Leaderboard

Three gigs for me this week. First of two with ‘The ELO Experience’ was at Newark on Friday. A fine medium sized theatre that we’ve done annually for a long time. Had a slight technical hitch at the beginning of the first set, but managed to overcome it and all went well. Saturday night saw us at The Corn Exchange in Kings Lynn. Another of my favourite venues that seats around 750 and it was virtually full with a lovely crowd, all up for a good night. Had some of my family come along who I’d not seen for a while, including my nephew who brought with him some superb sausage rolls and brownies from his cafe in Cambridge which the band and crew devoured. The square outside the venue was taken over by a visiting fairground, so the town was very busy all evening. Bit tricky getting our vehicles in and out but well worth the hassle. I”m counting down the gigs before I leave the band now, so just 9 more to go. 🙁 Final gig for me was tonight with my acoustic duo Milestone at our regular venue ‘The Lookout’ in Scarborough harbour. A really high tide when we arrived looked a bit of a worry at one point but didn’t block our way to the venue. An absolutely cracking evening, my guitarist mate Gary was on top form and dazzled the audience with his playing. Some great requests as ever, including ’Galveston’ , ‘ A certain smile’ and Bat out of Hell’ ! We’re back there in two weeks time, can’t wait.

Bought this here a couple of weeks ago. It's the lightest, fastest HB jazz I've ever played. Oh and the shell pink finish is really lovely. I gigged it this weekend. The previous gig I had used my Sandberg California - a truly beautiful instrument to play. I have to say there was absolutely no drop in quality. None. Not in sound, feel, balance or playability. Anyone trying to convince me that price is any indication of quality, or 'you get what you pay for' has their work cut out I'm afraid.

Great gig on Friday night at the brilliant Login Lounge in Camberley. We've played there a few times and it can be a bit hit or miss with the audience but this time it was pretty busy. The sound is always fantastic though and the sound guys really know what they are doing. During my soundcheck, the soundman said I was getting quite a bit of buzzing from my setup. I suspected it was my pedals but by going direct into my MarkBass LM IV and Barefaced Two10, the buzzing was still there. I'd just recently added a Sansamp BDDI v2 onto my board and suggested trying the DI on that. At that point an older guy who I think was the main sound man who wasn't working came over and asked what's up. The main sound guy explained and said we were going to try going through the Sansamp. He said that its probably their DI and going through the Sansamp will give a really clean sound and the Sansamp is an awesome bit of kit. He seemed to know what he was talking about and low and behold, no buzzing and my bass sounded incredible all night. Just as he walked off, he turned back and said, oh and by the way, your fretless playing sounds amazing 😁 We played amazing and the sound on stage was incredible, especially my bass. After the gig, I then got a couple more people come up to me and compliment me on my fretless playing so I went away super happy.

As it should be - Lemmy's statue in his home town of Burslem, Stoke on Trent has been given the go-ahead - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjqj8l8qgwno Some have said it's Overkill, but this will be the Kiss Of Death to that kind of talk once the statue is Hammered into place.

Tarragon went out of business, they had to send the bayleafs in.

Decided to pull the trigger on this Vintera II today. Picked up secondhand at GG for about £250 less than the new price but it's still got the cellophane on the pickguard and neck plate. We are getting used to each other this evening. Initial impressions are very good : super easy to play, wide range of tones. Nice and light, my back and shoulders will thank me after long gigs. I'm feeling like it needs a lighter right hand touch than my long scale basses. Have ordered a set of LaBella 760F-MUS strings. Rehearsal tomorrow so will see how it fits into a band setting.

I've been trying to get the idea of a tribute to Cheap Trick off the ground for years (who?). Absolutely it is a niche market but Cheap Trick have been MY band for almost 46 years and I had to create this tribute as they were never going to call me! Long story short (it started 12 years ago LOL), I finalised the line up of CHEAT TRICK this year with 3 other guys who were massive CT fans... and it fell apart again within 2 months due to issues with the guitarist. In stepped the guitarist from my other covers band who is a technically brilliant player and he got us off the ground, mainly due to the fact he could write out and read the main song structures and was ready for a debut gig in 4 weeks. Sadly he wasn't a fan of the band we were trying to recreate and after a year of waiting for him to actually cop the style of Rick Nielsen, we had to let him go as he just couldn't understand that a tribute should at least be playing in a similar style (he's more Paul Gilbert/Steve Vai), a 1000 notes a minute isn't Cheap Trick! This week, we organised to audition a guy who we knew to be a Cheap Trick fan... BOOM! He walked into the studio and proceeded to run through 30 songs with us, emulating Rick Nielsen's style and chord/note choice to a 'T'. Not only that but songs we hadn't even asked him to look at, that he'd never tried to play, were handled like he wrote them. I have to say that I left the studio space with a grin a mile wide and buzzing to be chasing gigs this year to get out and about. Has anyone else had that Eureka moment or conversely that dread that someone in the band just wasn't the right person and you can't progress?

