Leaderboard

Played a local pub (to the drummer and myself)on Friday night, The Yew Tree in Norton Canes (South Staffs). We are, as they described, a light rock band doing 60's, 70's 80's and 90's covers. We got there around 6ish to set up but found that they were still serving meals and they use the stage area for bigger groups, so hung back 'till 7pm. This also gave the lead singer time to grab something to eat. We started at 8.45pm and although the place was not packed but was busy and the audience were appreciative. Started the second set just before 10pm getting a similar response but having people from the 'sports bar' in the back of the pub popping in to listen as well. Finished just before 11pm. Now we had cleared the tables from the stage when we set up and we put them back afterwards as they seemed a little short staffed. The punters had told the landlady that they had had a good time and were pleased to have been able to hear the music and still be able to hold a conversation with friends. She had also enjoyed what she heard and was over the moon with the response and comments from customers to the point that she recommended us, via an internal WhatsApp group, to the other 200+ pubs in the chain and said she will book us again. Sorry for the long post and sounding a bit euphoric but this is only our 4th gig as a band, The Context, and we acquired it via a 30min set at the Yew Tree open mike night in April. They booked us there and then.

On lead guitar last night with a pub covers band. The venue was a ginormous chain pub with a huge (but not separate) ‘function room’ area at the back. Sadly they had at some point walled off the stage to create a store room and somewhere to mount the biggest TV screen I have ever seen. I really wasn’t feeling it at first as I’d played with the band the previous night and could have done with a night in. Our sound check quickly cleared a table in front of one of the PA speakers, which didn’t bode well! But as soon as we started playing our first set there were people on the dance floor, and it just got busier as the night went on. By the end there were several people dancing on the tables, which fortunately seemed to have been constructed from scaffolding materials! The landlady was so happy with the band that she paid us an extra 20%.

Auld Gambling Hoose in Alloa for BLOCKBUSTARZ tonight. Reasonable sized crowd maybe 100 in plus a childhood neighbour turned up who lives in Alloa. Owner said its been slow over past few mths. Anyways thought i'd try my Overwater J4 for a spin but half way thru 2nd set i realised it was getting a bit heavy and my back was feeling it and i changed over to old faithful Sandberg VM4. Wife reckoned the VM4 was better sounding, deeper but clearer. Had dancers up most of the night with a full floor for special request of Time Warp. Audience seemed well up for a party tonight and really enjoyed themselves. Using Overwater J4 then Sandberg VM4 into Handbox WB-100 and BF 212 cab with Shure wireless and Keeley Bassist Comp. 1st set fro 8 to 9:20pm and 2nd set 9:45 to 11:15pm Got paid and a 1:15mins drive home. Dave

We've not been as busy recently, feels like ages since I've posted! We were supposed to have a big slot at Northern Kin festival on Sunday but that festival, along with a load of others, went bust. We managed to put together a show a Billy Bootleggers in Nottingham instead. One support act, then our 30 minute "acoustic" set for Rebellion Festival next weekend, then our latest album in full, then another 10 songs. We arrived at 1:30. The sound engineer was outside, "no staff here until 2pm". Apparently this was known to our front man so god knows why he wanted to get there so early. He was desperately hungry and went to order some over priced pizzas while we waited. Then it turned out the staff had locked themselves out of the venue so we had to wait another half an hour for someone else. Finally load in at 2:30 in the world's smallest lift. I was soaked with sweat by the time I'd set my drums up. Boiling in there! Sound was fine and the venue was rammed by the time we went on. The acoustic set was fun, but I really was soaked by the end of that. Everyone else got a nice 5 minute break while I re-jigged the drums for the "proper" set. Our latest album has some very intense and difficult drumming on it, for which I can only blame myself, but after playing it all the way through, and then another 8 songs from our back catalogue, I was absolutely done. I could literally wring out my t-shirt. Anyway, absolutely wonderful gig in every way but I really, really wish I'd booked today off to sleep and hydrate.

