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That’s right that’s right that’s right that’s right …🙂

I missed my second-ever gig on Saturday for reasons explained a couple of weeks ago. Some of you asked to be updated, so today is as good as any. I had a CT Prep scan on Friday to map out the affected area for radiotherapy and give you a few pretty tattoo dots (my first ever tats - not that I wanted any) so they can line you up in the machinery consistently every time they blast you with radiation. Radiotherapy and oral chemo start on Monday, 5th Jan, so at least we get to have a relatively normal Christmas with the family. In the meantime, I need to make a few new habits in preperation of a 5-week, near-daily slog of hospital visits. I need to hydrate more, and turn up to sessions with a full bladder - so I'm trying to drink a pint of water first thing in the morning (easier said than done) and keep a water log with an app. Using hand cream daily, which I've never had to before, to mitigate the chances of neuropathy. And my diet has to change again to low fibre and low gas (to avoid trapped wind), which will make for a boring few weeks of food, certainly a challenge for a couple of food lovers such as me and my chef wife. Good news is we have a gig next week that I fully intend to do. I just need to be sensible when it comes to mixing with people. The last thing I need is to catch a cold the week before starting treatment.

Hexham Abbey last night - last gig of the year for my Eagles trib, and our first 'Unplugged and candlelit' show. As you can imagine, it's a spectacular location with 'acoustic challenges'. We're lucky to have an amazing engineer - we kept the volume down, had speakers all around the audience with delays, and apparently it sounded spot-on. Lots of new arrangements, and I'm continuing to wean myself on to IEMs, so it took me a couple of songs to fully settle into it. I used my usual Handbox head, my 66RI Jazz, and my little TKS cab, just to move a bit of air around the back of my legs. It's been a great year for this band. They're an absolutely champion bunch of lads. Looking forward to a mix of electric and acoustic shows in 2026. \

I'm going to try to do gear abstinence next year, so I thought I'd have one final swatch at FB marketplace. I was instantly reminded how dangerous it is when this bad boy appeared for a very keen price (complete with a Hiscox Liteflite hard case) and on the right side of England for my purposes. I decided to carpe that diem. 9 hour round trip, but it was definitely worth it. Basically unusued, the only issues were that it was a bit dusty in places, and there was some goop on the headstock where a clearly disintegrating stand had been cradling. Managed to get that cleaned off - it hadn't stained the finish, yay! Gave it a fret polish and oiled the fingerboard and gave it a good old setup. So, how is the "Stingray killer"? Good, as far as I can tell in headphones. My favourite finish for these basses would be Soda Blue, but this natural one is growing on me in its elegant simplicity, and the black pickguard suits it very well. But that's it! No more! I will be striving to make 2026 a fallow year in the gear acquisition stakes, so I guess I was getting one final hit in before the lockdown. FYI - no Stingrays were harmed in the making of this. Merry Christmas to me (and everyone else!)

Last nights gig with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers band in Cambusnethan Miners Club. Was sold out with 200+ tickets sold. Not an empty seat in the hall. It was crammed full. Mostly women in the audience and a mixed age group too. Looked like a few Xmas party groups in. Dancing from the first song all thru the full show. One pair of dancers dressed for the occasion were literally dancing every song of a 2.5hr show. They were on their feet more than us. 🤩 The atmosphere was literally electric and it makes you feel better and put more into the show. The singer was on top form with his audience participation. Not bad considering he drove there straight from work. We had so many people chapping our dressing room door to have a chat and thank us for a fantastic night. Was quite over-whelming but still nice to hear. Sound was incredible from our Sound Engineer And PA guy who is now our new permanent 6th band member. People that saw us there 2 yrs ago said the sound was much more full this time around and you could hear the difference between backline and full PA use. Feed back was sensational with many requests for contact details with the venue wanting to book for next Xmas too. Another woman that asked if we would play the club she manages as she was so impressed by the band and the show. This was a club i played back in early 80's. Similar sized Club too. She's adamant she'll have us booked for 2026 and was so complimentary. And she made a point of telling me she was teetotal and sober so that sounds promising. Will see what else comes out of it all. Tonight at The Dreadnought so hopefully will see the same reaction from the audience tonight. We're already booked in for next Xmas so no worries there. Think this is 4yrs in a row so far we've played the Sat before Xmas. My usual gear Sandberg MarloweDK - Shure GLXD wireless - Bassist Comp - Handbox WB-100 - BF 212 cab. Dave

