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Seems like we all played on a farm or a camp ground last night. Lol Blue

Hello everyone! I have been provided with the preamp photos by @funkle and been asked to share my findings here. it took a while due to various personal reasons, but here are the results. From the photos provided I have drawn this schematic. I'm sure it is about 90% accurate. Some parts were hard to trace by just looking at photos, and some values are approximate. The opamp used here is a generic opamp, since the original is not produced any more. Also, due to the obsolete opamp, the schematic doesn't include 4 resistors used to set the quiescent current of the opamp. Wal MK2 Trace.pdf What is interesting here is that the filters are tuned to different frequencies. The most interesting thing is how the Attack function is implemented. The signal from the Neck pickup is taken directly after the summing amp (which sums all the individual coil pairs), and put through a high-pass filter to leave only the high frequency content of that pickup. Then, that filtered signal is ADDED to the maim mix of the bridge and neck pickups after they have been filtered by their individual filter controls. I have also made a SPICE simulation of the circuit to better show what is happening here. Due to the transistors and opamp being obsolete, I replased them with generic ones, and put a normal summing stage at the input. When trying to build this circuit, the transistors can be omitted if a modern low noise opamp is used. This kind of stage was used in back in the day when low noise opamps were not readily available, and a simple transistor differential amp could make up for that by being added in front of the opamp. A logical question remains: do the outdated components contribute to the sound characteristic of this preamp? Maybe, maybe not. The opamp has limited bandwidth, and the overall stages might produce some distortion. As there is no definitive datasheet info on these parameters, it's up for debate and experimentation to answer that question. Anyways, here are the graphs from the simulations. Pickup_01 is neck, and Pickup_02 is bridge. Now the Attack gives off some strange results depending on how you set the Attack trim pot inside. So here are a few results. That's about all I can think of that's worth mentioning at this time. IF you guys have any more questions, feel free to ask Cheers!

Both my short scales go "fomp":

On my birthday I completed the build of a new bass: The Brooks EXB-MS-5 - Mahogany Khaya body - Quilted Maple top and headstock face - Three piece Mahogany Khaya set neck. Glued in - Blue burst gloss finish on top and headstock - Pearloid binding - Ebony fretboard - Luminlay Blue position markers - Jumbo nickel silver frets - 37-34" scale - Buffalo horn nut - Babicz Solo Rail bridge. Black - Double action trussrod - Two carbon reinforcement strips in the neck - Lace Alumitone Bass Bar pickup combination - Pure Tone output. Black - Volume and tone knob. Black - Rotary pickup selector switch. Black chickenhead - Gotoh GB 350 lightweight bass tuners. Black - Dunlop flush mount strapnuts. Black - Dingwall strings - Weight: 4.25 kg Rotary switch options: 1. Both pickups in series 2. Neck side pickup 3. Bridge side pickup 4. both pickups in parallel 5. Both pickups. Out of phase with a capacitor to maintain the low frequencies. Circuit and wiring by BQ Music. Pics of the build process can be viewed here https://www.enkoo.nl/brooks-exb-ms-5.html And I made a quick video as well. Being a life long 4-string player I have no idea what to do with that fifth string! But you get an idea of how she sounds. (I'm quite sure the guy I built it for will put it to good use!)

Stage for tomight’s gig at Reggaeland Milton Keynes.

After not getting a great deal of interest in my Custom P Bass body with EMG Jazz pickups, I decided to go down another route and see if I could source a Status Graphite neck for it. Considering how difficult it is to get hold of these necks I was lucky enough to be able to find one that was within reasonable (ish) driving distance and I so picked it up tonight. It's an absolutely spotless Jazz width neck pre-fitted with Schaller tuners that dropped right in to the body and although I've not really set it up properly yet the bass plays beautifully and gives me the opportunity for Jazz Bass sounds without the Jazz body which I struggle with ergonomically. I think the whole thing looks ace too and weighs in at 9lbs 3oz.

I've just watched this - it's an interesting build, finishing up with an intriguing and quite attractive (except it's not headless), not to mention good sounding, instrument. It seems a bit on the thick side at 2.5"/6.2cm, so probably a bit heavy. I would guess at a P-width but J-depth neck, from what I could see of it and the male bassist who was playing it at the end (and seemed genuinely impressed).

It was fun! Played outdoors at a camping site where the guitarist has a caravan permanently parked. We played as a favour to the guitarist and site owner. Singer started with five songs as a trubadur, and then we played 2 x 6 songs. After 3 encores we passed a bucket and made roughly half of a pub-gig 😃💰 I know shorts are sometimes frowned upon, but I played in cargo-shorts and bare feet! 🤣

Here's an mid 80s article about George Peckham: from One Two Testing...

