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First pass of the final sanding and another reveal coat. Bit of glue squeezout at the top and end of the fretboard/body join: Back looks OK : Edges look OK . You can see where the pickup chamber I cut after fixing the top meets the control cable channel I cut before fixing the top. Yes - the chamber and opening will be tidied up : Bit more sanding at the back to lose those grain chips: Final finish, once it's ready, will be like @Jus Lukin 's headless - a light Tru-oil gloss

I'm still here guys; The busiest gigging summer of my life and I get hit with health issues. I haven't had to cancel any shows yet The acoustic division of Maple Road is keeping us a float. We had to outdoor gigs on June 4th and June 5th. Nice weather and really cool crowds. This Thursday we have a Festival Gig in the afternoon and a Theatre gig Thursday night. We have moved away from the traditional 4 hour US bar gigs. To be honest I think it's a thing of the past. I hope the UK will open up a little more when it's save. I've lost 3 close friends to Covid. Stay in touch. Blue

Quite disappointing to read this. Whilst everyone can dream beyond their wildest imagination, one does well to remember that not everyone is minted and for some, an Ibanez is a very nice prospect. When you get your head out of the bass world, you realise that we do pay a lot of cash for blocks of wood with some wires strung about them. For a lot of players, an Ibanez is a realistic and attainable dream. For some players, it's even further away. FWIW, my first proper bass was an Ibanez BTB405QM that I bought when I was 14 with a little help from some savings and family giving me an early birthday present. It was a massive step up from the starter bass I had; it was an entirely usable instrument that would have been suited to any setting. It was £400-odd quid even back then, not exactly highly priced but not cheap.

Volute nearly there: I'll finish it off as part of the final sanding...which, incidentally, has begun : I'll put in the Luminlays before starting the finishing and so by the middle of the week the finish stages will begin - and in between each drying coat, some wooden knobs, the magnetic trussrod cover and the frame for seating the hatch cover (hopefully with it being just one Superquad loom, magnets should be fine) will all be worked on. In the meantime, the bone nut has been ordered and I'm just about to order the strings I think the final furlong is definitely in play.

It's been a hell of a weekend. It was my birthday Friday and I was offered a place at ACM to study musicianship with Bass, so my boyfriend bought me a new bass as a Happy Birthday/Congratulations present! My very first Fender! A Jazz 'American professional II'. I'm in love

Switches are different than pots. The less you screw with pots, the longer they typically last. I don’t have much experience with Servisol, but it must contain a small amount of sliding contact lube. On solid state amps built within the last 40 years, the life expectancy of caps is at least 40 years. My experience is if the amp is working properly and the fan is working as designed, you are probably better off leaving things alone. I see a fair number of amps “made broken” by well intentioned service attempts.

I want to do an all female covers band called Babes against the Machine. 🤣

I absolutely second this! I have 4 of Alan's creations and they are absolute GAS killers. These days it is a very rare day I get GAS because my ACGs continue to provide anything and everything I could ever want or need in a bass. Shameless ACG picture below!

All good but remember, somewhere out there is a chap who'd have bought you a Precision. Don't give up!! 🙂

1988/9 Sunburst Sabre 8.1 lbs

You’ve twice tried to push this in an anti-Muslim direction, and it’s worked neither time. It’s a good show about a band who happen to be of a different ethnicity. It looks like a lot of fun. Perhaps watch the show and let us know what you think!

Which UK number one single contains the best bass line. I will kick us off with Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick by Norman Watt-Roy. Also, take a drink when someone tells us it's all 'subjective'. Another drink when we're invited to debate what the word 'best' means. And finish the bottle when someone tells us it's 'impossible'.

And this was my introduction to 'proper' black music, in a shop cellar pretending to be a club, somewhere off the Harrow Road in Harlesden with an amazingly nice sound guy and a gentle black audience ..........

