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So I’ve been on a bit of a quest, and last week yielded these two fine basses from my fave 2013-16 range of Fender US Standards, a 2013 from our very own @vincbtand a 2014 from the ‘bay. Match very nicely with my fave 2015. All that was needed was A-String Retainers and Hipshot Drop-D Extenders. The 13 gets the gigging band, the 14 gets the classic rock band.

No it is not. I once played bass in a band purely for the purposes of rehearsing tunes knowing that gigging was extremely unlikely. It was about a mental health struggle that one of the members was going through and keeping in touch with his playing helped so much in his recovery. Stage fright was a trait he had even before his mental health struggles. What is incredibly soul destroying for you can be incredibly empowering for others. We are all different and exist in different sets of circumstances. We ended up doing a few gigs for friends and family. It was the making of him. Everyone benefited. Hard work for him but worth every minute of it.

I bought it. I arranged with Andertons to have ago on one today. Just finished noodling it. The tones you can get out of the bass is very impressive, can't believe this is a P bass! The neck is great. Surprisingly I get on fine with the 16" radius fret board. The build quality isn't quite up there with Rickenbacker, but then I wouldn't expect it to be, given the price difference. I can see this becoming my favourite bass.

Trying this new mic pre out with my power amp, as a possible new rig, as a change to my trusty Eden head. Really nice it sounds. Tried with all basses, and the Dingwall, which is my main bass, and favourite, sounds great. Bogart, which is my least favourite to play, sounds great through it too. Modulus, which is all singing and dancing with every possible combination of actives and coil taps, sounds far too polished for my taste. Though I’ve hardly played it since I bought it.

So I'm feeling good today. I bought this bass in 2013. It had the original parts and I had a "professional" replace the pickups do the setup. I get it back and the e string barely made sound. The intonation was off and the strings were fretting out. Frustrating and still largely unusable I decide to find a second person to fix it in 2018. He tells me to buy the wrong bridge. Installs it incorrectly. Still have the same problems. 2022 I go to basschat and a group of very friendly and helpful people encourage me to do the work myself. You all helped me figure out my bridge position, find the right bridge for this short scale, encourage me that drilling a few holes isn't so tough. I also took it upon myself to install a new pickup. Let me say, I feel very proud of myself for being able to do this but I wouldn't have even tried if it wasn't for you guy. A very special thank you goes to @Downunderwonder for all the encouragement and advice and being there throughout the process. Also @Woodinblack for encouraging me to rip out the wiring and start from scratch. You helped me figure out how to use my multimeter and I learned how to solder as well. Not to mention how to fill holes with toothpicks. The bass is working now about as perfectly as I could possibly ask for. Intonation is great. I'm not sure about the string height yet but it plays well. The G string is a little offset on the bridge pickup but it picks up the sound pretty decently. If I really wanted to I could maybe move that pickup I little toward that direction. The only thing I want to consider in the future is mainly aesthetic. I was hoping to find some paint to match to do some touchups. I was also looking to get something to do about the exposed cavities. Maybe I'll take a 3d printing class in the future and design something to fit over it. I don't consider myself a handy person but right now I'm trying to learn. So thank you to everyone who participated in making my bass what I wanted it to be in 2013. For something a luthier wanted to charge over $300 I did for myself with a soldering iron and a new bridge and a lot of support. The old wiring The new wiring It goes to 11 now 🤘🤘 I had Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire" bass line in my head all day so it had to be the first thing I played when I finished. Here's a sample of what the bass sounds on the different settings. The first three are demos of just the bass straight into ableton. The last three I'm running the bass through a Rusty Box pre-amp before sending it to ableton.

Using the Two10 in 4ohm mode and with the One10 in 8ohm gives you a load of 2.7ohm If you set the amp to 2ohm that will be fine to use them all together.

This new Harley Benton GuitarBass (heavily Fender Bass VI inspired), that I just got with the mail Thursday : You can read more about it here :

Back in the 80s I bought an Ibby Roadster (tobacco sunburst, maple bolt on neck with cream PJ pups) from Rockbottom in Croydon. I think I chopped in my Shergold Marathon (never liked that one) and thought because it had PJ it had everything I'd ever need! How naive was I?