This a great 'consumer' policy, buying stuff that will become useless by design, and thus destined for scrap. Buy again, and repeat... Is there no better way..? Is there not an inherent wastage here, with the 'new' stuff offering little in the way of real extra value. Then we wonder why the climate is changing..! First World, eh..?

Recent returner to Ashdown - used to have an RPM1. Recently bought a SH ABM 500 Evo iii. How I missed that sound!

Next was a bit of work on the neck. Last week I glued the blank together. Just in case anyone is interested the neck is made from flame maple with a central strip of walnut. The lines are made from 0.5mm veneer, a dyed black one and a maple for the white line. That means 12 surfaces to spread with glue and align and clamp, all within about 10 minutes before the glue starts to set. It's very stressful. Every time I promise myself that next time I won't try to do it all in one go. I'll glue half and then glue the other other half the next day. But of course I never do😟 Next time though I really am going to do it in two halves.... Anyway, here's how it ends up. Before gluing the bits together, I always flip and rotate one of the pieces of maple. This means that the grain lines are now in opposing directions. ie like this: \\\\//// This means that when the neck inevitably wants to move due to changes in humidity, the two pieces are pulling in opposite directions and hopefully cancelling each other out. It really does make for a very stable neck. I've marked the grain lines in pencil which will hopefully make a bit more sense.... I cut the scarf joint on the bandsaw, then cleaned up the gluing surfaces with handplanes and sandpaper to get it ready for gluing. This is another one of those jobs where it's important to get everything lined up. Using a laminated neck means a slightly misaligned join will be really obvious like this: Gluing a scarf joint, especially with a veneer in the middle, is not straightforward. The glue makes the pieces slip all over the place, especially when the clamps are applied. I use 4 toothpicks drilled all the way through the join. It's the black veneer in the middle which means once the neck is carved, you end up with this beautiful fluid geometric pattern just before the headstock like this: OK, prep work ready and into the clamps. This is one of the joints where I use West Systems epoxy. It's strong, doesn't add moisture into the joint, doesn't sink and is forgiving of gaps. Not that there should be any, but it's more forgiving that titebond in that respect.

That's a bit catch-all! Rhythm and Blues was coined in 1949 as a phrase by a journo from Billboard magazine to describe, basically, black music. This included blues, jazz, swing etc, and had artists as varied as Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, Nat King Cole, The Fabulous Platters. As black music moved away from the basic 12 bar structure a new term was coined -"soul". Meanwhile, a bunch of Brits had got into the blues and started their own combos based on their interpretation of this sound - It got rockier, and many British folks feel that this pub-rock sound is what Rhythm and Blues is/should be. Meanwhile, in the US the term "Black Music" was coined, which covered everything from Miles Davis to Parliament and everything inbetween. However, in the 80s more white artists were using African-American influences so by 1990 Billboard re-purposed the term R&B to mean almost any music of black origin, which is a very wide church even discounting jazz (though this has just as many haters within the BC community as modern R&B!). Me? I like bits of all of 'em

Thank you. We don't do *much* outside our local area live wise as it has to not run at a loss but we have been as far as Lancaster and played Southampton, Bristol and are in Camden for the Goth festival All that is Devine. I think the genre is very broad and our angle has always been take the music seriously but not take ourselves too seriously. We have some fun videos on YouTube that are worth searching out - fighting zombies, burning witches and destroying the planet. Worth searching out Deadlight Dance on YouTube to see our collaboration with the film maker Haunting The Atom. I'm amazed at how many goth acts are around at the moment, many of which are really good.

Probably going to do exactly that, so apologies but I will turn it round: I would be worried about hearing damage, if I played in a band where my Two10 was not loud enough to keep up.

"The English do not really care for music, but they absolutely love the noise that it makes".

Anyone hazard to guess a price?! And yes…I’m going to start saving…

TWEETER: piezo. Look through these pages and those on TB and you will find threads about removing/replacing Markbass piezo tweeters. The problem is not the piezo tweeters per se, rather the crossover or lack of it. Despite what Motorola said about piezos not needing a crossover, they do.

SNAKE!..

By the same token no matter what the signal a highly colored speaker will highly influence the result. This is particularly of interest with respect to vintage sound, as the tone of the electric bass was very much defined by the shortcomings of the available speakers of the day, and they weren't very good.

