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Yet Another New Bass Day I last posted in this section a month ago to announce the arrival of an Ibanez SR1200 to my collection. That left my care yesterday having been played once during my brief custody, and replaced by a Fender Jazz US Special. I just have to face up to the fact that I am not really made for exotic active basses, and should stick to standard Jazz & Precision basses from now on. Obviously,y it is inevitable that I will deviate from this sensible course, but such is life. I acquired the Jazz after seeing it advertised on Facebook by a chap who wanted to swap it for a Premium Ibanez. As I had one doing nothing, I decided to get in touch, yesterday he came over to our house and we sat in the garden with an amp & cab, talked bass stuff and tried each other's basses. The result was satisfactory for us both - he prefers Ibanez and I prefer Fender, so a straight swap was agreed. Looking at the prices of each, it was a fair deal for us both, and a pleasant hour or so chatting and playing in the evening sun. I now have four Jazz basses (though I am selling the active one) and only one Precision…. Obligatory picture of the new recruit:

On recent builds, for earthing the bridge I've started using a strip of the self-stick copper foil that I also use for the chambers: The solder joint sits inside the entry scoop and so you don't have the worry of the wires lifting the bridge or eventually sinking into the finish and breaking contact: And we have a fitted and earthed bridge : As the copper foil is out of the drawer, next job may as well be shielding the chambers.

Just a couple more tips and tricks I have reminded myself while I've been doing the pickup chamber and cable tunnel, @PatrickJ . I generally add an overlap and find it easier to pre-bend the edges before I take the backing off: Now, of course, these mostly disappear when you take the backing off, but the lines act as a datum for placing the main shape in the right place. Then I smooth from the middle towards the edges, finishing off running my fingernail into the corners and securing the overage. If I get a split (the double rout in this chamber was a bit too much compound bending for the large piece I was trying to put in) I just fit a covering strip. Again I prebend and aim to get that corner into the corner of the wood first: The tags of wiped solder will ensure that the continuity is maintained so it's no problem that the one-piece is now a two-piece of copper And...shielded: And, even though I say it myself - looking very pretty

Leave your cards at home.

The website just passed 60000 hits. Roughly 1150 per week.

Finally back in stock at Andertons. I have just ordered one, interest free credit over 9 months A black one What's not to like I have a gig in september that I can try it on. Roll on delivery!!

Easy to answer: 1. More basses 2. Less money 😁

GAS ignition stage 1 complete.

The black plate really gives it that 70s vibe, which I really dig and have on my G&L tribute...... Jazz necks are really nice to get around and can imagine yours is a dream. The only thing that took a bit of fiddling for me is eq'ing the thinness out, while still keeping that jazz bite. I took me a while to find a tone I was happy with, especially after playing with humbuckers for so long, but they're pretty versatile basses!

I ordered a cab from Bass Direct early PM yesterday, payment was easy, and I received a very nice email within minutes thanking me for my custom, nice experience. Doorbell just rang and it's the bloody cab, I make that around 18 hours from me first seeing it to their delivering it. Absolutely bloody awesome service, especially given the accounts I'm hearing of other (and bigger) shops making a complete mess of things at the moment. Well done Mark and team, and many thanks. Chris

I think that's the Japanese calendar, in which the year derives from the reign of the emperor at the time. In the Showa calendar, which ran from 1926 - 1989, for the duration of the reign of Emperor Hirohito, 58 corresponds to 1983. And that's a stunning JV. If you didn't give the chap at least a grand for it, you robbed him!

A tad shocked at myself but a fairly casual investigation turned into a purchase last weekend. Bar the commmon, slight misalignment of some of the pots I can’t fault the thing. Took me ten minutes to set it up. Probably the best action on a bass I’ve ever had. Sounds fabulous (to me) and is quite a looker in the flesh.

Another weirdo here, but I think it's a known fact.

No apologies needed. My threads tend to meander anyway - and usually it's me doing the meandering It's also useful your comment about the low B with a 30" - because it is something that a number of folks do wonder about. But, like you, I've never had an issue. And we have all marvelled at @Jabba_the_gut 's very short scales at various Bassbashes where they seem to defy gravity with such hefty strings played so low on such small instruments. Short-scale is by far the most frequent requests I have been getting over the past three or four years and there is a lot to be said for them from a player's point of view.

