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Carving the body top

Dear Fellaz & Fellazettes, How are U all doing? I don't know how many of U are aware of Keith William's Five Watt World channel that does "Short History" videos of emblematic guitars & basses... Just in case U didn't know, he just released this video: Hope U like it!

I did wonder that. When Martin Kemp was told about Carol's unfortunate situation and the need to find a substitute he said something along the lines of 'bass players are hard to find'. He should have just searched Basschat and he'd have found plenty on here in the right age bracket!

I'm playing tonight, tomorrow, the day after and the day after that. 2 gigs and 2 deps, 4 gigs in 4 days and I'm looking forwards to each one. It's why I bought my first bass in 1965 and why I just loaded the car. Love it all.

Personally, i watch your reviews with both the sound, and my pants, off.

OK! Here's the bad news. Prices for CHB-1 and CHB-2 basses are increasing from £500 (Made in India) to £895 (Made in the UK). Here's the good news. MASSIVE bump in quality. Made by highly respected luthiers in the West Country UK. Totally UK made and finished. Assembled by ourselves in Bristol. This means lower carbon footprint. Quicker leadtimes. UK jobs being created. We are collecting samples on Friday and will have them available to look at, and play, at the ACC Liverpool for the UK Bass and Guitar Show on the 2nd and 3rd of April. We hope to see you there.

That all goes with the territory. Problem is if you only do two gigs and one is rubbish then 50% of your gigs are rubbish. The more gigs you do, the more you'll understand whether what your playing is what people want to hear and you're just getting the odd duff audience, or whether it's the other way round. As I wrote earlier, if you're playing Dad Rock, all you'll get is Dads standing at the bar watching and drinking. If you play modern pop, you'll get a younger, keener more energetic audience. If you are dead set on only playing music you enjoy, the only person who will enjoy the music is you.

There's good gigs and bad gigs. I've played a Blues set in a bar full of numpties and gone down like cold sick. I've played the same songs at a Blues festival (where people have paid to see the band) and received a standing ovation. There's two reason why a gig is bad, either your band is rubbish, or you're playing to the wrong audience. If your band is rubbish, it's probably time to call it a day.

Gigging. When a bunch of people are leaping around enjoying your music. How often do get to experience actively giving people joy as directly in that way? One if the best feelings there is.

I absolutely love gigging whether its to 20 people at the Dog and Duck or 200 at the main stage at the Magna Beer Festival... I love every aspect of it...the nervous anticipation of loading the car, meeting the other band members at the gig...setting up, sound checking and then walking on stage knowing you are supremely confident in playing the songs you've been rehearsing for a couple of night at home. I love trying out any new gear, different strings and different amp settings. I just love the buzz of performing and being as tight as possible with the other band members. Then after the gig, ragging down asap with a large beer, chatting with anyone who might have appreciated my bass playing and finally loading up to drive home for a sandwich and a whisky. I just simply love it, been doing it for 50 years while holding down a stressful full time job too....l must be some sort of crazed, demented animal who doesn't mind feeling knacked all the next day with blisters on his fingers....l just can't stop myself and l will gig till l eventually can't stand up anymore. I simply love it.........

The 4 string Bongo in the stealth finish was averaging at around £1850 at most retailers. I trawled the internet for days. Even to the point of speaking with Beaver Felton in the US about the possibility of giving him a holding deposit so that a friend could collect it for me while on holiday the following month. Then I came across an ad for a shop in the Netherlands who had some Bongos on their website, but not a Stealth. I emailed and asked by any chance did they have a Stealth 4 string in stock, and got a swift reply saying they only had one and it was a 4HS. I asked the price, including shipping, taxes etc and it was £1250 for the bass plus shipping. He got me a fixed quote and it came in at around £1285 all in. I ordered it on the Tuesday and and it was on my doorstep by Thursday morning

And...fret ends trimmed And why the clamp? Left to their own devices, the fret tangs in the slots would curve the fretboard. Normally, a small strip of double sided tape in the middle would hold the board to the beam. But, yes, this is Rocklite Richlite - and so... That said, the frets seem to be nicely held and it is very black. Just like the ebony of legend that the Vikings used to talk about around the camp fires of yore

There is no reason why the fretboard has to be parallel with the body. In fact, many instruments have the neck angled in relation to the body. It's certainly no reason to send it back. Have a look at some videos on doing setups. It's fairly straightforward to do once you take your time and understand the principles.

