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David Wilson is the real deal.

Like many Basschatters I’m a big fan of Rick Beato, and like many Basschatters, I’m sure, a big fan of Bernard Purdie. This is a wonderful watch. They both appear to get a massive kick out of the whole experience, and Rick is grinning like a big kid when Bernard is grooving away. It’s a lengthy watch (and some of the things have been covered elsewhere before, like in the Aja documentary) but it’s fascinating to hear more on Bernard Purdie’s history and also (if you’re that way inclined) discussion around some of the more technical areas - technique and recording etc. Enjoy!

My band played a gig on the Isle of Man this week. The original booking was for 2020 but as Covid put paid to that it finally got rearranged for May 22. It also happened to be TT fortnight so was extremely busy on the ferries, despite it being qualifying week. We got to see some of the racing, an amazing spectacle with bikes hitting over 140mph onthe streets of Douglas that normally have a 30 limit! ( Unfortunately just before we left a Welsh rider Mark Purslow lost his life in a crash, something that apparently happens all too regularly. ) We were playing in the Villa marina, a grand old theatre on the seafront in Douglas. Big flown JBL PA sounded fine at soundcheck but with nearly 1000 punters in later it did seem to change. Anyway, we did one 90 minute set (unusual for us) and went down well with the crowd singing along with most of the songs. The gig was in aid of a local cancer charity so we were pleased they raised some funds from it. Good fun going to a new place for us, a very scenic island with friendly locals, good food, and the weather was superb too.

Great gig at Tuesday Night Music Club in Coulsdon, Surrey this week. Over 2 hours of music was knackering but exhilarating. Fab review plus bass-face photo from Haydn Hart, a TNMC regular: "US Hall of Fame Inductee and multi award winning songwriter, composer and performer Wily Bo Walker gave an astonishing performance at the Tuesday Night Music Club this week. It was such a kind gesture by Wily Bo Walker to give away a CD to every attendee on the night, A CD that had been specially made for the occasion. This was his way of thanking his audience for attending. Such is the measure of this brilliant musician. The band’s performance itself was flawless, with E D Bradshaw giving a masterclass on lead guitar, providing some jaw dropping breaks throughout. Clarky, the consummate bass man. My apologies to the drummer and the keyboard/mandolin player, but I didn’t catch your names……great job though guys. A standing ovation for Wily Bo Walker at the end of a superb evening of live music that spanned the recognised genres giving them new life and making them his own."

Two good gigs yesterday. The bath and west show (load in nightmare!) and a local festival. A long drive between them, and yesterday’s ‘gig first’ was dog poo on the local stage!!! Im still buzzing from a lovely compliment from one of the other bassists (very good one too) who called me a ‘f*****g metronome’ These are my first gigs in ages without IEMs and back on my headrush monitor… Looking forward to getting back to our own engineer and IEMs!! Two more today including Gloucester tall ships festival.

The build thread for this bass, which covers all the specs and relevant build info, can be found here: For those who are interested, here's a short sound demo for the bass though. I start with a short burst of one of my favourite sounds so far, then sweep the filters with each pickup solo'ed to give an idea of the huge variety of tones available. It's got that typical, full, throaty Wal-type sound, and basically sounds pretty awesome all over. I can't say I've mastered the preamp yet but I'm starting to get there. Enjoy - and forgive the playing, very much 'make it up as I go along'. EDIT: Forgot to add that the bass is just plugged straight into a Focusrite Scarlett Solo AI, and recorded (along with the vid) via the Camera app on my PC. So, no DAW software, pedals or processing of any kind.

The litigant Mr Stone might enjoy greater credibility were it not that he 'performs under the name Vince Vance with the band Vince Vance and the Valiants'. Older BC-ers will recall that an early incarnation of Fleetwood Mac recorded and released the song Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite (a Jeremy Spencer pastiche of 50's rock'n'roll) under the pseudonym of Earl Vince and The Valiants. Mr Spencer is still alive and should either sue Mr Stone for passing off or go round and kick his head in, possibly tonite.