I do. And yes, I am 🤪

No one prefers tort you weirdo

Holy moly 😍 I think I prefer the tort but both look superb 🙂

Control chamber and hatch shielded. Pickup chamber this evening

In the modern era , ie 2000 onward, I've always had a single multi pedal for doing gigs, if nothing else it's handy to have a tuner, provided it's 'lighty up' and visible, plus I tended to have a v.small ammount of chorus or reverb just to give the sound a little bit of extra something . I never really went far into the effects that were on these pedals, personally I can't see the point of distortion on bass unless you're a Lemmy tribute act , just imho !

Another one for old time's sake, this is Jimmy Bain's bass part for the tune 'Stargazer' from the 1976 Rainbow album, 'Rising'. One of the greatest Heavy Rock albums of all time. https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/stargazer-rainbow/

Bought a black one too last week from guitarguitar, awesome bass! There should be a black pickguard in the gig bag if you fancy changing it 👍🏻

I've been playing for 45 years and have never used effects, nor has anyone suggested that I should.

Thanks for your answer @skelf. That said, I don't know either why this S. Martyn bass appeared here as it has nothing to do with @Andyjr1515 build thread. You both Alan and Andy are doing an amazing work on your own builds. It's always a delight to follow your threads.

So a bit puzzled as to why Bassadder posted the Brazilian build in your thread.

Well, an interesting, if slightly odd, diversion to the build thread. But any diversion that gets @skelf (who's work I find awe-inspiring and bass-builder-inspiring in equal measure) posting on one of my threads is always very welcome Anyway, we'll be getting back to the boring old stuff like my-bridge-earth-wire-hole-blocked-by-glue very soon

Ah, I have one of those 😉

On a side note why is it that historically the overly Pious, morally outraged people tend to blow a fuse and go on killing sprees? Personally I think humans are just another animal which given the right conditions are capable of great empathy and creativity and the reverse is also true. Not condoning uncomfortable songs but I would rather the beast was expressed metaphorically in art.

Check out this one! It''s being sold overhere in the Netherlands... Yamaha BB5000A 90's Metallic purple

Finally found some time again…. Neck fixing/ferrules sorted, bridge and tailpiece sorted (and scale and lining of strings is even fine 😂). Nut and tuners next….. then redo the pickguard and polish up the frets. Then just lots of sanding and finishing…… And once this skinny thing is done, I will be refocusing on a real instrument, ie the bass ….

Only a small update - shaped the heel and radiussed (radiused?) the fretboard. On to another scary job next, fretting!

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE... I stated a dispute with eBay re this matter; eBay handed this over to Paypal as that is how I paid. Despite being given repeated opportunities to give ANY response re this matter Peter Barton (aka 'vintageinvestments' on eBay) refused to engage in the dispute process (quell surprise) and Paypal have refunded me. Why this guy has dragged this out is beyond me. He clearly did not hand over the cab to a stranger knocking on his door claiming to have won it... how could anyone know he had sold it on eBay and how the hell did they get his address when even I didn't have it? You just wouldn't would you? The main thing is that in about 30 days I'll have the funds credited back to my credit card (almost 7 weeks after paying) and with the assistance of BC I know a lot more about Mr Barton and I'm wise to him should I ever have the pleasure of meeting him professionally/in person. Oh and I'm still in the market for a TKS cab.

That's enough for one day...SimS holes are drilled

Hanbox r400. simple as it gets and bloomin amazing as it gets. one for sale on here

