Leaderboard

My little Tonehenge I got the VT500 in the Thomann blow out. £159 + vat and courier charge. Amazing price. Only had a 5 minute play to see if it all worked ok and it does. It's very different to the Darkglass and the Markbass. It actually has higher OD gain levels than the DG - gets a bit noisy when cranked fully and with the Character all the way to the right (and with a compressor in front) but it's a great sound. The thing that really surprised me though was the almost complete lack of noise when using a clean or lower gain sound. No hum, no fan noise (reactive fan control! at last!), just quiet. Perfect for playing with woodwind instruments. I used to do that a lot before the plague. Input gain appears to be very high so even on a loud passive instrument it's better with the Pad engaged. I'm looking forward to going through the Sample Settings in the manual later on. Also hoping that my big band manages to start up again in September!

I'm holding off on changing the title until I've got the deposit down for the hall (should be in the next week or so).

And the fretboard's on - and no gaps The next job is filing the neck overhang flush with the board, and in the background, preparations are afoot to start on the neck profile

Why I can't just be happy making a bass without indulging one of my stupid ideas when it pops in my head is beyond me, last night I saw the back of a Ken Smith headstock and thought... Mmmm what if I did something similar to their weird spiky thing but softer and with the contrasting ash 😩... Cue hours of careful chiselling in to a perfectly good volute... Just to satisfy an itch... It does look pretty cool though, and if anything it'll strengthen the headstock neck relationship having this as a brace, my plan is to blend this in to the volute on both sides to get it perfectly flush and then to reduce the thickness of the part on the back of the headstock to a couple of mm and this will be where I can etch in the model or bass name or my epitaph... Looks nice now as a solid block but I'll have to see what it looks like when blended and cut. I've got to leave it well alone now, no more off piste shenanigans.

Yes - that'll do nicely Using the binding to create the demarcation stripe has its own challenges, but it does mean that you only have to worry about one gap-free joint and not three, as you would if you were creating the effect with full width veneers: So in terms of the actual timber part of the build, we are heading towards the final stages. In broad sequence, it will be : - design headstock shape, adding wings if necessary - add a couple of swifts to the ebony headstock plate and attach - temp fix the tuners to align and drill the bridge fixing holes - complete the body carve - carve the neck profile, being able to 'feel' it towards final shape with plenty of air-bass And then the finishing can start

Young fellow put a 2013 Rumble 150 115 on ebay with a starting bid of 175. I made an offer for 200 and he took it. It's very clean and plays great. There are several on reverb, etc. for another 50 dollars but mostly beat up looking. V1s, too, this is a V2. $200 is a steal.

Surely the important issue is the amount of wood remo.... sorry, I almost forgot... the amount of tonewood removed from the core path of the strings? It's almost as if they don't care 😢

Also.. "Ramp on, Ramp off, Daniel-San"

The 'same as it ever was' rig. The sound engineer will fit it to the FOH rig. Been there, done that; no problems. Oops, sorry; wrong photo ...

A DI box and IEMs.

First of all thanks to those who have been following and engaging positively with the Bassworks build diaries involving stock and custom builds for clients. I'd like to tell you about my "Dream Bass" service. I design your dream bass for you AND you get a voucher for £100 off your instrument if you wish to proceed! Normally this service costs £25, (or $25, or EUR25). For a period of time I will offer a group of 3 Basschat members this service for FREE, per month. I'm not offering this elsewhere. It's exclusive to Basschat members. As well as a clearly identified discount, we'll spend 30 minutes together by video conference to scope out your detailed written specification which I will document for you. You'll get a high resolution 2D colour render of the bass, a fully detailed cost breakdown and an easy stage payment plan where the build time can be tailored to fit with your cash flow situation. So for example if you want to delay the spraying of the instrument whilst you save the cash to fund that - you can do it! There is no obligation to proceed at all. IF you do choose to grace me with an order, we'll create a build diary on Basschat too. This will operate as a competition. Here's what to do if you fancy a shot... 1. In this topic describe your dream bass in your own words, colour, materials, hardware and (if you play in a particular genre) what main genre(s) of music it would be played in. No pictures, just your words. 2. A panel of Bassworks judges will consider the submissions made by the end of each month. 3. As long as there are 3 great concepts per month as judged by the panel, those 3 Basschat members will win the Dream Bass Service for FREE that month. Feel free to watch the video over on my Bassworks Facebook page. Hit my page and then search the page for "Dream Bass". Thanks for reading and have a Funky Friday...