The aluminium was glued in and filed to size. I then put the knobs back on my drill 'lathe', shaped then with a chisel, sanded them and put a coat of sanding sealer on. This is what I ended up with from all the bits: The knobs were then marked up for the position of the grub screw hole (the aluminium has been fitted to follow the grain - the first one I made didn't and it just looked wrong). The hole for the grub screw is opposite the aluminium marker. The holes were drilled then the insert fitted and glued in place with CA glue. After all this, these are the knobs I ended up with. Might need a little more finishing later but we'll see. So that's that part finished and tie to get back on with the bass itself!! Cheers

Next I cut circles of wood for the knob tops For the walnut ones, I cut a slot with my fret saw and glued in a strip of aluminium and filed flat. These are for the knobs that will just have the marker in the top. Tops were then glued onto the bodies. By luck, I found a small socket that had and outside diameter of 10mm and the knobs just pushed onto these sufficiently tightly that I could run them on my drill 'lathe' and trim them to size. The ones for the full length marker were marked up so they could be cut to get the aluminium correctly in line. I clamped these into my fret slotting jig so I could get a nice clean cut. This left me with a selection of knobs with a slot in for the aluminium

Reading this thread is not good for my financial stability! My favourite bass is the olympic white 2012 US Standard Precision I have had since 2013. A perfect bass that just feels like it's part of me. So why on earth did I start looking at ads for similar basses? And when I saw a lovely 2010 US Standard in sunburst, rosewood & tort, I couldn't get the damn thing out of my head. Then I noticed that the seller was open to offers, so of course I had to find out how low he'd go…and before I know it, I've paid for it and it should be here next week. I checked the specs on the Fender serial number look up and they have everything except the colours in common. That's three Precisions I've bought in the last 4 weeks or so!

A new used bass day a few weeks ago. First bass bought for for about 5 or 6 years I think, so I made it count 😂 This was formerly owned by at least two BCers. @ped and @Mastodon2. I think I asked @Mastodon2 about it about a year ago to let me know if he was ever inclined to sell it, and he was very kind to give me dibs on it recently, and a week to mull it over while I was on holiday. I'd previously owned a BSR5J so knew I would get on with the neck and 18mm string spacing. This is lovely bass and I guess a long term keeper given how rare they are and how much I enjoy playing it 😁 @ped and @Mastodon2 wrote some reviews on some previous topics and I can't disagree with any of it. And here's a picture with my setup. Tecamp Puma into 1 of my ACME B1 cabs.

Not a gigging tale. Nevertheless..... In the early 90s our original heavy grunge band used to rehearse in the church hall in a local village. We were there one afternoon a couple of days before a weekend jumble sale. There were heaps of clothing, toys, dog-eared copies of Jennings and Derbyshire books, and sundry other tat piled up on tables and chairs waiting to be organised into some sort of order for the sale. We couldn't help but admire their optimism. Neither could we help having a bit of a rummage through the sorry offerings and avail ourselves of some of the more choice items and dress up in them while we went through our set. About 20 minutes into the set, one of the local parishioners wandered in, probably to see where in the name of Jesus that ungodly devil-music was coming from. She stood there agape as we rocked out, myself sporting a rather lovely, floaty blue summer dress with little white flowers on, and the guitarist in an olive green crimplene trouser suit that would have fitted Montserrat Caballe. IIRC the singer had found a pair of pug-ugly checked old-man trousers, I can't remember what the drummer was wearing. I don't know whether any of the items had belonged to one of the parishioner's deceased relatives or whatever, but we found shorty after that our regular rehearsal slot had been given over to some other interest... presumably flower arranging or the Brownies....

Finally the first real gig I have played since February of 2020! I'm playing DB in a seven piece "orchestra" (trumpet, clarinet/sax,fiddle,guitar,piano,drums, bass) that is on stage in a theatre production in North Bay of a recently written musical about the Dionne quintuplets that were born near the city in 1934 and were a huge attraction to the area. The musical is written as a simulation of a live radio broadcast with interviews and comments from all the people involved with the birth and later commercialization of the five girls. It was done in the old school radio drama style with the actors reading their scripts standing in front of mics as it would have been done in the 1930's and with musical numbers added in, it sounds a bit odd but it worked well and we were on stage with them just as there would have been an orchestra in the old studios. It was performed in a fine old theatre where the first radio station in the area was located, I have played here before, excellent venue with very good technical crew. This was my first gig with my Shen SB100 and Acoustic Image amp and sound engineer managed to get a superb FOH sound from the Shen that absolutely filled the hall with glorious DB sound. The band was tight all all the cues were perfect and I only missed a few notes. The venue seats around 900 and wasn't full but close and we have another show tonight, it is truly great to be back playing in public and the two weeks of rehearsal were fun and the show ran well and we were paid very well...win, win, win.👍😊 More good news, both the jazz bands I'm in are rehearsing for gigs we have later this month and in the summer, life is finally getting back to normal.