Three gigs this week. Tuesday was our monthly gig at a local pub ( acoustic duo). Plenty of great requests, including a few for the inevitable ‘Paranoid’ which we left until the end. Probably the busiest we’ve seen it, a lovely crowd all up for a good time and a laugh too - we did ‘Sylvia’s Mother’ and don’t know how we got to the end TBH. A fabulous gig, best we’ve done there I think. Wednesday was my weekly gig playing rock and roll at a local club. I’m getting a few songs together to sing , to give my guitarist mate a break mainly. I did JJ Cale’s ‘The Breeze’ and also ‘High heel sneakers’ which went down well with the dancers. Then Saturday I was depping with a local band at a garden party 6 miles from my village. We played under a gazebo at the end of the garden, and I had a tortoise keeping me company throughout ( see pic). One of those rare occasions where I wasn’t the oldest guy in the band, sax player was 83 and played seated unless soloing when he stood up and rocked it. Material was a mix of ska / reggae / soul with a few pop standards thrown in as well. Well lubricated audience loved it, and we got fed and watered. Nice to play with people I’ve never worked with before, doing stuff I’ve not played before too. Tunes included ‘Lip up fatty’, You can get it if you really want’ , ‘My boy Lollipop’ and ‘Everything I own’. Finished by 8.30pm, home around 9.15 so fine with me.

Couple of pics from Sat nights gig with Blockbustarz just appeared from Auld Gambling Hoose in Alloa. Excuse the wig, it was a new one i was trying out for a friend. 😂 It needs a bit of trimming for the next gig. Couldn't see thru the darn thing. Dave

Which logo do you want on your Cort?

Went to see a local band play their third gig of the day(!) Their schtick is playing requests and when in places frequented by local musicians they also have a lot of guests up in the second half. Got asked up to join in for several rock songs, mostly ones I know for a change, but ended up doing American Idiot and Money for Nothing entirely by ear which was fun. This is the band without me!

Hello! Couldn't resist this one. Never seen another in the UK. Any others out there? A pretty unique spec - ovals, matching headstock, blocks & binding. Board is a lovely bit of rosewood, body is basswood. Pickguard was switched to black at some point, but I've got a correct replacement on there now. It plays and sounds great 🙂

Lovely gig at the Victory Club in Barton (on Humber) last night. Didn’t expect a packed house at this time of year so was shocked at the great attendance. Up and dancing from the second number in the first spot which was appreciated and made the gig fly by. The motorway gods were reasonably kind also as a threatened M180 closure failed to materialise - bonus. We’re continuing the East of England theme next week with an outdoor gig in Withernsea, hope the weather is compliant.

50 minute afternoon spot at Ellesmere Port Summer Jam today. Only our third ever gig. It's a slow ball to get rolling right now but we're getting there. No amp/cab, just a HX stomp in and IEM straight from the desk. It always sounds fine at rehearsal but I need to do more work on my gig mix as it's never as well defined. Thinking about that diverts my focus away from what I'm playing, so I need to get it sorted. Played well, pretty happy all round. Sun came out and people listened. Nice things were said afterwards. Unfortunately the wrestling show had finished by the time we got off stage so my plans for a top turnbuckle band pic were scuppered. Here's a little phone clip of Macy Gray. Of course, our friends & family managed to catch the bit where I trip over my lead, nearly stack it then hit the wrong note. And some Jamiroquai with added photo (video?) bombing.

Had a cracking gig as dep in a UB40 tribute last night at the Big Tribute Fest 2025 in Plymouth. The band were headlining the Saturday night.

