Leaderboard

Turns out this bass building lark is very addictive isn't it? I've made a few basses (8!!) since I built my first one last year, mostly trial and error builds trying different scales, profiles, pup position, wood finishes etc, I've held off doing diaries however as they were never going to be things hung on the wall. This build however could be interesting and I want it for myself to play so I thought I'd share it's progress as I do it; 30" Scale 6 String 24 Frets Singlecut Neckthru Started with this block of Wenge, this will be my central section of the neckthru. I made a bass with part of this board and made the neck from a single piece of the timber, no laminations, mainly to see if it moved and bent under tension / environment and if it could keep straight, after a couple of months it hasn't shifted so I'm reasonably confident I can proceed with just a single piece, it had a truss rod and 2 carbon rods so I'll be doing the same on this. Here I've cut the neckthru out of the wenge block and paired up some European Ash for the wings. I really like the contrast of Wenge and Ash on some other builds I did, so again using it again here. I'm going to be making the bridge and nut from timber on this build and of course the knobs so I thought i'd start with the easiest bit first! They still need an ash dot inlaying in to them and a sleeve and grub screw installing... so plenty of opportunity to mess these up! I'll be doing the truss rod and carbon rod routing next! The journey begins!

I couldn't find a dedicated thread about this podcast already so thought I'd start one (someone's going to prove me wrong and link to one straight away now, aren't they?! 😁). I recently came across this when looking for something to listen to during my walk into work each morning. It's a really simple set-up - Guy and Gary talking to a huge number and variety of people they've worked with over the years (I think culled mostly from Mr Pratt's address book) about their experiences within the industry. The conversation is pretty unpretentious and pleasingly free flowing and they mostly do a great job of keeping out of the way and letting their guest do the talking. I've listened to about 8 or so of the 30+ podcasts available. Giles Martin was brilliant - insightful, enlightening and entertaining - as was Dave Crosby, to name just two. Very strongly recommended.

You could suggest she picks up one of your basses and learns to play too...

I've been able to find 4 string sets of Tapewounds but not 5 string sets. Really frustrating. I rang Dawn at Status and she was able to dig through some shelves and managed to find me a .40 and 2x .120s which I can use to make the full set with the existing sets of Status Tapewounds I bought a while back.. As always she was polite and really helpful. Many thanks, Dawn. FYI she has no sets, she has very few long scale (but not enough to make a full set) and a few medium scale (fine for 2+2 headstocks)

I don't believe we've met then, my name's James

Luke at his Hans he’s doing a Solo

Ha ha. So true. I once had to smuggle a copy of Bass Player magazine out of the newsagents hidden inside a copy of Razzle

Or if she has no musical or technical facility, she could become a singer.

I've played with the Tone Print editor for both the Sprectracomp and the Hyper Gravity and it's pretty much identical in terms of parameters, although I seem to the ink the SC had 48 different settings you can configure last time I looked, which admittedly was 2 or 3 years ago. My first reaction was bewilderment too but you've essentially got the same controls for each of the 3 bands - plus a couple of global parameters such as crossover points. If you have a little understanding of what each control does, your basic threshold, ratio, attack, release, knee then it soon becomes pretty intuitive to use and you can be creating your own sounds shortly after. For example, with my Hyper Gravity I set up a patch that was essentially a single band compressor, I set the low band to work as an adjustable high pass filter assigned to one of the physical controls and set the high band at a high frequency (<5KHz, IIRC) with a low ratio to work as subtle brightness boost on another of the physical controls. The mid band did the heavy lifting of the main, full band-ish compression. The patch resulted in being part compressor, part 3 band EQ. The other 2 physical controls were one adjusting the threshold of the mid band and a master volume which also brought in more clean signal as you boosted it. While dual and multi band compressors are technically 'better' for bass compression I do like the overt sound of single band bass compression, when done right I like the way that it clips the lows, especially when using a more immediate compressor type, FET designs being perfect for this type of thing. But you can do what you want with the TC pedals, everything from subtle and transparent to flat out squash. With the Tone Print app the world, as they say, is your lobster.

For the scarfe repair, we've decided to flaunt it! So the fill is epoxy mixed with ebony dust: @Fishman is going for playability rather than aesthetics and wants to go for a sanded neck silky feel rather than the flattering effect of a couple of coats of gloss (a little bit of gloss hides lots of things ). So the objective is a smooth-to-touch-and-no-sticky feel. This is relatively easy to achieve because the old Washburn finish is, of course, rock hard and you do not start exposing uncured nitro as you sand through the outer skin (unlike some other makes where is can still be like it years later mentioning no names but Gibson please note! ). The challenge will be more about getting the transition at the headstock and heel looking OK. After a scrape-flush of the epoxy, a progression of fine wet and dry, followed by progressively finer scotchbright has got me here so far: Playability-wise, objective already met - it feels great! But just to finish off I want to get the heel and headstock transitions looking intentional and bring out the colour of the original out a touch more. You see better what I mean in this shot here: So I will spend a bit of time tomorrow continuing the same treatment up to a masked line at the heel and headstock joint, and also run through a number of grades of micro-web which will bring the depth of colour of the neck itself out without loosing the satin feel.

