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Cheeky little Monday night appearance at The Lamb in Marlborough last night. I used to underage drink here but a few days shy of my 50th, I was quietly confident that'd I'd smash the Think 25 policy that they now have! Another outing for my Thunderbird and I loved the night. My boss came down from my regular job and loved it, plus I must have known about 50% of the people there. We played well and a few locals looked us up on Spotify, which was cool. Doubly cool was that my stepson turned 16 and is a big fan of this band. We got him a band hoodie. Nick, the other half of the band, is also his teacher so I have the dubious honour of actually being his second favourite member of the band!

First outing with new (to me) prog Jazz rock band - all originals. A good evening out with a small but appreciative audience. The usual game of keeping the blunders as well hidden as possible, which for the first time out in this line up we did well. You can just see how we contained our drummer :), the eagle eyed will spot the Barefaced cab - Dubster being used with a fretless Warwick I had forgotten the joys of loading kit into the car, have an early meal, leave home at 5, drive for an hour, setup, play 2hrs +, pack kit up, drive home and sleep..... How did I ever do this when I had to work for a living as well.

Just tried that method. Made a right mess of my Y fronts.

Any excuse to have a P bass day 😁

Just acquired this beautiful pre-loved Panther Special from our own cattytown.

...an accumulation of parts which I hope to put together. Some of you may have noticed I've been trying to acquire some parts. I've managed to find a slab body with a nicely figured top and a Tele bass neck. Nice natural tones so I've been looking for some gold tuners and bridge. Hoping to get some cream/ tan pickup covers. Here are some of the parts I've accumulated so far.

In my experience having owned four, Rics are like girlfriends, always a really good reason why we got together and always an equally good reason why it didn't work out..... Spent my whole life dating Rics, Wals, married a Precision 👍

Been updating/upgrading the little board recently, for when minimal effects are needed and/or lightweight is key. Pretty happy with this for clean tones.

G&L L2000 if you want a few sonic options. G&L L1000 if you need less sonic options. G&L SB-2 if you find a tone knob too much hassle.

Current iteration. Added the C4 and a midi controller in my chain

Cant be - the nut slots on the E and A strings aren't low enough

Has He Who Shall Not Be Named been at it?

Did you not instantly turn into Joe Dart mate? Shocking isn’t it. I found the same with the Marcus Miller Jazz

There was one at Promenade when @lee650 and I went in after a few seaside shandies… I had no “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO BUY IT” - But it was pleasant

Another vote for the classical posture here 👍

It has to be unlined fretless. Not because that's good for rock but because I just think everyone should play unlined fretless 🤣🤣🤣

Jazz is good, neck pickup on full, bridge about 30% and you’re pretty near Precision territory, but it’s of course much more versatile, skinny neck might be off putting. Or maybe a Deluxe Precision - P/J pickups, option of active/passive, def the most versatile basses I’ve used.

Yesterday, I watched a YouTube video that someone had posted on here, where a guy refurbished a MM stingray neck. He applied some solder to each fret and ran the soldering iron up and down the frets to heat them, before removal.

Headphones ? Problem solved

This is normal. It’s a design choice which makes the FI trigger faster. A note-on trigger from the audio input is quicker to calculate than the time it takes to determine the pitch of a note. So, in order to provide fast triggering, the FI plays whatever note was previously played and pitches up or down to the new note as soon as its pitch has been determined. This is great for playing ghost notes on bass but does make octaves a tad frustrating. One suggestion I had made during development was to be able to switch this faster triggering off so that notes only play once pitch has been determined but there was no code space left. (The C4 has two modes, one which prioritises speed, the other which prioritises pitch accuracy.)

Strictly speaking, it’s not really tracking anything at all, which is why it’s fast. There’s no pitch detection in the Boss; it’s adding signal processing to the dry signal received. (The FI by contrast performs a pitch calculation and triggers a DSP oscillator.)

Watco, Swedish oil. The 1st coat of many to come.