Late 70s (hooky headstock shape says 1976 or later), made by Matsumoku. The pickups (or those red covers at least) & the BA2 aren't original, and it may have been refinished - 9 times out of 10 MIJ Jazz copies will be sunburst or natural. For the most part the serials Matsumoku used on 'Steel Adjustable' neckplates are random & can't be dated. They used several different formats but weren't consistently dateable until probably around 1980.

Big shout out to Jim Dunlop Guitar Products! I've been using Super Brights for probably around the last 10 years, they've been a revelation to me; REALLY easy to play, with lower tension than anything else out there, without feeling floppy, GREAT tone, and they last a super long time! I've never had any problems with them, however in December I was stringing my bass and the cores in a couple of the strings snapped. I contacted Jim Dunlop, and they sent me not one but TWO replacement sets! Now that's what I call customer service! 😊👌❤️

Just arrived a Taylor 517e Builders Edition in wild honey burst . Torrified spruce top, mahogany back & sides, ebony fretboard.

I have a mate, Phil, who is known for being quite loud, especially after a beer or two - he is of course known as 'Phil the Noize.' Right, back on topic Bring the Noise - Public Enemy/Anthrax

I'd suggest the Aenima album, it's got everything that makes their later albums great but with perhaps a little bit more emphasis on conventional song structures. The earlier Opiate EP and Undertow album are also great, but the latter does have a rather horrible mix (thanks to the loudness war possibly).

I got mine last year and love it. I bought a Burns Bass VI (SSJ model) and liked it enough to upgrade to the Squier Bass VI. I agree the stock strings are rubbish but the build / finish is excellent. A great neck, well finished frets and the nut is good. I restrung mine with Labella flats and I don't have any issues. Originally, the plan was to record some Glen Campbell type lines on a recording project but I got into the idea of bands like The Cure using them. I play mine more like a bass, whereas my guitarist friend has a more guitar approach to it. We're doing a synthy darkwave EP together and the plan is for me to do all the bass parts on mine. Pictured here with my feline friend and matching shoes!

Yes - in 4 in line tuner headstocks which are flat (as in not angled), the break angle over the nut is insufficient for the D and G strings and you'll get rattles and other noise artifacts. The string tree is there to create a sufficient break angle over the nut in those cases. With enough wraps down the E and A tuners it's supposed to generate sufficient angle. But hey, Leo got it right first time, right?

I know the lads a long time. Chris got that Sledgehammer pretty early quite possibly the very first run of them. Morton was a student of mine in STC a few years back too. I'd say it's a small world but sure we live on a tiny island. Is the Red Muck the Russian muff type?

I play 4s and 5s depending on the situation, and I have had several 6s. I have gotta say... NO-ONE NOTICES. NOT YOUR BAND MATES, NOT THE PUNTERS, NO ONE! Well, maybe the sound person if it's anything other than a P. My wife comes to some of my gigs, and even she doesn't notice which bass I bring. My P is sunburst with flats, my Aria 5 string is Polar White with rounds, and still... nobody notices! Only me.....

@Wolverinebass, if you got a GK Fusion 1200 for a little over £900 the you got it heavily discounted, probably from Polar Audio. New from Andertons, these have a price tag comparable to the Mesa kit. Though I do accept the 350 watt Mesa doesn’t seem good value compared the higher powered kit. For me personally, that kit is made In the U.S. or the U.K. is a plus point. I know the parts will have been sourced from a variety of countries but if a good percentage is not from China and the product has been assembled and tested in the U.S. or U.K. I would be happy to pay a premium. But that is just me.

Was good - in my preferred room (we use 2 places to rehearse) Worked on a new idea of mine - which will be a very lovely Elbow-esque tune. We’re now at 10 original tunes. I’d say 7 are gig/record ready. A couple are proving harder to get across the finish line. But now the 7 are set - the other 3 should fall into place. Used the rooms Ashdown - missed my Hartke rig, but the 410xl up 3 flights of narrow stairs is a killer. Myself and the singer want this to be our permanent space…he has an interest in the room, I’d prefer to leave my rig set up. Guitarist and Keys player are more stand off ish about it. We’ll see: I prefer it as a space. Ripper was perfect. El Chupa Cabré bastard bandito bass was a bit troublesome - I’ve cleaned the pots out and will get a separate eq pedal in the signal path…I guess 40 year old piezo tech hasn’t aged well.

More work on the Multi-coil "Wal" style pickups for Mark's custom build.

