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Moving production to the UK! Scary stuff. But Very exciting. Meeting with Retrovibe at our premises to plan out new production facilities and workshop.

Had the pleasure to play a couple of gigs at the weekend and meet a couple of Basschats elite @hiram.k.hackenbacker on Saturday down in Dagenham and @AndyTravis and family on Sunday in Manchester. About 50 people on Saturday night and 10,000 on Sunday. It felt great!!

Hi folks The 'Supporting Member' status is a function of the marketplace, which we can't avoid. Basically, ages ago we wrote our own code to allow the marketplatz to work, because Invision (who make the software) didn't have an out of the box solution. This took a long time, required a LOT of manual maintenance and constant monitoring, but it worked. Since ten, advancements have been made to the 'in house' system, which we are now able to slowly adopt (in parts) to take that strain out of the system. We can't use it fully yet as it doesn't allow some things like 'location' and so on but it does maintain and tidy up the database and renewals for us. To do that, users have to be moved into a different group. On top of that, the intention is to remove adverts one day if we can get more people to subscribe, and already it seems to be having a positive effect. The 'Rank' are a new system, designed to be a bit of fun. It seems like it kind of replaces, or enhances, the 'reaction' system with our 'watts' reputation system. We turned it on to give it a try and plan at some point to design better badges, but really, it's not to be taken seriously (like anything on BC?). The designs are the stock ones and we had a play with some different types, but haven't got round to doing anything with that yet whilst we sort other things. The 'Badges' are intertwined with the above, and to be honest I don't think they make a lot of sense, plus the badges are a bit ugly. Again, I wrote some random 'rules' yesterday that case a badge to be issued, and plan on either changing them or removing them, it does't really matter - I think they're aimed more at new users to encourage them to participate and make their first post, etc. Which at the end of the day is better for all of us. You're free to ignore them if you don't like them Cheers ped

and 'Supporting Member'. What's all that about? There are plenty of people who think I am a 'member' without BC joining in the abuse. It's ridiculous and sounds like I'm congratulating myself for paying up to advertise. And these STUPID badges are against the whole spirit of BC, where newbies and experienced members could chat without being ranked or being conscious of each other's 'status'. Please get rid. Edit: Just how stupid this is is shown by my having apparently earned a 'Great Content' badge for posting this!

'F__k you, BassChat' says Spokesperson for Badger Community in Epic Misunderstanding Fail

Your name shall also go on ze list

Is this a new thing since the site update, or have they always been there? If so I've only just started getting notifications about them since the update. What else is there to collect? I'm hoping to get my 100m swimming badge next. 😁

An insightful and well constructed point. I have read other posts by @Pseudonym and, yet again, his writing fails to disappoint and hits the mark succinctly. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

An excellent post, a very enjoyable read. 🤭

I put this together at the weekend. Had a bit of a nightmare with a neck I purchased on here. Had to return it and it sat with Parcelforce for a week, that persuaded me to just use what I have. So my silver series squire P became the main donor, little nerve racking as I did like that bass it punched above its value for sure. Everything matched up pretty well though so no extra holes required (phew). The build now has CS 62 P pups and a tonestyler. Strings are La Bella copper white nylon tapewounds 760C. They are a lovely string but think it could be better suited with something else or at least the smaller gauge. Shame I thought I'd give those strings a try but it's the second bass they don't quite work on (they went proper crazy on an unshielded Lakland). I will probably get a parchment plate made up in time but the black matched the holes so got first go. Nice little project. Might up the ante a bit and try and carve a neck now, any excuse to buy new tools!

Pretty good timing, this one, as I was at Festwich yesterday, a two-stage Tribute band festival. Sound is always the most important, but if you're gonna go out as a tribute act then at least try to look the part, too, especially if there's iconic looks in the band (the Kings Of Leon boys, say, had a much easier job than the Queen lot - can anyone remember what the Kings of Leon look like from 40 yards away?)...there were mixed results on that front yesterday, one thing that did kinda rankle were the trio band tributes with four or even five members...oh, and putting on my IBM hat, the bassist from the (otherwise very good) New Order trib had the wrong bass slung at least a foot too high... One of the best tribs out there for sound and looks is Motorheadache (one of the guitarists I'm in a band with sometimes deps as Fast Eddie) - the bloke doing Lemmy IS Lemmy from about 30ft away... 🙂 Extra points for Murder One in the background, even more extra points for stick-on warts... 😁

Awwww, bless you, lovely chaps! It took a lot of time, money, effort and insurances to do our shows.... and that's because there are no half-measures with KISS! lol! For me there is a distinction between tribute bands and cover bands. A tribute band nails the music but also makes a solid attempt/effort when it comes to looks and/or production. With a more non-descript visual band like Coldplay you need to at least make an effort with production values as they have no real image to speak of. A cover band simply plays the music. However, if they absolutely nail the music/sound/vibe then imho they have a right to bill themselves as 'A tribute to the music of (insert artist)'. I played for a short time in an incredibly musically accurate show called 'Rock Anthems: Live And Dangerous - A tribute to the music of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy'. Not being a man of Brazilian/Irish extraction and having blond/fair hair I obviously didn't look the part but I made an effort with the mirrorguard black P bass and tone. We were rewarded with the late Philomena Lynott telling us that we were the most accurate 'musical' tribute to her Son and band that she had ever heard....

