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HNY...Our band Fynnius Fogg is 50 years old (same members) how did that happen? ...the secret is lots of basses & gear keeps you young!

Nothing to shout about, I know, but in 1978, I was working on Cruise ships around the Caribbean. We (onboard musicians) often, when ashore in Miami, would drink with American musicians in local bars. They played and introduced music to us to listen to, which we then picked up from local shops to bring home. Or on occasion, even better, New York record stores. One of the albums, was the one in question, 'Streamline'. You know nothing about me so please, do not question my honesty when I'm just trying to converse musically with you. Because of the Web, listening to music is instant these days. Back then, it wasn't. If you were over in the States, or you mates came back with records, you got to hear less chart orientated American music a little earlier. Probably earlier than people (like yourself) who marched up and down Denmark Street or, danced around sparkly handbags with their mates, wearing Platforms and Flares, during Discotheque competitions in 1978, Enjoy the New Year celebrations, Ol' Bean... 👍

I decided to evade the GAS 2022 challenge on a technicality, and ordered this yesterday PM, ETA next Wed.

Welcome to Basschat You'll have gathered that this has been discussed a lot in these pages so it might be worth using the search facility to find some of the older threads. Equally we forget sometimes that we were all new here once so I'll attempt a quick answer. The gist of this is that size is only one of the things that contributes to the 'sound' of a speaker. It's important, but only a small part of what makes the overall sound. Not all 15's sound the same by a very long way and neither do all 10's. It's not even true that bigger speakers have more bass than small ones; my 5" hi-fi cabs go lower than my 12" bass speakers. So, it's not a very informative debate, most of your answers will be of the 'I've got an xxxxx speaker and I love it it's a 10/12/15 so that's the size I like. The best advice is to approach speaker buying with an open mind and listen to as many speakers as you can, then choose the one you like irrespective of the size of the driver/s.

We were a 4 piece pop PYE record band in the 70's (when you were payed properly! and could afford to import some great semipro kit) in the 90's switched to fundraising ...in 2019 FF recieved the Queens award for voluntary service and became a 3 piece (G B & D) the keyboard player retired... we now perform simple pop covers..2 x 1hr 15min sets, (silent stage no backline or monitors) and finish @ 10:30....Coco & bed...ha...planning 23 to 25 gigs this year (if allowed) https://www.facebook.com/groups/156699317688562

Use the search function on Basschat as to 10 / 12 / 15 and 'sound/tone' because this thread is going to feel distinctly confusing very soon!

Your cables continue to speak for you!

Hollow-less and semi fretted?

Favourite purchase of the year, is by far this Hohner B Bass.... absolute steal, and a joy to play. Bargain of the year is the TC BG250 behind it..... £40.... and it sounds fabulous.

Nooooooooooo!!! 😱

I went left field in the end.... This was drawn to my attention and BINGO!!