Did 2 gigs yesterday (2 today), first one went off fine (other than me jumping off stage mid song and misjudging the height to go flying). Second gig, we had taken at the last minute to help a pub out and we'd agreed that we couldn't get there as early as we normally would be we'd get there as soon as and should be on stage for 21:15. All went swimmingly, on stage for 21:07 and punters were dancing most of the night and screaming out for songs (90% of which we knew and did). All good then... As we packed up one particular regular was mouthing off as loudly as possible that he was going to ensure we got our money docked because we arrived late and we only did 1 encore (we had already played 55 mins instead of 45). I politely ignored him as he got louder and proceeded to tell all and sundry that we'd never work again in this bar unless we got straight back on stage and played another set... LOL thought I. He then upped the volume and turned to point at me and vehemently shouted "They're a bunch of c*nts...and he's the f*%king biggest c*nt"! I stepped across to him (kept my cool) and pointed out we had entertained them all night, gone beyond our contractual agreement, playing 1x45 and 1x55, at an earlier than agreed time and were in fact not c*nts. This took him back and he muttered about timings etc and that he'd speak to the management about us never playing there again. I (still) politely pointed out it had nothing to do with him and would he retract the comment about me/us? At this point his friends shouted him down and said that he should shut up and I walked away. I realise pubs sell alcohol and alcohol loosens the tongue and brain but sadly I'm finding more and more of a lack of respect for bands/performers.

Especially the three-minute long ones

I don't have a lathe but I do have a drill stand. I mounted this horizontally and cut the head of an M10 bolt. This allowed me to clamp the knob blanks, run this like a small lathe and trim these to size. I made quite a few blanks as I know having not tried this before it would go wrong at some point and I'd end up with a number of scrap ones!!

Just back from playing at Gloucester tall ships festival, lovely crowd and full on hilarious ‘little Britain’ esque stage manager 😂😂😂Fun was had and now off to some local festival thingy this evening for gig 4.

Just finished playing a soul set to a typical afternoon crowd at the Bath and West. I love a big stage, proper PA. I love less falling over and cracking ribs on them. Ho hum. On to the next one.

...and a couple of pre show shots from last night. The screen at the back of the stage was used to show a series of images of the quints and their early life, from what I heard from audience members it really helped make the show even better. I'm hoping for some shots of the actual show tonight by someone with better equipment.

Sadly this is not unusual. I worked the doors for about 6 years and had to deal with people like this on a nightly basis. It's one of the reasons I won't do night time pub / club gigs now. I'm afraid there's absolutely no way I could keep my cool and deal with the situation as diplomatically as you did. Well played. 👍

I got asked to join a band as their bassist last month (I was recommend by a friend). I turned up for the first rehearsal as a bit of a try out, the drummer wasn't there as he was on holiday, so while we were warming up I jumped on the kit (can never resist a drum kit!). Upshot is, by the end of the session they want me to be their drummer as they prefer my feel. I didn't really want to do that to the drummer so I said let's see when he gets back as I was happy to play bass. Thought it was going to be an awkward conversation but it turns out he'd rather play bass than drums. Turns out he's a really good bassist! So, looks like my main gig is on drums for the moment.

Another spin on the merry go round! Trying to go for an 80’s sound/synth sound to cover some keyboard sounding parts now our keys player has left. Standards include octave chorus and dirt all patched into my trusty old Basswitch IQ DI. The compressor and VMT are in an always on loop whereas the chorus and Basswitch OD are in a switchable loop with 50/50 blend. The Basswitch OD pedal has been a great addition as the tone control actually plays about with the mid frequency and shifts the eq curve from a scooped sound to a more mid forward sound down in the lower mids. Really helps with the octave sound to push it forward. I kinda use it like the mid switch function on the MXR BOD and feel it’s doing a great job! Also as the OD is the same style pedal as the IQDI I can easily switch the loop on or off while activating or deactivating the drive too which is handy! Oh and I have a cheeky wee Thumpinator hiding underneath the board as you do!

So long as the amp has a volume control no worries. Two salient points: First, if you're running at half perceived maximum volume an 800w amp won't be running 400w, it will be running 80w. Second, few speakers are able to take even half their rated power before they distort badly. When that happens turn it down. If it happens on a regular basis you don't need more power, you need another preferably identical cab.

Absolutely. Now once each knob has my name written on it, in Latin, in mother of pearl that lights up every Michaelmas we'll be getting near the brief.

Yes, I worked out the way to get a nice Wal at a reasonable price… buy second hand but do it 30 years ago when they were rather unfashionable and un-sought after.