So I found a nicer piece of pine to practice on than that scabby old thing I found. It went... OK. A few wobbles (including setting the depth of my cutter a tad low at the beginning. But lessons learned, and praise be, the pickup fits (using the 1/4" cutter in the corners). I thought about having another test run, but I thought "F it" and decided to proceed directly to the real thing... First off, remove the bulk of the hole with the drill and forstner bit. Then deep breath and get out my most hated power tool, the router. Took my time this time, double checked everything. Did the main shape with the 1/2" cutter, then swapped to the 1/4" cutter for the corners. Howzat? The wee deeper holes in the corner are because I had to poke the 1/4" cutter down sufficiently so that enough plain shaft was below the baseplate so it would not cut the template. IT FITS, YAS! I am very pleased with my afternoon's work. This is the first pickup route I've ever routed in my life. Glad it went well, but won't be sorry if I don't ever do it again, lol. It most certainly has not "given me the bug" - it was stressful and horrible work, but I am very pleased with the results. Next job - figuring out how to make a dirty long hole from the control cavity to the pickup route without ballsing the entire operation up. I might need a bit of professional help with that so I might pay the Engineering Workshop at work a visit on Monday and see if I can cadge a disgustingly long drill bit at the very least. Or they might take pity on me and do a "give it here" - I won't complain!

That's a bit odd, pages 864 and 865 are displaying identical content. Anyroadup, Saturday was another dep for the Bonnevilles, who are still trying to get an answer from their current bassist about his intentions. Back to the Anker Inn in Nuneaton, which was not exactly rammed but it was a pretty good audience. Usual gear and footwear.

Photo from yesterday evening's guest spot

Together with some of my main band musicians, plus a great pro-drummer, I helped to put together a U2 tribute band as a little side-project earlier this year. There are no huge plans to gig loads but the two nights out we've had so far were lots of fun and we have a few more things lined up. My regular gigging bass is my trusty white Ritter Cora but I felt i should go dfor something a bit more Claytonesque for this gig. I've owned a couple of Claytons in the past, both in gold sparkle. The first was a lovely, lightweight Mike Lull that was built directly for Adam & the second was the official Fender full Custom Shop version - now residing chez @hiram.k.hackenbacker. I already had a nice Lake Placid Blue P bass with an aged MJT body, mint green/white guard, McIntyre neck, Hipshot Ultralights and a lovely set of custom wound Curtis Novak pickups. My first thought was to get the LPB body resprayed and I remembered that a Lakland I have was painted by Rob Fleet (via Simms Customs) https://www.rfcustom.co.uk/ I contacted Rob who could not have been more helpful. He explained that the cost of stripping my existing body & prepping for spray work would be relatively close to sourcing a nice new body which I could help to spec out in terms of desired weight and woods etc. We spent some time working our the ideal weight and he found a nice piece of premium alder to work with. I've always likes the Fender limited edition pink/purple sparkle Clayton P bass and Rob mentioned that he had an order for a deep purple flake pain job and I saw some images of the exact colour. We agreed on everything and the neck was duly dispatched so that he could make sure the neck fit was really tight and also to spray the headstock in matching purple flake. Not long afterwards I received the first body build shots and confirmation that the finished weight was bang on our agreed specs: Rob let me know that he thought it might be a good idea for him to custom build a guard whilst he had the body to ensure an exact fit and we agreed on a white pearloid finish. This kind of, relatively small, thing is a perfect example of Rob's attention to detail. He new I had a guard already but wanted to be sure of a perfect fit and finish. We also discussed the headstock logo as the body & spray work is all from Rob whilst the neck was made by Chris McIntyre, pickups from Curtis Novak etc. etc.. I didn't feel 'right' about asking Chris to use his logo and it seems to me that the core of this instrument has come from Rob. I felt I needed a logo of some kind and really didn't want to try and come up with some kind of random name so we agreed to go with an RF Custom logo. I think it's a classy logo & I have no plans to sell it on or pass it off as something it isn't - it genuinely is a 'custom' build so I'm happy with that. Today, Rob sent first pics of the finished body, with guard in place, & headstock. Typical of rob's professionalism is that he attached controls to the guard to make sure everything looked just right. He also asked about precise position of the strap buttons before drilling. So, here it is before it comes home for final fit at my local luthier, the rather wonderful Julian Mullen: Once it's home and fully finished I'll post some more pics!