Now the multi-scale is done I am starting this tandem build thread. Infinite Bass 4.4CL: 4 string PJ style, but with Thunderbuckers Passive 34” scale Remodeled/reused Ibanez Grooveline 4 wenge/bubinga neck Alder body Chrome hardware Black stain/oil finish Gotoh tuners Hipshot bridge Infinite Custom Mocking Jay 6: 25.5” scale Alder body Dual humbuckers, 3 way switch Red stain/oil finish Chrome hardware ... who cares

I'll be video reviewing one of these fine lil beasts very soon. It's sat on my desk here at the moment! Oh and another cool lil dude from Barefaced too, for another review!

Ok so I had a thought... And may have done something I'll regret... But it may also look good... I'll reveal it once it's done... Or I won't and I'll abandon another build! 😂 Yes that's in the volute! 😬

I'll just leave this here:

In the days when I still had a conventional bass rig, when I was playing decent sized stages I could always hear more of me in the foldback than I could from my rig unless I was stood directly in front of it. These days big rigs are nothing more than stage props. My current rig is a Helix Floor and RCF745, and I only take the RCF to small gigs where the quality of the foldback is unknown.

It’s actually more about the feel under the fingers rather than a thumb rest.

Yes. Just like all those DB players playing over the fingerboard. Clearly a crutch.

It's here... And it's SPECTACULAR! Edit: unlike my photography skills...

Got the body wings sanded to their profiles. This is when a bobbin sander is priceless. Routed the electronics cavity, wanted a specific place for the battery I'm this bass and lots of areas for screwing setting I keep on forgetting to do! The ash charred a little here but it'll be getting copper foiled so not to worry. Did eventually put a headstock laminate on thought this piece was stunning so popped it on and took a bit of meat off the back side of the headstock to get it back to 15mm Started the rough carving of the neck radius and getting a volute worked out, I'm going to try and get a bit of the shaping done now before the wings are glued on I've left the very edge untouched so I can get the fretboard on accurately, the board is 8mm thick and I like to carve at least 4mm of that in to the neck to create a nice smooth feel. I've done a rough map of where I need to carve once I've fannied on with the neck a bit more again I'll do as much as I can before gluing, not too much though still need good gluing faces! More carving over the next couple of days and a glue up at some point!

1 bottle of Jack Daniels 2 litres of Coke Bag of ice.

The same as I used for 6000-seater arena 😄

Last night I played my "new" Washburn Status with my new 80s band for the first time. In the rehearsal room was a Trace Elliot 2x10. Absolute 80s sonic heaven. Full, clear, punchy, loud but not boomy or pain inducing. Hardly any EQ tweaking, just plug and play with a bit of compression from my Helix. Amazing how you can find a perfect match. Tempted to find a Trace head somewhere now...

I actually received this last week, but wanted to live with it for a week or so before coming to any kind of a verdict. I can’t help but compare this to my Carvin SB5000, which cost me less than half what this did (albeit used) but is a very very good bass. The good: Relatively lightweight at 8.5lb - the Carvin is around 10lb, so a significant saving B string seems legit for a 34” Nice slim neck, easy to play Looks fit Very tight neck pocket Fit and finish is brilliant (as it should be at this price) The not so good: A bit of neck dive. Not so noticeable on a strap, but it’s there. The Carvin (after installing Hipshot Ultralites) balances *perfectly*, so maybe I have unreasonable expectations in this area. I understand that this is probably the cost of the lightweight body. It already has Ultralites so nowhere to go there. I can't help but be slightly annoyed as before I placed my order Adrian told me the Elwood Ls balance much better than standard jazz basses. The strings. Ostensibly these shipped with Maruszczyk own-brand nickel strings. The B and E were DOA. This led to an annoying wait while I sourced my preferred DR Nickel Lo-Riders, which of course have cleared this problem right up. It felt like they’d put on an old set which they had lying around, which I can’t imagine they did, but in any case not a great advert for Maruszczyk strings. The sound. This is the most subjective bit. It seems a bit bland and overly mid-focused to me (some might say ‘honky’). Maybe I just need to adjust to the difference from the Carvin, which has quite an open sound. And of course I'm comparing a P to a J, so apples to oranges. Also I haven’t tried it in a live mix yet, so it’s probably a bit early to judge. This might be a case of underwhelming solo, but fantastic in a mix. Certainly playing along with some records seems to point in that direction, it sounds BIG. Ultimately ordering a custom bass is a bit of a roll of the dice but I think I did OK here. Not a 100% roaring success, but maybe I’m being picky.

Bowie’s Jean Genie. Trevor Bolder usually gets the blame for going to the first chorus too early, but if you count the bars it’s the rest of the band coming in too late.

Crystal Gazing - Be Bop Deluxe (yeah, they're back!)

