Leaderboard

So the Jazz has arrived and snuck in the house and hidden away. Had to get rid of a buzz on the G string but otherwise seems really well put together! I've only had a few Fenders over the years so no expert so not going to make any wild claims but if someone had said it was a Fender for twice the price I wouldn't have thought anything of it. I'm a bit of a sucker for white and gold so I love the look but I did see a pic with a white pearloid scrachplate which looked lovely. Have an empty house later this evening so looking forward to having a wee blast!

To respond to the message I received calling me a liar, here is where the test conditions for normal conditions are defined in the IEC 62368 regulations (for the EU). The input power to be labeled is defined to be the input power under these normal conditions (or greater if the manufacturer chooses a more stringent duty cycle because of the application). For example, for the amps I design for bass and electric guitar, I typically use more than double the minimum required under the regulations but for acoustic guitar it will be a little less than double: Also, may I ask why there's so much rudeness here? For those interested in learning, I'm providing information that most players clearly don't understand or haven't been exposed to. For those of you who don't want to learn, why challenge the facts is such a manner?

Can't afford it, don't need it at all, I already have everything I need. Bought it anyway. headless bass itch well and truly scratched. Series S4000 I believe, serial number is 235... I have no idea how to age it though, any ideas? I had no idea these things were so heavy though! I changed the batteries and one of the connectors fell apart as I unclipped it, so it now has shiny new battery clips but everything else is perfect. Can't wait to wheel it out at a rehearsal.

Buy the best gear you can find. The stuff that just fits, feels right, looks good and sounds like a million dollars. If it's expensive or cheap, just buy it. . . . be happy, and know you're sounding good.

Got my model fet back on the board so naturally had to have a play with signal chain order. And here’s the reassembled board getting some QC from the cat. Forever faffing with pedalboards ✊

That's some super attention to detail in the EBMM aping then

Managed to get the IDE working on my Mac. Didn;t have to download any drivers from an obscure Chinese web site. That was never going to happen Copied all the code across to the IDE, compiled it, uploaded it and blow me down with a feather it works. No drivers setup, but I now have working keypad, screen and Mega 2560. That was rather painless. Suspect the CNC shield and stepper motors will be a lot more hassle.

Snot unusual - T J

How else will they get that "Weak G"? 🙃

Indeed, initially as an 'at home' way of keeping my hand in, but quickly moving on to 'giggable' kits. I now play a Millenium 850, bought in an as-new (still boxed..!) condition for 350€; it has excellent sounds, 'native', but I've coupled it to a laptop running Superior Drummer 3, and it's as good as it gets. The one downside, for me, is not being able to simulate jazz brush swishing with any conviction; other than that, I now play my acoustic (Camco...) to keep my hand in, but rehearse and gig with the e-kit. No complaints here, nor from the band, nor the audience, so...

From reading around on the topic, yeah I assume it must be - but you'd imagine their marketing people would want to turn that into a fancy-sounding feature like "space age lightweight multi-laminate hybrid core" 😆

What's the point of an expensive bass if you don't take it to gigs? An utter waste to play it solely at home. Not only that, what do people think happens to basses at gigs? I've never suffered so much as a nick on any of mine.

What kind of gigs do you play? If you're playing at places where you are fearing for your and your basses safety, I would recommend not doing those gigs in the first place. The cost of replacing my Mike Lull is about £4000. It has been one of my main gigging basses for 12 years. IMO there is no point in owning instruments if you're not going to gig them.

I think a significant difference is that Pino and John Giblin both had a much more formalised and conventional approach to playing bass than Mick Karn. That made them much more suited to mainstream session work than Mick Karn, who's style was probably just a bit too idiosyncratic for some artists and producers.

A heads up, for easily the best strings I've used in decades. Anyone looking to try something new, check them out. My Warwicks, my Thunderbird (main gigging bass) and at least half a dozen of my other basses are fitted with them. Sustain for days, piano like tone and good longevity, even with a sweaty bugger like me, and very reasonably priced. Order well in advance, because they're a small maker in Derbyshire, and it takes a couple of weeks to get them made and shipped. I am in no way affiliated, never met them (although I drive right past them often) and there's nothing in it for me...... just saying. absolutely awesome strings.