Two peoples kindness/generosity in one photo. Firstly @Ricky Rioli for the set of Boomers, gratis, and secondly the guitarist in both of my bands for getting me a little BB for my birthday last week. I've gone rogue Ric and put them on my 734a first to see what they're like. Too early to tell yet but I'll report back. Thank you again. 🙂👍 And further to the 'new BBs aren't real BBs' debate (😉), this is a fantastic bass. I do really like the fat classic BBs but this is also a beauty. What's not to like? Gratuitous pic. 😊

@Burns-bass you hit the nail on the head and thanks for understanding the purpose of this sort video. It’s a very quick overview of how Blues landed in British to set the scene for my bass course that looks in detail at the bass players who were around in the so called ‘British Blues Explosion’ era. it was actually mainly to get the message across that the influences were the African-American Bluesmen as they are sometimes forgotten. Personally I think that’s more important than the other stuff. It was never meant to be an extensive or detailed look at the Blues or Skiffle scene in British so sorry if I offended anyone by leaving their favourites out. It’s a great idea to share anything that anyone thinks is useful to add as I can put those as footnotes in the description. Or maybe make a video on the other areas you mentioned. You might be surprised that it’s harder than you think! This is my first try at making a documentary style video (instead of my usual lessons) and it’s a learning curve so do bear that in mind. I’m very open to positive criticism but also remember that we are all bass players here and share a common goal. It’s easy to fire off a criticism from the comfort of your own armchair but there are real humans at the end of your messages!

Sorry, yeah, I missed that rather important bit off! The Thunderbird has always been my best sounding bass. I did a bass comparison video over lockdown and it was the one everyone singled out (bass sound samples on iphones must be gospel, right?!). So I knew the Thunderbird would sound amazing. Mine is surprisingly light too. The Blackstar was really good. I like the portability (coming from an Orange stack previously) and looks, but tonally it was brilliant. I use a lot of chorus and distortion with the duo (having previously not really used effects on the bass much before) and it does exactly what I want it to do. And thanks. My look is pretty much the same 24/7. I maybe tone it down by about 30% for the day job but otherwise I am dressed the same whether onstage or shopping in the local supermarket. I think my Dad gave up on my phase a couple of decades ago!

Hi everyone! I have recently acquired Antoria hollow body bass which is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm used to seeing the model 1917's from the early seventies, but I cannot find a picture or any information on this particular model anywhere on the web. I think the 1917's were Matsumoko made, but this one seems unlike those. It has Van Ghent tuners for a start, which I have never come across on a Japanese guitar before? I have seen some articles which say Guyatone used to make Antorias before Fujigen/Matsumoku, and also that some were made in Europe as well, but nothing substantive. My feeling date-wise is that it is maybe late sixties, but it's just a hunch. Can any of you give me any more information on it? - it's a sweet old thing and I'm quite fond of it. I believe the colour is genuine. Thanks!

I’ve not written a new bass day post before but if I don’t do it for this bass I’ll never do it. I sold my flat at the end of 2022 and my partner and I are now renting somewhere together (i.e. a home that could house two people and bass gear) while we save for a new place together. I figured that this is probably the only time I’m likely to have the cash balance to justify acquiring my dream bass (even if only for a while) so I went for it. Shortly before Christmas, I was lucky enough to have my prayers/wanted ad answered by a kind member of this forum and acquired my holy grail bass: Please meet the newest member of the family, a beautiful Wal Mk III 5-string with shedua facings. It’s absolutely thunderous and everything I hoped it would be: the preamp is a dream, the B string has the smoothness of my Warwick Streamer’s mixed with the raw aggression of a Stingray, and the gorgeous tiger-esque facings seem to move in the light. I’m sure like many folks on here, I’m a big fan of Justin Chancellor’s playing with Tool (I tried quite hard to avoid saying I am a big Tool fan/fan of Tool there) and the preamp gets me in the tonal ballpark (my playing is miles away from his though, sadly). While not really on topic for the NBD post, I was lucky enough to bump into Justin Chancellor when Tool were in London last year. I was entirely starstruck and stunned into incapacitation for a short while before recovering my senses enough to ask him if he wouldn’t mind signing a wedding card I was carrying for my brother and his now wife as they met owing to a mutual Iove of the band. He was very gracious and my partner and I seem to take it in turns to wear my/her hoodie that he gave to me at the show. Anyway, back to the post… If you happen to see me posting basses and pedals in the classifieds over the next few months, this is the reason why. A big thanks to those that helped make this happen, particularly @dyerseve and @TrevorR. May you all get your holy grails in 2023!