I'm late to the party here but stumbled across this thread and felt compelled to chip in. I too had a serious auto-immune disorder following a serious bout of food poisoning. I had a condition called Reiters Syndrome which you might call a reactive arthritis. This attacks the soft tissue insertions to the joints. 'Luckily' in my case it went for my ankles-mainly my achilles tendons and plantar fascia. Fortunately it didn't target my shoulders, elbows, wrists or fingers. In any case I became an outpatient in the rheumatology dept and ended up on 32 tablets a day and injections into my achiles every month. Each month a different leg in plaster. I couldn't walk for 2 years. I was told the fight I had was with inflammation. Eliminate inflammation and you eliminate the disease. Hence all the drugs-some for pain, some to fight the disease and some to fight the side effects of all the drugs I was on. AND THEN....I happened to read a book...How The Ryder Cup Was Won (Ian Carter was the author I think). This charted the European victory, in golf, against Team USA at Gleneagles (just up the road from me) in 2012 I think it was. In the book it touches on Tiger Woods desperate attempts to get back into the team for USA following back surgery. One monumental sentence changed my life. It stated that TW had put himself on an anti-inflammatory diet in a desperate attempt to speed ip recovery and get back into the team. I almost dropped the book-this was my eureka moment!! I had been seeing specialists for 5 years by this point and not one of them had suggested this. I changed my diet instantly and within 3 weeks I was off all my meds-33 tabs a day gone. I thought I was okay when I was taking all these drugs BUT when I came off them it was like someone turned on a light. I was so heavily medicated I had gotten used to living in a fog. I know I was hellish to be around at this time, but at the time I thought I was fine. Only when I came off all this stuff could I look back with clarity and appreciate the reality....I was like a zombie, and a foul tempered one at that, while on all these meds. My take-home message to anyone with an auto-immune disease of any kind would be to go on an anti inflammatory diet. Stop feeding the inflammation and you will get better. Of course doctors don't mention this. Their training, broadly speaking, is about prescribing post second world war medicines backed up by clinical trials-funded by pharmaceutical companies. And because there is no clinical evidence with diets etc...they don't recognise it. This evidence will never exist because who would fund it? Nobody, because nobody stands to make a profit out of it. It's sad but it's life. Pharma companies do amazing work and produce some miracle drugs but they do make vast profits from these. They can afford to invest $billions into clinical trials because they will profit from it. Who's going to profit from good dietary advice? Nobody, therefore who is going to fund the trials? Nobody, therefore there is no clinical data. This means that doctors will not advice you on this because, in their eyes, there is no clinical data-just common sense. Not good enough because they must be seen to be taking an evidence based approach to medicine. I am 98% cured and play upright as well as electric bass gigs. I no longer consume an anti-inflammatory diet incidentally and probably don't treat my body with as much respect as it possibly deserves. That said, I do keep relatively fit and allow myself plenty of indulgences as a reward. I hope this helps somebody. If you need any pointers I'd be happy to help. Andy

I think your English teacher deserves an honourable mention too.

It’s been my grail pedal since it was released. I used the regular version for many tours but I’ve finally got my hands on the Pro. Easily one for the best pedals I’ve ever used. I’ve been messing with it daily for a month now and I’m in constant awe.

Pirate Bay…their cracks gone downhill!

Open up the speakon connectors and tighten up the terminal screws. I've had this with PA speakon leads. A loose connection screw on a cable could open circuit with vibration. I know we should all routinely check our cables but we don't Let us know what you find. Curious now. Dave

Ehm… Ejector seat? (no idea unfortunately)

If you power it up and it fails spectacularly, or damages a speaker attached to it, both are IME something to lose.

Just got a used Streamer $$. Great bass! Straight forvard to set up (once you understand the bridge). Great tone! The previous owner installed a metal adjust a nut. It's easy to use!

Does going from 5 to 4 but with BEAD tuning count? 🙂 Normally I use 5 string basses for practice, gigs and recording, too, but in one of the originals band I play in I switched to this wonderful Spector 35" 4 string PJ. The reason was partially so I could justify buying it. No, it was just I fancied a change, never used the G string in that gig and the 35" is great for drop A tuning, too. 35" Spector Euro 4 strings are very rare, having one in the classic 80's white is impossible almost (never seen a white apart from mine which was a custom order of Bass Direct ) Whenever I'm traveling around the fretboard I have always seem to use the B string as a reference point (and it makes a great thumb rest, too 🙂 )so it was a perfect switch without problems. It needs to be said however that I haven't made a permament switch to 4 string basses or even it wasn't a switch really at all as I keep using by 5 string basses for other gigs and mainly pratice and record with those still. Other than that I got to use a regular 4 string bass last year when I was subbing for an Iron Maiden tribute band. That was a good excuse to use one of my other Spector, a 1977 limited edition which otherwise sadly hasn't seen that much use for the reasons above. Mandatory pic:

NASA. That rejection letter really stung. I wouldn't go into space with them now even if they begged me.