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First time back after more than 10 years.. Love that Ashdown sound..

Hi all For anyone interested, I’ve been breaking down some of Mick Karn’s bass lines note-for-note. I plan to get to them all, but so far, it’s mostly Japan era stuff. I take the time and research them to be as accurate as possible. I hope they’re of use to some of you. Cheers!

The plan is for a laminated through neck of beech & mahogany (what I had to hand) which was started yesterday and the body wings will hopefully be a poplar core with walnut top and bottom. I already have the poplar left over from the dismantled piano and need to source some walnut. This will hopefully end up being the thinnest build I have done, looking at between 24-28mm, should help keep the weight down and it will have one pickup with volume & tone control. This may take a while compared to my usual builds (average time has been 6 weeks start to finish). Funds are non existent, so parts will be as and when money comes in, and in the meantime it is a case of using what I have to hand. I am planning on making a pickup for this, already done a test pickup with thicker wire stock taken from an old extractor fan which only had enough for 2000 winds (completely hand wound...), it worked well but had a very low output and would require a preamp to boost it. I may well use the test pickup in a future build with a preamp, but will need to buy some wire for this one. I may even try making a humbucker. The through neck pieces were cut to size, squared and glued together yesterday. Then this morning I glued on the 'ears' for the headstock (lots of squeeze out 😒), did a quick sketch of the body shape and after removing the clamps I tried it in position with the rough body shape cut out of cardboard. The shape may change, but the main purpose was to work out the upper horn positioning to end above the 12th fret location for balance. After giving the 'ears' enough time to dry I set about cutting the headstock angle at 9 degrees. After that I glued the cut-off to the back of the headstock to provide enough thickness across the length and then set about working out string positions based on 17mm string spacing at the bridge and a 38mm nut so that I could do the positions of the tuners and get a basic shape sketched in for the headstock. Will get the basic headstock shape cut tomorrow morning and see what else I can do after that.

Got 62 weddings and 3 corporates in the diary for 2023 at present. That should go up to around 90 gigs by the end of the year. We have put prices up a touch but the problem is that people tend to book us up to 2 years in advance so it can take a long time before we see that price increase take effect. Not complaining though. Just signed all the contracts for a NYE gig on a beach in the Maldives.

That was probably a promoter cashing in on the name. When John McVie wouldn't leave John Mayall, Peter Green decided to put an ad in Melody Maker, which I answered. I believe I was the first person to audition. I was 17, still at school and wasn't half as good as I thought I was! Peter Green's mum would have played better than I did that day. Bob Brunning got the gig on the understanding that McVie would replace him if he ever changed his mind, which he did 3 months later.

So I've been looking for a short scale bass for my son as a deserved "upgrade" from his Ibanez Mikro, he's been putting the time and effort in and showing progress and real enjoyment from playing. The Sire u5 seem to be on pre-order everywhere so I've been checking daily on various sites for a second hand one, specifically I was after the tobacco burst colour way. 11pm on Thursday I spot one on Facebook marketplace, turns out it's in the same County but not close, I asked if their was a way of getting it to me and by sheer coincidence they were planning on seeing friends in the town I live in on Sunday...but they would want a deposit as they'd had a lot of interest..I took the gamble & paid £100 through PayPal.. Had a couple of long days wondering if it was too good to be true but 3pm on Sunday met a lovely couple, the husband was the bassist looking to buy something else & selling the Sire, in immaculate condition. Very happy!😊

Atmosphere - Joy Division... or the Russ Abbot cover.

Here’s a non-sunburst and tort bass for your delectation 😎

Side note here ～ while I personally feel that Rick² maybe could have waited a while and shared his geographical goodness out over a larger period, I also think that his post was a wake-up call to folks who insist on posting the same songs again and again over fairly short spans, therefore throwing this entire thread into a series of repeats. Basically a request to those folks; FFS use some imagination, widen your musical tastes or, if all else fails, use Google to beat JLP to more Residents obscurity. As you were 🙇🏼‍♂️

I'm hearing a lot of panic from promoters and the like, and we have had a couple cancelled due to low sales, but every gig I've played seems to be as well attended as I expect. We've got loads in for 2023

