Leaderboard

Sound reinforcement used on acoustic evenings with 3 or 4 guitars, mandolin, Bodhran, and vocals with no amps or mics. My Fender Kingman just got lost so I followed @Phil Starr House Jam Micro 6 ins cab and built a F**der IMP 🤣

A while back I bought a Cort SCMS (single cut multi scale) bass. I know single cuts are a bit marmite to the BC massive, but I've never had an issue with them. I've fancied trying a multi scale bass for a while, and with my band playing a lot of songs tuned down a tone, it seemed a good, fairly cost-effective vehicle to use for this purpose. Out of the box, the bass played really well with a super low action, great fret finishing, even string tension, and tremendous articulation across the board. At 8.5lbs it was nice and light too. Balance was good. What didn't I like? A few minor things: i) the preamp was hissy and looked a real mess inside (this photo isn't my bass, but it's the same preamp and finish quality) ii) the pickups lacked any real character iii) the nut was sharp on the edges, which made the bass uncomfortable to play in first position iv) the small top horn meant the bass sat in a different position to that which I'm used to - the neck felt like more of a reach away - so the lack of strap locks meant I was concerned the bass would fall off the button v) one of the screws holding the E string bridge in place had obviously sheared off at some point, so the unit was not flush to the body, and the screws in general were pretty poor As I am an eternal fettler, I decided to do a few changes as follows: i) rounded the edges of the nut so they are smooth ii) replaced all the screws in the bridge units iii) removed preamp and pickups and fully shielded the cavities, also adding a new earth strip under the bridge iv) installed threaded inserts in the pickup and control cavities, using new threaded bolts to replace the poor quality original screws v) fitted a new US Bartolini 3 band preamp (volume wih push/pull active/passive) vi) fitted new US Bartolini MK6CBC pickups. I used the six string versions to ensure the pickup sensing area was wide enough due to the angled pickups vii) new black Dunlop straplocks, and new black knobs. I may change all the hardware over to black at some point, or perhaps go for a Wal-like black/chrome mix I am really pleased with the changes. They have made what was a good core bass even better.

Really pleased this turned out to be as good as I hoped it would, it does look in great condition for its age. Good to see some pics of the routing and electronics too. Unsurprised the original bridge has been replaced, the 3-points used by Matsumoku do seem to have had a habit of breaking in half! You may be reduced to filing saddle slots to get the string height down. I'd expect Tim at https://gig.ink/ would be able to sort you out with both a Ripper trc and a more, er, restrained scratchplate. I kinda like the shouty tort... Unfortunately it's long-gone, but this is very much a sibling to the Kimbara L6S copy I had years ago - I think if I still had it I'd be properly jealous!

I've always liked the look of the Gibson Rippers and Grabbers, and in turn the 70s/80s Japanese copies. That's why when this popped up on facebook not too far from home I had to have it. After a quick message to our resident expert on Japanese basses, @Bassassin, for some much appreciated info I'd agreed a price the seller and I were both happy with. These are the sellers pictures. I picked it up yesterday and had a chat with the seller. He acquired it forty years ago in a swap for a 4x12 guitar cab, the seller is also a guitarist so it's spent the last forty years hanging on his wall, with the occasional play just for his own fun so it's in really nice condition. A couple of dings that were there when he got it and a couple of little issues that have been sorted but obviously have left it non original, which is a shame but can't be helped. Firstly, the original scratchplate was a celluloid one and had started gassing off and crumbling, so he has fitted a replacement. The original would've been a very dark tort, as per the early Gibson Rippers, the later ones were black (I think). I was going to make a single ply black one but I actually quite like one on there now. Secondly, the original three point bridge had snapped and this is a generic replacement. It seems a pretty good copy and looks the part so it'll probably stay as well. The only issue is the strings are higher than I'd like but the bridge is bottomed out, something I'll address. I've pulled it apart for a good clean and polish, and to sort any little issues such as the pots which are a little crackly. Very clean in the cavities and nice, tidy routing. Maybe newer manufacturers could learn something from the Matsumoku workers as I've seen some more modern basses that are much rougher. The electrics look good and all original so just a squirt of some cleaner/lubricant will hopefully quieten things down. You can see the 'burn' marks where the celluloid scratchplate had started to react. It's constructed in a kind of butchers block fashion but build seems really good. The rear with a rather nice grain to it. Three piece neck construction so should be stable. And a set neck. All the wood joins are nice and tidy and in all honesty most of the woods match really well. I'll update in a couple of days when it's rebuilt, set up and been put through it paces with some new strings. Hopefully the pickups will have the same edge to them as the Gibson ones.

My covers band The Junkyard Dogs has covered Baby Please Don't Go for years (with me on vocals!) and our version owes a lot more to Never Turn Your Back On A Friend than it does to Van Morrison and Them. I lent my original copy to one of my best friends in 1974. He rode home on a weird Suzuki thingy with an upswept exhaust (very rare in those days) and the only way he could take it home was by sliding my LP between the exhaust and the rear sub-frame. Seriously. Unbelievably, that record never played again.