Well, that was excellent service from GAK - next day delivery for less than a fiver, and double boxed too. It's a £300 bass so it's not going to be getting a setup or anything by the retailer so spent the first hour tinkering. Was able to get a nice low action with no buzz and am happy to report that the bridge had enough adjustment space for proper intonation with the stock strings, although it was a pretty close thing with the E string. As you can see from the bridge closeup, there are still a few turns of the screw left. Neck relief was fine and pretty much to my liking so I didn't mess with that. The good - lovely looking bass, it's a hard colour/finish to capture with the mobile phone - it's a deep, rich gold with a fine metallic flake to it and a stupid name. Finish is excellent quality, didn't see any oopsies in the surfaces. Some slight going over the lines at the top of the headstock where the gold impinges slightly on the black front, but nothing to get too annoyed about. Sounds good to me, definitely got some of that T-bird growl about it, but was only listening through headphones/practice amp so will reserve judgement until I hear it through the amp but if it sounds good with a practice amp then it surely can't sound worse! Fretwork is decent, no protruding edges that I could feel. Weight is good, pretty light without feeling unsubstantial. Balance is good, no neck dive that I could feel - Neotech Mega Strap used which is nice and wide, a thinner/shinier strap might not fare so well but that's not my setup so therefore not my problem. Electronics fine, no crackles, no hum. The bad - the tuners are pretty poor, quite a lot of play in them and not super accurate - tend to move in chunks. Might be tempted to replace these. The tone knob was loose - nit picking here and easy enough to sort by widening the split shaft on the pot slightly. Tone knob doesn't do a hell of a lot (at least not through the practice amp) but I rarely use anything but wide open so not bothered. All in all, the 2+2 headstock that I've been beaching about ever since these got released is a non-issue when you're playing it. I still think the batwing would have been the cherry on top but at £300 I'm happy to ignore it and it looks better in person than in photos.

https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/sky-arts-launches-music-tv-show-the-live-revival-celebrating-grassroots-venues/083123

Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) ～ Benny Hill

I'll add Hadrien Feraud, Matt Garrison and Tony Grey to that list not people that need any sort of crutch whatsoever for their technique Ben

Nice touch..

New Adjustable ramp 12 years ago:

what an amazing experience for these guys.

It restricts how much you dig in on the strings. Works REALLY well for that actually. I had an adjustable ramp on a Shuker 6 I ordered years ago. My current ACGs have pretty large pickup enclosures so don't really need a ramp. Tell that to Billy Sheehan who's been using his P pickups as ramps for YEARS... Or maybe Gary Willis who's a fan of them... But different strokes for different folks! Edit: I see somebody beat me to the Sheehan/Willis comment, but I think it bears repeating...

Probably time for me to clarify! Why I never ‘got’ ramps - because I never found myself thinking, ‘It would really help if there was a surface a small distance under the strings beneath my picking fingers.’ Why I thought it looked like a crutch for technique - I assumed it was to ensure that the player is always contacting the string with the same part of the picking finger; and to aid fast playing by preventing the fingers from going too far below the strings. I hadn’t considered the fact that it would make the playing area feel more like that of a double bass. My anti-gear-snobbery mantra (to myself principally!) is: Use what works for you. So my bad for casting aspersions on ramps in general, crack on and ignore my ill-judged comment.

You'll have to tape everything together and use it as some kind of rudimentary war-axe.

I like them. I don't have them at the moment, and I don't need them, I just find them very comfortable. And I'm not convinced that Gary Willis or Billy Sheehan could be accused of having poor finger technique and needing a crutch.

Yeah, big stage/ venue gigs are more about the PA than your rig. As long as your using any type of pro level rig your ok. I play big gigs with 2 10 GK cab and a GK head Blue

*Bass Guitar is basically a service instrument. Nothing to have an ego about. *Stanley Clarke Blue

I think the age limit for learning slap has recently been scrapped so you'll be fine! Seriously though, slap is just another technique like any other, and can be played as a basic root note or a complete technical show off routine. There's no reason slap has to be a display of fingerboard pyrotechnics. Give it a go!

Had one, thought it was very similar to the Emperors new clothes. Great rep, but doesn’t do much, and nothing i couldn't get from much cheaper gear. Sorry, just my opinion.

Thanks Stevie. I'm tempted to ask why it is so component specific, but I guess it's because of how all the different properties of a cab design interact in reality 'on the bench' rather than in the software? The tailoring analogy is great. It is of course possible to buy a perfectly decent suit off the peg from M&S (dare I say Asda or is that a 'bodge' too far!?). I guess the difference is that making it bespoke means it is a perfect fit rather than 'good enough'. Cheers, I'm learning loads from this ... mainly about how much there is to learn

I’d never trust anybody to have control of their own wedge. Asking for feedback central!

My contribution