Played the Kelso Scooter Rally last night...brilliant night...stage was hotter than the sun...!! Singer took a wee short video and didn't realise it was still running...! 🤣 VID-20220604-WA0004.mp4

And so to the neck carve. Every builder has their own preferred way of doing this, but my own way is that, having already earlier thicknessed the back of the neck to final depth, including taper, I basically mark the centre spine in pencil and remove wood, along the whole length of the neck, moving towards this line, flattening the cut as I move towards it. And basically, after removing the bulk, I creep up on the final shape. For bulk removal, I start with a spokeshave: And quite quickly move to razor plane blades, held two (gloved) handed and again drawn up the total length of the neck: And then pretty quickly move to the good old cabinet card scraper - again, drawn along the full length of the neck: Notice that my pencil line is untouched... The above process is pretty quick - an hour tops to the 'starting to get there' territory. This is it ready for the second stage where I start getting the templates out and start creeping towards the finished shape: The next stage will use only card scraper and sandpaper. And, because it's relatively easy to remove wood but it's very difficult to put it back, this next stage will take a little longer

Well done, @warwickhunt, remaining cool and ultra professional is usually the winning hand in the long term. .....can be REALLY hard sometimes, though ! 😕

Very nice indeed; lovely palette of tones there. A Wal-alike, but not a Wal clone - a very attractive bass in its own right. Enjoy! 👍

Could be worse, we played a venue where they decided to use a smoke machine behind the curtain. We started playing, curtain opens, smoke rolls out in a very naff 80s way. 30 seconds later the fire alarms go off. Everything stops and we have to evacuate the building. It was a proper theatrical smoke machine so no idea what happened but didn’t help the gig!

I'm new to In Ear Monitors. A couple of weeks ago in church I went back to the stage after the sermon. I put the IEMs in my ears, tuned the bass and turned up the ambient on the mixer. Nothing. I wasn’t too phased as we hadn’t had any sound in the monitors immediately before the service, so I guessed we were getting foldback post fader. The song started and I played the 1st note. No sound. It’s not somewhere you want to be, particularly with a fretless. So I Iooked at the sound tech, pointed at my ears, played another note - still nothing. After a while I noticed the cable from the monitor was unconnected on the floor. Very embarrassing having to bend down and plug it in. I’m guessing the congregation didn’t really notice, but it was live-streamed. I had the misfortune of watching the live stream back and it was in full view of the camera and very noticeable. Ah well.

I hope jazz fades beyond obscurity into total non existence especially jazz fusion, by far the most tedious subgenre, even worse than prog and metal.

(Arthur) Ask(ey) - The Smiths

Another 3 hour Bandeoke, this time in a wet beer garden. Hadn't previously met drummer or guitarist, neither knew one another either, nor had they done anything like it before. With a deluge nearly emptying the party just before we arrived we had every right to anticipate disaster. But 30 odd brave souls stayed out and had an absolute blast. Two proper band gigs tomorrow, very different proposition.

90% of the time I pick this up.

I seem to have spent quite a long time over the past few weeks making knobs so here's a few pictures of the process I used. I've used wooden knobs a couple of tie before and I got a local wood turner to make them for me as I don't have a lathe. I still don't but I wanted to make them myself so.... First step - drill a shallow hole with a Forstner bit in the piece of wood that will make the body of the knob. This will be the recess under the knob where the pot nut will end up. Next, drill a hole straight through that will accept the brass insert later Then I drew a circle round them for both sizes of knob ready to cut out with a bandsaw Cut these out and ended up with a load of these

Exactly! Copying without knowing the what or whys is a little - in my opinion - like painting by numbers. The time and energy you expend now will save time and energy later on.

Dave’s work is absolutely superb! One of the very best

For me the worst offender is the intro to the album, welcome to the jungle, it really builds up like it is going to be a flat out rock tune, then it takes a pause, and then what sounds like a character from the simpsons starts singing, and brings the energy of the track right down.

Yup one mistake is a mistake, two is jazz.

That's not so good after you'd done more than contract. Sorry to hear this kind of thing. I guess you move on and put it behind you. Not sure how i would have raected under those circumstances but i hope it was as you did..........controlled. Well done on that. Dave

This is going to be a short scale, mulit-scale headless bass. If you're worried about things not lining up, you may want to stop following this thread 😁 Though mitigating against that, if it's anything like @Smanth's midi pedalboard controller build, it will be fab.

