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Forgive the indulgence...but it's time for the final shots I'm pleased how this has come out

I used to be pretty active around here some years ago and ran a blog about effects etc... but I stepped away from bass after getting divorced and life getting messy. At that time, I sold my entire library of effects, including the WMD stuff (I used a Super FatMan from them as well). This very thread will have more pedalboards of mine in it than I care to remember, but here is the big touring board I used with Our Helical Mind, and where the WMD stuff was a pretty critical part of the sound... It's a 2-tier board, so there are a load of other pedals you can't see that were controlled by the GigRig Quarter Master, or in the loop of other effects. It looks cool, but try taking it on tour - it took 2 people to lift it (that board is 1.4m wide). I ended up refining this set up and stripping it down to two smaller Diago boards that I linked together, which revolved around making due with fewer tones and using an Eventide Pitchfacter to replace a LOT of the pedals (that thing is insanely good). Good times!

It’s well known that all Jamerson’s bass parts were actually played by Carole King. But what’s less well known is that all Mark King’s bass parts were actually played by Danny Kaye.

I've had a look around and I'm struggling to find many pictures of Jamerson with a strap on, I'll let you know when I do edit: Never mind, the library have asked me not to come back

oh, this is my first post! hi! so anyway, a couple of months ago i decided to start playing some bass again. i played a little bit a few years back, but never really got into it properly, but i decided to try again and take it more seriously this time around. i bought an Ibanez SR300E, which i've been pretty happy with: it has strings on it and makes bass noises when you pluck them, which is really the main thing i look for in a bass. but then i started looking around at other people's basses, and i thought: hmm... i'd sort of like to try having a fifth string. and then i thought (because this is the kind of thing you think after playing fiddle for 15 years): hmm, i'd also like to try something fretless. obviously, the only possible outcome of all that thinking was "why not both?", so i threw some money at Mr. Thomann, and yesterday this turned up at my door: it's an LTD B-205SM FL. we're still on our honeymoon right now, but i'm pretty sure this is my new favourite bass, and i'm already wondering how much i can sell the Ibby for. the extra string feels so right that i don't think i could ever go back to only having four of them, and being able to do proper slides and vibrato without the frets getting in the way is wonderful. i'm having to readjust a bit - it's easy to get lost on the fingerboard with so many strings, and shifting without staring intently at my hand is a bit of a crapshoot as far as ending up on the right note goes - but hopefully a bit of practice will sort that out. now i'm just thinking: hmm, i'd kind of like something with an unlined fingerboard...

I did indeed thanks. Collecting this weekend so I’ll post an update 😊

I had my first gig in 15 months at the weekend and decided to use my short scale Atelier Z. It was a blast!

No mention of New Model Army yet, some fantastic bass playing on the first 2 albums, Vengeance and No rest for the wicked. Check out the title track of the second album;

Here is my 32 inches scale translucent blue Alembic Elan IV, but I won't keep it. I'm definitely a 34 inches scale (6 strings fretless) bass player. And it looks like a banjo on me. 🤣

Did my first gig this year last night. Just my acoustic duo at a local pub, but nevertheless a landmark event for me - I was actually beginning to wonder if I would ever get out there again. The gig went well, good well behaved crowd and brilliantly organised staff sorting out table service - a buzzer to the bar on each table was available to order drinks. I was initially worried about the drunks left over from the England match, but fortunately they drifted off once we started , funny that! Worries about my hands still being able to do 3 x 40 min sets were unfounded, although my voice only just survived. You forget about rehearsing vocals, well I did anyway. Got home at round 12.30am, absolutely knackered today though.