Hi Folks.. Recently picked this beauty up!! A Vigier Passion 11 from early 1987..The Walnut body is truly stunning, In incredible condition for age. No major marks or dings. The neck is immaculate, preamp works just great..Very lucky to see the advert in gumtree! It had been used as Wall art for the last four years!! I have invested quite a lot of money and time in tracking down Vigier basses in the 12 years since owning my first one. An antique violin finish Passion custom 111, and it is over thirty years since first playing one in the Basscentre, Really!!🙈 Tempus Fugit Not every Vigier has worked out for me. I personally prefer the Passion Basses over the Arpege ones I have owned. Only played an Excess once, amazing necks on these. I can now say, having fortunately owned from a series 1 to a series lV Vigier bass. I am incredibly content.. All stunning basses! Though could not get my head around using a truss rod on a Vigier Arpege series 1 which I had recently, but quite possibly one of the best necks in bassdom!! A series IV Arpege four string, also stunning with an amazing Glokenklang preamp, but in my humble opinion didn't have the class of the neck through basses. So I am stopping buying or selling Vigiers from now on..Having GAS can be bad, but having Vigier GAS can be expensive!!! 🙈 The series 11 has a slightly bigger body size than the series 111 Weight much the same.The neck profile on my series 111 very very slightly thinner than the 11, but playability wise I can not choose one over the other..If you are quick on the button when one comes up, take the chance..I think you will incredibly happy..👍😃 Should we ever be able to travel again there are four passion 11 basses listed for sale in France on www.leboncoin.fr

That is absolutely brilliant!!!

Hi all...only arrived on planet Basschat last night. My mrs would like to know if there is a section here for bass widows...lol 🤣

Opinion is Opinion, fact is fact, by my reckoning @TheLowDown has stated opinion and not tried to push it as fact, so it's valid as their opinion even if I personally don't agree. Now let's all just agree that all 6 string bass players are incredibly handsome and excellent at all things in life and all 4 string players are terrible terrible people, surely that's a fact we can all agree on! 😜

Written by Greg Allman -

Only the ones who sleep indoors.

I’m back on the Linval Thompson again 😁 .Great Bassline

Strictly speaking this arrived yesterday, but I spent all day either in (virtual) meetings or annoying the neighbours with badly played Faith No More. So here it is. ACG TKO Classic - a non-standard model with a new finish Alan’s not done before - I think we can all agree he has done a bloody marvellous job. This was commissioned with a little inheritance I received following my final grandparent dying last year, and arrived two days after a good friend from Univeristy - who was a sometime-luthier - took his own life. He would have loved what Alan has created here and I will cherish it for both the memory of all my grandparents and Kieran. Not to mention cherish it because it is so damn good to look at and sounds exactly as I wanted - big, ballsy and huge but with a nice soft politeness if you wish. Limba body with an ash top, ash neck, rocklite board. 30.5” scale. Passive electronics volume/tone/pickup select including series and parallel options. Single coil in bridge, reverse P in neck. Immense. (Photos courtesy of @skelf)

I think I meet that criterion:

Is this not the guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/restaurants-offering-takeaway-or-delivery#takeaways-4-5

My g/f may well get recruited as lighting operator!

I'm just bidding my time on this one - landlords have enough cr@p on their plates without being hassled by weekends warriors such as myself looking for gigs. Things will change but I'm in no rush to get out there from the word go

My mrs thinks my 3 basses, 3 guitars and drum kit is a lot. I invited her to look at pics of some BCers bass-only collections that run into multiple tens to see what 'a lot' actually looks like!😊

Why not just swap the 3 basses with Perspex bodied ones...?

No, but some of us have such massive bass collections that it will make her feel much better about your basses (presuming your collection is modest)

wash your mouth out! 😠 😜

-

The website just clocked 50.000 hits.

he would have been known by some already but after that track he just blew up big time. Fun/stupid story...I was out clubbing with some friends many moons ago, and Damien had a concert that weekend, so he dropped into the club with his peeps. So its late and we outside the club now jus' chillin' and Damien decides to leave and passes by us. My friend belts out 'Junior Gong!'. He proceeds to promptly drop his head, raise his fist and tell us the ubiquitous...'Blessssss...'.

Yeah definitely similar. That was also used earlier:

A little demo of the TKO - this is bridge pickup only, tone around 50%. All the burble

Where is the rest of the trumpet?

Benson & Hedges is better quality 😁

Bo Diddley bass. I love it.

I've asked for a refund and will then pop along to a guitar shop when I can rather than buy online. I think if I'd tried it in a store I'd probably have assumed it was Fender's usual ropey setup and taken it home thinking I could tweak it to my liking. Such irony, eh, Alanis?

Much as I wanted to, I really can't comment on either of these. They have their qualities, but I cannot have that incessant 'One.. One... One... One...' for more than a few seconds; it really does bring on an almost allergic reaction. I'm not being funny, or sarcastic; in a past job I've been hospitalised after a spell in a disco for which I was installing the lighting Fx, when the Sound System started up for tests. Sorry, but this type of stuff is not for me.

Geezer says "yes"

I've really liked your tone on the various clips you've posted over the years on BC and I'm also aware you've played to some very large audiences, certainly by most BC'ers standards. Do you not use a pedal board comp at all even for larger (non pub) gigs? Out of interest, are you using any other pedals or going straight into your amp / DI'ing straight into the PA? I know the OP had a bit of bee in his bonnet about us not using cheaper compressors, but the Spectracomp seems to be a big fav on BC and would certainly fall into the "budget" category; as with all things bass, it's not necessarily about paying top dollar but as @Baloney Balderdash rightly said it's about getting the most out of what we already have (and I'm certainly not excusing myself from that). I have to agree with you, though, some form of metering can be very useful.

If you sell a child you'll also have more time for practice! Win/win!

Bits of it have less paint on it.

Oooh! Oooh! I will buy all the little Ukes!

It has nothing to do with Trace. Valves are subjectively louder than SS due to their natural compression, which you can more or less duplicate with SS using a compressor, but not quite. That's because if you use a compressor with SS the compression takes place early in the signal chain, while most of the compression with valves is in the output valves and output transformer.

Hence "special filter"...It's the superior tone and sustain from the Gold finish ....

Frets in..... well, all the hard work on them sti to do, but the arbor press did a good job. Stainless zero fret in as well