I haven't gigged for a long time now, but definitely went through the same cycle a few times: 1. bored playing solo, miss playing with others 2. find a band 3. have great fun jamming/rehearsing 4. gigging, dealing with huge amount of time spent in cars, setting up/tearing down, uninterested crowds/venues, poor sound, tiredness at work next day, etc. 5. getting fed up with it all and thinking I'd rather spend 6 hours playing/practicing than 5h30m dealing with all of the above just for a 30m set 6. go to step 1 I think I'd honestly be happy stopping at step 3 and just find some nice people to play with, with no intention of gigging. But that never seems to be very easy, most ads/social sites seems to be full of people super eager to rush out and gig ASAP. 🤷‍♂️

As said, if the gig went well it was great but there were too many occasions when you had an apathetic audience who didn't give a toss about the band and would only possibly shout out for ones they know. A typical gig on a Saturday night when we were still gigging. Go down to the pub at 8.45 and have a look in. People are still eating and the stage area has tables on it. Have a pint and wait. About 9-9.30 they would finish and the staff would clear the tables. The pub would start to fill at this point. We would man handle all of our gear in through and around the ones who insisted on standing near the door. About 10.15 we would be ready to start. Another pint before starting just to see if it got a bit busier. 10.30 first number. Usually would get a cheer or a clap. This first set would be our best of the night. This is the point when people are actively listening. Half way through this set a bunch of girls would ask for a particular song as they wanted to hear it and were going somewhere else. One we had already done or were saving for the second set when we needed a lift. 11.00 take a break. 11.20 second set. By this time the pub is heaving and very few people are taking any notice of the band. All cheering and clapping has ceased part from a couple of drunken bawls if they recognised something. A song we had banked on going down a treat would end to the sound of loud shouting as we realised they hadn't even noticed it. 12.00 we would take another break. 12.15 last set. By this time the pub was getting quieter as most had left for the club. 1.00 start repeating songs as they don't notice anyway. 1.30 finish. Not an example of every gig as some nights were much better but this gig certainly happened many times over the years. Do I miss it? After having not played for a few years now, yes but I know that if we started it all over again I would get sick of it in no time. I find, certainly around these parts, that live music moves in cycles. Way back in the early 80's before we started playing in the pubs full bands were all the rage. Once we started this was not so popular anymore and we couldn't get gigs. We re invented our selves and myself and the guitarist went out as a two piece with a drum machine. We made a fortune and were so busy in the early to mid 90's. Late 90's, early 2000's live bands were again starting to get attention so we got a drummer and we had our second happy time. This went on up until 2015 or so when the live scene just took a nose dive. Pubs closed, live music budgets were cut, gigs dried up. This is around when my job changed and I couldn't plan any time off as I get called away at short notice. I have kept a close eye on the live scene however and pubs that used to be busy as hell on a Saturday night are happy to have a busy spell at tea time with bar meals. Pubs that used to have live bands just have a disco now. It has changed again. People just don't have the money to go out as much as they used to in '96. Maybe its different where you guys play but certainly around here the live scene is poor just now.

I think the OP is asking about valve heads, not hybrids.

Came across this pedalboard recently - what particularly caught my eye is the additional two stomp switch box on the HX Stomp, not eating into PB space. Available from these guys: Pedalnetics

My work here is done! * I was going to embed an gif, but I seem to have failed miserably!