Played at Kent festival of scouting last night for the 14-17 year olds. The whole event was set up just like a proper music festival, and we were in a huge tent with stage, crowd barrier and pro sound team. The kids there were loving it. Earlier in the week the band had played at the opening ceremony on the main stage( I was on holiday and they had a dep) but apparantly the stage was last used at the Ozzy tribute at Villa Park. Couple of pics below of the venue before they were let in

Alternative title, "I'm not buying that one - it's all scratched!" Alas, poor Nate has gone. It was a lovely bass, but I don't gig Precisions. It's not my sound. So here's [yet] another Jazz bass... Previous owner has added a Parallel/Series switch (like Fender's original S1 switching), quite why, I have no idea. Also a Leo Quan BadAss II bridge, which is an excellent choice, although I'd have preferred the Fender American Standard/Professional bridge with the through body stringing. I guess you can't have everything. Liking the Shell Pink finish and the Pure Vintage 64 pickups (same as my American Original), but the relic job is VERY heavy handed. Then again, I could've been playing it since 1961 (eight years before I was born... 🤔) Like I said in the Nate Mendel for sale thread, I haven't kicked this around a gravel car park, but some Mexicans in Ensenada probably have. With it's American Original cousin...

Most of my prejudices are perfectly rational to me, but maybe people think otherwise. Hans Peter Wilfer - A man who would claim he invented anything and everything regardless how obvious it was he didn't. However, nu-metal is over and nobody really plays Warwicks anymore. Unlucky. People who do the Darkglass/Dingwall combination just so they "can have everything just like Nolly!!" It sounds awful. Mark King fan boys. Moving from every era of bass he plays as he does, just so they can play Mr Pink with whatever bass and amp he's chosen to endorse for 3 months. People who do that weird slight bendy note thing whilst looking like they're having a hernia. Janek Gwizdala and Phil Mann are hilarious for this. Ashdown thinking they're amazing. All their main endorsees are either dead, retired or not far from either. Don't pretend you're forward looking when everyone who has an endorsed product is over 60. Manufacturers making sub 42mm nuts the norm. Just pack it in. Hofner basses. You know they're crap, we know they're crap. People who use tablets on stage for the music. Either practice more or prepare to be bottled. People who say the word "pocket" as regards playing. Seriously, just no. Influencer/Youtubers. Get in the bin. All of you. Scott Devine - Happy, plastic, Americanised optimism at it's finest. He should be a sales assistant at an Apple store. Obviously, my therapist says I'm "doing much better" with my misanthropy these days.

Topics about irrational prejudices.

I think I've redeemed myself. Start again then... Made a better jig which actually works the correct way round... First cuts... And then changed the jig to do the short sides, et voilà That's more like it! Crappy first attempt above for comparison. Then I guess when you write on it with a Sharpie, it becomes official... The only thing I have to consider is that my top bearing router bit is a bit fat for the corners of the pickup (it's OK for the mounting lugs), had to cut them out after the fact on the template, so going to have to figure out how to solve that. But progress is progress, and I'm much happier with this second attempt at the template. One final piece of paranoia - I checked that the neck fits when the pickup is mounted - it has a 21st fret overhang... Phew! That is approximately where the neck pickup of a Peavey T-40 goes with regard to scale length.

Sorry, no pics as I was still setting up until three (as in the three in 1,2,3,4). The Rebbels had a very good gig at my local Legion, in front of all my friends. People that have seen us many times said we had the sound we ever have, although we had to run without on stage monitoring, due to feedback problems. Legion in the next Village next Saturday.

After last night's gig in a pub in Paisley a random stranger tried to sell me a Vox AC50 that 'used to belong to the bass player in The Animals. He sold it to my dad. It's huge as f**k and better than yours' I don't need it I said. it's better that yours he said again. I still don't want it. I couldn't lift it. Was it Chas Chandler's I asked. Aye, he's English. This went on for several minutes before I walked away. Back on stage I asked my fellow bandmaster why all the idiots always speak to me. His answer was brilliant. "I used to think I attracted them but you're different league" 😄

Sunburst with tort scratchplates.

