did not need to buy a new cover. ( I told you I was Stingy) I used @Phil Starr guidance to construct the cab and a spare length of 100mm sewer pipe for the port. As per the thread I used 12mm for the cab but 18mm for the baffle because it was a bit of a squeeze to get the Speaker & port in the 345mm X 375mm baffle so I wanted to be sure it was rigid enough. The cab ended up being 345 x 375 x 280 internal with a volume of 36.3 Lts, resulting in the port being 186mm long. Here's the progress

Are you sure??? I suggest that if you put 5 bassists in a room you'd get at least 6 opinions. "Who is the best bassist" often leads to near fisticuffs - what I like doesn't translate to what you, or anybody else, likes. "My dog doesn't like slap" - though whimsical - shows how we are divided on taste and style. You may have to pick a genre each week and consider the bassists who made significant impact in that genre...

For years I was in the bass-->tuner-->(sans)amp way of thinking, but still made a small board to keep my wireless receiver, tuner and sansamp together alongside a cheap PSU brick from Maplins. Can't find any pictures of that, but it was an MDF special. That was fine for ages, but I was forced to re-design when we moved from changing instruments for different tunings to just using Drop pedals. I theorised that the Drop might track better on bass with a high-pass in front of it, and the addition of a grit pedal and some compression sounded like fun, so the prototype was put together: That worked well and gave rise to the finished MDF sandwich where all the power cables were hidden and some handles and feet were added: A successful board, but I eventually fancied having a proper power supply again instead of using a 1-spot, and we had a change of lead vocalist so there were sections of some newer songs that I thought might benefit from a bit of chorus or octave. I tried a few pedals out and found the ones I liked, nipped to B&Q for a shelf and some new hardware, and came back past a bike shop for a chain and breaker to make the mounts: No attempt to hide the cables this time, but I think it's still fairly neat and actually much easier to check and troubleshoot. Then I decided it wasn't quite heavy enough, so had a flight-case made for it! As much as I could perform most of the same functions with a flyrig or probably many (if not most) of the multi-fx units out there, there's something pleasing about having an old-school DIY board with individual units on it that are well spaced out so I can find them with my size 12s and literally do what they say on the tin.

Hello bassists! I'm a bass beginner from Germany. Though I bought my equipment (an Ebanez TR Series bass and a Larney Linebacker L50B) more than 20 years ago I've hardly played. Now I'm trying seriously... And I've passionately traveled the UK for three decades now. So I hope to learn here about playing bass and about the UK bass community both. Best regards from the continent basskraut

^^^ +100 to this... Last year, @Paul S very kindly lent me his Sprackenbacker bass for a recording project I'm doing that needed that sort of 'Ricky' sound. .. Despite vaguely seeing each other around on Basschat, at that point, we'd never met - still haven't in fact.. But Paul took a chance on loaning out the bass to me purely based on a number of messages and 1 phone call I think it was... I guess it was kind of a trust built on what I can only describe as 'the Basschat Guarantee'.. 😁 Anyway, spin forward 5 months later and that bass has now been used on loads of the tracks and has been of enormous benefit to the project! Then, Paul gets in touch with me to say he's thinking of moving the bass on and would I like first refusal?? Could I believe my luck? No I bleeding couldn't!! And of course, there was only ever going to be one answer to that question.. So now, I'm the very proud owner of said Sprackenbacker bass and I just wanted to share this little story with all you Basschatters out there about what an absolutely brilliant bloke Paul is ! As was said above so very well by @stewblack. Paul - thanks very much for your generosity and for being such a help - it really is very much appreciated by me and the guys involved in the recording project! ☺️👍🎶 Nik

Seeing as we all love BC so much we can always bung them some cash (£20) by subscribing to the Marketplace even if we're probably not going to be selling anything: Yes, I'm a shill for the management.

Interesting. Can you imagine what its like over at singerchat!? 😬

*Apologies to anyone with trypophobia

I made a triping error once - I tried eating the stuff....... Never again. 😝

I'm throwing all my tools away.