Here is this month's contribution. Inspired by the Latin name for the daffodil, Narcissus which led me to write something about those people that rate themselves too highly. Technical - I was a bit pushed for time this month after abandoning an all electronic track that started OK and fell off a cliff so I went back to my last song of a similar genre and copied the project for all of the settings. I tweaked them a bit but they suited the song and it saved a heap of time. It's a Fender Tele and Squier PB all via Amplitube 5. MT power drums. I forced myself to be a bit more confident with the vocals - they're still very shaky but I think singing with a bit more effort improves them a little - just a touch of reverb and EQ from Cubase helps polish the turd.

Kill your television - neds

sometimes i love the thought of playing the bass more than actually playing it

Aha, thank you, will try that. I just thought it was meant to be like a Wal! EDIT: that worked perfectly, thanks for the advice, I am clearly an idiot...at least now I know it can be wired up both ways.

I believe you have the Neck and Bridge reversed on the motherboard. If you connect them properly, the pickups Blend will be standard.

Well, good on them. I do hope they did enjoy themselves. The old lad with the rock band certainly knew how to engage with the crowd though he was still a bit pub singer. I cringed at the transition in to No Woman No Cry in the reggae thang and Bette, I guess she did her best but she's no front woman. No energy and she walked around so gingerly it was like something was about to fall out. I think she did hit a couple of notes right and as for the rendidtion of Don't Let Your Son Go Down On Me.. ouch! How she sang it is now well and truly stuck in my head!!

Arrgh, what to do... love A Farewell... Rush are gone... hate Primus... dilemma stalemate cannot compute ERROR ERROR ERROR *fzzt* emergency shutdown

Trying to get to grips with my recently defretted J bass....

If anyone wants to see the B6 pedal and other Zoom bass pedals, its going to be on the Zoom stand at the Liverpool Bass and Guitar show in a couple of weeks! I'll be helping the MSL guys with Markbass and Zoom, so come and say hi!

I may have overdone it a bit, over the years !