First gig with this tonight The Policed It sounds amazing and a great crowd Couldn't be happier

Took delivery of this Sire V5 Fretless today. I am blown away by the quality of this bass for not too much money.

Well it was more like this afternoon, Cider festival. This right here absolutely sang today 😎🏁

You won't go wrong with an Hercules Auto Grab.

Three drive pedals are going, one has arrived! Now-discontinued Teeth Mk.1.

I don't like crowds so I play jazz.

thanks mate, it works very well for the function gigs that I do. We are ampless and most of the time I bring 2 basses (fretted/fretless) or a bass and a synthbass so the switcher is so handy. 3 out of 4 gigs this board will be my choice. this one takes care of the 1 out of 4. Sounds very nice but heavy and a bit risky for beer spills. 😆

just a small update with my flyrig. temple mods added for dual input, fx loop and DI

This project was a real struggle. It’s been here a couple of months, in bits mostly, and it put up a fight all the way through. I got it for peanuts, probably because the guy knew it was goosed. So, I ripped out all the knackered active electronics and binned them. I spent WAY too long trying to get them to work. Today, I turned it passive…. CTS pots, orange drop cap etc…. and now those EMGs absolutely sing. Piano like tone when played with a pick, lovely neck, very nice to play and well balanced on a strap. Maybe it’ll make an appearance at the next gig? A bit 80s like, but f*** it! 😉

I can still remember getting a train down to ‘that’ London when I was around 14, with a mate who wanted to buy a guitar. £5 return on the train! We walked from Kings Cross down Tottenham Court Road, and went in every music shop we saw, including the Fender Soundhouse where we gaped at all the latest models. Then on to Macaris etc, and down Denmark Street, and eventually Shaftesbury Ave where we got my mate a brand new Avon SG for £39, cardboard box included. Carried it all the way back to the station, and sat with it on our knees playing cards on it all the way home. Happy days.

Personally, i take them out and use masking tape to affix them to the inside of the pickup cover, then put the covers back in the case/storage.

Finally had the opportunity to play one today. For anyone worried about the pickup sounding like a mudbucker, no need for concern...this thing sounds great, quite a change in tone rolling off the tone knob. I can only imagine how good it would sound with proper strings. The quality of this bass is surprisingly good, even though I expected as much...and damn, it looks even better in real life! Sweetwater has several and they all seem to be in the 9 pound zone, but I'm guessing the one I played was much closer to 8 pounds. Oh yeah, it does both hard rock 𝘢𝘯𝘥 soft rock with equal conviction...I have to believe it'd make a nice bass for that Motown sound, too. Yes, I've played the Fender Vintera version, but no one would ever be able to convince me to buy one of them instead.

I just answered here the 3 bass question (first, most practical, most "you") thread and it got me thinking about where I saw and bought my first bass. It was Macaris on Charing Cross Road in London in about 1980. I lived in a flat but was starving, no job, no money and had to sell my beautiful tenor sax* I'd previously spent half a year saving for, effectively making it difficult to fulfil my dreams of becoming a full-time musician. The owner of Macaris apologised that he could only offer me £300 for it, as he could see I was upset, so he said he'd let me have a bass, amp and lead for £100, at cost he said. A Westone Thunder 1A black and a Traynor Bloc80b (which miraculously has followed me over 20 home moves later). Although an unhappy time, it did start me on the road to being a bass player, which I think, by sheer luck, suits my character better. I went back later (in the early 80s still) to get my first and only pedal, a new Boss Chorus. On a recent trip to London I looked out for Macaris and was sad to see the shop gone, replaced with a horrendous building devoid of character. Denmark Street has held out, but the old rehearsal rooms seem to have gone. But a quick browse online today and it turns out Macaris improbably moved to Haywards Heath, which means I'll give them a visit one if these days. * Conn Connqueror 30M "Naked Lady" What shop do you have fond memories of?