No, but it is the currently fastest growing disease because once again we have failed to sufficiently control it. Given a few more weeks of inaction it will be back at the top, clogging up hospitals again. This constant stop start is destroying more jobs than actual proper hygiene measures would. There's a new study reported in this weeks New Scientist that shows that countries like Australia that have pursued an elimination strategy have lost far fewer jobs. Their entertainment and arts industries are in far better shape than ours and over the last 15 months our liberties have been far more restricted than those who take much stronger measures earlier. I'm happy to re-run well worn arguments but I'm afraid by confusing Australia's 25 a day outbreak for our 20,000 a day steadily growing infection rate you are spreading disinformation put out to be fair in the national media and fuelled by politicians who have failed at any stage to fully understand the situation they have failed to manage. Not a party political point by the way but a comment upon competence. I'm sure you are as frustrated as I am about what is happening but If we had taken the action New Zealand and others have taken whilst developing the vaccines we would have suffered less and had a lot more normal including live music in the meantime.

Reverend Thundergun. Passive, pure and potent!

This really caught my interest. I was hoping it was another affordable British made hybrid amp to consider. However, I am sure Fenn says that the “tube” circuit is actually emulation, rather than real tube(s). Disappointing. Like others have said, I want more than grit/distortion. I love the clean sound you can get from a valve amp. I have yet to hear tube emulation that does a clean warm valve sound convincingly. Shame: with the choice of FET and “tube” channels, plus the ability to blend them, it would be a real winner… if it really was a tube channel. i checked the spec on the Laney website but it is pretty vague. Normally manufacturers list what valves they use. I assume the absence of this information confirms that there aren’t any actual valves involved. All that weight (7KG) and no valves?

Had these bands actually existed I thinks a fair few would have had a deserved place in this thread:

I saw JJ Cale when he came over to the UK in (I think) 1995. (actually, checking the dates it was October 1994) He was very modest and unassuming, but the music spoke for itself. A venue full of eager JJ Cale fans waiting for him, and a slight figure who looked like part of the road crew ambled on, picked up a guitar and started tuning it. No one took much notice. It was only when the noodling started to resemble After Midnight that we realised this was JJ, he'd just wandering on stage completely unannounced.

Oof! 😍 That purple heart is to die for. Hopefully @Matt P will provide us with some sound clips once he's taken possession. 🤞

Add this to your list of fantastic basses... Forwarded to the NoTreble Bass of the Month?

What this is still going on? NOT OILED: OILED: Same bass, same camera (samsung phone) before and after. Dunlop 65 lemon oil on fretboard and headstock. Keep oiling your fretboards people, it helps. Just not when the board is Maple. Maple should be left alone.

The switches are for the bridge pickup exclusively; series/parallel and 2x coil on/off. In series it is fatter, darker and louder. In parallel nice and middy. Either coil single turns it into a regular seventies or sixties jazz bass tone (with more bark, lacquered bubinga fretboard baby!).

Ring the alarm

Since getting the amps and installing them in the rack and wiring them in, a bit of covid GAS descended. That and a bit of an unexpected financial bonus. I was interested in the continued controversy surrounding different cables and any effect they may have on sound. Our mutual friend @rumblefish has demonstrated an Evidence Audio Lyric cable before and we both heard a clear difference with that cable. So, after some email correspondence with Tony at Evidence, I ordered some Monorail cable and solderless plugs to rewire the rack and to run from the pedalboard to the rack input. I then ordered three of the EA Reveal cables for the three basses going through the switcher. With Tony's help I had decided that the Forte was too much of an outlay, the Lyric was a little 'stiff' for my purpose and the Reveal had the flexibility I wanted and (to quote Tony) 99% of the performance of the Forte. To complete the package, I ordered Siren speaker cables. All this was done through Custom Pedal Boards here in the UK (thanks to Chris Ryan for his assistance). Just to go completely barmy (and because the amps can be left on without a speaker load) I ordered a Mike Hill mini isolator. This means that I have split the output from the tuner and both TT-800s are being fed. Having got an order for a 2 x 12 in the pipeline I will be able to run the cabs from an amp each (who knows when Wembley beckons!!). We also took the opportunity to do a side by side comparison with his M-Pulse 600 through his Berg 2 x 12 which is a great cab in itself). At the same time comparing a number of cables to see what difference there was. With regard to the amps, we concluded there was a minor difference but certainly not enough to worry about. The amps 'work' in different ways and so I would chalk this up as a draw. To me this just underlined the fact that the choice of the TT-800 was spot on. Again, a sizeable difference in volume with the two channels set with the same eq and switched. There will some reason for that (and I'd never do it live anyway). Just needs some tweaking to level them up so no issue. What of the cables? We had EA Lyric and Reveal cables, a Lava cable and another (which I forget). Using the same bass and the same settings the differences were obvious. As we went up the price chain, the level of detail and balance was clear and improved with each step. Very pleasing for me, having drank heavily from the snake oil jar. We concluded that the Lyric would be your studio cable (it's not as flexible as the Reveal), the Reveal would be your live cable. Overall, the Reveal was the winner due to it's closeness to the Lyric and the fact that it was going to be longer lasting in a stage environment. It was the better value option by a way, in my view. I am not going to suggest the snake oil argument is dead but it is to my ears. I firmly believe that I have reached tone nirvana and all my bum notes have been freed to be heard as never before!! Rats!