As I went down the road to the SE Bass Bash in November I stopped off en route to purchase a bass for the hell of it, a Cort Curbow. I had always been really intrigued about them, what with their use of man made materials and I always thought they looked pretty neat in some finishes. I spied one for sale, a sunburst one and figured "what the hell?" So, I like how it looks, and I like how it feels to play. Unfortunately, whilst sounding fine in headphones, it was utter garbage live with the band. Where are my mids? This thing is so scooped by default that they're barely noticeable. I had to crank the mids on the preamp AND crank them on the amp just to be audible, seriously, it just disappeared. Well, I picked it up for a tasty low price so I figured it was worth modding. I procured a Bartolini Classic Bass soapbar of the appropriate size and shape (MK4CBC) (thanks @Bass Direct) and someone on here sold me a Glockenklang 3 band preamp for a decent price (cheers @Fettsman) and got to work on the mods. Fitting the pickup was a piece of cake, the only thing of note I had to do was accomodate 2 screws on one side instead of one. Then I replaced the stupid "slap switch" (which scoops an already inherently scooped bass some more - WHY?) with a much more useful parallel/single/series switch and fed the pickup into that. However, fiting the preamp was another matter. This body is thin, and to compound the issue, the knobs are sunk into the top. There was no effing way that Glock was going to fit in there as supplied. I mean, I was modding it anyway - don't need a blend control on a single pickup bass after all. First problem - the body of the push pull volume control was just too tall, even if the shakeproof washer was eschewed. So out with the drill and the forstner bit to remove some material from the cavity to sink it down enough so the lid will go down... Just made it! Not a lot of material left, but this luthite stuff seems sturdy so I think it'll be OK. Then onto the main board, which was way too tall. So, to scheming. Thankfully, while the control cavity in the Curbow may be shallow, it is thankfully quite wide. Lots of dead space above where the bass pot would go... So to cut a long story short, I turned it through 90 degrees. The pot legs wouldn't bend enough while it was mounted, so I had to desolder the pot, bend little 90 degree nubs on the ends of the terminals then resolder it thus: >>>>> Did a test fit (the small board attached to the mid pot was able to be bent sufficiently with the pot in situ)... Yas, the lid closed. So I soldered up the rest of the wires... Cheeky little single connector block thing for the myriad ground wires I had to connect together... Great success! It now has mids when the preamp is flat! I took it to a subsequent band rehearsal and praise be, I was able to hear myself with the preamp set flat. MIssion accomplished! I hope you enjoyed this shaggy dog story and if you only take away one thing from this, is that it's usually true what they say - where there's a will, there's a way...

My take on 'elf on the shelf'... I sold my Orange Crush 25B this week and replaced it with this Elf 110 combo 😁

As a life long John Taylor fan I simply had to get myself one of these Dingwalls. I don't really do more than one pickup and volume, tone knob. This was b stock from Thomann. It had been used in their photos and has a slight ding on the back An amazing set up, action as low as Ive ever played and the pre-amp is amazing too. If only I had some gigs booked that weren't tribute gigs. Fanned frets. My word, just don't look at them. It does sound quite P bass like on the neck pickup I'll bring the Ampeg into my music room over the christmas break and see how it really sounds

The Plough in Ashby is a tiny pub so we do it "acoustically" to have a smaller footprint. It's also rather fun playing songs a bit differently on the "Rocket Music by Stagg" EUB. A few random requests, a few Christmas songs and lots of happy people in the crowd drinking & dancing. In fact it was the busiest we've seen it. One more tomorrow, before Xmas Edit to add this photo - AI has turned us into elves 😂

Last gig before Xmas for BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers band at The Dreadnought in Bathgate was another great night of party fun. 110 advanced ticket sales at £10 a pop and quite a few walk-ins took it up to approx 120. 80/20 split to us on ticket sales so a good nights work if you would even call it that. Its just great fun doing Xmas gigs. Great feedback from the audience at the end as always in this venue. Its our singers home town and her local at weekends when not gigging. Fun stories of the night :- #1. Our singer was in loo at start of the evening and a guy asked if he had seen the band before. He replied yes and that he'd seen them at every gig in this venue. The guy was none the wiser that he was talking to the singer. Wigs, make-up and outfits tends to throw them off the scent a bit. #2. My wife and singer wife were sitting at a table with very few seats remaining when 2 guys asked if they could take the 2 spare stools at the table and they both said yes and they then asked if it would be ok for them to sit at same table as it was quite busy. While sitting there they then asked if the 2 women had seen the band before and just like the previous funny story they both said yes but elaborated that one was singers wife and the other the bass players wife. We are already booked in for next year the Sat before Xmas plus a summer gig too. Fingers a bit tender from Fri nights gig but managed ok without any issues. Tiredness was creeping in during 2nd set but managed to enjoy it all right to the end. 45min drive home and home for 1:15am, coffee and biccy then bed cause i was quite knackered TBH. Next gig for us is Hogmanay which should be another busy one and then on 3rd Jan up to Dundee for what should be another great one. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas guys. Until next year all the best. Dave 🎅