From flying 1300 miles to Ibiza at the start of the week to playing my closest gig to a homecoming ever, an open mic on the very road I grew up on, last night saw my school friend and I in our revived 80s alternative band playing covers by The Cure and the Mission on my mandolin. On many levels I enjoyed it as much as playing Ibiza!

I managed to score a '65 P finally a couple of weeks ago. It needs a good clean, a fix and a fettle but should be good. I'll do a NBD about it once it's had it's M.O.T. by my tech mate.

Aye, that would be a Dargie Delight limited edition 😎 I quite like this look: The Reverb seller I took this pic from claims it's the "Aqua Purple" finish, but I think this is Sky Blue and I think it looks lush!

If one of these turned up…I’d be in big bother.

That’s what I’m currently doing with Dom & the guys, Tim. We don’t want to gig - hence why we’ve not got a singer - we just like a get together once every other week to play some quite difficult songs. It makes us better as musicians, plus it’s a good laugh. I’ve become a lot better on bass doing this for the last couple of years, can play stuff I would have thought was far beyond me.

Had this for ages - always does the job!

Probably. These things are usually fixable although there are risks to the fretboard. But, all going well, it should be around a tenth of the cost you've been quoted. I'll pm you in the morning.

No probs. I need to lighten up and that's me without a drink on a sat night. Afraid I don't watch politicians, they're too depressing. All good and apologies for taking it wrong way. Dave

Prime mover. Zodiac mindwarp and the love reaction

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something

And so fully dried overnight and then this morning a decent sanding of 240 up to 500 grit to sort the risen grain and another coat. This needs to full dry, but may well be the last coat needed: Very close to being finished!

That's a great story. Well done. Whether you play at home, with mates or at gigs its all about what makes you happy and as long as everyone in the band is happy then job done as far as i'm concerned. I've been in bands that didn't want to gig only doing 1 or 2 gigs a year but it was too much travelling for me to carry on (1hr drive country roads 40 miles every Mon night) I really enjoyed playing the songs but there was no real drive for everyone to learn the songs properly because there was no real intention to gig. I always learn songs as close to the original as i can manage but others would turn up and expect to just jam it. That used to annoy me quite a bit. Now i prefer to be in a band that wants to get out and gig coupe of times a month. Dave

It's a very good idea, when done correctly. While the stage rig will cover the room with the lows very effectively the midrange and high frequency dispersion is pretty bad. Put mids and highs in the PA for dispersion, pull back the lows on that PA channel so as not to overdo those. The same applies to the drums, keys, even guitars. The PA should be providing a balanced mix throughout the room. The problem lies with bone headed guitar'd players who think that they need to play loud enough to blow out candles at 30 meters. PA isn't about volume, it's about dispersion. Most guitar players can't even spell dispersion, let alone understand the need for it. 🙄

So, I went to Bass Direct earlier in the week with every intention of buying a different brand. Walked out with this Vanderkley 212MNT instead. Built like a tank but still very portable & looks the nuts. Only home use so far, but feck me the combination with my Magellan is stunning. The clarity, punch, volume & dare I say it, heft, is definitely noticeably better than anything I’ve had before. Can’t wait to hear it in a band context. Extremely chuffed 🙂.

Slightly off topic, but I just had my first gig tonight after lockdown (and we had a slow 2019, too!). Ampeg PF350 into my Two10, no PA support, 9 piece soul band. Lovely!

Having a Bar-Kay’s night

Coat of the thin Osmo on the body to show up any scratches, rather looking forward to this being fully finished

I own an Audient. It's wonderful. Like @lowdown says you need to set the buffer size to as small a number as you can get away with. Too low however and you will get skipping as your computer's CPU runs out of puff. It'll run out sooner the more plugins you use and cab simulators can be quite high cpu usage. To get you some idea of numbers, at a sample rate of 48k I have a block size of 128. I don't even notice the lag (which according to my DAW should be ~5ms) and I can run all my plugins except an octaver on my 2019 laptop. Specific to the Audient, you can set this either in your DAW (probably), or the iD program that manages the various levels of the different inputs

Asked who? I've heard that Barefaced are of the opinion that the 12" and 10" do not mix well.

