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...a rather special bass while recording with Pete Townsend.

I dunno why so many people think this is a bad thing. Like, if you just wanna be a simp for a multinational, you do you, but the bottom line is, a silly little youtuber just got thousands of people a free hundred dollars worth of stuff, and hopefully made manufacturers think twice before chucking single coils in humbucker covers to save costs in future. Buying guitars is already a minefield for consumers really, with an astonishing lack of transparency about any number of things, like where stuff is made, by who, out of what etc, and the big names get away with insane margins on mass produced stuff of questionable quality, because of a name on a headstock. 90% of consumer targeted content about guitars is purely advertising, including on YouTube, where the vast majority of reviews and demos are little more than paid marketing. This probably wouldn't ever have come to light if it weren't for Lobster, and the unique position he's in of being able to review large numbers of basses without taking anyone's money, as evidenced by the fact that it'd been going on for years without anyone noticing, and dozens of other magazines, youtube channels, blogs etc had "reviewed" the bass and said nothing. The less businesses can get away with lying to consumers, the better for us. Seems self evident really.

Finally managed to arrange the basses in the same room as the sofa… oh and so I don't forget I weighed them all... while I had them near the scales... Ibanez 4.4kg LeFay 4.29kg Lakland 4.28kg Sadowsky 4.0kg Bravewood 3.9kg

Basically the previous owner had bought this bass in 2021 and a load of other high end gear, had been working internationally so hardly touched it and then tragically died in his early. 30's, his widow was selling them off, there's not really a way to work out the prices of used LeFay as they aren't that common but I didn't quibble her asking price and it was the very max of my budget... and yeah she's lovely and very high end thing... I've never played a headless before, it sits a bit differently and there is definitely no headstock dive. The bass is simply a work of art.... like this is really high level of craftsmanship, the sculpting of the woods compared to say a Warwick thumb is another level - and it feels very much design led. Everything seems and feels thought through and there for a purpose rather than rushed quickest way to do something. The bridge is very sturdy ... and, maybe this is the cleaness of the tone, or just all headless bridges but tunes so easily. I've got an HX stomp and using the fine tuning mode the other basses take a bit of coaxing to get bang on... this just does it - it's crazy Padauk neck! Really easy to play, the widest point is a few mm below the top of the fretboard so it kinda starts to curve back in on itself. Anyway very easy to play. These things in the faux headstock. I will learn more about them when I need to change strings. one of my half thought-through ideas was to learn to make a neck and then make my own Padouk neck... safe to say if I ever installed frets I would not be even attempting them to look like this... it's crazy the top is gently curved and the back doesn't look bad either ... like crazy woodworking chops... and also the bits to the bridge pins - the mind boggles. But what I like (and I work as a designer) was I was playing it and thinking about how well it seemed thought out... someone else pointed out the crazy woodwork to me, it's not ostentatious craft for crafts sake, and also no coffee table wood on view... I like that. Another one of the back... This looks odd to me - there's nothing on the back of the headstock!! pointy grey/silver paint! woop How does it sound... so not like a fender at all.... it's really really clear and consistent all the way up and down, the low notes on the B string are clean and defined and feel in character. It was initially set up with super low action and straight neck, so I imagine I could do a Charles Berthould impression with tapping and slapping if I practiced for about 10 years and had any talent... tonally if I was trying to describe it it's in the same ballpark as Charles' Herr Schwartz - but played by an idiot. It's quite piano like in the way notes have clarity and it seems to reward playing melody and multiple notes at once... The preamp is really nice, volume, passive tone and the 6 position pickup selector (best described as: rear coil, parallel MM, parallel Jazz, front coil, series MM, series jazz) and then 2 band bass and treble boost only. The bass control is really nice, it adds a boost at about 80Hz but nothing below 30Hz - so none of the subby stuff, the high end boost is a nice high end boost. And then the 6 position control makes it sound like completely different instrument. So yeah, I feel a bit like a 17 year on their birthday old let loose on a Ferrari ... and the temperature of the house it previously lived in down south and my cold room the bass live in up north mean I need to tweak the setup, the bow on the neck isn't quite right at the moment. Like I said a 17 year old in a Ferrari!