First ever gig with our band of mates, given a 15 minute half time slot supporting a well known local jazz funk band. In the days before affordable tuners, we spent ages getting the guitars and bass in tune before the headliners first set. Stood all the guitars up against the bass drum to keep them out of the way. Called up for our debut, drummer sits down first, whacks the BD, as you do, all the guitars crash to the floor bringing his ride cymbal with them. Audience go silent, we go white as we were nervous anyway. All guitars way out of tune, no time to re tune so our debut out of the window. Doh.

A couple of little tricks for the uninitiated in blind jams... If the guitarist is experienced he may walk you into the next chord with a little flourish. If he isn't but you know there is a change coming and aren't too sure what it is you can walk yourself in your head in advance to know what it is and land it like you knew it. If you really haven't a clue it's better to skip the 1 and rejoin on 2 like you meant it. Try to finish together. A good drummer will help you if you make eye contact and a little nudge. One more for the advanced jammer.. if you're playing with a Sth American lot and they break into a massive jam and it's so dense with beats that you can't find your place you can still have the time of your life.... Find the hot chick on the dancefloor whose hips are moving the best and play along with those, within the chords of course, and you will be spot on. You will know you have got it right when the hips go into overdrive.

As one or two of you may already know @Jabba_the_gut is currently building me a matching pair of basses (build diary here), a fretted and a fretless, which already means they don't match, but frets aside, they will otherwise be the same. Anyway, before I bog myself down in semantics, I was eager to acquire a Jabba bass essentially to see me through until my two were built. Luckily Jabba had one very similar (in shape at least) to the two he's building for me already finished, so I bought it from him back in September last year at the Midlands Bass Bash. Incredibly rudely I bowled into the Bash as soon as it opened, bought the bass, shook Jabba's hand and left! I barely had time to laugh at @Stub Mandrel's (actually excellent) rig. Like the impetuous idiot that I clearly am, I invariably acquire a bass, play it for ten minutes, rush on to Basschat and in a gushing eulogy tell anyone who cares to read that I've found the 'gas-killer bass' and that I am totally satisfied only to then sell it on again within a fortnight after I've had a word with myself. However, I've now been the owner of a @Jabba_the_gut bass for ten months and I can, in a far more sober, thoughtful and considered manner, tell you that I think the Jabba bass actually does fit the bill, or certainly my bill, to a tee. The other basses in the rack now have a layer of dust over them, that's the one or two I haven't yet sold. I have a lovely ACG Recurve SS 4 that I was lucky enough to buy from @Clarky (thanks Sir) and then stupidly sold but, thank Bog, was able to buy back. That's a definite keeper as it fills the electric solid-body roundwound bass corners that the Jabba bass doesn't, but then the Jabba bass is semi-hollow with flatwounds, it isn't supposed to twang and clank, it has too much class. Anyway, I'm wittering. I play in an acoustic duo and I've been through a gazillion basses trying to get just the right balance of sounds as we play quite a variety of songs, from kind of mellow jazz to much more angular abrasive stuff. The Jabba bass sits in the middle of that brief coping easily with the demands I make of it. If I were a technically minded man I'd tell you technical things about it but I'm not so I can't but it is an incredibly beautifully built bass and it sounds amazing. Whenever anyone sees it, be it musician or civilian, they always admire it, usually with the words "It's a work of art..." which it most definitely is. Blimey, I'm still at wittering, I best get off the train otherwise I'll end up in prattling and no one wants that. In summary. @Jabba_the_gut makes exceedingly good basses and my aim is to own several and play them exclusively. The tone is gorgeous, the build is exquisite... extraordinary. If you get the chance to own one then jump on it, you won't regret it.

Not a personal embarrassment this, but a brilliant anecdote I read years ago which is too good not to relate. Hopefully I've got the details right. It was related by a drummer whose band were booked to play a tea dance, can't remember the venue. He travelled there under his own steam, with the rest of the band following in the bus/van/whatevs. He got there first, and set his kit up. No sign of the band. Time marches on, still no sign of the band. He waited nervously at his kit and absent-mindedly started playing a quiet waltz. He looked up and, to his horror, couples were taking to the floor and starting to dance to his unaccompanied rhythm. He kept it going for a few minutes, and eventually ended on a graceful rall to polite applause. Someone handed him a note and he opened it, hoping it's going to tell him that the band are just arriving. Instead, he reads, "Please can you play Red Roses For A Blue Lady?". (A few minutes later, another note arrived to tell him that the bus/van/whatevs. had blown up on the motorway and the band will not be joining him.)