Apologies but started and finished this list one afternoon when a country thread almost happened. It didn't but I still did it anyway as was at a loose end. Might be a few laughs for you.... Think the first one fits as "Bananas are one of Belize's most prized industries. They are available all year round in Belize and can be found at any fruit stall or local farmer's market" so t'internet says.... I Belize In A Thing Called Love - The Darkness Never Ghana Give You Up - Rick Astley Greece is The Word - Bee Gees Hungary like The Wolf - Duran Duran India Navy - Village People Heaven Kuwait - Iron Maiden Footlaos - Kenny Loggins NorWay - Stormzy No Quatar - Led Zeppelin Bruneid Girl - Van Morrison Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Bahrain - Beach Boys Olivers Armenia - Elvis Costello and The Attractions Bolivias Army - Elvis Costello and The Attractions Tomoroccow Never Knows - Mopheads / 801 Pulling Mussels From Seychelles - Squeeze Somaliathing That I Said - The Ruts Southafricabound - Thin Lizzy No Sudan Movement - Five Finger Death punch What Suriname? - Lynyrd Skynyrd Haiti Say I Told You So - The Hives Swedenest Thing - U2 Thailand Your Mother Down - Queen Wake Me Up Before You Togo - Wham What Uganda Do? - Bastille Yemen With The Child In His Eyes - Kate Bush Tonguea - REM Come Up And Syria Me, Make Me Smile - Cockney Rebel Nice & Slo venia - Usher Serbia Duke - Stevie Wonder After The Gold Russia - Neil Young Ten Foot Poland - Z Z Top Pappa New Guinea Was A Rolling Stone - The Temptations Nepal To The Bottle - Grace Jones Moldova Old Dough - Lieutenant Pigeon Mauritius Than Words - Extreme Mali's Making Eyes At Me - Lena Zavaroni Malaise en Malaysia - Vanessa Paradis Lichenstein It Up - Kiss Do You Kenya John Peel - Trad It'lly Be OK - Shawn Mendes I'lland Be There - Jackson 5 Sweet Talking Guyana - The Chiffons Grenada - Bruno Mars Germany Free Adolescents - X-Ray Spex The Gamblia - Kenny Rogers Ice Cuba Kills - Cypress Hill Black Crowatia - Jamiroquai Voodoo Chile - Hendrix Can The Canada - Suzi Quattro Sell Me A Coat D'Ivoire - David Bowie The Bells of Benin - Lone Star Barbiedos Girl - Aqua San Marino - Peter Gabriel Antigua Music - Adam and The Ants Hells Belarus - AC/DC These Bhutans Made For Walking - Nancy Sinatra Czech Book - Dr Feelgood Dominico - Jesse J Ecuadorius - The 5th Dimension ( Hair ) You Can Call Me Al Salvador - Paul Simon Georgia Of The Jungle - Weird Al Yankovic Black Iceland - AC/DC D'Yer Maker - Led Zeppelin Monty negro Got A Raw Deal - REM Never Neverlands - Todd Rundgren Front Page Newsealand - Wishbone Ash Little St Nickaragua - The Beach Boys Only A North (Kor)ean Song - Mopheads again Man Oman - The Impressions Crackerbox Palace tine - George Harrison A Girl In Every Port ugal - Sir Cliff Little Drumania Boy - Bing & Dave Something For The Spain - Bon Jovi

Similar to others here: I started bass at fifteen and an old rocker came to our house to do some work and asked where my guitar was. He couldn't understand someone only playing bass and he advised me to learn guitar so I understand how chords work. Well... I got a guitar two years later and very quickly picked up all the standard open chords. Has it made me "understand how chords work" more than twenty years later..... No. What it has given me is a different outlet when I'm getting tired of bass, and when in a band situation and we are playing new songs I recognise a lot of chord shapes the guitarists are making so I can jam along... Which we even do live when reacting to requests. I find acoustic guitar more satisfying to play, though I struggle beyond open chords, and I find electric guitar a bit easier and more expansive in that I can do a lot more than open chords and use effects and things.

Mine came with Bartolini from new. Don't know if it was an option or not as it was a B stock from Andertons because it had a fairly large chip in the finish. I digress sorry. I love the sound of it with the barts but have never played another one so can't tell you difference. From what I have seen others have said it is a softer or warmer sound with barts than emg's. The barts are a different configuration as well being soap bars

I'd say it's a good idea to learn guitar even if you stick with bass as your primary instrument. It's good for learning to understand chords and harmonisation. It's good for songwriting (unless you want to write bass-driven songs of course) It's good for singalongs and similar situations.

IMO the European Spector basses are great quality for a production line made instrument. Fantastic fit, finish, workmanship. Can't really fault them. I think you get an awful lot for your £££ compared to Fender/Gibson stuff.

