Leaderboard

This actually arrived on Friday, but I thought I'd wait until I'd fitted a Babicz 3-point bridge and set it up with Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats before posting a NBD. I finished setting it up today and now it really feels like it is mine. This was secondhand but in mint condition — the previous owner hadn't even taken the plastic film off the pickguard and truss rod cover. It still had the stock strings. which I guess were nickel rounds and sounded new and zingy. I have replaced the stock bridge which to be honest is only a pain in the rear when you remove strings and the saddle falls out. I decided to go for a babicz after initially favouring a hipshot. This decision was based mostly on how well it fitted in visually and I don't think it has changed the tone much if at all. The faded Pelham Blue finish looks really good and there isn't a single chip, scratch or dent anywhere on the bass. The tone seems brighter than my Epiphone vintage Pros, but that could be due to the strings being new. With the neck pickup soloed it sounds huge. I particularly like the hipshot tuners which are really smooth in use and I think the mini clover shape and the chrome hardware look considerably better than the Y tuners and black hardware on Gibson's current reverse thunderbird model.

I bought this last week, and I just got around to cleaning it and setting it up… ’90s Korean Aria GTB II J. Pretty tatty on collection, but the seller assured me it sounded amazing, and all was well with the neck etc…. he was correct Having just spent an hour working on it, new (old but newish) strings (yes they need trimming down a bit) put on it, cleaned and oiled etc, it’s a belter. Fantastic pickups, very jazz like, but very bright and punchy. I really do love these 90s Aria pickups, they’re very potent and very clear as they are on all my old Aria basses. My Integra 4 string, very similar to this, is also a beast. Not light, but not heavy, just a sold piece(s) of wood. I saw it on Gumtree and knowing what I know, I had to add it to the stable, I beat a lot of folks to it apparently, there was a bit of a queue by all accounts. It was £50. 👍🏻

It's back! New frets, new nut, a shim in the neck pocket and the holes for the neck screws redrilled and it's absolutely brilliant now. What an amazing bass. Love it.

Put together a couple of pedalboards over the last couple of days: A kinda secondary ‘fly-board’ to my main board: This is somewhat in flux as I figure out the spacing and what I can manage to fit. The OC2 will likely change for an MXR Octave Deluxe, love the OC2 for recording, but for live use, the MXR is huge sounding. The Flashback has a Chorus toneprint on it, my OCD would like a Corona Chorus in there (or some other 1590a bass chorus perhaps, basically not a ‘Delay’ pedal), but it would just be chucking money after something to do exactly the same sound haha. The COG 66 will almost certainly be swapped for a Fuzz, and pretty sure I can fit a 1590B pedal there, so plenty of choice. Powered by a Cioks Sol. Second board is one for a metal project I’m trying to learn some tunes for, may as well get the sounds right to practice them to: The MXR compressor is supreme, these Studio Compressors are exactly the same as the Bass Compressor, just a different box. And the Fuzzrocious Cat Tail (with Clean Blend) is just awesome into the v1 Sansamp. Powered by a small Diego thing. I want to get a EBS 4-port power daisy chain….just because the ones here really stick out. Both are Pedaltrain Nanos. Si

I'm sure if you went to the dole office and told them you were down to one bass you would find out you were entitled to some benefit or other. That is, as long as you could prove you were actively looking for another one.

As part of the learning experience, I've spent the last 2-3 days fighting one of my Prusa's trying to work out why the quality of printing was junk and failed constantly, checked the heated bed, checking the Z level, checking PrusaSlicer, doing probably around a dozen calibration prints and they looked like crap, I finally found the issue. I'd accidently set the nozzle to be 0.6mm rather than 0.4mm. As this setting was buried in the HW setting menu, I'd forgotten to change it back when I pulled the 0.6 nozzle off and put a 0.4mm nozzle on. I remember doing it but only on the second printer not the first. Putting this here so other people can learn from my mistakes. Also at the same time a Pi Zero has started playing up and was disconnecting, could be power, could be dodgy cable, could be goblins, could be anything, so thats now gone and a Pi 4 is in it's place. Overkill but I have a few spare ones and I just have received a new Pi 5 to play with. The nice thing about Raspberry Pi's is that changing the Pi Zero to a Pi 4 took around two mins. Power down, pull the SD card out the Pi Zero, put in Pi 4 and reboot. That was it, and it now seems to work OK. Finishing off the last two prints for the body of the guitar now, should be finished around 23:00 tonight. Then need to do the wiring and putting strings on. I have already thought about V2 of this and also a V1 bass guitar. We'll see if this plays well enough to justify V2 and a V1 bass. Rob

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I should have an ABM 600 IV tomorrow which I'm picking up from another member of this forum. Can't wait to get to rehearsal and turn it up loud

Consonant Craving - KD Lang

Can't believe I've never shared this photo. 1966 Jazz - refin (very old), refret, no case 1971 Precision - pretty old refin, refret, original case, no original covers 1970 Jazz - refret, refin, new pots, non-original case Absolutely pretty bleedin' fantastic instruments, all three. The blue Jazz just got a big restoration (new frets, shim, new neck screw holes), the white one has the best neck I've ever played.