Afternoon and HNY. This is a long one - for good reason - and a copy/repost from elsewhere here. Seems an apt question to put to the masses. Anyhow, wife put the radio on, first track for 2022 is/was the final 30 seconds of Le Freak by Chic. There's a story that springs to mind every time I hear this song, although I'd actually also say with some certainty that, like Stairway To Heaven, I've never heard it all the way through. Back when all this was fields and I was in my teens, I played in a punk band called The Crime; I was in the 6th form at Strodes College, Egham, Surrey. Strodes was ex-grammar, the only grammar school kids there though were about 40 of Egham's most gifted, the 6th form were a few hundred oiks. I'd been approached by a couple of kids from the 5th year asking if I was the bass player they'd heard about ('I don't know, am I?'), at which point they told me they were playing the college's Valentine's disco three days time and could I play with them. I declined, they asked me again later in the day, so I said yes, jammed with them the next day and did the gig the next night (Friday). The Friday night arrived, I borrowed some khaki combats from my dad and tore up an old t-shirt; the main hall was rammed, the front half about 150 people dancing to music supplied by a local disco guy everyone knew as Fat Malcolm. Back of the hall and outside maybe 200+ punks. (I spoke to a mate earlier, he said there were loads outside too.) A few minutes before our allotted showtime, we were already on stage, standing behind these big curtains (45 minutes of covers by 999, Pistols, Rich Kids etc.); Fat Malcolm is playing Le Freak and making a Tony Blackburn style comment about, 'This is Chic and Le Freak, after this live music from The Criiiiime!'. Everything was live on stage as the chaos started. I distinctly remember our singer shouting, 'We're already 'ere ain't we?' into a live mic, a power-chord ringing out and the drummer trying to climb up a fairly high riser after throwing the curtain opening switch (he was later berated by staff for unauthorized use of electronic equipment). I peered through a crack in the curtain and witnessed the punk guys rushing to the stage, while the disco-dancers hi-jinked it to the to the back of the hall. I glanced over to Fat Malcolm who was desperately trying to get the lids on his disco-twin decks while all manner of stuff was being thrown (and spat) at both him and us. The stylus on one of the decks was skating across Le Freak under a hail of bottles and phlegm. I was laughing uncontrollably for 45 minutes; I knew right then that this was, after barely playing two years, my happy place and I'd always find happiness in music, whatever the genre. I remember little of the gig aside from the sea of punks pogoing, gobbing and stage diving, wads of phlegm covering the stage and the singer. At one point someone threw a Party Seven can (full of wee) that rose spinning and spraying. Arching away, it sailed past me and hit the drummer full in the chest, knocking him off his riser. We didn't miss a note. So there you are. While I've never actually heard Le Freak all the way through, but just a few bars of it remind me of this.

i met Huw, great guy ,, do not tell me where he lives ,, coz i will just grab that bass off him , one time ;D lol so ,, i did by a bass guys ,, no longer have it ,, drum roll ,, it had everything i wanted , not fender , at all in shape twin octave, that was well machined / made very stanley clarke looking alway remember it having 2 pick ups not 1 tho ,,,, & a decent price for a beginner The Dan Armstrong Sliding Pick up ,, The Red Imperial Players 1st Bass

I don’t plan on adding any cheese to it… I might play a bit of cheese on it!! I gave it a 1200 grit wet and dry sanding with oil yesterday and it’s currently curing so little action at the moment I’m afraid. Should be another update in a day or two

Glen Matlock played a Rick, some of the time at least. I think Sid might've used a Precision, but more for hitting punters than playing. Re the funkage, it wasn't my scene during the era @Bean9seventyis relating, but I did become a massive MK/L42 fan/copyist from about '83/4 and remember he was such a regular interviewee in the old Making Music freesheet that it became known colloquially as Mark King Music. The point is, many of the anecdotes in this thread were related by the man himself in those interviews so me (and probably one or two other BCers) are familiar with the fact he was a drummer from the IoW who blagged a job selling basses in Macaris, & that he got his first JayDee because he couldn't afford an Alembic but an s/h JayDee turned up in the shop, and it looked a bit like an Alembic. Apropos of nothing - I did buy a Washburn B20 from Macaris during the time he would've been working there, and it might or might not have been him wot sold me it. The point however, is that I sold that bass a couple of years later because the position of the neck pickup right up against the end of the fretboard made it nigh-on impossible to play Mr Pink on. And that's the circle of life, or something.

I wonder where your bass is? Is it near your ankles? The position of the bass influences the bend of your wrist etc. This can have a bearing.

Hi Phil, Thanks for letting me know how it goes here and your thoughts on speakers. I’ll search here and dig some stuff up instead. Just seems hard to find info as there are millions of threads and results when searching, most of them irrelevant, but I’ve only just arrived 😬

I made it too!

Your Italian style, flair, and panache, is obviously wasted on Basschat! 🇮🇹

So 2022 starts off with deja vu, and not in a good way. Getting sucked in this time I am not. 🙄

That fretboard is hideous. Seriously, how much would it cost them to chop the fingerboard off at the nut like everyone else?