A quick backstory behind this project . I use a Markbass 801 for rehersals with small acoustic folk band . I love it for its sound and form factor , a lot easier than schlepping a head , cab , cables etc . For outside performances that need more volume , I have been using a homemade 112 cab and TC electronics BQ250 . I though I would combine both ideas and made myself a bigger , louder combo , like the Markbass on steroids . The Celestion BN12 - 300S 4 ohm speaker was robbed from the cabinet , and a new cabinet made . 16in cube made from 9mm ply that was laying around , laminated in parts for strength but still remarkably lightweight . Rear ported and the TC BQ250 built in . Fitted with a DI XLR socket with a ground lift wired in . The cab was designed to be resonant at 41Hz and plugged it in this afternoon and was blown away by the volume and tone . 17.2kg - 38lb . Heavier than I thought but still lighter than the original cab that was all timber .

As many of you know I have been making cables for some on BC since OBBM retired. Now like all things simple, the leads that connect us are more complex than meets the ear. I am happy to discuss on a 121 basis with anyone but wondered if an in-depth thread on cables and connectors would be useful. To me many things are second nature but I have had cases where players that spend £thousands on their bass/amp/cab combo will use a cheap and nasty cable. Of course it will be my opinion, but I have acquired a great deal of experience Audio connectors and cables over the years. I could tell you why I won’t use some brands and where I think Snake Oil is being peddled. However if dad ole me is the only one interested I will just go and cuddle some Neutriks.

So a new pedal day, an Ashdown Geezer Butler Pedal of Doom. Now I’m not a particular fan of Geezer or Black Sabbath but am a big fan of Ashdown and this pedal looked on paper to do what I want - that is one good clean Ashdown tone, with the ability to add in a touch of drive/gain. And it does! At nearly £300 it’s not cheap, but it does have two separate channels each with their own independent eq (apart from shared treble) plus the Doom which can be applied on each so essentially four different sounds available. But the main reason for getting this was having a preamp/DI that could give me that lovely Ashdown tone for gigs where the rig is provided, as I’ve found recently that although I’ve used Tech21 gear for years my ears have gone off it, preferring more traditional amp sounds. I’m yet to use it in a band setting, I do have gigs on Thu & Fri but I’m using my ABM600 for those so I won’t have a chance to use it with a band before the return period is up so I’m gonna have to make sure I’m totally satisfied with it, but first impressions are good.

Had trouble with an unopened return... I changed my mind on colour and ordered another... Problem was with DHL, return was via a UK holding house... Refund is meant to be when they receive and check the item. I explained that i never opened the box, and delay was DHL etc. out or my hands, to be fair not their issue either but they refunded me. Email exchange was all good.

They're superb. I buy all my stuff from Thomann. I'm fact I've had a delivery today. I've also returned a couple of things, one bass and one electric drum kit, purely because I didn't like them. Absolute no problems.

The excellent 'Incesticide' by Nirvana, in particular this banger:

Little fluffy clouds - The Orb

The BQ250 has a thermal cutout . Let me try a real world scenario later this week and I promise I will get back to you . To please #downunderwonder I will even turn it on its side and check the temperature of the upper port .

Agree entirely. Somehow it is even more irritating when they are just out enough to require some woodwork but so little that you have to be really careful how much wellie you give it.

And what exactly is wrong with keytars?

@40hz thanks for sharing your experience, sad to hear though. I have to say, that despite all the things I reported here, the bass sounds and feels really good. but again, as @Ralf1e was saying, this shows the lack of quality control more than anything else. things should be consistent within an acceptable tolerance. (without trying to blame guitarguitar) at the same time, I'm surprised that at the shop nobody noticed these things though. I believe they should check the goods and report issues like these.

Wow, that is quite a list and all important, I can only add type of construction of the connectors and the difference between unbalanced and balanced connections. The question is how much detail? I suppose if I touch on everything briefly, people can ask for more information if they need it.