Think this Friday on BBC4 will be a good one, especially for @Reggaebass 9:30 Studio 17 - The Lost Reggae Tapes 10:55 Toots & The Maytals - Profile of Toots Hibbert

Don't stop minnow - queen

Thanks Dave, but it's not that glamorous. They found out I was getting lost on the way to gigs and that I turned down a one way street and had cars driving towards me. Lol Blue

Last night was the annual village green gig at Horton. Great gig with lots of dancing (and not just the audience). We were competing with Trevor Horn and Nile Rogers, who were playing in nearby Swansea but there's room for new bands like them as well as us on the circuit. 🤣

Earlpilanz on EBay made this for my BB1024. He may still have the dimensions.

And…it’s still here

My duo played a couple of sets to an initially dead pub, followed by one of the liveliest crowds I have had in a while, locally. It never ceases to amaze me how there is a demand for 80s post punk / goth performed on folk instruments (now with added drum machine / synth). I'm pictured here on the 8 string mandocello.

Natural fibre eh? They'll be making them out of wood next........ 🤔

Having sold my baby stingray, and my Electra VS I'm sat here waiting for my Sandberg California II VS4 Lionel to be delivered by ParcelForce Here are a couple of pictures from the ad.

Hi. Here is my new (oldish) Pbass that I bought from gas station guitars. Love the colour and it’s pretty light so that’s good too. Good points: - colour is great, looks better in real life than the pictures. - sounds cracking. Just like a Pbass! - - neck fits my muckle hands better than the Jazz I sold to find this. Not so good points: - Had to give it a good clean as it was covered in a fine film of aged dust/grime/dirt - Input jack was intermittent on first plug in. Have removed the pickguard and cleaned up the jack and pots with contact cleaner. Much better now. Also adjusted the contact of the inout jack. - strings are covered in the same grime and have been loaded in to the tuners with only half to one turn, new strings incoming. - relief was a tad much so have adjusted that, good to know the truss rod works though. - saddles are flippin high so action is way more than I like. I’ll drop those later once I get ten minutes. all in all, happy with the bass. More care could have been taken with prep before shipping. It’s in ace condition, although they were a pleasure to deal with in terms of money and communication. The photos show that colour has faded a bit with time, as it’s more vibrant under the picknguard. if anyone knows anything about the pots, body wood and neck stamp please do share.

30 minute set for Nottinghamshire Pride today. Big crowd.....great gig ....end of gig shot

Well, todays were interesting. We had a 1 hour gig 20 miles out of town from 2:30 to 3:30 and another 3 hour gig 20 miles out of town the other way from 5 to 8 today! First was a liitle pub that we had played at recently, they were doing a festival thing and got us on first (they wanted us later, but we were already booked). It was going to be tight going between them to break down the PA and get to the other one, whcih had a PA, but got there and it turned out the last band had a big PA and decided to set it up straight away, so did the sound for everyone else - so my PA had a free trip around the area today. The first gig started with a wedding proposal, which was good, (we had a yes and no song lined up to start - we got to use the yes song!), but all went down well, then a mad dash to the other one. Also in a field but with a stage built, and a big PA, but so hot, was really flagging by half time. luckily after a break, got a bit of second wind, so the second half was good, and by then at least there were a lot of dancers and people were joining in. Not a bad day as I am home by 9!

Hey @BluewinefBluewinefor a moment I thought you'd been gigging in South Wales! We're playing here tonight.

Basschat definition of might not = definitely happening.

And here is the Big Bu**er Got it from Northwest Guitars. Very nicely made, solid brass for the desired weight (it comes in at 13oz, which is the sort of weight I was after), top load or through-string, adjustable string spacing, generous intonation adjustment...and half the price of a Hipshot (that wouldn't be heavy enough anyway). What's not to like? And with this now in hand (it's always better working with the actual hardware rather than just the tech drawing) I can position the bridge on the body blank and determine the exact positioning of the heel end to then drill/chisel/rout the neck pocket and position and do the same for the pickup chamber...which will be my next tasks

Well it seems that I’m now a fully paid up member of the Stingray Fan Club. With the combination of the 3EQ rosewood fretboard Stingray & Ernie Ball Coated 50-105s through my Ampeg SCR-DI I’ve finally got a bass sound from a ‘Ray that I absolutely love. I’m going to try it in the classic rock band on Thu (if our drummer has recovered from the curvid).

That would look awesome with a tort scratch plate 😉

Upsized my little HB 50M board to a Warwick Rockboard 3.2, powered by an HB Iso Pro 12 which comfortably slots underneath: Signal chains Main: Boss WL-20 (wireless) --> Thumpinator (hpf) --> Boss OC5 --> Boss SY200 (+exp. pedal) --> Octava (drive/fuzz) --> HG 4K (drive) --> Zoom B1-4 (multifx) --> 3Leaf Proton Mk4 --> VTDI --> 1/4" out / DI out; Side 1: Beat buddy --> aux in of Zoom B1-4 (=> drums unaffected by most of the fx including the B1-4's own fx); Side 2: VTDI parallel out (clean by-pass) --> Boss RC5.