Absolutely you are - why on earth would you want to play to an empty venue for practically no money. Unless you wanted the practice I dont see why you would want to do it. Day one.

I misread your username as @TheGreek and spat out my coffee all over the keyboard

Happiness - Ken Dodd

Generally written by someone that happens to have the same gear and wants the price/demand to stay high for when they offload it!

Mentioned a few months back that I'd been thinking of replacing the stock preamp on my Yamaha BB 2005. Partly 'cos it felt a little "tired" but also because I was making zero use of the Nathan East ('NE') mid-cut on it. Ended up going for an Aguilar OBP-3 with a push-pull mid frequency selector, which gives a choice of 400Hz or 800Hz for the mids: the former seems to give more mid punch; the latter is "sweeter" tonally. Early days, but I think I'm liking it. I've gotten so used to either leaving the bass EQ flat or cutting it slightly, that it was a surprise to find that I'm really liking giving the bass EQ a slight boost, which seems to add a real weight to the low end, without being boomy - but that's maybe the combination of having an HPF built into my Zoom B1-4 patches to cut out low end "crud". As the NE selector switch was going spare, I asked Gary Mac of this parish who was doing the work on it, to make use of it as an active/passive switch which will give me added peace of mind if the battery ever goes flat mid gig. Gave it a spin last Thursday night down at Kingston market with the band - was a fun gig!

I'd say do what you all feel is right for your band. Years ago when I was in an originals band (you know, the one that made me hugely famous, stinking rich and dripping with laydeez) we had a rule that we'd play anywhere, for anyone and for any reason. We did some fabulous gigs and some real shockers. I learned a lot, drove a lot, fought a lot and acted like a complete knob a lot. However, as a proper grown-up in a covers band I like to think I'm a bit more discerning. We've done freebies (for the right reasons, of course) and turned down a couple of gigs which we felt wouldn't do us too many favours. The one thing I would say is that if you don't stand to gain what you want from a gig, be that payment, fun, exposure or whatever, then don't play it.

Thanks for everyone's input into my amp choices. I'm the proud owner of an RM 500 Evo ii.

This was mine. First my mini rig which is a Warwick Gnome I Pro 280 and TC Electronic 208 cab. Next is my larger rig which is a Mark Bass Little Mark IV and a Barefaced Two10.

Just on the precious PA owners being bass-shy, the busiest of my gigging bands uses two RCF 2-way 15s (745s, IIRC), no subs, and absolutely everything goes through them: vocals, guitar, me, drums (5 mics on the kit), bongos/congas (don't ask), the lot, without backline, and we're always, always too loud for even big pubs - the BL/Singist/Geetard/PA Owner is of the 'If it doesn't sound right turn something up' school of mixing, and possibly thinks attenuation is something soldiers stand to: I'm constantly telling him to turn the mains down, while I'm looking at wincing punters*.... Anyhoo, point being those 2 x 2-way RCF 15s of ours can absolutely deafen even a large pub, so they'll handle the bass without breaking a sweat... * I have my inears in, and the volume control set to 'Ohhhhh, that's nice and clear and not very loud'...

The fact that Thomann don't mention that this amp is suitable for bass should ring warning bells. I did some searching, and found a discussion by some German bass players with actual experience of the unit. One person carried out and published measurements. Unsurprisingly (to @warwickhunt at least), the tone controls are an octave higher than one would like for bass. The Bass control is centred at 160Hz, for example, and Mid at 1.2kHz. Also interesting to know, the unit contains high and low pass filters that alter the frequency response according to output level. Bass is reduced as output is increased. I can see how that would work for guitar. According to the measurements, the unit does produce 200W into 4 ohms and 100W into 8 ohms with 1% distortion. However, at maximimum output, the high pass filter starts at about 150Hz and is 12dB down at 40Hz. The frequency response looks OK up until 25W. The consensus was that it's OK for home practice for bass, but the variable filters make it unusable for anything else.

Finally all back in the house.

Bogie Wonderland — Earth Wind & Fire

I've got a different problem - being stuck in a rut of listening to the same stuff I've always listened to. So it's not that I can't listen to stuff I used to like anymore, it's that I can't stop listening to stuff I used to like (and continue to do so) at the expense of new stuff.

If you're an original band then the more gigs the merrier, even if there's not much money involved. But if you're a cover band then the golden rule is never play for less than you feel you're worth, because that sets a precedent for your own band and other bands (i.e. that all bands will play for peanuts). So I think you made the right decision.

For my birthday my brother got me a set of six excellent enamel badges in the shape of basses. All executed accurately: Ricken*****r Precision Jazz Yamaha BB Musicman Thunderbird The individual boxes are little flight cases! "Geepins"

Wichita lineman - Glen Campbell

Snort unusual - Tom Jones

But if that's 4-, 5-, and 6-string basses, you already have six!

There's always "Sorry, we're already committed to something else on that date", which will bizarrely get cancelled...