A little off-topic, but been trying something new out with the Earthquaker Devices Swiss Things over on my guitar board. However, hit a bit of a technical glitch. For reference, signal chain as follows: Guitar in - - Loop 1: wah and overdrives - Volume controlled via expression pedal between loop 1 and 2 - Loop 2 - modulation, delay, reverb - output - Tuner on a separate buffered output. I‘m getting what appears to be a feedback loop in loop 1 when using certain combinations (not all combos) of pedals. High-pitched noise that shifts frequency when adjusting wah or most of the overdrive controls. Everything individually seems to work perfectly fine. It’s only with certain wah/drive combos that I have the issue. This stops when I put a buffered pedal (eg the tuner) in front of the Swiss Things. Also doesn’t occur if all the pedals are just in one or the other loop. Could just keep them all in one, but loses the point of getting the volume pedal out of the signal path and between the drives and the delay/reverb. Any tips out there? I‘ve messaged Earthquaker Devices, but haven’t had anything back from them yet, and not getting anything from the guitar forums…

The ABM600 is a cracking amp, I’m loving mine so far, but, if you’re using one of the programmable Darkglass pedals like the ADAM/Photon/Infinity, do you need an amp? If the pedal is going to be always on and taking care of all your tone shaping, you could just use a small power amp.

Other guitarists with finger injuries include Jerry Garcia and Tony Iommi. Its amazing how people can adapt and continue to make music.

Django Reinhardt did more than ok with just 2 fingers.

Not a Euro or US made, but I own a Spector Legend Classic 4 that has Bartolini PJ by default and I think it sounds really good. It's mellower than the classic Spector EMG sound, but has common traits for sure. It's as if it's a bit more vintage (despite being and sounding like an active bass). Getting back to the main topic (Are Spector Bass Great Basses?), I'd like to add my 2 cents based on my experience with a Korean made. While I do appreciate I never played a Euro or US made one, I can say that the Legend Classic punches way above its weight. It is really well made, I didn't find a single defect on it, the finishing is great and it just sounds great. It was new at Bass Direct for less than 500£ and it definitely sounds like a way more expensive bass. The only thing, it took me a while to get used to the Tone Pump Jr (mainly because pots aren't centre notched), but not because I didn't like it, instead simply because it is different from any other pre I ever played with (also I mainly had passive basses in my life). It does boost your lows and highs quite a lot (12/16 dB I think). Here's also a video with a Euro fitted with Bart pups

Yes. 16 now. It is a thing of truly extraordinary beauty. If I had bought a bass of this quality, second hand, for double what I paid, I would have felt guilty. It's not as light as my other HBs but thankfully not as heavy as my other HB Jazz. A comfortable weight. But oh my goodness it looks so nice

If it were me, I’d spend the money on a soldering iron and figure out how to do it myself. Alternatively, buy a solderless wiring loom and replace that at the same time. Dead easy.

He is a huge talent, but sorry, Peter Green made Fleetwood Mac.

After owning literally 100s of Pedals this is my current pedalboard! Obviously most individual pedals are better at their individual jobs, but most individual pedals on their own cost more than the Zoom, and played through an amp & cab competing with a band of other musicians it is difficult to hear much difference. All things considered for home practice and band practice this is convenient and sounds fine - fits in gig bag and runs off batteries, aux in, drum loops, looper, overdrive, effects (and option to quickly re-order them), eq, comp, tuner. Cheap but reasonably tough and reliable enough. My biggest issues with it are how difficult it is to see what the logos of effects represent in stomp mode - this photo is roughly what it looks like stood over it. It needs something like a big 'O' for overdrive, 'C' for chorus etc. And as with most multi fx it isn't obvious how the parameters of each effect are set without a bit of button pressing. Those two things mean there is potential for mistakes that are less likely with individual pedals. It's mostly for those reasons that I'd prefer a more surefire individual pedal setup for live stuff. If I had the spare £ and didn't mind dealing with the bulk/transport hassles this is the full pedalboard I'd want (I have owned almost all of these at some point): Board: Gator G-Tour Large £190 Power: Strymon Zuma £240 Tuner: D'Addario £60 Octave: Aguilar Octamizer £120 Phaser/Flanger/Chorus: Source Audio Gemini £150 Synth: Source Audio C4 £270 + Disaster Area Micro controller £150 Preamp/Overdrive - Distortion: Creation Audio Grizzly Bass £200 Preamp: One Control Crimson Red £110 Fuzz: MXR Brown Acid £130 Envelope Filters: MXR M82 £110 & Moog MF 101 £300 Compressor: Cali 76 £270 Delay & Reverb: Boss RE 202 £330 Switcher: Boss ES 5 £420 Looper/Drums: Boss RC 5 £200 EQ/DI: Tech 21 Q-Strip £300 .........nothing particularaly exotic there, but total cost (new) = £3,440 vs £65 for the Zoom B1-Four which does an alright aproximation of most of those pedals so the Zoom wins for the time being.