Leaderboard

... or natural if the wood is good enough.

Swapped out my Bright Onions A/B switcher with a Providence Dual Bass Station, which meant a 12V power supply was needed. Added a GigRig Supanova to provide this, and tidied up the wiring underneath at the same time.

Left to right, BassMonkey LPB P neck, Limelight jazz neck, Limelight jazz neck...

Anyone who's ever been in a working band knows the band lead bag/box. It's a thing of utmost importance but over the years it collects a few casualties and weirdos along the way. It contains the living, the dead, the injured and the "just in case". Over a year ago I decided to sort the band lead bag out. I disposed of the dead, straightened the injured and nursed them back to health, carefully calculated the various lengths required and purposes, wrapped them neatly and filled the pockets with spares, fuses, connectors, a torch, generic spare strap etc etc. It was a thing of beauty. Then I filled another bag with the walking wounded, weirdo's and stuff that was worth keeping just in case. Guess which fookin bag I picked up and took to our first gig back after the apocalypse 😔 ?

I would never voluntarily listen to Footloose. I absolutely love playing Footloose live.

Am a RHCP fan, but will give this tour a miss. Ticket prices are nuts, particularly when going to these large venues, where IME the chances are I will end up watching the gig on a large screen. Prefer to see some up an coming act in a small venue, having a few beers with some friends. More affordable and more enjoyable IMO.

Or one that has a built-in compressor, tuner and an octaver - Complete Bastard.

I don't like working but the money I get in return stops the bank people complaining at me about not paying the mortgage (they were quite clear they expect all of that money back), so I put up with it and get on with it. Apply the same principal to being in a cover band and you'll be grand. It's how I handled it on the rare occasions I helped a mate out with his cover band when they lost members at short notice. Learning things you find unpleasant can open you up to new things you wouldn't normally encounter if you were just in your usual sonic area.

Fender Vintera and a Bitsa (‘83 Elite body and ‘96 US neck)

When I received it, it was in a sorry state. It was originally sunburst, but had been routed for a Jazz pickup which had been filled (badly) and resprayed (also badly) in not-quite-Fiesta Red. I got it cheap and set about turning it into the beast above. There's still a slight shadow of the Jazz routing that you can only see in certain light, but David did a smashing job of sorting it all out for me. The before:

Made a couple of changes for the better I think. Swapped out the TC Spark for the MXR Thump, WAY more functionality of course, and I do love the MXR bass range! The Thump is actually marginally smaller than the Spark too, which has allowed me to swap out my COG Knightfall 66 Mini for my custom COG Tarkin, which again, has a lot more functionality on it. Chain is: Bass -> MXR Thump -> COG Tarkin -> Boss TU3W -> MXR Envelope Filter -> Boss OC2 -> MXR Bass Chorus -> Noble Pre -> Amp Si

Yes. Good price. Neck dive, though, in part, caused me to sell mine. Also, the body shape makes the neck feel much longer - it sits much farther to the left than Fender style basses, and so your fretting hand has to reach much further. That gave me symptoms of carpal tunnel, and was the other death knell signalling the end of my relationship with that instrument. I had the same problems with both the 4 string and 5 string Thumbs. Such a shame, they felt, played, smelled, and sounded great otherwise.

40+ plus years a guitar player and resisted all that time playing the bass... always loved a good bass line though. Then I got an invite in 2019 to help out a local band who'd lost their bassist just before going into studio. Absolutely loved it. I'm a much better musician for the experience and we're still rehearsing and recording together.

Snagged this one as soon as I could! I saw it on Brian cooks russian circles board and couldn’t not give it a spin! clips to come once I’ve got to know it a bit

I can absolutely help with your question, lowdowner. I was fortunate enough to acquire Pino’s 79 stingray fretless sunburst backup bass, direct from Pino on commission via bass gallery a good few years ago. A magnificent bass in all respects. Sadly, it failed to endow me with any godlike chops or groove and unbelievably, when recently sold on, my ownership was not deemed sufficiently relevant to be mentioned in the gallery’s online description, only the former keeper’s.

Mine has a Lollar (single coil) pickup and it's great. Not a CV bass, more of a bitsa.

I stopped going to big shows because of companies like ticketmaster buying all the tickets before they go on sale and reselling them for several times the price. I just refuse to give in to them. I'd rather pay £20 - £30 for smaller shows and still see some awesome bands who often put on a better performance

Fair enough. I just can't listen to songs I've played over and over for five years that I used to really like. Now I either associate it with the memory of a bad gig or realise I've played it very, very wrong for too long!

@funkle Dave built it as 2 coils and yes , it's massive. I thought about the Duncan "Stinger" after seeing folk on TalkBass mention them. Thing was ; Duncan's Custom shop wouldn't do business with Europeans , nor Thais 😮 Never been impressed by Duncan pickups in the past so took that as an omen. Dave quoted an extremely attractive price and it was here in 4 days 👍

I only emailed G&L yesterday about the prototype single coil MFD's they've been working on. Turns out their still in the test stages but when ready they'll do a press release. Side note, i picked up a 2019 G&L JB standard last week and its probably the nicest jazz ive ever owned. Prototypes pictured.

Hmm my opinion on this is a little bit different. There's always a price to pay to do the things you want to do. To play a few songs you don't like in order to get all the rewards of playing live for me is always worth it. It's a bit like I don't particularly like photo shoots / filming videos but I understand it's something I have to do in order to function as an originals band. So if I want to play good gigs, get decent festival slots etc I need to do the necessary evils.