One Bass is fine, I like getting really used to just playing one. Lots of famous players seem to have stuck with one or two. I don't see much point in having loads that are similar all set up in a similar way,it's a bit like a stamp collection. ....although in an ideal world I'd like one for each special task: one for slap (stingray with low action light and bright roundwounds), one for Reggae (Jazz with tapewound), one for soul (Precision with flatwounds), one for punk (Precision with roundwounds), and perhaps a fretless, an acoustic, and 5 & 6 string multiscale ones. So I would end up with about 10!

I was at one bass at one point. I think I was about 14 years old.

I have huge gas for one of these beautiful basses, a fretless Shuker Artist Series. Does anyone have one? Jon has made me a couple of fretless necks in the past so I know the amazing quality and high standard he produces but I adore the look of this bass.

The flip side is a lot more people attend than you expected, and an 'influencer' type walks in an posts positively about you to thousands of people. I'm not sure everything I listed can be done in rehersals - experiencing/learining about different sounds/setups for different live rooms, getting good at set up/pack down and learning to bring along the right gear for each eventuality, getting more comfortable and confident playing in different venues and in front of different people and all types of situation, and of course - playing live as a band and learning good stage presence and audience interaction. I dunno, I think that's all valuable experience that can't really be replicated in a rehersal room (that you have to pay for) and the positives generally outweigh the negatives. Each to their own though, there's no right or wrong answer.

If you're going secondhand, I recently bought an Ibanez Axstar fretted 4 string. Sounds great, the body is comfy sitting or standing and it hangs straight as it has an upper horn. Very slim neck and quite close string spacing, feels very well built. But pretty rare so might not be easy to find...

Mama's Trippin' ～ Ben Harper

Haha, you're not wrong! £39 for fish & chips and £10 for half a lager!! Fortunately we had food provided (which was an unexpected treat) by the wedding couple who very kindly looked after us.

Wasn't expecting medals. I'm merely realising that I used to be a voracious consumer of new music and nowadays I just DGAF.

A positive for doing it: It can be useful to see how your gear does at gig sound levels, in a no pressure environment.

This. No point or reward in playing in a toilet to a bunch of animals who hate you. It won't be like a public or paid rehearsal - you can't stop in a number/go back and do it again to perfect it, etc. If you get a lot of negativity, you'll probably end up miserable and feeling you're doing it wrong when in reality, it's just wrong place, wrong time. Not worth the grief.

Exactly ! You didn't go the ice cream van and ask for 'A 1100011 please !', did you ?

I would look at this as a paid rehearsal and take the gig. Also, if you've only had 4 gigs, it is a good opportunity to practice & improve the efficiency of your set up and strip down time, sound check etc etc. We normally pay £40/£45 for a rehearsal space for the evening, and have to use the provided rehearsal room equipment, so Id look at it as an opportunity to have a rehearsal with your full band set up and PA etc. I am always of the opinion that you never know who might be in a crowd (even if its sparse) and who might want to book you for a wedding, party etc in the future.

I’m in Love With a German Phlegm Star - The Passions

You don't need to do anything as drastic as that. Just use a single-edged razor blade or a Stanley knife blade as a scraper: - Use it two-handed for best control (my right hand was taking the picture! ) - scrape the surface up from fret to fret moving progressively from one side to the other, repeating until you are happy with it - use medium pressure first to scrape any finish off and then, if necessary, the wood below to scrape out any ingrained dirt, dips and dints Generally, the dots,whether synthetic or natural, will be cooperative to this treatment so just carry on as though they weren't there: And, honestly, you can't overdo it. You would be having to do it for hours non-stop before affecting any of the fret security or strength When it's all done, vacuum all the dust away and then add whatever your preferred finish is (I use either decent quality lemon oil or tru-oil just wiped on and buffed off) Except for maple fret-boarded Fenders, where they fully gloss the fretboard, I do this ROUTINELY when I am doing a full setup on basses and guitars -. It makes the fretboard look new and it only takes me about 15 minutes for the full fretboard. But, of course, don't rush it on your first go!

That's all very well and good when you're a teenager jacked up on Preludin. Time is on your side then and you probably don't even think about it. This grumpy 47 year old bassist doesn't like travelling for hours, spending an hour each end of a complete waste of time to set up/tear down gear then travelling for hours to little net effect other than the complete and utter waste of several hours of this dwindling resource that is time. I've probably used over half of what I've got up now, so I will be more picky about how I use the remainder.

It wouldn't be the playing to a mostly empty room that would bother me the most. It would be humping all the gear in, setting it all up, breaking it down and lugging it out again. That's a good couple of hours on its own.

You have it covered for the meantime but for future reference it's pretty easy to figure out what each cable is doing if you have a multimeter. The rough way would be plug in and see what the voltage is coming out the output. A power doubler will have the same as the input. A voltage doubler will have.... yup. More brain involvement way would be to check the continuities of the plugs at each end. Power doubler has everything in parallel at the input, centers and barrels. Voltage doubler puts the one up the other in series. The centre of one input side will be continuous with the barrel of the other side. The other two will be continuous with their respective output ends.

I want that to be some sort of bakery/florist combo.

VERY nice. Some great choices there!

Love the Dickies version of the theme tune. I’m having it at my funeral!

Gary Glitter Lost Prophets Bay City Rollers