Yes, te Fender Custom Shop Jaco Pastorius was similarly a rip off, I lifted it out of its case with the reverence that it undoubtedly deserved, plugged i in to my B-15 and started playing, and it sounded like some fecking idiot from Kent was playing it

Epiphone Vintage Pro T-Bird

What a quaint idea!

I think that’s it, he looked a little ‘lost’ in the interview - comfortable and uncomfortable sums it up well. He doesn’t seem too sure what to play or what to say. It probably seemed a nice idea at the time, being approached for an interview, then when in the hot seat he looks distinctly uneasy … Probably doesn’t help having seven strings, no frets, no side markers, with a hawk chasing a rabbit as your only reference point!

Sometimes you just need to play more than one instrument! Thanks to Ableton Live here's piano, bass violin and Chapman Stick in one seamless, unedited live performance. Enjoy! Kevin

I quite liked him, he's an odd mix of comfortable and uncomfortable in that video, I wonder if he was simply having a bad case of stage fright in part because he's found himself a little out of his depth doing that interview? I'd happily sit and have a few beers with him 👍

Ever have that feeling when you thought what you had down so far was actually pretty good, take a break from it for a couple of days, listen back and it's like... "what were you thinking?" My daughter's kind assessment: "You could use it to test people's hearing. Play it, and if they put their hands over their ears, their ears are working." Back to the drawing board I guess!

No debate for me, I don't like the new ones. Having had several older, tubbier ones (BB300, BB350F, BB450, BB614) I had a BB434 and honestly it left me cold, it just didn't have the right BB feel to me. Glad you like yours and I'm not going to say churlish stuff like they're not "real" BBs (they clearly are, officially, BBs), but I'm on the lookout for older ones now.

This! A good set of studio grade (meaning FRFR) headphones with a decent cab sim in front is going to do a much better job at representing the sound of the bass, and at a lower cost, than any decent 1 x 8" cab.

Great job! 👍 looks much happier now 😊

£20 to get your bass ( and any other kit over a year ) advertised to the largest UK pool of bass players. Bargain in anyone's money. I looked at the kit I used on Friday's gig: bass, pickups, straplocks, machine heads, strings, sansamp, tuner and cab. All BC purchases

Have you watched the video now? This is a basic primer, not an exhaustive list. It’s a very general gloss over the key points. As I said, if you’ve got constructive stuff to add then that’s great. But hanging the bloke out isn’t the community spirit we should aspire to on here. It’s not particularly accurate site, but it’s a brief intro. It would be easy to add a slide at the end of the video or description in the links of where someone can go for a day by day breakdown of what Eric Clapton had for breakfast each day in the 60s.

Not one but two shows over the weekend. My little 80s goth duo loaded up the car with our surprisingly large amount of equipment for a duo and headed back out to The Barge in Honeystreet... I was pleased because I had also decided to dust down my Thunderbird and bring it back out of retirement. In addition, my Blackstar amp would be getting its first outing in a live setting. The Honeystreet set was a lot of fun. We took the slightly ambitious punt on doing the Jim Steinman produced Sisters of Mercy classic "This Corrosion" as a duo. Against all odds, I think the audience picked up on us meaning business so it went down well. Saturday was an old school friend's 50th and having cleared half the pub with the loudest intro music ever (must check the levels next time!) - from the Lost Boys soundtrack's Cry Little Sister, we set about playing a load of original stuff from our forthcoming debut. Playing to the few people who were really getting into it, we then slowly won the crowd over with a few well chosen covers. We then dropped the kit back home, went for a curry and drank our own bodyweight in lager. The highlight of my night was being approached by a guy off his head on cocaine who told me I "dressed like a pimp". Apparently now if I have any problems in Devizes, he will sort them out for me. To be honest, I wasn't anticipating any problems but it's great to have that one in reserve.

Funnily enough, when I first took up bass guitar as a teenager, my first actual amp was a Marshall JCM800.