Posting this mod I did on my EBMM short scale in case anyone is interested. - swapped out the neodymium pickup for an Aguilar AG4M (which I modded to coil split). The new MM neodymium pickups are excellent, but I just can’t get on with them and had the same issue on the Ray Special I owned for a few years. I have an AG4M in my ‘95 Ray so it’s nice to keep them in sync. - added a 3 way switch to keep the series/parallel/single option. - changed the pots to 250k and added a push/pull volume, to send the pickup straight to the output jack. This is because I turned an old EBMM 2 band preamp into a pedal and wanted to bypass the pots in the bass. There’s a photo of my first attempt of the pedal, think I’ll smarten it up in the summer with a better box too. Really love this little bass, and I’m glad the tone is now more in keeping with what I like. It’s got TI’s on it, and really compliments my ‘95 Ray and Old Smoothie. Wish they made these 25 years ago!

Your situation is so reminiscent of my own, only you are a few decades behind me. I worked in the printing trade for most of my working life and for a great deal of that period I was working shifts. Not being able to commit to rehearsals, gigs etc made being in a band so problematic that I eventually gave up. I didn’t want to be the “sorry-I can’t-make-the-gig/rehearsal-this-week” guy. I did have a bit of a get-out however. I play guitar and sing, so was able to pick-and-choose solo acoustic gigs without having to rely on, or inconvenience, anyone else. Not quite the same as playing bass in a band but an acceptable alternative. In May 2010 at the age of 55, I was made redundant from what proved to be my final printing job. For the next eighteen months I drove taxis and stacked supermarket shelves (not the worst job I’ve ever had, but I’d place it in the top 1 🙄), continuing to work unsocial, unpredictable hours. In November 2011 I began working for Royal Mail as a postie. Now I had regular hours, generally 6.30-2.30, the first thing I did was to start looking for a band. Nothing came of that search so I started my own band. We have recently celebrated our ten-year anniversary, still having three of the original five members. This is perhaps a slightly long-winded way of saying that the difficulties you currently face are not insurmountable and that life can change in unexpected and, ultimately, beneficial ways. Hang in there; you’ll get back to it.

IME (which is genuinely quite extensive) random cold-calling by phone or email is at least 90% useless ... I'd actually go to 95% in truth. Every now and then you get lucky and think "well that didn't cost me anything so clearly this is a great method for getting gigs" but it ain't, it really ain't. Every pub / landlord / band is different so there's no magic bullet, but I can tell you what works for me and @Silvia Bluejay. We use Lemonrock & similar to identify which pubs within 30 miles of us put on the sort of bands we play in, then we use Google Maps to plot a circular course which will allow us to visit half a dozen of those pubs without wasting too much petrol, then we go and visit all those pubs on a MONDAY. Yup, a Monday lunchtime. By a country mile, the best time to get gigs. The pub will be very quiet, the manager can't justify paying bar staff to stand there for three hours doing nothing so will be running the bar (and using the down time to go through the weekend's paperwork in their cubbyhole behind the bar), and has no alternative but to engage with you if you are buying a drink. In practice, I hardly ever even need to buy a drink - we just walk in and ask "where do the bands set up?". Pubs are absolutely a people business and there is just no substitute for facetime with the manager. We also find that gig-hunting as a married couple makes us easier for the manager to engage with, especially if it's a woman on her own in a deserted pub. You can maybe replace the Monday with a Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe, but don't even think about visiting pubs to ask for gigs on a weekend. You can guarantee that you'll be told the pub's gigs are booked by the wife's nephew's second cousin and he only comes into the pub on days with an Q in them so feel free to come back then.

That's why I always loop my lead through the carrying handle of the amp as well as through the strap.

The cheapo anti-slip matting is perfect. It rolls/folds up to be stored easily too. I understand the bracing comment but I've played on raked theatre stages where my whole rig would move forward if I didn't put carpet beneath it, so hard plastic feet on smooth tolex would drift even with minor vibrations. Lightweight heads are also easier to drag off the cab if/when someone (usually me) accidentally trips on your bass instrument cable.

Sounds like a clone of mine which I received last week.

Headlining at Frome Sunday Market today (means you get 60 minutes rather than the 30 mins the 3 other acts get) and the rain held off for most of the gig. We were under cover, 6 on a tiny stage, no backline so I took the Acinonyx again as they close off the centre of Frome so parking close by is impossible. Apparently sounded good for the punters and onstage pretty good too. Picked up some more garden plant supports from one of the stalls too....

£109 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Just think what it would cost if they'd employed a real designer!

The neck is now ready to be fitted up, just waiting for a Hipshop delivery. The headstock is hi-gloss polyester and the back of the neck is clear satin polyester. It's beginning to look like a bass guitar.