Photo pinched from a TB thread

You really should.. the world actually does need more of these.! 👍

Unleash your inner Iommi……

I dont think mods can be removed. They're part of how well Basschat runs. Soz

Nothing wrong with dreaming about an Ibanez, it's all subjective. Also nothing wrong with dreaming about a Mondeo either. It's all about perspective.

Good to hear from you Blue. We’re starting to open up again over here for both rehearsals and gigging but it’s baby steps. I think most of us are mentally prepared for it all to get locked-down again if the situation demands it. Welcome back

I'll have a look where I got mine from (on the burgundy SUB5). It would have been off eBay - just need to make sure you get ones with the right hole locations. I made a template to trim the pickup with a router and used this for both mine and Owens scratchplate. Cheers

hope you're on the road to recovery matey.

Either you play much larger pubs than my bands do, or you play much louder music! Our biggest gig is a barn of a pub in West London where we routinely play (3rd set anyway) to 300 people. For that, we use a Mark Audio system where the 210s are both the subs and the base units, and then each has a linear array of 3" tweeters on poles above. Nothing heavy gets lifted more than about two inches. For most of our gigs though, usually playing to perhaps 100 people, we have a very nice power amp and a pair of passive 12" tops. Even with my dodgy back, there's no effort involved in lifting these onto their poles. At every single gig, we keep the backline fairly quiet, put the entire band through the PA, and have @Silvia Bluejay out in the audience with a tablet controlling mix & volume. We get complimented on our sound all the time, most commonly by the landlady / manager. One band plays old-school rock'n'roll & rockabilly, the other plays classic pop/rock covers from the 60s-80s, so that's two quite different sounds and - in the main - different instrumentation.

Flat sheet of varying thickness, with holes drilled for neck bolts

Not a daft question - that's a daft guitarist.

This one really was. I was looking for recommendations on sub £5 (3 meter) guitar leads as our guitarist is too tight to put his hand in his own pocket...

It was good to be alive in ‘66 with a Fender Jazz, belting out the Tops’ Reach Out I’ll be There.

Bang on. I some times think how scary it is that we have all these fancy bass companies getting peeps to part with massive wads of cash...yet when the dirt hits the fan and the joint is pumping everyone is gonna dig that simple tone, whether ur playing clangy rounds or like me cold dead old flats a P will fill the air with thunder.

Had it a week, so far so good.

I took my Precision out to a rehearsal yesterday, first time I've played it for months and the first time with this band. I have a few basses and the others comment on their appearance, but yesterday, nearly everyone commented on the sound of the Precision - full, rich, bass - they loved it. Makes me wonder why I've bought so many basses over the last few years when I had the P all the time! I'll be gigging it one Saturday with a different band, and the guitarist in that one often says that if I sell that Precision, he'll have to kill me. I think I'd probably let him if I did anything that dumb! Simple, unexciting, basic - but just perfect. Though to keep this on-topic, I clearly remember my first P bass, bought new in the early 80s. Bloody thing had some random fault that meant it could cut out mid song without warning, usually just for a few seconds. That was a bass I'd waited years to get, and it was definitely disappointing!

Heard this on 6music this morning. I've liked Prefab for years but never heard this tremendous bass performance before. The bass is really forward in the mix and I just love the unmistakable Stingray tone. I particularly like the double-stop slides. GASing for a Musicman now...😫

Johnny osbourne

https://youtu.be/HyMm4rJemtI Ashes to Ashes.

Since low key diatonics have come up a few times in this thread, I thought I'd mention that I picked up a low C Lee Oskar to play around with. The nice thing about it is that LO price them the same as their standard keys. It sounds fine and plays easily - the bends on hole 2 and three are taking a little adjustment of my technique but I gather that's normal with low keys. So they seem like a good option if you're curious about low keys.