I have zero experience with in-ears or setting up monitoring but there's no way I'd ever use earplugs on any system where I wasn't in personal control of the final volume. Someone else can craddock around with the mix as much as they want but the volume control would need to be at my fingertips. Presumably there are multiple ways of achieving that.

This is my bass - Big Al 5 PDN (Premier Dealer Network) Vintage Tobacco Burst 2015 (completion date January 2016). When it first arrived, the neck alignment was a bit off (G-string too close to the edge), so EBMM authorised a return and we had the whole instrument shipped back to the factory via Strings & Things. EBMM then built a new neck for it to the original specs. The body wood on this edition is alder. The darker looking grain on the upper part of the body is an effect of the light reflection due to the contour. These are great basses.

Trying it out now, really nice. Bass and treble switches don’t do much, but the core tone is lovely

Ah, from memory we do Devils Bleeding Crown - Volbeat This Corrosion - Maryslim version Runaway - Bon Jovi Stargazer, Tarot Woman, I Surrender - Rainbow Dazed & Confused - Led Zep Wayward Son - Kansas Its So Easy, Live & Let Die - Guns N Roses Out in The Fields - Gary Moore Holy Diver - Dio And just about to do Fairies Wear Boots by Black Sabbath Edit - how did I forget to put in Highway Star by Deep Purple!

If I wanted something different from what I'd had before, then the Sterling because I've never had an EB/Musicman. On the other hand if I wanted something I was already familiar with and knew what I was getting, then the PJ Mustang.

That's sad to hear. I have played dodgy gigs, to dodgy audiences, with a dodgy band, playing dodgy music and it's no fun. But playing a good gig, with an enthusiastic audience and a good band is definitely an uplifting experience. Since this covid malarky started I've been rehearsing endlessly with new bands but haven't had the chance to play any gigs. But my old band is getting together tonight and we'll be getting up to play a few songs tonight at a venue we used to play at pre covid. I cannot wait!!!!!

Maybe. It all depends on the impedances of the two cabs and the minimum load allowed the amp. When cab impedance is equal they share power draw equally. Ideally your 210 would be half the impedance of the 110 but then you may run into minimum load issues. Likely the 110 is 8 ohm. If the 210 is also 8 ohm you have the issue that it is running half power at the same time as the 110 is flat out. With an 800w amp that doesn't bode well for the 110 and you haven't got the 210 working properly. That being the case, two 8 ohm cabs, if you just want a cool 310 tower that is easy to hear there's probably no harm to be done so long as you aren't going for big volume, but you could do very nearly the same output much more safely just using the 210 sitting on a riser.

Stay With Me Till Dawn - Judie Tzuke

Ha! I’m a member of Heilung 🔥

If you're not gigging, then a get together with friends playing instruments, isn't a rehearsal. It's probably not a performance either, I'm not sure exactly what it is, maybe a jam? But it's certainly not a rehearsal or a practice. What is incredibly soul destroying is getting involved in a band who rehearse but never gig because they're either rehearsing inefficiently or certain members get stage fright and just want to get together with mates. Then there's musicians who only want to play to friends and family and not travel anywhere. Hard work. If you just want to get together with mates, then find musicians who just want to get together with mates, don't rope in musicians under false pretences.

I have no idea what "grok" is, but I'm assuming it means understand. I'd happily spend all my time in a room with my mates creating and playing music just for the hell of it. That's where I'm happiest. I hate people, and I have no desire to be a performing monkey for the great unwashed. To me, it's all about the creativity. I honestly couldn't care less if I never performed in front of a crowd. Most of them couldn't care less anyway.

Nice 66 precision come up on Andy Baxter https://www.andybaxterbass.com/collections/bass-guitars/products/1966-fender-precision-bass-sunburst-4

My most recent build - I gave in and got a C4 Synth. Using the Caiman Tail Loop to change patches and switch presets on the C4 via a Disaster Area Micro Ghost (mounted underneath).

They're your ears, and you won't get another set. Do whatever you can to keep 'em in good nick for as long as possible, I'd say. Having control of the overall volume is a good start; having mixing possibility is even better. If you're free of tinnitus for the moment, that's the time to take your hearing under your own control if you can. Just my tuppence-worth.

I also just want to say, I'm genuinely surprised by all you kind strangers. I made a thread once before and every time so many people spend their time to help out someone else and i appreciate that a lot