Great first show of two this weekend at the lovely Trading Boundaries venue in East Sussex, fairly local for us. Roy and Rob the sound guys are great and always do us proud. Fantastic sound out the GB Spitfire /puma/LFsys Monza set up. Very receptive audience as always, nice not to have to break everything down, just take my basses home . Looking forward to tonight’s one now . Happy Christmas everyone! Xx😊

Well, this was a bit of a change. We had our last gig before christmas today, a short 2 hour one on a sunday afternoon at one of our local pubs, a pub owned by the guy who gives us our free practice space. We were going to get the other christmas song sorted but the guitarist was ill on thursday, so we didn't. I was looking forward to it - short, in the evening and local. The last two gigs hadn't been great, the one before last I had covid (didn't realise at the time, but felt really bad), then the last one my wife had a heart attack while I was away and ended up in A&E until 2 and visiting every day of the next week, still dealing with the fallout from that. So a chance for a gig that didn't have that would be great. 2 hours before we were ready to go and setup for the gig, got a message from the guitarist, who had said yesterday he was good for both christmas songs that he was too ill to come. Quick panic, not enough time to arrange anything. Asked the drummer who is in another group, but they couldn't cover - we really didn't want to let this landlord down at this short notice. The singer contacted the keyboard player who left about a year ago and he agreed to cover, so we quickly packed and headed down there, huddled over an iPad working out what we could play without the guitar. Turns out as it is only a 2 hour gig, we had more than enough songs we thought we could do ok. The pub was heaving, wasn't really expecting that. Set up, the first 2 songs went through fine so got a bit more confidence and after about 5 songs people came to the front dancing. Had a brief 10 minute break and back on. Some of the songs were a bit.. creative and we did moondance and I think he was a fifth out from where i was, but you know, jazz! Some of the songs however went really well, and the last run of 5 (ie, last song and 2 encores) songs was just solid dancing from everywhere and we did nail them. Packing up and the landlord came over, really happy with how it went, and loads of people thanking us for a great evening, so came away happy. And honestly even when things were going wrong in some songs, I enjoyed it just fine. In fact, I haven't enjoyed a gig as much for a while, it was just fun. Although maybe if i am going to play guitar on a song I should run through it at least once beforehand! Oh - I played the bongo 5, the light up acrylic bass, a indie tribal guitar, all through the dwarf and a bam200 to the PA. Shoes provided by solivair, my old pair that are broken, as my feet are still sensitive for how ripped apart they got trying to walk in my new pair!

The last gig before XMas at the Hilltop club in Dronfield for Glam Viva! last night. This is a great club and was packed to the rafters with enthusiastic dancers. I said on here last week that the silly season gigs can be a bit hit and miss but fortunately this was a hit. Booked back for next NYE with the promise of a mid year gig also. Next Saturday we’re back to pub land, a nice venue we played mid year in Worksop….they’ve asked for some XMas songs so maybe Xmas isnt over band wise just yet.

Our last gig before Christmas was at the Stockingford Allotment Association Pavilion - or the "Piv" for short. We love playing there because it's always a great atmosphere. The place was rammed for our Sunday afternoon 4-6 spot. Stingish bass into GT-6B multi-fx and thence into the trusty Rumble v3 500 combo. Black DMs. I managed to get home in time for an early Christmas dinner in honour of a couple of family members that were passing through - one of them has been working in Australia for ages.

Our carol gig last Friday - this is our biggest gig of the year, with maybe 120-130 people. That's me in the top hat. Sorry, I'm not playing bass, but that was covered admirably my friend and former bass teacher. It went very well, everyone is keen to have us back next year which may be tricky, but not impossible!

I think I've been fairly lucky with my '25 gigs and had almost forgotten the common reality of being in an originals band; putting in a lot of time, effort and distance only to end up playing to a very select crowd rattling around in quite a big room. Well, 'Mad Friday' was spent 70 miles away doing just that. We were very much reliant on the two home bands bringing a home crowd, but possibly due to the time of year, specific day, general level of circulating illnesses, £7adv/£10door ticket price etc. it just didn't happen. We nipped into another pub on the same stretch of road and that was dead as well, so it wasn't like everyone was just camping out next door. Ho-hum. I've injured my back so the whole thing was a literal pain, but it was fun to slim back the gear to an absolute minimum and see (with a provided house cab) what I could get away with. In the end, it all went in two Mono Vertigos and one Tick bag. Ear protection worked better for being a size larger in the new material they've started making Doc Pro's out of. Footwear was a pair of the wonderfully named Skechers 'Wascana Benen' tac boots. They're refusing to break in and are absolutely eating me alive. RB Vampyre 5 (Streamer LX 5 on the K&M Heli 2 this time) -> Joyo 5GHz bugs -> T21 FlyRig v2 {DI -> PA} -> TC BAM200 -> Hartke 4x10 Have to hand it to the TC BAM - it's a great little amp and I'm just glad that I didn't let my dislike of the TE Elf stop me giving it a try.

