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Went down to Camden at the weekend and collected my Wilcock Mullarkey. Viv’s been building it since May and it’s been worth the wait. A beautiful looking and sounding guitar. Instantly my favourite!

Here are my two original Ibanez AFR from 1991, designed by the late Rolf Spuler, a true luthier and genius. These are certainly the most beautiful and ergonomic basses ever made. Are you sure you know the definition of ugly ?

Whilst the Helix route looks good, aren’t we overlooking the fact that he’s a guitarist and with all those further options available to him it will only make things worse? 😆

Officially a member of the club now!

I did a gig yesterday with a Brazilian Jazz band out back at a small pub near Birmingham City Centre. By mid way through the second set we had most of the audience up on their feet dancing.

Start the songs without him and it won't be too long before he gets the point.

Hi all, New member here, but just though I’d share my new (to me) BBP34. It sounds great and was exactly what I was after in a PJ setup and the neck feels amazing. Looks to have been well loved before, got some light buckle wear on the back and a fair bit of scratching on the pickguard. Many thanks, Will

Before a Player gets to be a Performer, they need to be a Practiser, and later, before they're a Pro they're just a Part-timer. I would like to see the specs for the American Past-it Precision.

I think you are right. Looks like Fender's marketing people really love the letter "P": Professional I, Professional II, Performer, Player and now Player Plus. What next? Power, Progress, Proficiency, Prestige, Privilege, Popular, Phenomenon, Pure, Paradigm, Preference, Paramount, Pleasure, Premiere, Pinnacle, Premium, Prowess, Purity, or Peak? Ok, Fender, in case you'll go for one of these, don't forget my 20% commission 😉

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Ugly bass? Anything single cut. There you go. You're welcome. Thread complete. You may now delete....

He was pretty thick, too, that guy.

Thank you for your restraint and brevity. While I am not quite as Fender averse as you, the Jazz bass can do one as far as I'm concerned. While the P bass may be uncharitably described as "agricultural", the Jazz is way worse to my eyes - big, fat, melty lump of a body with a skinny neck, so ungainly looking - I get nothing of the "upscale" model that Fender was going for even back in 1960. I don't get why they're so revered, I've owned one (when I was figuring out what I wanted from a bass), I've played several and I just don't get it. I have never seen a Jazz which makes me think "I must have that". Hard no from me. True boring = everyone liking the same things.

That body shape is very reminiscent of a Shergold Marathon, which is a good thing 🙂

For my take on the ugly bass just imagine that I have posted photos of every single bass that Fender have ever made. Not only are they ugly but they are also boring.

Video a gig and edit out the songs and make him watch the inbetween bits of him. What will also surprise you all is How much time he takes.

Hi Hans im after a new bass for a reunion show love Ryan Hi Ryan, of course your signature Warwick will cost €xx,xxx each, and as a long term user we will of course do our usual discount of 50%. Shall we fire up the CNC machines and get going? H Hi Hans each?! Even with your discount that’s more than a bloody Fodera… actually take a rain check, I’ve a feeling they will cost less Ryan

Watching ELO at Wembly on Sky. What a cool fellow Mr P is....great playing, always smiling and larking about and doing backing vox too...my type of performer..brilliant indeed.

Live After Death

Well I'd best do this properly then 1. bassfan: OC5 > Proton > VTDI > FI > Zoom B1-4 [3 correct pedals] 2. sumone: OC5 > Proton > Octava > VTDI > Zoom B1-4 [3 correct pedals] 3. gisserD: SY1 > OC5 > Proton > Zoom B1-4 > VTDI [2.5 correct pedals - "half" for SY1 instead of FI] 4. lee650: OC5 > SY1 > YYZ > Proton > Zoom B1-4 [2.5 correct pedals - "half" for SY1 instead of FI] 5. ordep: OC5 > SY1 >FI > Mothership > Zoom B1-4 [2 correct pedals] What I actually went for: FI-->OC5-->Octava-->Proton-->Zoom B1-4 You were close Darren, but sadly no cigar! Ignoring the Zoom B1-4 which wasn't optional, actually @bassfan and @SumOne were the closest with 3/4 correct choices. Paul (aka Bassfan) will be coming over in a couple of weeks to return a piece of kit before the hefty new London car taxes come into force, so I'm sure we will sort this out with beer offsets. But Ben's previously agreed meet up beer got postponed due to hols so half the winnings will gladly go towards a beer or a transfer to his ever expanding pedal fund!

Advice gleaned from this thread: Turn up, tune up, shut up.

They are basically an updated Mexican Deluxe. Nice but as you say a Sire will be quite a bit cheaper with similar spec.

And if they do care they won't complain. And if they do complain they won't get their money back.

What, these?

Bah! they haven't even been improved with perfect balance, mismatched pickups or wonky tuners

That headstock - is it the work of a certain purveyor of guitar conversions?

I'm a sucker who fell for the £6.66 promotion, it finally arrived today. So far so good. Nothing offensive about it, rather easy listening. Bruce Dickinson could sing any old rubbish (and has!), I'm sure it's the familiarity of the vocals that does it for me.

You're a hitman? Shoot me, now.

That's the weird thing... he was a gen-u-wine. 100%, died in the wool guitarist. But he was incredibly sensible and moderate, too. And a great player - one of those annoying musicians who just played everything really well all the time. When we played live, he brought a PRS, a Squier Strat in case of string breakage, his Korg MFX, a bagful of leads etc and a small MesaBoogie combo. Set up took about 3 minutes with a stage footprint about the size of a tea tray. What a guy. I should have married him.