Bass players of Peterborough and surrounding area! On Sunday the 17th of August between 1.30pm and 3.30pm we are having an open house at Nick Smiths studio in Peterborough so you can come along to see and try his Midas Bass! We’ll be opening the raffle to win this bass at this open house and there’ll be the chance to purchase the remaining items of Nicks vast music gear collection Raffle tickets will be £20 each, with the winner being drawn at the Nick smith Memorial Gig at Charters in Peterborough on the 7th of September. All monies raised will go to the Nick Smith Foundation to help music related projects in the local area Please share this post far and wide to help us raise as much as possible in Nick Smiths Memory The location is in Belgic Square, Fengate, Peterborough….please DM for exact address and access instructions on the day. @Blondy will also be able to help with the details ”remote” entry details will be tied down and announced by the 17th August **should the base be won by someone not at the memorial gig the costs of shipping will be taken from the monies raised from the raffle**

A few from me, as already mentioned The Bass Centre where I got my Ashdown gear in 1999 ably advised by Steve Lawson and a few years later watching Steve and Michael Manring perform in the shop. Tiger Music in Sydney Street in Brighton, a real old fashioned guitar shop with great staff. I bought a Fender P Lyte there in 1991 and they wouldn’t take my 1980s Ibanez Roadster in p/x as nobody wanted them back then. Also a Peavey TKO combo that is still going strong at a local church. And then there is Largs of High Holborn, I only ever went as a small child in the 1960’s but it was where my parents met in the 1950s. Mum worked upstairs in the musical instrument dept, Dad was downstairs where they built hi fi systems which you chose from a a range of different components before they were built into cabinets to match your decor. A bygone age!

In an old glam band I was in we played a venue where the managers had changed and the new guy, whilst honouring all existing bookings, didn’t want music so did no promotion. Not only didn’t we get asked back, he asked us if we’d accept £100 to stop playing and go away. Quite proud of that!

Artificially relic'd basses

Oasis. What a pair of unspeakable twàts.

Ive actually switched up the Longsword for the MAE Black Math since taking this picture but very happy with the angry tones I get out of this. It can get pretty gnarly 👌 Heres a quick jam featuring The Accountant > Dagger > Model FeT > Bass Driver > Opus (with power amp and Science IRs):

