Leaderboard

No real reason to post other than I'm very excited about this opportunity. I joined a band just before Christmas who have a linkup with a bar in Amsterdam that they e played in before. They couldn't do it through covid but now we are booked in for a monster four hour set on Fri 20th May. We are well rehearsed, well prepared and ready to go! Really looking forward to it. Have never been to the Netherlands at all so to go there for a gig is a bit surreal.

Ordered Wednesday, turned up earlier today. I love jazz basses and I also love G&L's saddle-lock bridges and their pickups, so when I saw this reduced by £70 I pulled the trigger... Good things: The colour - listed as Lake Placid Blue, this is more like an Ice Blue, and it's metallic, and looks the nuts. Much nicer than Fender's LPB. The back of the neck and headstock is also finished with a nice vintage amber tint. The sound - sounds like a jazz bass should. Rear pup has The Honk, blended with the front pup it rounds out beautifully for a really versatile tone. The bridge - these things are G&L's secret weapon. There is a protrusion under the bridge (downtown) which sits in the wood, sending lovely jazz vibrations through the body. Sustain and clarity for days, and also no dead spots around the 7th fret on any of the strings, maybe due in part to the headstock shape... Set up: Really, really good, straight out of the box. The action is just how I like it, had to tweak the tuning slightly, and the E string seems a little duller than the others, but very impressed with that side of things. The not so good things: A very small dent in the finish near the control panel. Nothing serious, I'll get over it. The binding - not real binding, but painted, and painted quite badly near the dusty end. Now I didn't know that quite a lot of manufacturers paint faux binding instead of installing the real thing, and that's OK I suppose (Its seems to be an aesthetic thing more than anything else) but really, whoever did this particular job needs to try again. Just not good enough, even for a far eastern instrument. Anyway, here are some pics.

"If you know, you know." This manages to be meaningless, elitist and patronising in one enormous slam dunk of stupidity.

As someone with dairy intolerance, “plays like butter” isn’t a selling point.

What's the best feeling in the world? Playing great gear, in a great band, with great players to a great audience. Oh, and getting paid for having so much fun.

The intonation on my fretless is fully adjustable, but for some reason it always sounds out of tune unless I’m playing an open string.

most acoustic guitars manage without intonation adjustment, IMO it's overrated as a problem on basses, generally we don't play chords with loads of overdrive, unlike guitar players, so unless you've got perfect pitch (disclosure time, I've got the opposite, whatever that is) you or anybody else aren't going to notice, who does on fretless basses for instance? I once asked a double bass player about how accurate his playing was, intonation wise, his reply was "As long as you're somewhere near nobody is going to notice"

Get a load of this wonderful bit of work... Even more amazing - @Andyjr1515 did it without ever seeing the bass. Just going on my own hamfisted measurements. It's a beautifully prepared bit of ebony, with cut outs for the pickup lugs and the scratchplate. It's held on with some double sided tape. I've always liked ramps, but they are more important now after suffering from a Mallet finger for a year. The ramp really helps when the finger won't properly obey my commands. And yes - I really do have the action that low / pickups that high. It's even lower when a string is fretted at the 22nd fret! Thanks again to Andy for an amazing job.

Or on ebay there's the ones who list the things it isn't so it comes up in searches for other stuff For example "Cheap donkey Amazon 3 string bass Not Fender Sandberg Fodera Gibson Dingwall"

💋

Finally finished, Mark is due to collect next Friday. And before you ask, yes it does sound like a "Wal" and then some.

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.

I used to try so hard NOT to sing “I am afraid of God, I am afraid of God, I am afraid of God, He calls me ‘Fred’!”

“When it’s gone, it’s gone” Well that’s obvious… ”rare” when it’s blatantly not…

Here we go peeps, all put back together. Pleased with the results and the bass plays nicely.

One more update before its done. One of the pickups was slightly damaged in transit to Alan so another will be arriving next tuesday.

"Salvation Belongs To Our God" often became "Alsatians Belong..." at our church

For those preferring a DIY solution, I've found that the threaded washer that tightens down on the wheel rim of a bicycle tyre valve is a great starting point for a "thick" washer. Normal old fashioned tyre valves are the ones I mean. Inner diameter is such that it slips over the truss rod threads and the knuled outer surface can be easily filed down to exactly match the outer diameter of the truss rod. I've used this approach successfully on a MIJ Fender bass.

This is the oldest one I could find of my first band Panda Eyes back in April 2010...

Based on decades of buying gear, I’m not one to skimp on it, as it always ends up being a false economy. I’d rather buy a good one now and get to know how to use it properly. The Cali76 seems to be getting a few notable mentions, so maybe that’s what I’ll get. I am playing a vintage ‘73 Precision through a Mark Bass rig, so I need to do them justice. Thanks for all the input so far, it’s really useful. Rob

We've been reduilding our website and whie trawling back through old photos I found this from 2014 or 15. Jack Scrumpy is no longer with us, but it's still a decent promo poster

1964 Sunburst

That always irritates me. If it isn't an Ibanez with a Gibson 'Open Book' headstock then I'm not listening. If it is an Ibanez with a Gibson 'Open book' headstock then I'm still not listening. There was no actual lawsuit! ... and breathe. 😁

Lord Rockingham’s XI. House band on the British TV show Oh Boy in the late 50’s. As such they backed most of the artists on the show. The band was notably made up of the cream of UK session musicians and a few jazz men including Benny Green. Many of them probably played on more than a few British pop records in the 50’s and 60’s. A one hit wonder with Hoots Mon and a few bubbling unders they lasted the 2 year run of Oh Boy.

That's it, gone right off the idea after seeing that. 🤣

I suspect that Mr Skelf is going to corner the UK RA market. All power to him.