The start of another year of Basschat music making, looking forward to it already. Congratulations to Skankdelvar on his excellent victorious cover for the December challenge, but the honour of the picture choice for January fell to @AndyTravis, who won the November challenge, and he gave us this picture ... 'There we go…a nice cheery image for new year 😂' So that's it then , it's time to listen to the entries and vote for your favourite 3 1 @AndyTravis “You’ll be sorry” - basically just the idea of Technology being introduced into everything… Will it take over? 2 lurksalot Happy families , I was hoping for a slight edge to it , but it's come out as a wholesome waltz! 3 @Leonard Smalls I thought I'd celebrate Albert Hoffman's Bicycle Day a bit early this year 😁😎☠️ In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. 4 @Wolfram Ok, here is my horribly unfinished entry - I'm out of time - away for work next week, flying early tomorrow. Imagine this with vocoded robot voice musing on not losing sight of having fun and letting life pulse by mechanically - being more like the children in the photo than the adults. 5 @Doctor J The disintegration of the family unit due to overindulgence in technological quick highs can only be stopped by those who truly value and embrace the human experience... or forget to charge their phones. 6 @SH73 What a shame , a brilliant picture, but will have to leave this one out, not enough time in a day. Unless a 30 seconds intro I started would suffice. Rather than watching rubbish on telly or having an early night, here we go. 7 @upside downer Robot holds kids to ransom and maniac father tries to pay the droid off with an unsuitable offering then threatens violence to the droid who just wants a bit of TLC, or something like that. Warning! Puntastic Chili Peppers outro lyric! 8 @MoonBassAlpha Robots in the picture looking liverish after Christmas. A bit of dubby electronica should cheer them up! There we are then, a quality bunch of tracks that really fit the brief and a great start to the year . Vote for your favourite 3 Voting will close at midnight on 31st January enjoy Lurks

I have been fortunate enough to have owned and gigged expensive custom made basses like Overwater, Fenders, Stingrays, Squiers and a Harley Benton Jazz I got for free. With some small amounts of adjustment almost all of them have been great sounding and playing instruments. At no point has a member of the public commented on my basses, how good or bad they sounded, and none of them made a significant difference to the sound of my band. Yes some fitted better with different genres or tunes but none sounded bad. Two basses stand out over the years. First was a Fender American Standard bass that was total horse-poop and should have been picked out and burned before it left the factory, and it cost over 1k new. The second was a Squier Vintage modified Precision V that I got for under £300 new. That bass was sublime, so much fun to play, looked quite striking in white with a tort guard. I gigged that and smiled all night long while I was playing it. Can’t remember why I sold it to be honest but I have looked for another since. Moral of the story from my perspective; most people don’t give a monkeys about your gear, you can get inspiring and fun instruments at any price point, buy what makes you happy if you can afford it. Losing people had taught me life’s too short to not enjoy the fruits of your labour as long as you can take care of yourself and the people around you.

Saliva and kicking. - Simple minds

this might not be a wood screw at all, if it's a fine thread it might be threading into a metal insert / tee nut, this is common for strap handles. a pic of the screw will show this, if it has a flat end rather than a point then it would suggest that it's a machine screw for an insert. the nut might not be in place but as i'ts likely to be steel it will be stuck to the speaker magnet. I've had a fair few cabs apart and i've never come across a strap handle that wasn't held on with machine screws and Tee nuts. Matt

@agedhorse Thank you for posting that snippet of the Standard. It is now close to 15 years since I retired, and with retirement I lost my access to the Standards Library at work. I should also confess that whilst Audio was the driver that led to my career in Electronics, I spent just about all my working life designing and testing Video products. While having the basic grounding, I don't have the earned experience that you have. In case anyone wants to see the whole standard, it is 425 Swiss francs or approx £400.

Affordaboard makes buying effects a relatively inexpensive bit of fun. My latest dip included this little gem: £25. Delivered. Bonkers. I have it set to give me an always on 'thickening' with just a bit of dirt around the edges. It does get fuzzier if you want it to, and has excellent tone controls. There's no loss of bottom end anyway, but it can be enhanced rather nicely. Pros: looks neat, sounds great, responsive controls, crazy cheap. Cons: stupid placement of power socket, absolutely blinding led.

I really want a Charvel Pro-Mod San Dimas PJ IV. Not practical for me as can only do short scale basses nowadays but love the look of these. https://www.charvel.com/gear/shape/san-dimas-bass/pro-mod-san-dimas-bass-pj-iv/2963068595

Shut up, it was no more than 23 years ago surely

I don’t think I ever turned A off 😅 Well one more thing to try with it 😂

Rent - Pet Shop Boys

King prawn jalfrezi, everyone knows that.