My 4 string model was pepped up with a Warman pickup and Wilkinson tuners. A snarling monster with a mineshaft deep tone for £150 or so all in.

The Retrovibe Telebass I have is incredibly light (6.6lb, from memory), with a humbucker bridge pickup. I put an Artec rail humbucker in the neck position, and all is groovy. Heartily recommended...

🙄 this one is staying Jack, the lightest bass I have ever owned and beautifully put together. PLus its orange. Orange. And competition stripes. And its orange 🤣

I may as well start with this picture... 8-9 years ago I had Warwicks and other. though neck basses.... a early G&L L1000 I bought from Gareth (formally of this Parrish) made me realise there was something about the simple fender design that just works, ergonomically and in terms of sound. One of the Warwicks got traded for the Sadowsky metro Will Lee above, originally cos it would be easier to sell than the Warwick but then I got the Sadowsky home and played not much else for the next 2 years. It is phenomenal instrument... The Lakland 55-94 classic was a local find and my introduction to 5 strings, something about Bart pickups suit my playing style and it sounds great... It kinda can do jazz bass and stingray sounds and currently enjoys some Jazz flats. It has a East Uni-pre in it which I tuned while I had a borrowed a pre-EB Ray and although the pickup isn't quite in the right place I could get 90%+ of the way there with the tone if set the preamp right... But in my heart I'm a P bass guy so sold loads of stuff. and saved and waited and, I guess had custom built for me the Bravewood P bass (also in the picture) - It took about a year to build and in the mean time lots of other P bass style basses were catching my eye... including the early ESP Navigator stuff... (which I would still like to try), one I really wanted was one for sale in Oz with a beautiful solid Padauk neck and ash body, it looked lovely but wasn't cheap before VAT and import and pretty pricy after. But Padauk neck, that would be fun to try eh? Not many about right? With three basses, one covering a J type sound, one a J and stingray type sound and a P style, they are all Fender shaped objects and sound like Fenders... and it got me starting thinking about the 4th space on my bass stand being more modern sounding thing, Vigier, or Warwick or something graphite maybe? I had a long list of "would be fun to try" some obtainable, some one off instruments that I knew weren't going to be sold and a lot of stuff way out my price range... like Le Fay. Then a number of things happened. there was a lovely 1971 Precision put on sale here for £3000. It was stunning and lovely... and I wanted it ... but out my price range... someone I know was half thinking of selling a similar bitsa built around early 70's parts, rough cost would be maybe £2000 ish ooh nice but while I could probably afford is it a good buy? It's more than a new Bravewood, it's that whole "vintage is better" thing that I don't always think is true... and so on... A Le Fay capone popped up on Gumtree for the same price and 3 hrs drive away I had a day off So I went and got it... more to come...

Ooh! The envy begins 😍.

Best single piece of kit I ever bought was https://www.gak.co.uk/en/phil-jones-bass-bass-buddy/30619 but in fairness it used to cost a helluva lot less than £399!

Hi all, Attached the final version of the EVO-FX5 " Alien Bass"

No one mentioned valve amps..... Compression by definition limits dynamics and so do the class D amps that I have tried. They get squashier as you really crank them. My old Mesa's don't in my opinion (And the Ashdowns and EBS amps have I have used) They only have a valve preamp. But the power amp seems to make the difference.

They certainly won't ever replace traditional traditional single-scale instruments, bass players as a community are generally deeply rooted in nostalgia and conservatism. Guitarists are the same, to be fair. You can show them something with only positives and no negatives from an engineering perspective and they still won't adopt the idea if it strays too far from their accepted ideas or what they feel comfortable with. This is why things like headless instruments never really caught on in a big way. Bass guitar design is still based extremely heavily around Leo Fender's designs from more than half a century ago. Guitar is the same, though Gibson's designs have a bigger bearing there than they do in the bass guitar sphere. These iconic brands have become so intrinsically linked to the music scenes where they are popular, it's very difficult to see how any radical new idea could ever become accepted in the mainstream.

You don't have to be good with a camera anymore, with digital you can go until you get it right. This was shot with me hung upside down beneath the projector, camera in one hand while blowing vapour into the stream of light with the other. All while projecting the most colourful picture I could find, a flowerbed, onto the wall. 🤣 My old Voigtlander... That's a different story.

Exactly right, I do that too except when the handle is on the cab top face as they are on my Markbass NY121P cabs.