That much Moog makes me sweaty in a somewhat embarrassing way 😍

You're talking about my Pensa bass I bought it two weeks ago. Of course it's a unique instrument and it sounds great, but I'm considering selling it because I'm a vintage passive player.

You can't keep locking down until every last job is destroyed. Covid is not even a top 20 cause of death in the UK currently.

Yesterday Australia had 25 new cases which they see as a major outbreak worth controlling. the UK has 20,479 confirmed new cases. Over the past year we have been in full lockdown (but poorly done) for a lot longer than they have and for most of the time for example have had a country completely untouched by Covid, crucially for basschatters we would all have still been able to gig. In fact countries who have seriously followed an elimination policy have lost far fewer days have had their liberties less curtailed and their economies more or less unaffected. If they get this lock down right then next week they will have fewer than 25 infections and be able shortly to go back to normal (not new normal) living. We are seeing the infections double every few days so in just over a week expect 40,000 new infections, then 80,000 until we are forced once again to go into what may be more months of lockdown. The trick is to react quickly with the aim of elimination, you won't keep the whole world out but you limit the damage and it's far easier to contain an outbreak of 25 people ant their contacts than 20,000+. You can track and trace a few thousand people a day but we've never managed to get the numbers low enough for track and trace to work. If only we too lived on an island

I was just having a flick through U Roy tracks and came across this, I’ve never heard it before

Got to have Barrington, wedding ring

Blew a Celestion in my Orange columns with the version -

Once upon a time, not long ago, in "bits box" in my cupboard I realised I had amassed a number of items that should really be put to good use. First thing I did was to sell / give away some on here whilst looking out for a donor bass that I could mess with. I've modded basses before but mainly bolt on bits / electronics etc and my idea was to go a step further with more permanent changes. 😧😮 A suitable donor bass was found and over a period of a couple of months I proceeded to: Strip the full body and neck Re-profile the body giving much better access to the 24 frets / fit a battery box Fill body & re-route for pickups, electronics Re-shape the headstock & fit a Warwick Just-a-Nut Re-profile the neck at the heel end to flow into the body better. Relocate and fit bolts and inserts for the body / neck joint. Fit a Babicz bridge which took the spacing from 16.5 to 19mm Install the Seymour Duncan NYC pickups and Mike Pope preamp I'd had in a box 😮 and fitted 2 micro switches which give each pickup the option of parallel / single / series routing. Re-paint the headstock and body in colour shift paint (purple / blue / red) and clear coat the neck. So I'm not sure what to call it it's not really a build compared to what others do on here (and as the build diaries area implies), its not a NBD, not a bitza per say as that implies bolting things together whereas I've taken a hatchet to mine 🙂 .....probably a "partial bitza". Anyway I've enjoyed tackling the processes, made a load of mistakes and learned lots. I'm also quite enjoying playing it. The bass paint finish isn't flawless and this is where I would spend a bit more time on should I do another. What seemed good enough during the build really showed up when the colour was added 😥 However I can't see anyone but me noticing anything wrong when it gets gigged down at the "Dog & Duck". Anyway here's some photos to have a gander at......I'm sure someone will be able to tell what the donor bass was........