It’s worth enquiring with the stores , I’ve done it quite a few times but personally the low offers I received were just insulting , I sold them privately and bought the basses I wanted elsewhere

Thats what i do. My set up is in the living room so most of the time i record with headphones. You just have to get used to how the different devices sound. I know now that i need to boost the bass a bit more than I’d like when using my AKG headphones, and this seems to give a better level through normal speakers. I also have a pair of small JBL 104’s on my deck so go back and forth between those. Also a good idea to try the mix at low volume to make sure the vocals stand out. Since the thread started ive move up to a Steinberg UR22C interface. I really missed the headphone volume knob when doing the above. Sometimes I’d forget to turn the speakers down and get told off by the Family lol. It also has its own DSP, so you get a channel strip with EQ and Comp, decent reverb and amp sims with zero latency on the input. This is on ipad and computer which is cool for just jamming around without loading a DAW etc.

I think @Mykesbass has the right idea. Perhaps if we each posted the 5 bass players we think fit the criteria as being 'essential' and point out the stand out track for each one of them, that would help the OP with their task in hand? And on that point @DubDelay, it's a great idea for a radio show!

What he said. What I said. No one who isn’t a bass player will even notice the “real thing” either visually or aurally

There ain't nobody funkier than Mr Collins! In fact, the S.I units of both Cool and Funk are measured as fractions of a Bootsy...

You could simply fill the show with James Jamerson & Carole Kaye and not scratch the surface. Add in a sprinkle of Paul McCartney & John Entwistle before you even get out of the 60's. Of course, everyone has an opinion, and those opinions may vary.

Dog approves.

Yep, peeps are f*cking bloody courteous over here, and so polite, I think I can sh*t with my d*ck. Let's meet in person : good idea, so I can slap your *ss. Oops, thought I was across the pond, sorry. Edit : Except for @Teebs of course. Up to the North, death to Mancunians. Long live Blian the gleat !

They seem well-mannered compared to Senior Common Rooms, the Royal Courts of Justice, and games of bridge among genteel ladies in the vicarage. Is it possible that Basschat is where a bunch of raving psychopaths come to indulge their decent, respectful, witty and warm-hearted alter egos? Just want to make sure I'll get out alive if I ever meet any of you in person.

Nah, that's Pecos @ped, the notorious ban-slinger and llama rustler. He's different now, all touchy-feely and 'Let's sing Kumbayah'.

I final caved in and bought strings for one of my acoustics, a mid-80’s Ibanez. Back in December @Dad3353 had commented on how grimy they were. The last time I’d changed them would have been in 2008 or something. So I went on the Thomann site and ordered some old folks strings for it. Can fully recommend flats on acoustics 👍 Guitar not pictured because, well it’s a guitar and, “burn the witch” etc... 😂

It doesn't matter what the string spacing is, as long as you get your muscle memory right you'll be fine with wide and/or narrow. I'm lazy. I decided to stick to 18-19mm with all my basses (one string spacing to rule them all!) , because then I don't need to spend any time adjusting. All the basses I've played and am ever likely to play have come in those widths.

Guitarguitar would offer you half of what they would sell the bass for. I did it once a few years back and never again. I imagine most stores operate on the same terms. Sell on here as it`s a trusted community or get Bass Direct, who will charge you 20% but are good on second hand sales or Bass Gallery who will charge you 15%. I recently had a bass on com sale with the Gallery and it took them 2.5 weeks to list it and only after me asking where the advert was. The photos weren`t very good and sod all description. I took it back and 4 weeks later it`s still showing for sale in their Reverb shop, which is strange as it`s sitting beside me right now. The whole process just seemed very laid back. But that`s not everyone`s experience, just mine. My mate sold a Ric through Bass Direct in a week, good photo`s and description. If you price the bass correct, some nice photo`s, a good description and offer postage, which in these times is almost a necessity, on here`s a great place to sell.

Trade in values are always going to be low, the shop will want to turn some profit on it (despite making a profit on the bass you’re buying) and then they have to pay VAT. Private sales are always the best way forward, as the shops will tell you. BC is a great place to sell, as you’re hitting your key demographic and is populated by a great bunch of folk. However, a third way is a commission sale through a shop, this way the onus for delivery is on the shop and you should see your bass on their website. I’ve used The Gallery in Camden for 3 items (15% commission) and can recommend them if you’re anywhere near them.

Basschat sales every time. Shops will always go very low.

Objectively speaking, they’re both built the same way so you’d expect little difference. My 60s jazz (all original) plays wonderfully but pickup output is very low. Modern jazz (based on a 60s bass) has a much higher output. 60s bass looks better, modern bass sounds better. Difference in price: £7,000. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it (I bought my 60s bass 20 years ago). Years of experience with 70s basses leads me to conclude that these aren’t worth the premium at all.