Another repair option: Cut a square(ish, it doesn't need to be precise) piece of ply or similar, place on the underside of the cab top and fix the handle to this. Use a dome-headed machine screw (this will probably look right on the handle), a washer and a nylock nut. No need to fill the existing torn hole and the wooden piece will help spread the load. Good luck. Edit: obviously will only work if there is access and space. If you can't fit in the piece of wood, there may still be room for the washer and nut, though. Further thought: it may be woth taking the preventative step of repeating the process on the other fixing; it would be frustrating if your repair held but then the other end of the handle ripped out.

My First Car - Vulfpeck

well I for one will be very happy to listen through those a few times before casting my vote, top drawer , absolutely top drawer here we go .. anyone late to the party, just PM me and I'll see if I can accomodate Dive in

Bought a few scratchplates & TRC's from Tim for some of my old Faker's. Great service. 👍

I know this gets discussed a lot and there's a handful of really good people out there making custom pickguards... I just wanted to do a little note here for Gig Ink... I think he's on here but can't find the username.... Anyways I have no real affiliation apart from being a paying customer twice over. Once to get a p pickup surround after I'd done some pretty shoddy "routing" and now to get something a bit different for my Stingray. I'll try to do proper pictures in a few days time but this is a mirror pickguard with my band logo engraved on it. It's a bit Phil Lynott without being totally Phil Lynott if that makes sense... And it was turned around very quickly from the original ask so I could have it for a gig this weekend. While I know there's other good quality people out there, I wouldn't hesitate to use Gig Ink again.

Finish on neck and headstock would no doubt add to the price as well.

Here's the leccy kit in action at a low-volume semi-acoustic gig on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Just checked out the Thomann price. £103. Incredible!!!

Be careful though. I did that and fell over as I tried to walk away. 🙂

The mahogany body wings now glued onto the neck and the back is on.

Don't sweat it Horse. I couldn't quite see where he was joining wrong dots so thanks to you and Bill for patiently explaining it yet again. The old clipping kills speakers yarn puts another experienced nose out of joint.

From the vid in the OP, I get the new-to-me impression that Karn: - laid out the essence of the whole song in the bass part (making me hear complete songs when listening to isolated bass only), - left ample space for the other instruments. New to me, and I may have to reconsider, but my respect for him grew even larger now. Tmade me think of Bach's crafty and defining bass parts, but Karn took it up several notches as to the bass part itself. Luvverly stuff, and now I'll have to dig deeper into Japan and his solo output.

It is not what you play. It is what you play I have a great sounding and great playing bitsa bass that would not fetch much more than £150.

Or buy the Harley Benton MV-4MSB Gotoh BM with the higher spec. I love mine.

What a shame , a brilliant picture, but will have to leave this one out, not enough time in a day. Unless a 30 seconds intro I started would suffice. Rather than watching rubbish on telly or having an early night, here we go. Song called Baby Boom. EZ drums, various VST`s and heavily processed robotic singing. The song is about a family swapping a country side life for a rat race concrete build city. Lyrics: I was born through baby boom My life’s been like a hot air balloon My folks swapped our farm for a city Reflecting upon with a pity We swapped our land for a concrete field The rat race life's like a time machine I asked my mother why did we this She said my son, Ich liebe dich Rusted minds have frozen thoughts Our lives became a big fat nought You've dragged me to this so-called Wonderland I can't escape to motherland Baby boom You're living as a Baby boom Baby boom You're struggling as a Baby boom Baby boom You'll soon die as a Baby boom Baby boom Baby boom

Good basses were never cheap. I bought my Fender Precision in 1969 on a deal for £95, but the retail price in the UK was £120. That's about £2400 at today's value. In 1969 a cheap bass was generally unplayable crap. Since the advent of CNC machines, and Asian labour, good basses can be had for a few hundred pounds.

In I go. About the song: The disintegration of the family unit due to overindulgence in technological quick highs can only be stopped by those who truly value and embrace the human experience... or forget to charge their phones. The tech stuff: Mostly done in Reason but a couple of different syths added and then mixed in ProTools

I thought I'd celebrate Albert Hoffman's Bicycle Day a bit early this year 😁😎☠️ In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. For a change we've got proper singing, a touch of rap and a relatively straightforward groove featuring the Wal as both guitar and bass, plus a Strat and a few found samples. Drums programmed with EZ with some Loopcloud drums as well. Keys are AAS, Iris and Clavinet and everything has been first daubed with 196 types of reverb and delay, then liberally rolled in Ozone 9.