Because the fret press caul was damaged ? 😎

I'd highly recommend ACG @dmccombe7. I've owned 4 (one of them twice!). They've all been top notch. My current 2 are going nowhere! I've not played many Wal basses, but the one I had felt TOTALLY different to another Mk 1 that belonged to a friend. Different neck shape, weight and balance altogether. His was a far more pleasing soft V neck profile. It's not a bass I'm likely to revisit given the current market price. I bought at £550, sold for £1450 a couple of years later. Could probably get north of 4k for it nowadays and it was in particularly bad condition, not by my hand I might add! It's different strokes for different folks innit!

I need to stop looking at this thread. Cheap or not it all adds up to costing me a fortune!

Barefoot in the garage? You're a braver man than me!

I can think of a quite a few over the last 30 years! Warwick Stage 1 Streamer - lusted after one for years. First time I played one (Sound Control in Glasgow) I hated pretty much everything about it. It was a well used/abused example but it put me off nonetheless. Never played one since, but have enjoyed other 'wicks so maybe someday I'll cross paths with one again... Modulus - played a 4 string in the Bass Centre in Wapping about 20 years ago. Yuck. Wal - owned a Wal custom for a few years. Bought it cheap (£550) when I was going through a Tool phase. Spent a long time trying to tell myself it was a great bass. And it did SOUND great... It just felt like an unergonomic lump of lead. To my mind Alan at ACG has improved on the Wal idea in every regard... Musicman - had a MM5 in the late 90s. Nice flexible bass. But the MM4, Bongo 5HH and Bongo 4HH basses I've owned since have left me cold... Shuker 6 - nothing to do with John, all on me this one. Ordered a custom bass without be 100% on exactly what I wanted. Sei - again lusted after them for years. I've played about 8 different examples from memory. Other than a headless 6 Flamboyant, the rest did absolutely nothing for me at all. Fodera Ying Yang 4 - (Bass Gallery visit) never really been MY dream bass but it has been for many. I just couldn't believe how "meh" this bass was... But then I'd just played a beautiful Fodera Emperor 5 and the Skarbee Celinder Update 4 minutes before, which are easily 2 of the best basses I've ever held in my hands. Certainly in my top 5 anyway. One of the best bass days. Met @Flanker of this parish that day and had a blast through his (new to me) Thunder funk head. Sorely missed you are mate. Sadowsky 5 - (different Bass Gallery visit) again, a long lusted after bass. Again toppled by the Moon 5 jazz I played it side by side with. The Moon was spectacular. The Sadowsky was OK. I'm sure there are loads more. I've had a lot of basses through my hands over the years.

Started watching this over the weekend and it's brilliant. So clever and funny. Makes me want to put together an all female punk band

After watching them on TV last night playing this at Download, it's going to be a Muse day!

Double, no, triple Congratulations!

Might be personal preference that - I run my HPF BEFORE the compressor so I'm not pushing the comp more then it needs to be pushed. Works for me as I'm sure yours works for you. @bob_atherton try both ways and see what happens to your sound and which you prefer would be my advice.

There's no way that dude had a career in 80's children's TV and isn't now in prison

What's that ? ...You want to play bass guitar you say....

The only daft questions are the one which are not asked

I wanted an Ibanez 4 string with Nordstrand pick ups ever since selling my six string version - too heavy for 2-3 hour sets and even after a year of playing them, I still got lost on the sixes. Picked up a VGC Ibanez SR 1200, same woods, finish, pick ups and bridge as my old SR 1206 but lighter and with the proper number of strings. Brought it home, tuned it, plugged it in and….. It was everything I've wanted in a bass - at least as good as my Sandberg Panther Special. I might talk to John East about putting one of his pre-amps in it (I'm addicted to his sweepable mid-range) but in every respect, it's perfect. I know this doesn't really fit the thread, but with someone saying earlier that dreaming of an Ibanez was indicative of very low aspirations, let me tell them they are wrong.

Jazz basses, I love the looks, I love the neck, I love how it sounds out front but I just cannot hear them in the mix on stage, it's there for some notes but then gone at other points so I just have no confidence in them.....nice Jazz out for sale then!