You lot are effin amateurs....get yourself a banjo player, their loud tuning during and after every song cuts across any interbreak communication with the audience and turns the most placid bassist into a raging maniac. You will then end up treasuring your formerly delinquent guitarist!

I played with a guitarist who had a £6k Martin. He would have been better off spending £5k of it on guitar lessons.

There are some beautiful basses in this thread, thanks everyone for sharing. I've lightly modded my Harley Benton PB-Shorty. Electronics not finished but it'll have a built in Big Muff because why not.

Got myself a nice new Markbass set up over the weekend and wanted to show it off to a crowd who might actually care! It is: - 600W Little Mark III head - Traveller 102P cab on top - Traveller 115P cab below All in a custom made "trifibre" case. The Little Mark Vintage underneath the LMIII is mine too - I've basically just got a spare / back-up now. Only played a little bit with it solo so far, but good things to report already. Sounds excellent with the P, and really enjoying the differences the VLE / VPF can make. I've tried both the LMII and the LMV, and I have to say inital reports I might actually prefer the sound of the LMIII! Will have to wait for band context to see how it goes. Flight case super useful for all the upcoming gigs (fingers crossed). Who else is using this / a similar set up? How are you finding it?

I had some berg hd's years ago and foolishly sold em and have been chasing that sound ever since , had Aguilar DBs, SLs, BF , Aero , berg neos etc On Friday I saw bd had a pair of second hand hd112s and I had a gig south of Birmingham so enroute I played em and bought em trading in my barefaced 210 ( very fair price from Mark) and wow what a difference , punchy low mids , sparkly refined highs , it's like I can hear myself again , the bf was loud and light but I haven't got any other positives for it , the HDs are heavy but it's like night and day for me

It might be my picture but is that hand giant or is the bass small 😁

If I find one click too quiet/second click too loud I choose the second one and drop the input gain to suit.

Bulbous! That's the word! Cheers, Cetera.

That's a good point Casapete - Helix = Pandora's Box ????!!!!!!

Fender fans be like: (Only joking BTW - I don't mind Fenders and it's the 'sea-monsters' I don't like)

And an element of the Mk1 Wal. IIRC, Viv Wilcock is very open about his influences. I played a Mullarkey when I was Mustang shopping and if my budget would have stretched at the time, I’d have ordered one. Viv’s posts on Instagram are the very thing GAS is made of. https://instagram.com/wilcockbasses?utm_medium=copy_link

Yet remove them from the history of recorded music and there is a very, very big void.

Had a busy weekend heading west for me. Friday night in Maidenhead, Then onto Exmouth on the Saturday night, A quick overnight stop in Bridgewater, where we managed to bump into Martin Fry & ABC, who’d been playing in Exeter, Then rounding things off with Sunday nights gig in Western-super-mare.. Heading North next week…

I've just picked up a NUX MLD preamp too - not had chance yet to really play with it so will post my thoughts later, but @SumOne drop Jon 'Jkos' a PM on Talkbass - he's made an android app for using the editor when not connected to a pc. You need a USB micro cable to whatever USB your phone takes, usually C. It's not been updated for the 3.7 firmware yet so looks a little bit odd at the moment, but works great for switching between different IRs. I'm not sure I'll need to at a gig, I'm hoping to find my favourite and use it as a 'set and forget' type thing, but using your phone you could easily swich between every song.

£500 and your problem permanently removed. Ask me how.

Here I go again!.. but I am actually really happy with this set up . Needing a small footprint board for live work.. I struggled to find tiny envelope followers, compressors, octavers.. really like the xotic sp comp, does everything I need it to.. I've gone back to boss bass chorus & dod envelope filter.. they just work for me.. amazing what you can fit on a pedaltrain mini!

Set-up reasonable-ish. Neck on without any shim, Gave the truss rod half a turn to take out some relief... Action reasonable Intonated OK on the DG, alrightish on the A, E still a little sharp, so saddle needs to go back, but height adjuster screws are almost at the back of the plate groves. The body came with screw mounting hole markers for a std Fender bridge, and the Gotoh-alike is meant to be a simple swap rellacement... perhaps i should of gone 3-5mm further back. Soundwise... Beefy Low Thump, with the flats... when compared to the Ibanez GSR200 PJ wearing flats. (My Ibby SR600 is a bit more modern sounding... but also with flats) Bit of a 'Ghosting' type tone from the E. Pickup Heights? Leant it to a mate who plays for a few days to see what they think... Got it back earlier today, so now its had a fortnighg bolted up to settle, I'll give it another going over, hopefully this afternoon Oh... and @Dad3353 came to my rescue when i asked about 3D printing a bezel. Great job and a matching Thumb Rest! a real Gent! I think it finishes it off nicely, together with the cream covers and headstock decal for that Custom 'One-Off' look. Weight is about 4.2Kg on luggage scales. Untill next time...🍄😵‍💫😉

You need to use rehearsals to weed this bad habit out of him. Devise your setlist with songs in clusters, where you go from one song into the next without a break between them. For example, start your set with three songs - bang bang bang one into the next. Then pause to talk to the crowd. Then another two songs - bang bang, etc. Rehearse the songs in those clusters and time your rehearsals. Know how long it takes to play your set, to the minute. If he can't change his tone enough by clicking on a pedal, adjusting his volume or tone or changing pickup, then he needs to find a tone which works for all of the songs in that cluster. Your audience came to hear music, not pregnant pauses, not tuning, not jokes or banter, especially not some lad faffing around with knobs and switches. Never forget that a live show is a performance, not just playing songs. It starts the second you take to the stage and doesn't end until you leave it. Everything, what the audience sees and hears between those two points, is your band's performance.