So on Sunday we had our first rehearsal for 18 months. Gasp! Not everyone was there, our percussionist is taking a break from music to look after his folks for the foreseeable future as they're old and very frail, our bass trombonist was working overtime and our keys player hasn't had two jabs yet so declined the offer. But nevertheless, drums, bass, guitar and trumpet were all in the house of noise. Its made me realise what a cathartic tonic to the mundane endless DIY/work/parenting cycle of life music making is for me. I truly love these people, they lift my spirit and bring me moments of Zen like peace and joy coupled with boundless energy that I happily pay the price for for days afterwards, then the guitarist farts usually but you have to forgive him this, he's not really house trained yet. Things of note - we may not have been playing but the general kit expenditure through GAS has been relentless, I took along my new Roscoe and my at last finished for now new pedalboard (pictured) with the Becos Twain. Temple Audio boards are almost ridiculously expensive post Covid/Brexit but I actually bought it a while ago (about a 18 months as it happens) in order to fit the Caiman Tail Loop by One Control on there when they were a bit more reasonable. So I bought the Caiman Tail Loop because I had a pedalboard failure in a gig and had to unplug the entire thing - which put me right off my stroke for the rest of the gig. The theory being that a pedal dying wont matter since I can take it out of the loop completely now. Unless its the loop controller of course, there is still that risk. For this alone I give it 10/10. But its absurdly programmable to, meaning when I need to I can set up multiple pedal changes to work at the click of a switch - I can even send midi control messages and channel switching if I ever need to - love a bit of future proofing so I do! The other reason I got this was that my signal chain's low end and punch was noticeably degraded by the pedals all in line. Not noticeable by punters maybe, but by me, and that bugged me no end. I hated knowing I couldn't get all my beautiful bass's tone out if I wanted effects at any point in a gig. For this I give it another 10/10 it has absolutely completely changed everything for me. But not just the tone of my bass alone, any two pedals sound better than they did before too, probably any three but I just don't tend to go there. Most notably is my cheap and nasty octave/'overdrive' pedal, which I always thought had a somewhat anaemic octave output because it was cheap - not so, it now sounds absurdly fat, not quite too much but nearly. All of them sound significantly better for this change - like an entirely new board of fx. Brilliant! In fairness a lot of my pedals are rather cheap and nasty, I rather like them all though, the phaser, a mega chip dirty knock off sounds superb, and gives a little bump in output when engaged which helps. I certainly am not losing low end or punch anymore even though its a lot of cheapy knock off crap really compared to some of the pedal officiandos works of art on here. And then there is the Becos Twain - I have promised an in depth review since I got it, but no playing loud rather rendered that pointless, and in order to give it a really good review I want to use it for a fair bit longer, but in short, its a lot of knobs, it has a very specific and detailed setup process that is not at all obvious, RTFM for sure, but by gum it delivers what I wanted by the bucket load! I can set the top end to clamp down hard and fast on very loud peaks only, which means this, pops get that really nice compressed sound, but fingerstyle and dynamics (which are as much transient to volume ratio as sheer power output) are just untouched in the top end and transient areas. At the same time I can have some healthy punch off the low end, with a slower attack/release whilst the side chain filter stops very low level energy triggering the low side of the device and pulling things down too readily, keeping it all sounding far more natural than it probably seems like it should - these THAT compressor chips are brilliant. It is absolute genius. Although really not for the feinthearted. Does anyone want to buy a Focusrite Compounder? Crikey I haven't even played with the two germanium overdrive circuits on the clean side of the two compression engines I am not the only one to have a major rig overhaul - the guitarist turned up with one of the new Barefaced guitar cabs, a 112, and a brand new Blackstar 50w head which it turns out keeps up with the band at 5w, albeit with a bit of fuzziness and is effortlessly clean when set to 50w, and 3 guitars, one he had before but with all new electronics, and two previously unseen ones. And a complete pedal board upgrade too, Strymon modulation effects are awesome it turns out. Even the drummer had new cymbals! Such a fantastic evening - we've been writing all through lockdown and sharing ideas, but its not the same as trying to play them together, and laughing, and just enjoying actually seeing people again - no office for me means I haven't interacted with people other than direct family for the entire time, except to avoid them in the shops. Its been very strange. Stranger to be getting out and seeing some friends, which just feels wrong. Anyway sorry for the diary entry but it was kinda momentous for me, as you were, carry on....

I do think a bit of compression is a good thing 90% of the time I have a zoom b2.1u - it does everything including tuning

The ongoing search for a 90's or 2010 onwards Thumb or Streamer continues. Must be 4 sting and fretted, preferably bubinga pommele body and wenge neck for the Thumb and maple SS1 but happy to consider other variants, particularly on the Streamer. The intention for either (both ideally) is to sit alongside my bubinga Corvette as a burgeoning Warwick fleet. Understandably the market is still a little strange right now, but happy to hear from anybody that might have something they're looking to move on. Thanks.

Whatever applies to the bass player surely applies to any musician? The three Ts: Timing Tone Taste

Hi I am really sorry to crash your thread. I didn’t read the whole thread and missed it was a build thread. So I am out of order posting on it for which I now feel rather bad about. Feel free to delete all reference to the Salace comments. you build stuff I would not touch out with my skill set, so kudos for your excellent work. Alan

Ther are plenty of songs about murder and revenge, even before you go into folk songs: I shot the sherrif Bad like Jesse James Hey joe, Folsom Prison Blues. Delilah etc etc etc. I don't think any of those are actually glorifying or condoning murder. They are simply telling a story. IMHO making a big fuss about some song lyrics just detracts from the real issues in the world.

Another one for the stable 😍

2 things in my view: 1. A bass player that can`t lock in with the drummer 2. A bass player who doesn`t play for the song, only for themselves - as in "look at me, I`m so good"