Another weekend of incremental progress. I was out being sociable on saturday, and being slightly hungover today, so I was only really able to do stuff on Friday and Sunday afternoon. I'd decided early on that I was going to give this bass a full refret, and I figured that bit should probably be next in the order of operations. That way if I clip the body with a fret-cutting-saw or file, then I can address it when I'm tidying up the body before spraying. This might seem a little drastic, as the frets weren't in terrible shape, but I have my reasons. The first, and simplest, is that I may as well do it if I'm going to be putting in a dozen or so hours on restoring the instrument. The frets as they were could have been dressed and polished, but they would always have been a bit sub-par. The second is that I noticed that the fretboard is very low to the body by design, and that the saddles on the bridge appeared to be as low as they'd go. Obviously I've not seen what the action is like with strings on (I got this in bits), but those details were enough to make me a little worried that I might have trouble setting the action, especially if I had to dress the frets down any lower. To that end I ordered some super-jumbo fretwire – 3 mm x 1.47 mm – figuring it will raise the "floor" of the action up a bit, and hopefully give me a bit more leeway with saddle adjustment. The height of the existing frets was about 1.2 mm. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a big difference in terms of feel. I like my fretted basses to be really emphatically fretted, if I want low-profile and smooth I play my fretless. First job was to take the frets out, which just involves carefully pulling them with a set of end-nippers ground down to have an edge that's flush with the front. After that I relaxed the truss rod and levelled the board with light sandpaper and a levelling beam. This fretboard was already more or less fine, so I was really just doing this to tidy some of the tear-out around the fret slots. I have to admit that I didn't do the most careful job with the fret pulling on this occasion. Nothing that can't be addressed with some sawdust and glue down the line though. I radiused the fretwire with my home-made fretwire radiusing tool. This is just three bolts through a old chopping board, with a set of roller-bearings and washers spaced so that you can tighten up the radius on wire. Trying to do fretwork with wire that's a bigger radius than the board you're trying to bash it into is a maddening experience and the results always suck. Professional versions of this tool are adjusted with set-screws and gears. I adjust the radius on mine by gently whacking the middle roller with a hammer. After that comes the arduous and boring task of cutting fretwire to size. This just involves standing at the workbench with a big pair of nippers, cutting off each fret-length piece until your hands hurt. The last few times I've done this it's been on acoustic guitars. Going from those to a 24-fret bass was an annoying experience. If you have the proper tools this goes a lot faster, and with less bruising of the hands, but the proper tools cost like £200 and take up a lot of space. Then, if you think that's boring the next job's even worse. If you don't have a tang-nipper (again, those cost about £200) then the only way to take the ends off the fret tangs so they don't look ugly on the fingerboard edges is to file them off one at a time in a vice. I genuinely don't think I would have gotten into guitar building as a hobby if if weren't for the ubiquity of podcasts and aubiobooks. Finally, you take the fretwire and you bash it in with a hammer. You can get professional results this way, it's just slower and takes a little more care and finesse than using a radius clamping caul and a fret-press. I don't have the space for either, and wouldn't want to spend that much money, so I've just gotten very practiced with my nylon-headed hammer. Pro tip: If you're installing frets at about 7 pm on a sunday evening in a thin-walled terraced house, do it on the kitchen floor. This is just a thin rug over tile on concrete, nothing to reverberate and boom with each hammer blow. The next step is to file off the ends and dress the frets, but I've run out of time for this weekend.

I’m going to cross post from my busking thread on the Everse 8. it’s very relevant here as I got to try out Stevie’s new 8” prototype cab. ‘So, I got the chance to try out a new prototype cab. It’s wonderful, very capable for an 8” cab. The driver for me for trying it out was having the Everse 8 distort a lot when I pushed it a lot harder on one recent busking gig. I was asking too much of it - outdoors, no walls nearby, playing with a drummer on a portable kit - but I realised that I want to step up my power/speaker size. When I compare directly to the LFSys 8” prototype. I now appreciate more cabinet resonances when I turn the Everse up loud. I think this is because it is a composite cab, and also not as well braced as the LFSys cab. There’s no contest for me. Having the prototype LFSys 8” cab to compare to the Everse shows how much better having a dedicated, properly braced, rigid bass cab sounds at high volume. I’ve sold the Everse 8 and accepted that what I need for busking is more speaker size and power. I did a lot of testing out of portable camping batteries and the Jackery Explorer 300+ is where I landed. I’ve solved a significant EMI noise problem with that, and will simply use my well used B-Amp with an LFSys cab and the Jackery. I accept better/louder sound will now need a bigger carry - so got my luggage trolley back out. I now await an LFSys Goodwood 10” with great anticipation.’ I’ll update the thread here once I get my new Goodwood.

Runnymede Live, Victory Park, Addelstone. It only took 2 years but Electrik Soup finally got around to doing a gig! The phrase 'herding cats' was invented for this band 😆 Outdoor gig today, fortunately the weather was good. We were the first band on at 12:45pm. Set consisting of mainly 90's indie and Britpop (hence the bucket hat). One of the guitarists forgot to bring the bass amp, so I used a Warwick Gnome belonging to the other guitarist, just as a DI. It sounded really good, with a surprising amount of 'heft'. On stage monitors were plentiful and although we didn't have a sound check the on stage sound was sorted by the third song, and FOH sounded great according to the punters I spoke to. I only took a clip on tuner, which died as I was tuning. All I needed on an out door gig 😖. But Shuker 3 is awfully resilient and tends to stay in tune regardless of environment. So I got away with it. Gear: Shuker 3 > Airbridge wireless > Warwick Gnome (DI) > FOH