This is a video we had filmed early last year (2021). It's not recorded with the double bass, I just thought it would look better on the video..

Dear Friends,attached a few closer pictures of my upgraded MTD AG5 Bass with my EVO5 Bass Bridge #mtdbass #rinaldisbass

With the maple plug cut flush and the neck lined up, time to drill for the last insert. With the 3 machine screws nice and tight and a final check for line up, I use a 5mm brad point fed through the ferrule to make a centre point and then use that as my reference drilling with a 6mm brad point on the drill-press ready to fit the final insert. And all four done. Just got to agree with @Happy Jack where to fit the string retaining bar and that's the fretted neck pretty much done. Inserts for the fretless neck next

I don't post much on here, but thought I had to mention these! I'm sure some of you lot have come across them, or used them already, but I just had to comment on how amazing these things are for the money! I was looking for some inexpensive pickups for an old Washburn Taurus & thought I'd give these a whirl after reading a few positive reviews. I have other basses with 'high-end' pickups (Delano, Seymour Duncan, etc), but can't believe how good these are for a shade over 50 quid for a PJ set. Very lively, hot pickups, with plenty of top end snarl. Definitely bring the old Washburn to life! 😁

I must be insane... I saw this on eBay, it didn't sell at £150 + £25p&p, but I offered the seller £100 all in and he accepted. Probably over the odds but hey... My understanding is it's actually Teisco not Kay. Unfortunately the pickguard has lost a few chips and that thumb rest looks odd, but it seems to be generally original and complete. Hope it survives the post...

After trying the Tech21 Fly Bass Rig against the Valeton Dapper Bass I decided to go for the latter. The pedal will be used as a replacement for my Ashdown ABM500 gear, running from the DI output into the PA (18s and 15+horns) so the amp and compressor will be pretty much a set and forget kinda thing. The chorus will come in useful for the odd track, as will the octaver, but I'm surprised by the sounds available from the Dirty Q effect...I'm sure I could shoehorn this in somewhere. Overall a very useable bit of kit for not much money at all, and more that gave the Tech21 unit (at nearly three times the price) a run for it's money.

I've done a little research on a related topic. I measured the "operating deflection shapes" of a bass of mine, which are like modes, but for structures with varying internal stress and strain. I found a spot where there was a match between the frequency of a high-amplitude ODS and the second harmonic of a fretted note. So, if you were to play that note, you would expect the energy from that harmonic to transfer into the bass body very easily. And it did! Looking at the spectrum of that note as output by the pickups, the second harmonic died away very quickly compared to other notes which didn't share this feature. This experiment suggests that the stiffer the bass is, the longer vibrations will sustain in the strings (and in the output), because energy that is transmitted into the wood doesn't come out as sound. From the perspective of the bass, a harmonic is just the same as any other note. There are various vibrations ocurring in the string, which may or may not be absorbed into the body (causing them to die away.) I didn't do any experiments direclty on higher pitches, as the equiment I was using couldn't inject enough energy at higher frequencies. But if you extrapolate the results I got to higher pitches, you could say that any bass that absorbed less energy from the strings, whether because it was stiff or heavy, would play louder, longer-lasting harmonics.

In the UK, the only discussions I remember at the time were over whether a baby should be allowed underwater like that. No one said anything about it being naked. But that may be a European thing. Lots of baby and swimming experts concluded it was fine. Anyone who has taken their baby swimming will attest to the fact that they naturally hold their breath underwater like all mamals. I suspect it would have caused a huge Twitter storm though if Twitter had existed and the few Millennials around had been old enough to type.

actually I retract a little of what I said previously about letting it all wash over you.... It's amazing. It's hilarious- at what point of learning an instrument do you only tune half of it?

Thanks for the reminder - just ordered.

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound. That brings to a close this dater's update.

These both arrived today. My dream amp and cab. Now I just need gigs to resume.

The captcha question was something like "What was Fender's first name". It wanted Leo. His first name was actually Clarence. I tried Clarence knowing it would likely be rejected. And I was right. Ok...time for some actual bass content. I don't have much bass gear but I have a couple nice instruments. I'm running a Markbass head and two 2x10 cabs now. The amp and cab shown below were sold in the great gear purge of 2020. I also had an old Ampeg 8x10 but age and common sense prevailed. I pity the fool who bought it. Hahaha. 1965 Jazz, 1963 6-string and both of them at a pickup gig.

This article has a bit more detail about his life https://www.loudersound.com/news/budgie-legend-burke-shelley-dead-at-71

All depend if you think a Chinese pickup ( Tonerider) will be better than a Korean pickup (Roswell). Tonerider are a relative newcomer , 18 years in business , Roswell close to 30 With regard to specs there's not a lot between them , IMO. Both use alnico 5 slugs and both have braided hook up wire. The wire count between the two differs ; Tonerider quote 7.4k for the neck and 8.2k for the bridge. Roswell say 7.55k for neck and 7.82k for bridge . Does it make a huge difference ? Tonerider only give the Henry reading for the neck , 3.2H . Roswell say nothing but the similar alnico 5 braided wire Donlis quote 3.0H for their 7.2k neck pickup and 3.2H for their 7.6k , expect the neck pickups to be about the same with the Tonerider bridge being slightly louder than the Roswell. Personally. I wouldn't bother. Pots/caps ... If they start to fail ,change them ; same as you would with any bass. I've 8 year old Bentons with the stock pots/cap/jack sockets 👍 I totally understand the " it only cost £138 there must be something dodgy" thinking but Harley Bentons are just decent basses sold at affordable prices , factory makes a modest profit/Thomann makes a modest profit ; big money for both is the massive volume of sales.