Yeuch. I blame Fender for starting the rot. 😉

Keep the votes coming, guys ... 😂😂😂

Blasphemy!!!!!!

Not sure about anyone else, but I made it.

Mingus - Blues and Roots Prince - The Rainbow Children Meshell Ndegeocello - Peace Beyond Passion Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Is it bad I want a DI on the Waza, every bass I put through it sounds exactly as I want it to… and the things set flat

Well done Bernard, I love these 'continuity' stories! I'm still in touch with the guitarist from the 3-piece band we started while at school in Rochdale back in 1964. When I moved down to London in 1970, my two buddies kept the band going and went on to greater things. That's my 'nearly became a bit famous' story ☹️

Our logo....

At various time I've used all of those, and for awhile, 18's. The nearest I got to having a favourite was the Electro-Voice 15's, which I used in several cabs over a 20 year period. I started with 12's, went through 15's and 10's, now back to 12's, but the size of the driver is the least relevant part of the tone equation. Trouser flapping doesn't necessarily make a good sound. The definition and clarity of my current 12's will clearly reach every part of the room, and that's the definition of a good speaker cab.

Time for me to share. Left to right: MTD Kingston 6 string. My frankenbass which has been customised beyond recognition. USA Barts and a Mike Pope preamp with Hipshot hardware. Pickups have been moved into several positions over the years, the router is now my best friend. I installed the luminlays myself which was tense fun. ACG Recurve. Beautiful beyond words. I went for a completely flat radius and the fingerboard and it is hilariously easy to play. Fender American Professional II Jazz. PLEK'd by Peach Guitars. Babicz bridge, highly recommended. John East preamp. Ramp from Luca Merlatti at Finger Ramp. I also have a set of Nordstrand Big Bladed waiting to be installed. Fitted with flats which give this bass a very distinctive character. Hohner B2A. New EMG pickups and preamp make this bass great. Jimmy Egypt did some fretwork and it plays beautifully. I'm very happy with the way the basses all complement each other with little overlap of tone.

I've used 12" speakers for 40yrs... this my first 15.... and I love the grunt. Ok it's no Markbass (had one, didn't like it), but 40 quid... I love it.

I thought I was doing well playing with the same guys for 12 years! I keep telling them that we've lasted longer than The Beatles - you've lasted longer than most modern music ...

A lot cheaper 🙂 But why oh WHY they insist on squaring off the end of the fretboard rather than following the nut is beyond me. It just looks horrific. When I had an SRMS, I bought a fretwrap for no other reason other than to cover it up 🤢

There's not really enough data to draw a conclusion though. You could say that your results suggest that there's a 50% better than random chance that someone can tell the difference, but that's really all. You want what's called a p value, which is a measure of how likely it is that your outcome is not chance, but that's probably not going to be significant depending on what exactly you did for the experiments. As one of many examples, if your 75% outcome represents 3 out of 4 participants then you're not going to meet any kind of normal standard for significance.

Yeeuch. 😱

Happy new year! Frank Itt on his Yamaha's

Never mind Tim, what about TIM?

I haven’t gone away. I just don’t have much to say these days.😉

Not sure about best but it’s bloody top tier and definitely my last of 2021. i arrived home with it about 5 hours ago after a 6 hour round trip to pick it up! sounds so good though

Ive been laying low in Windsor Castle since I hit the news.

Now if only that horrible, horrible tort pickguard could be replaced with a black one... 🙄

I was only five, but already interested in music. Don't worry, it was the Hit Parade for me, but 1970 was the year of this jazz milestone. Miles Davis : beaches Brew.

GenzBenz did proper double blind playing trials with a class D power stage against their previous A/B? heavy as a couple of ducks power stage with the same power output and same new preamp. Result, statistically proven, nobody had a friggen clue which was which.