WOW! i might have to go and have a little lie down after seeing those pics. I Just hope my playing can do it justice! i might need a couple of weeks of practice before i make any sound clips public. I'm voting it Bass of the Decade! Matt

Touched By Your Presents Dear - Blondie !!

Never seen a build before where someone's clearly installed the bridge before attaching the neck. But rules are there to be broken, right? ...Right?

good point! I'm getting to play bass at church on Sunday! Can't wait.

Once a disease gets out of control, a vaccine programme is a major key to getting immunity levels up to allow you to get out of endless lockdown cycles. However, letting a disease get out of control is a choice, and when it is the speed and ability to lock down areas quickly helps keep lockdowns short and local... so yes someone in the UK government did very well putting our money into a vaccine programme - And I'm thankful for that. However our initial inability to control the disease, and our inability for the government to act quickly to lockdown areas mean we have 60 times the mortality rate.

Ah - now I know what to do with my knackered old roundwounds - - just advertise them as 'authentic Jamerson style relic -ed reissues' 😁

Thanks Steve i'll maybe look into that. I like good quality cables but i spend more on the cab cables. I buy good quality instrument cables but never gave it a lot of thought other than they were from a reputable source or manufacturer. I have noticed a huge difference when using my wireless against a good quality cable. Cable gives more depth of tone but i need the freedom of wireless as 70's Glam Rock and platform boots i try to avoid having cables to trip over. 😂 Dave

Shame he's turned the finger cutouts into ... erm ... knuckle cutouts.

It's a well documented fact that during his time in Detroit he drank Yorkshire tea exclusively, always from the same pint pot that was never ever washed. On moving to Los Angeles, some studio kid washed the cup, and as we all know James was never the same again. What's less well known is that the pint pot on display at the Motown Museum is actually a fake, the original having been stolen by Britney Spears who uses it to satisfy her own Yorkshire tea addiction.

I was emailing my counterpart in the company I work for, he made some disparaging comment about having to lock down again, so I looked up the mortality rates hoping to say something along the lines of "well we've had lockdowns but also twice the mortality rate so I wouldn't complain too much" or something. Our mortality rate is over 60 times higher per 100,000 than Australia - now there are differences, the seasons are offset, they have more space, they are struggling with vaccine rollout, and probably haven't been cronicallly underfunding public services for the last decade like we have chosen to at repeated elections, but still - 60 times the mortality rate. That's crazy.

I had a 4004 that was epic. The fit and finish were at least as good as any boutique I’ve owned with the possible exception of my Alembics (far better than either of my Wals), the neck profile was nice, if not as slim as my vintage basses (I have however played some older 4004s with very big necks), it looked stunning, was very light and was one of the best-sounding basses I’ve ever played, never mind owned. I have however played others that weren’t as good in any way, shape or form. Why did I sell? Because ironically the contoured body caused me problems (I have nerve issues in my right arm), something the slab/bound basses don’t. I’d have it back in a second though. In fact if I could have any bass back that I’ve sold, that would be the one.

who knows recommended something like 50 years by alembic I've always used my finger to rub it in. Guess I'll get some terrible reaction some day. anything for the music🙃

Then of course there's this belter from Sepultura from their excellent 'Roots' album.

I remember being asked to join a band after sending over me riffing over one of their existing tracks. Nothing fancy, just pentatonics, arpeggios, the usual suspects to fit in line with the drums and compliment the single guitar. It wasn't beethoven, but it was decent enough. Then I got an email. "Hey, we want you to join but can you just play E?" " you want me to play in the key of E? Sure..." "No, just play E." "In the verse... chorus....?" "no, just E for the songs." "ok... do you mean you just want me to play the root notes? This song is in the key of G, the other is in D... What about the rhythm?" "No, just E. I want you to go 'do do do do do do do do do do' for the whole song." "I'm sorry what" "you know...DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO" "...."

Sheesh they really should add a hyphen to their patreon URL. I had to double read that.