Excellent all round. 👍

Damn, an underrated bassist and a big influence on me as an early player. I spent many a night as a young teen trying to play along to my Dad's 'Best of Budgie' CD. In For The Kill, Parents and Breadfan kicked my derriere and really helped me with my pick playing. RIP.

That looks lovely - a really good buy and a pretty accurate copy in many respects. As Shaggy notes, Kimbara were at the higher-end in the copy market back in the '70s (I was discussing this with a guitarist mate just the other evening). In my experience, Rippers tend to be pretty light - mine (I think) is one of the earlier Alder production. The body is large but fairly slender compared to a Fender. Unfortunately, mine arrived (second hand in around '79) without its TRC, though somebody in the shop found me a Grabber TRC - no idea where that got to. I didn't know about the dark tort on the earliest Rippers and mine came with a black plate. The latter was replaced when the bass went through some fairly dramatic customisation in the early '80s. More recently (last ten years or so), I've noticed that something seems to be gassing in the flight case - the finish (as beautiful a spray job as it is) appears to be coated in a form of sticky white dust - removing the stuff is quite a challenge. Here's picture for reference (next to the old Status I used to play back in the '80s) - you can see that the body is fairly thin. I'd go with the rear string load option too if possible - mine was pre rear string plate and just has the holes for insertion of strings. If you zoom the image below, you'll see the little string ferrules on the front of the bass - probably a good idea to include these, though those on my Ripper were already cracked and slightly distorted by the time I received the bass. The re-spray worked around the cracking.

I'll add a few annoyances: Pedals that are unnecessarily massive (e.g. Brassmaster). No volume control - especially annoying for effects that often have a real or perceived volume drop/gain (e.g. most Phasers). Blindingly bright LEDs or ones that constantly do some sort of unnecessary distracting flashing.

Orange 4Stroke Preamp. I used factory schematics to create the pcb.

Just went into the shop where I bought my 425X and found out that it used to belong to the new Queen bassist Neil Fairclough.

this cropped up on my FB feed:

Add 25% onto the combined sale price plus shipping charge and you shouldn't have any nasty surprises.

RIP. Saw them a few times back in the day. The floor of the Kursaal in Southend was bouncing up and down to Zoom Club.

I am learning to learn better . . . . Most recently, I am trying to play by ear. Put on a track, and play along. Last week, Let Your Yeah be Yeah by the Pioneers. I was chuffed to get the chord changes, and the bassline too (although I lack the nuance and feel). I have also found my two notebooks and music folder. In these, I list the songs I worked on for a each day, and each page has an entry for the songs themselves. All this allows me to return to make notes about my shortcomings and learning needs for each song, and to return to my previous learning later than week. This stops repetitive noodling of the same half dozen favourites, and allows me to stretch my ability.

Not really learning but this song was on a good YouTube channel I was looking through, there’s lots of songs, I enjoyed giving it a go

The mutts nuts of TE era combos, like my bad boy. The SMX dual band compressor jobbie

Just sounds like they were really busy which is a good sign. They were very quick to reply to my email and found them very helpful as they explained what the problem might be on their reply and how they would do the work. I would definitely consider them in future when hopefully things settle down a bit. I remember hearing about their break in. Not good for any music shop especially during pandameic where business is slow. Dave

Ben is now a member of Le Club Privé Leduc. 😉 A pleasure to deal with, excellent communication, ultra fast payment and Ben is a true gentleman. Enjoy your Leduc Masterpiece MP 524, Ben.

From what I’ve read the 63 has a lot more in the lows and not so many highs in comparison. I’ve got the 62s and the blurb on the box indicates that they’re a tad scooped but I don’t hear that, to me they’re quite large in the low-mids.

I live by a program which teaches acceptance and learning. So I will look on the bright side and try to see this as an opportunity to buy more pedals

And some more pictures, because, well why not

Up in Scotland, we'll batter and deep fry anything!

It's worn Elixir nanoweb coating, no?

Regardless of the accuracy, I think the intention is obvious. If I had a bass shop in London, there is no way I would retail this

Just got back from jamming with my brother, I was using the Embassy through my Elf/PJB C2 and he had a 50W orange valve amp and his new Coronet. Epiphoine love-in 🙂 The word 'girth' was used a lot.

When I tell my wife I've seen some interesting gear, she just says, "If it's that good, get it".

To be honest, if you have so few basses that your partner is able to notice that you've got another one then you haven't got enought basses in the first place. You only have yourself to blame.