The problem with this ‘basses by decades’ thing is it didn’t actually work like that. For those of us around during the 60s and 70s it went a bit like this:- 60s - 1) bass was pretty inaudible on pop records until the late 60s - we could hear some quite interesting stuff on Motown records (but fairly indistinct - loud enough to be influenced/attempt to copy) - no idea who the bassist (s) we’re at the time 2) Very mixed up ideas on what make sounded best - Gibson EB3 made a very nice sound in the hands of people like Andy Fraser especially live - Fender players like Leo Lyons and John McVie sounded great on record (post 16 track recording and deep vinyl grooves (literally)) - not very good live in comparison - Paul McC sounded less plummy on his Ric than his Hohner but Chris Squire sounded a bit clanky and tinny on his (especially live) 3) Many U.K. famous players influenced by the Shadows and their earliest bass players - particularly Jet Harris - who had a bass solo on their first album (incredibly the fiesta red Precision (to match the Strats) was only played for about 18 months before they moved to matching white Burns instruments (incidentally the basses sounded far better than the Precision - watch Mark Griffiths on the Shadows Final Tour to see/hear this) 4) Many pop players in the 60s in the U.K. used Epiphone Rivoli or Gibson EB2s - as an amplified attempt at a double bass sound this was possibly the closest available 5) Jazz players - electric basses were few and far between, mostly upright. I wouldn’t like to guess what the bass of the 60s was - possibly, owing to the prevalence of the Beatles, the Höfner or Rickenbacker should win. 70s early The early 70s is probably either a Fender Jazz or Precision - rock bands using Fenders never sounded much cop live, bass wise. However, R and B bands did, and the bass took an important role - players playing Jazz and Precision basses hard, and precisely got a good sound - examples of stand out players of this ilk for me were Louis Johnson (with Billy Preston), James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt (Motown), Boz Burrell (Bad Company - Precision fretless), Alan Spenner (Grease Band; Alvin Lee; Kokomo); Alan Gorrie (Average White Band); Colin Hodgkinson (Back Door) 70s mid to late At this point, people had started to look for better bass sounds to enable better studio sounds and better live sounds. As hi fi music systems for home use had become prevalent, and the multi track recording systems in studios had enabled ever increasing standards of fidelity, the idea of recording woolly-sounding bass had disappeared The Alembic bass, the Musicman Stingray and the Wal all, of which incorporated active electronics to give the player far more control over their sound - became used by most of the players previously mentioned. Also, the Yamaha BB and Ibanez RS type basses were introduced, largely covering the same ground. It would be the early 80s before Fender even attempted an active bass!! I would give this part of the decade to the Stingray with the Wal and Alembics highly influential. Many of us who had learned to play to a reasonable standard wanted to sound like Stanley Clarke (who in turn had been influenced by Colin Hodgkinson) - Alembics were massively expensive though - but seen and heard to great effect with bands like Rose Royce, Fleetwood Mac - and I saw Louis Johnson using one live with the Brothers Johnson. Examples of remaining ‘hard hitting’ passive Fender players - Robert ‘Pops’ Popwell (The Crusaders; Olivia Newton John), Norman Watt Roy (Ian Dury and The Blockheads). 80s The decade of the synth bass and where bass player’s and guitarist’s jobs were under threat….. 5 string bass guitars invented to combat synth basses Influential basses were Steinberger, Ibanez Musician, Aria, Musicman Sabre, Wal. Jaco (Fender Jazz passive fretless) and Pino (Stingray active fretless) were very influential (Jaco since about 1977) 90s 5 string basses become ubiquitous - Lakland, Warwick, Musicman. Flea is hugely influential with various basses but especially Stingray, Wal, Spector, Alembic - and then Modulus. Many new ‘boutique or boutiquish makes like Overwater, Ritter etc etc. Wooly vintage bass sounds become popular again thanks to Brit pop bands like Blur and Oasis 00s Much as 90s but Fender basses become very popular again. It appears many producers have forgotten how to produce bass for non high wattage sub speaker consumers leading to accusations of xxxxx without bass becoming prevalent (eg place Jools Holland BBC show instead of xxxxx). 10s Much as 00s - I went to see both Jamiroquy and Level 42 ‘without properly audible bass sound’ at the beginning of this decade (note I’m a big fan of both Paul Turner and Mark King and placed the problem fairly and squarely with the people in charge of FOH sound). Even Flea had a go at using a vintage Fender Jazz and live soon replaced it with a Modulus - the Jazz did not produce the 80s/90s aggressive RHCP bass sound!! Fender basses very popular in this decade. Dingwall multi scale basses become popular especially (but also elsewhere) in metal. 20s The world has gone bonkers owing to Covid and warring dictators leading to astronomical price rises for musical instruments and a couple of years of hiatus for pro musicians owing to lack of public performance opportunities. It appears the importance of bass has become recognised again and artists like Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa have top selling singles and albums with bass akin to Bernard Edwards’ 1979 Stingray sound!! Active basses seem to be having a bit of a come back although many famous makes are now at previously boutique prices!!

I think you have accomplished more than you will perhaps, at the moment anyway, realise. Many years ago, 1965 to be precise, I was 9 years old and the only one of a group of pals who didn’t have a bike. As with most families, money was tight and there wasn’t any likelihood of me getting one any time soon. Without letting on to me, my dad, my pop, uncles and so on had scavenged around for bicycle parts; frame, wheels etc. My dad worked away from home at this time, leaving early Monday and returning late on Friday. Sunday night I was packed off to bed and my dad secretly set about assembling this bike. Goodness knows what time he got finished. I got up for school the next day; he had already left for his train, and I found this bike sitting in the kitchen. I’ve never forgotten that moment: “My dad made that for me”. It took many years for the deeper significance to become apparent, but at that point, the moment was enough. I hope in the years ahead, your son will carry with him a similar cherished moment. Bravo Sir.