I love this! When I play live it's the energy from the crowd that pushes the experience over the top and makes the set up / tear down and playing the same songs all the time worth it. As much as I enjoy playing and creating music with my friends it the live energy that keeps me coming back. Definitely missed it the last few years.

It’s all good, it’s a good pickup, and It was a good price. I knew it might not work out, and I did not mind. Part of the journey

For me it's always been looking at the set as a whole and whether on balance there is (a lot) more that I like/don't mind than ones I can't stand, and if the standard of playing in the band is high enough. There have been occasions when I've replied to a promising looking ad only to find the set list is pretty much all material I wouldn't want to play at all.

What I enjoy playing and what I enjoy listening to don't have to be the same. Certainly for my brief(ish) stint in a covers band there were some songs that I wouldn't normally give the time of day to from a listening PoV that I really enjoyed playing. Unfortunately there are several songs that I used to like, but can now no longer stand listening to, as a result of having to over-analyse them in order to learn how to play them.

I didn't like to say anything as you had already committed, but I was afraid of that - I have had exactly the same thoughts about hum cancelling nordstrand pickups before. I have a bassculture.de 51 splitcoil and I don't think it suffers from that problem - it has plenty of character - but it is hum free. Not a lot of information out there about it! I assume it's a version of the standard split p pickup but with 4 pole pieces and packaged like the original.

That Fletcher Munson curve is a right git sometimes. Always have to EQ at gig volume for it to work properly. When I'm using my Helix then I have 2 sets of patches - good for the house and good for a gig. They are really very different but they work in their intended places.

I know nothing but I hope the answer looks like this

So many finishes I love... but for me, I keep coming back to WHITE - and it looks the best under stage lights (IMHO)

I think that's what we have to accept as bassists. We will not get the exact sounds. We can try to get close but it gets to a point where "that'll have to do". I wrestled with synth tones for an 80s covers band, what I made at home sounded pants with the band, and now I've done a few sessions with a pop-rock band and I've gone for stock Helix fuzz sounds and just fed them into my wah pedal with no clever signal routing or processing and it's done the job more than adequately. Also playing with a live band the energy to play with and your dynamics are worth far more than getting the exact tone off the record, time is spent far more effectively on learning the song than on chasing tones that we know are from other instruments.

I’ve just ordered two more Uni Tune clip on tuners (expecting delivery in the next hour or so). At £20 a pop they’re great value and work a treat. I can’t see the point of paying more for the Poly Tune version for a bass.

No experience with double bass, but I use the TC Electronic Unitune Clip on my electrics and ABG. It's identical to the Polytune Clip save for the (what's in a name?) polytune function - so it can only register one string at a time. It's slightly more affordable than the Polytune Clip because of that. I have two of them, but I'm thinking of getting two more and tossing them in the gigbags and cases I use the most. They work great, look great, and the display is very easy to read (and automatically adjusts orientation depending on how and where you clip it on).

Special request from the website. The James Jamerson part to 'My Girl' by The Temptations. The issue was that the player in question needed a chart in G rather in the original key of C. I have posted all three charts; C, G (5 string low B) and G (conventional 4 string). https://bilbosbassbites.co.uk/my-girl-james-jamerson/

As much as people complain about so many amps using the same few power amp modules now, at least there's a much better chance of a tech being able to source the right ICEpower module a few years down the line compared to proprietary ones unique to one model.

With just one Zoom device you won't be able to independently process the "guitar" part (needs different EQ, heavier distortion, etc.), no parallel processing, even with the latest B6 model. But you can do that with 2 of them, and I've done just that with previous gen cheap ones (you can get a B1on/G1on used for 30€ or less these days). The cheapest I could get away with was <100€ (more like 70-80€ if you toroughly scan the used market) with any 2 of Zoom's MS-60B/50G/70CDR/B1on/Xon/G1on/Xon (firmware can be customized to have guitar FX on the bass model and viceversa) and any cheap ABY pedal (got mine for 20€ new). Explained in the video description. You can hear bass first, then guitar (made stereo with added stereo chorus), then both. Probably not suitable for a 2 piece like RB but for sure gets the job done, i.e., in a 3 piece, to cover some space when the guitar guys does a solo. I've set it up so I can do just octave or octave+harmony (usually a 5th up). I'd usually use the one with the most FX slot capacity for the guitar branch, as it usually needs more processing than my usual crunchy bass tone (usually just BassDRV + 160Comp). EDIT: when using only 1 amp I'd use an easy passive Y/attenuator I've made with a box I already had, 3 jacks and a pot. One input is wired directly to the output (the least loud), one goes thru' the pot (the loudest). Guitar goes mono when doing so. Sorta' ghetto, but does what's needed.

Hopefully I'll make this one 👍

I also supply the PA and the best thing I did was to stop buying black leads. I make my own cables so have a selection of red, blue, green, and yellow leads. It is very obvious which ones are mine, it is much easier which packing down as we don't have a mass of black spaghetti to untangle and it makes trouble shooting much easier. I can tell at a glance which speaker or monitor is plugged in where. I'm staring at 20m of orange balanced cable right now trying to decide if I need 2x10m or a 15m and 5m.

Off to buy a 2022 diary so I can put this date in it.

@ReggaebassI am drunk as a lord as I type this but give me a chance. I am scanning YouTube and this is what I have found re Anarexol Dub your man Eek a Mouse is performing live

24 fret, full access, balances perfectly, sounds great, plays like butter.

hehee yes, like new 😛 But still a very nice bass didn´t know that feature of the saddles, Interesting

Nice amp = Happy WoT = Happier audience, even if it's only a 1% increase.

My latest addition. 😀 Fender Custom Shop Sean Hurley Signature, Aged Charcoal Frost.