SR5. That is all.

Sorry to hear that ( wonder what kind of reward I'll get for saying this)?

If it's at The Gallery, just ask Martin what would be involved in making sure that crack really does remain stable. If anyone can tell you, it will be him.

Play the big letter on 1 and 3. Anything else is showboating

BTW, my previous post "promoted" be to "Collaborator". I don't know, is it just me, but somehow the word has some negative connotations.

I had one that said head boy. But that was for entirely different reasons.

I used to be a 'custard-chucking, throbbing member'..... but now I'm just a 'supporting member'. How the mighty have fallen

Tale against myself - we use MEI mixers with wired in-ears, and a couple of weeks ago when I was in the band, all had been fine throughout the service, until the last song, after the sermon, when I found I couldn’t hear myself. I could hear the rest of the band reasonably well. (We are on a ‘proper’ stage, with PA and bass sub out front) To cut a long story short, I’d of course omitted to plug my ear buds into the MEI. But the embarrassing part was that the livestream guy had noticed , and kept the camera on me for lengthy periods, meaning that everyone watching saw my antics on the YouTube stream - pulling buds out, putting them back in between verses, adjusting volumes, etc, trying to get some sound, before I realised what I’d (not) done... I suppose the upside though, was that for once, a bass player was in camera shot!! (Even if he did look daft)👍👍

It reminds me of my very short time in Cubs (I was kicked out). ”MAM, AV JUST GOT A ‘MAKING TOAST’ BADGE, CAN YER SEW IT ON ME JUMPOH?” Ah well. I had some snarky comment to make, but I can’t be bothered. I want actual badges in an envelope so I can sew them on my jumper…or strap. People will know I’m cool then.

Here you go Nff 😁

Like this one?

SPLITTER!! 😁

Just got a GR212 Slim from BD. To be fair they were very clear it wasn't built for throwing in the back of a van or taking on world tour. Very impressed with how it took everything thrown at it without breaking up. Tried it with a Jazz and a GR800 set flat. The different sounds shone through, harmonics sang, bottom end was tight and rich, although dialling in bit of bass boost helped for a really dark tone. Really brought out changes in finger placement. The bass wasnt bad either I think it was an American one. Bit glossy so didnt feel as nice as mine 🙂 but well set up for a shop bass. Looking forward to taking the gr to my first full band practice since last summer, albeit with a new band.

Sorry, didn’t know about the clipboard.

I sense that this badge malarkey is subject to abuse. Its scope for mutual promotion rivals book reviewing.

Every bassist in the audience who’s over 50, which given the music will probably be a good percentage

I don't have particularly strong opinions on the badges, but want to comment here in the hope of a level up! 🙂

Manic Street Preachers tribute band then?

I used to be like you Andy but i took the plunge and went for it. Best fun you'll ever have in a band.

What!..you were a prefect.. Babylon 😬

It is an Albatross around my neck!

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Shame I didn't know, I had an early gig in Burton so could probably have caught your second set at least with a bit of a detour on way home. Maybe next time. Mine was a bit stressful, some tech issues which probably made me dig harder than usual and still not up to full gig fitness meant I got cramp in my fretting hand 3 songs into set 2. Had to improvise with whichever fingers would actually respond to get the notes. Band still got some positive responses afterward and we are playing there again (inside this time) next month. We were the early outdoor act (fortunately no puppet show or need for jazz odyssey) then another band took over inside later on, seemed to work well. Turned out one of the guitarists in the other band was someone I played with about 12 years ago and hadnt seen since so it was nice to catch up.

Presumably one ends with I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles?

That's gotta be worth a badge... I cheated my 25 yds swimming cert as a kid by just walking along the bottom, splashing my arms about in a "convincing manner".... Mugs

I took some mates to see our very own Cetera's Kiss tribute band many moons ago. Awesome full on show - blood, fire breathing, pyro - and the Paul Stanley character couldn't have sounded more like Paul Stanley without actually being Paul Stanley. Contrast that with a Coldplay tribute I saw, whose biggest cheer came during an encore when they did a cover of 'I believe in a thing call love' by The Darkness. True story...

I do love my 30th Anniversary StingRay 5. The neck is rather special (Middle on the rack). Unfortunately my Classic Sabre doesn’t get the use it deserves.

I'm in a 70's Glam Rock covers band and altho we dont try to be anyone or band in particular we do wear the wigs and the jackets are all authentic made by the very same guy that made outfits for Glitter Band, some Bowie outfits and some Sweet kit but he is known mainly for the Glitter Band outfits. We know him thru our drummer who played with Glitter Band in 90's era We are very focused on sounding like the original bands but the outfits are just part of the show and creates an element of fun as you can see in my avatar. When it comes to tribute bands i like the music to spot on. If a band can look like the originals i think it brings another element to the show. They dont need to be spitting image accurate but similar for me. But the music has to be good first. Dave

There are few things worse than a tribute band who go half-arsed into the looky-likey side of it, be it through crap, cheap looking wigs and clothes or only one or two of them doing it at all. Step forward Slash from your average Guns 'n' Roses tribute. If you're going to do the Stars in Your Eyes thing, take it very seriously or do not bother at all. It should go without saying that a tribute act should have the music nailed and nailed hard.