When people ask this question, John Paul Jones is always the first name I think of, but that's because his playing was what grabbed me and made me a bassist all those years ago in the 70s. If you want an example of what the bass player CAN contribute to a band, look no further than Ramble On or The Lemon Song

Noel Redding didn't get the recognition he deserved...

I'm so impressed by the conduct of Basschat members that I might actually learn to play the bass. Same here. I can only endorse what has been expressed on this thread. I have never come across a site that comes close to this one. It is a pleasure to come here and annoy tittilate mock intimidate sulk digress wildly support our troops on the DoI thread converse.

Today I spent some more time with it. So, some more impressions. The Quad Cortex has a very good user interface for a floor model. There are some restrictions, based on the size of the screen, for example it is fiddly with the 32 banks of presets, was you don't know in which bank the stuff you are looking for is residing. Eventually you learn where it is. And once you have found it you can favourite it and also look at the "last accessed". But overall I would say that I am very happy how they have put it together. Once you learn a few user interface tricks, then it is quite easy to work with it. Like what I said before, rename/delete/copy/move a preset or a capture, swipe left and the icons for the tools show up. I captured one bass pedal, the Harmonic Booster and several capture of a guitar amp, a Hughes & Kettner Tubmeister 18. There are some minute differences on the gain and high frequencies, especially for guitar, but there is no way I could actually hear that if I didn't A/B tested them directly. And just by tweaking the gain and the treble on the resulting capture, you seem to end up with a software version of my tube amp. Very nice. (The Captures are shared, search for Bjelkeman) There are plenty of models for guitar and lots of effects, for me. The effects sound pretty good to me. Not everyone agree about that, but I am of the opinion that is very pleasing. There aren't enough bass amps and effects models. It is clear that the market is much bigger for guitar players. They focused first on that. There are quite some nice captures of amps I like, and I ended up preferring the Mesa Carbine M6 capture 8. It is quite some time since I played on an M6, so can't vouch for how it compares, and I haven't taken it to practice yet. I plan to start running it through the power amp on a Darkglass M900, but later getting a stereo power amp and run one cab high/mid frequencies and one low frequencies. I created a preset with one lane with as above, Noise gate - DG Harmonic Booster - B3K - Carbine M6 - DG 212 cab, and added a paralell lane with a Mesa 400 Channel 1, with a compressor and Ampeg 810 cab, low passfilter, for that extra girth. Sounds good, but I need to test it with the band. Build quality is outstanding and so was the box it comes in. The box is one of these things you don't really want to throw away and worry it gets dented. The twistable foot switches are great and the precision is very nice, at slow speeds it will step 0.1 dB and if you turn it quicker you can go fast through the full range. I ended up putting it on a sturdy music stand, like I have seen a numbers of reviewers doing. Easier to work with when you are setting up stuff and adjusting it all the time. I added rubber feat and I think it will be great on the floor. The touch screen isn't as good as an iPhone or iPad for touching, but similar to many Android phones. I was a bit too heavy handed on it initially. A lighter touch with the fingers works better. It has a software keyboard for entering names etc. none of that twisting nobs to find a letter. Phew. It is great with the Cloud app for publishing, downloading, doing backups, sharing presets and captures. The app is a first release, so there are some things that doesn't work great with the UI yet. There is a bug in that Captures will not upload the tags you enter on the QC. There are other niggles with the UI as well, but overall it is good enough for a first release. I think they have done a really good job with the Quad Cortex and I am looking forward to both getting software upgrades and using it a lot in the future. No regrets!

As a Mod, may I join in here and say that there is, in fact, very little posted that needs our attention. Your (collective...) self-discipline and restraint make what is often a difficult and thankless task an interesting and productive pleasure (I Mod other Forums, so I can compare a bit...). There is an Admin side, keeping Spammers and Trolls in check, but in the main the standard of Member posts is high (I'm ignoring apostrophe errors, naturally..!). Keep it up, folks, and have a Collegial Hug from the Mod Team.

Well if you exclude such classics as Step On (Happy Mondays) (in fact their album Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches), Fools Gold (Stone Roses), Soul to Soul (Back to Life etc), Killer (Adamski), Nothing Compares to You (Sinead O'Connor), Sacrifice (Elton John), Vogue (and album Immaculate Collection), Madonna and various other seminal or reasonably seminal music, along with the famous World Cup in Italy with Bobby Robson in charge (and England ejected in a penalty shoot out) and loads of other stuff maybe. The Rave scene was big in this period. For me it's a pretty memorable year!!