You will never recover anything like the money you put into upgrading the G2220, if you decide to sell it. Obviously, that is no problem if you think you are going to hold onto it for a long time. A bass that might be worth a look at is the Ibanez EHB1000S. It is light (chambered), extremely ergonomically designed and it doesn’t have single coil pickups. It comes in at around £800. A lot of people, including me, find the OEM Bartolini pickups a little too old school sounding and change them for Aguilar, or Nordstrand equivalents (approx £215). Otherwise it comes with just about everything you could possibly want on a bass IMO. The headless design might not be for everybody but it is very practical from the perspective of string choice: you use standard gauge strings and cut off the excess once clamped. Therefore, you have a much greater choice of string types and gauges, which are readily available and you don’t have to pay the short scale premium. I only sold my EHB because I have ordered a Nordstrand Acinonyx and I operate a strict one-in, one-out policy. Incidentally the Acinonyx might have been one for you to consider but it is very definitely single coil equipped and quite noisy, according to posts on TalkBass.

Yes, I'm living life in the fast lane ( which was actually cordoned off)!

You've started on the right foot. Try looking at social media for local bands playing similar music and track where they are playing, no point chasing venues that won't suit. A phone call is often better than a FB message but be prepared to be fobbed off. A couple of points and some may disagree but I've got 40+ years of this... don't be tempted to cut your fee to get gigs; you'll end up very quickly with a label of being a £xyz band and venues won't pay you more, neither will the venue who booked you cheap (you will get the odd venue/manager that might but these days it is dog eat dog and managers rarely stay/last). Watch social media pages for venues wanting bands at short notice, register/like FB groups which are for musicians/bands/venues; chase and take these gigs at every opportunity. It is much easier to get gigs when you are on the inside. Bear in mind that a venue/pub putting bands on 1 night a week will only ever need 12 bands that they like/know will pull punters. Those 12 bands will get 3-4 gigs a year which leaves very little chance of getting in.

Well, I'm slighly in a parallel lane; after faffing around with modelling amps and valve pedals, I've bought one of these (and may get a 2nd, so I can run the bass in stereo). and am now looking for a power amp to go with it (/them).

If you still have the receipt, you can contact Gretsch customer services for $100 worth of goodies by way of reparation for misrepresentation. My Sterling’Ray SS weighs 3.4kg. Stick a set of lightweight tuners on one of those and that’ll be very close to 7lbs and under that £1k budget; it’s what I’m doing (more for the better tuners than the weight in my case). The new black/maple/tort version looks great. YMMV.

Well there you go, it's great to have so much choice nowadays. Eventually we should all be able to find a rig to please us, although it takes a lot of buying & selling to get there. There's a lot of good kit out there & I've enjoyed trying out a lot of it. I'm content now, (he said)!

This popped up in my YouTube and I clicked it purely ‘cos of the clickbaityness of it (because it definitely is), and was slightly taken aback at how much of a mountain is being made out of a molehill. ‘A livestream to discuss our feelings about it’? C’mon, man. The glove is creepy too.

I owned 2 and still have one, I like it very much and I’m convinced it is completely unnecessary. Unlike a piano the differences in string length isn’t enough and it solves nothing that can’t be solved by getting the construction right in the first place and picking the right strings. I think they’ll stay around but I can’t see them replacing parallel fret instruments or becoming the more popular option.

Played Desertfest London on Friday. Absolute dream come true opening up the black heart stage. Room was full and we hit our stride pretty well I think. Sound, as always in that venue, was on point and I got my GT200 near enough to exactly where I like it on gain and volume through an orange 810. Seemed to go down pretty well, and rounded off with a few pints and more bands. Been waiting for this one since 2020 so a blast to actually do it.

The sheet music / songbook shop on the 2nd Floor of 70 Shaftesbury Avenue was called Musique Boutique and was run by my late-husband Trevor Byfield (owned by Freddie Byfield, a former pianist to Elaine Cordet). Sadly, it was bought out by Bob Wise's Music Sales Group and subsequently closed down in 1983. They used to ship sheet music and songbooks all over the world from their tiny little outlet. Also, to jog some people's memory, there was 'Shady Mike's' record store downstairs in a lean-to in St Anne's Court, Soho opposite Trident Studios (actually called 'Shades' and owned by Mike Shannon), where you could find every heavy metal record imaginable amongst completely blackened surroundings, with volumes befitting their genre - those were indeed the days... Sue

You can see that he's not a real Bassist - timing is well off (by 12 years)