Yes, Dave, I don't think we book anymore 4 hour bar gigs anymore. Those long hour gigs are no longer realistic for me at age 68. And lucky me, I no longer have to drive to gigs. They pick me up in the van. Two acoustic gigs this weekend. We're opening for a national touring Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band at The Holy Hill Art Farm tonight, 1 hour. Saturday we play the Harley Motor Bar & Restaurant at The Harley Museum Complex Saturday, 5:30-8:00. Blue

My trusty old 92 jazz' neck was like a banana and the truss rod was knackered so I treated it to a new neck, gave it blocks and binding, quite frankly it looks amazing

I'm going to work on those moves!

More pics, hot off the press from Leszek... mid knob info and logo reveal! 😍😍😍

I tried my 34 with the oasis band last week, amp flat, a few tiny tweaks of the eq, and it fitted lovely.

I use one as my main amp. Love it. Nice thick valvey sound. I've never run out of volume playing some big venues through a 4 x 10. You won't regret it!

And here's an article form 1985 with a fairly comprehensive technical description of the cutting process. And two more articles that follow on describing the whole record manufacturing stages.

This one 😀

I'd like to give a big shout out to Sandberg for their awesome customer service. Earlier in the year I bought a B stock Lionel in none more black finish from Thomann and it wasn't until I'd had it a while that I noticed that it was missing the 4 dots in a square logo on the front of the body, kinda their trademark I guess. It didn't really worry me and I assumed that it was maybe because the bass was a B stock. Anyway, curiosity eventually got the better of me so I emailed them and asked if they were missing because of the bass being a B stock and if it was possible to buy a set of dots to retrofit myself. A day or so later I get an apology from one of the Sandberg guys and the promise that he'd send me some free of charge! I emailed back to say that would be great but as I'm in the UK I'd be more than happy to cover costs as it's hardly economical shipping something so small from Germany, but they wouldn't have it! The postman has just delivered an envelope containing 2 sets of silver dots. I appreciate that in the grand scheme of things this is trivial, but how's that for customer service?

Necks on those Hondos are outstanding. 32" scale. But the body is HEAVY! I married the neck of one with the double cutaway body of an Encore short scale, after some jiggery-pokery with the bridge placement.

After 42 years, I finally had a reunion with my first band a couple of weeks ago in a studio in Glasgow. The drummer had both knees replaced, the guitarist with the black Les Paul has Parkinsons and I'm waiting for knee replacements. Didn't work out to bad. A wee bit of Wishbone Ash. I only managed to play for an hour and a half due to RA. The session lasted for 6 hours with my mate taking over bass duties. VID-20220727-WA0001.mp4

The Iris Rover Pogues & Dubliners

There's currently a bargain ABM900 for sale on Facebook if any ABM fans are interested! £150 in Sheffield.

Offshore Banking Business ～ The Members

@nekomatic yep I can solder. I love the woodwork, but crossovers hurt my brain 😁 This is the current state of my project

One of my all time favourites is the Damnation Audio MBD2. I recorded sound samples for three people and they all went and bought one (which is saying a lot as my playing is terrible). Joespedals has them in occasionally. I’m not sure it can be said to not get attention though as it was reviewed by Hondo Felder on YouTube: My favourite at the minute is the Nightowl Parabellum v2. It’s a Nightowl Edison tube preamp and a Dunwich designed distortion. It’s one of the reasons I’ve put several pedals up in the classifieds. I’m not sure they’re on NOI’s website at the moment but I think the manufacturer is selling on Reverb at the time of writing. I also picked up an IdiotBox No Moon recently and that’s crazy, it houses a Big Muff, Rat and Tubescreamer and they all run in parallel, rather than series. I’m a Star Wars nerd, which is why I bought it (and why I’m looking for Cog pedals), but it’s actually good. That makes sense though as the IdiotBox Blower Box is also renowned (and apparently about to be supplemented by a deluxe version).

I would add that most function bands use their own PA’s, unless they are only doing huge events at large / unusual venues where there may be a hired rig available. In my 15 years of playing the function circuit this only happened a handful of times.

my walnut S2...one of the final batch.

The guitarist hates him. Looks like he’s thinking “here he goes. Every bloody night…”

I used to get Carol Kaye to bite my nails down to the quick for me, but when she put her prices up I had to do it myself. Shame, because she had a real flair for it. But I’m not flipping made of money.