PJB have chosen them as their UK agent, and they have let you down badly. I know most people will disagree, but i think PJB owe you

Locomotive Breath - Jethro Tull

Down in the Sewer - The Stranglers

I play bass in an 80s electronic covers band and I have a couple of synths I use with them. One is a Waldorf Streichfett for string synth sounds but my main one is a Novation Xio49 virtual analogue 4 octave synth with 200 presets and on board FX to cover everything else (mainly bass) I had two but let one go which I now regret and I’m keeping my eyes out for another) I really like the sounds from the Xio. Sounds way better than anything else I’ve come across for anything near to the price (I picked up both my Xio49 synths for under £100)

I have say, that despite having owned a lot of synths with analogue VCOs since the early 80s I've never found any of them to have tuning instabilities and all have come up to tune within a couple of minutes of being powered on. On the other hand, having owned an EDP Wasp, while I would hope that touch capacitance keyboards have become more reliable in the last 40 years, I wouldn't have another synth with one for live use.

.....and their tours "World Tour".... despite not leaving North America....

For info - I bought a pack of the Gibraltar Tension Rod Washers and they're 10mm OD / 6mm ID which is too big. I managed to get some M5 washers (ID 5.03mm) with a reduced outer diameter (9mm) from Accu. These are a very close match for the Fender washers. Link below if of any interest. https://www.accu.co.uk/flat-washers/404899-HRDW-M5-A2

Another thing to bear in mind is that analog synths (or rather synths with analog oscillators), while being very trendy these days, often need to be powered on for a while before their tuning is stable and some will continue to drift or fail to track properly over a few octaves even then, which might not be convenient in a gigging situation. I had an Arturia minibrute 2S for a while, but got rid because I found the tuning a nightmare, and the sonic sweetspots few and far between. I have owned a fair few synths over the years, including models from Novation, Nord, Dave Smith Instruments, Audiothingies, Erica Synths and Arturia, and the only hardware synth I have kept, and have no plans to get rid of, is a humble Microkorg. These are a bit marmite, with some hating the "toylike" feel, the matrix user interface and the minikeys, but it is actually a very powerful little machine, capable of a huge range of sounds, almost all very usable. You get up to 4 note polyphony, so simple chords or legato basslines are no problem. The minikeys are not the best, but they are velocity sensitive and you get a full 3 octaves in a very compact and lightweight body. I find programming it to be quite straightforward once you get the hang of it, and there is no real menu diving - almost everything is available right from the front panel. The fact that you can still buy them new 20 years after they were first released says a lot. There are plenty around 2nd hand - I picked mine up for under £200. Not for everyone, but definitely worth considering. There is a huge choice of synths at very reasonable prices these days - I'd say one of the very best of the newer ones is the Arturia Microfreak, if you can live with the weird "touch capacitance (?)" keyboard (not sure I could - maybe not ideal for gigging with). Given the huge variety out there, you might want to try buying 2nd hand, so that you can move one on and try another till you find the one you gell with. Good luck with your search, and have fun!

Honestly, as an owner of a GR AT410+ I have not had any concerns about fragility. I've had mine for 8-9 months give or take, and as I've said before I use it once or twice a week where it gets loaded in and out of a car, through the narrow corridors of the practice rooms, it has bits and pieces sitting on top of it all the time, it goes up and down stairs etc. I have had zero problems with it and more so I've never thought to myself 'I need to walk on eggshells with the cab' Sure it will withstand less hammer blows that a 13-ply birch Mesa Powerhouse cab, but at the end of the day every other bit of gear we use (pedals, basses, amps etc) are definitely more fragile than these cabs so it's all a moot point! These don't crumble when you look at them, they are perfectly serviceable and as strong as any reasonable person needs them to be.

OK - the rosewood is here. Lovely piece of AAA grade from David Dyke: And @funkle and I have decided to go for wheel adjustment trussrod cut into the neck heel itself so that he doesn't have to modify bodies or pickguards if he moves the neck to other bass bodies: And most importantly, @fleabag's neck is at the 'coat and wait to dry' stage; an exciting potential project for @Happy Jack is still at the early 'sketches and thinking' stages - and so there should be nothing stopping me from getting my lazy a*** (***=ndy) off the sofa and back down into the cellar. Which is also an idea that MrsAndyjr1515 fully supports. Next jobs, radiusing the board and cutting the fret slots

Doesn't sound especially clean on this video (albeit I can see the Gain is set pretty high). But I hear you on the 'booty' front

The locals are looking forward to it.

My three months between bands early this year were hard to take, especially when finding a new band seemed impossible; yes, motivation to practice was hovering near zero and I was thinking “is it worth the hassle of gigging any more?” (driving two hours, setting up, some dodgy venues, the exhaustion on getting home at 3am etc) but then I got gigging again with a band with 50+ gigs this year and I’m back on a high! I’ve gigged for over 50 years and i realise it’s part of what I am, that’s the crux of it, being a performer in front of a crowd who like what you’re doing is the ultimate buzz and I was lost without it.

I started with a Roland Gaia. They’re a bit over-priced new but used ones are better value. Nice and simple to operate, I found it a great tool for learning how to program a synth. It’s been out forever so loads of used ones. Some look down their noses at it but as a simple but powerful first synth I think it’s hard to beat. I’ve now moved mine on and got a Korg Krome because I wanted a decent arpeggiator and loads of presets (the Roland Juno DS and Korg Kross do a similar job) but I often wish I’d kept hold of the little Gaia for its flexibility and ease of use.

It's odd - I would think twice about attending a 3 day music festival as a punter but would happily work my ar$e off for 3 days doing stage management, monitors or FOH. I think I prefer to be busy.