This '77 beastie dropped down the chimney.

Santa brought me some Pino Palladino Signature Smoothie Flats, I might have to buy another bass now to put them on 😁

[Let’s try this in the right place this time] Good gig last night at a new venue. Drummer won the reconstituted Cannon Trophy, awarded in the past for the person that had the biggest ‘mare on the night. Local gig for me, he lives 45 minutes away, and forgot his cymbals so had a mad dash home and back to get them…he made it back with 10 minutes to spare, at which point we admitted the potential for a late start was averted 🤣 FrankenJazz -> Darkglass Anagram -> Darkglass Microtubes -> BigBaby2. Started off with the pad switched in, but it was all a bit lost so turned it off and the whole thing came alive. Had one guitarist (both the other side of the kit) look over and say I was a bit loud but from where I was it sounded fine so left it. 😁 Went to a blues jam this afternoon. I’ve been threatening to go for ages but never have before, however I needed to go to get tyres sorted at Kwik Fit, which gave me an excuse to sneak a bass into the car and go down after. Only the house band bass player other than me there so I got called up a few times. Took the Tokai Hard Puncher which sounded nice from a clip I’ve seen on FB. Had someone come up to ask if I was looking for a band, so I may have dropped myself in the c@rp with ‘er indoors by saying maybe 🤦‍♂️

As soon as it appeared on the BassBros socials I had to have it. My 2nd birth year Rickenbacker. Fireglo…..but I kinda feel it’s not actually fireglo but maybe Autumnglo?! It’s a lot darker and brownish to what I’d expect a fireglo to be (pictures show it lighter than it actually is) Either way I love it.

My birthday and Christmas fall within three days of each other and I was gifted this Retrovibe by the fam as a joint present for both events after me seeing it in Bolton and commenting on it to Mrs ead (not by any means as a hint; as a few of you know I'm selling my basses these days due to arthritis). Having been in touch with David it seems it was one of 8 made in this colour around 10 years ago. Absolutely immaculate although the pickups are apparently not the original fit items, so I will probs restore the right ones if I can find some. Interestingly it's a 33.25" scale and has the push pull on the bridge tome control.

Our male singer couldn’t make the gig on Friday so Laurie our other vocalist sang like a bird for 90 minutes straight. Wish I could do that! cbf49fb4-bd9f-4bfb-be3e-57ae883ac503.mov

Here is mine ... Eberhard meinel ❤️

I got a strap with pictures of Fred and Sybil on it ❤️

Broadband duly restored, even if the wiring for it has all but been condemned (full fibre to be investigated), and now I have recovered from opening the case, here is my new Overwater headless Progress. Feels completely at home in my hands and is a joy to play. Martin nailed the neck profile I wanted and I do love a headless bass. Thanks to Martin Lee, Chris May and everyone else involved in the building of this marvellous instrument. We will be very happy together for a long time. Three piece ash body Three piece maple neck Lined ebony fingerboard Hipshot tuner/bridge John East Overwater preamp

In case you didn’t know (many already do), I highly highly recommend putting “Thrust Bearings” onto your tuning screws….. it massively improves the tuning accuracy and ease of use. Many already know, but in case you don’t, it cost a couple of quid, and is a game changer.

This pic I took captures the colour better. also…my perfect 3 bass setup 😍

Yes. Yes, I do.

Shaped, sanded, black grain filler and first coat of Liberon Finishing Oil.

- I was getting into #4 - slapper thinking yeh that's me... then #5 *fell off chair laughing* 🤣

Dear agedhorse, Dan, tauzero and nekomatic, Thanks for your responses. This is what happend so far: I rang the Eich-office. This is what they told me: A few years ago, Neutrik has changed the design of some of their connectors/plugs and therefor the problems that I'm having in my cabs, are somewhat well known to Eich (and they are really pissed about this!). Therefor Eich offered to send me complete new back plates of the cabs (for free!) so that these bad connections belong to the past (for me). I find that very generous of Eich. As soon as I have changed the plates, I will notify you all on the outcome. For now; thanks for your involvement!

We have 50 in stock and they FLEW out the doors... More coming in the new year! This must be the product of the decade (or longer) for MXR Merry Christmas everyone!

Well it would seem I've answered my own question... I ordered a Precision today - the American Professional Classic in faded Sherwood Green Metallic. There's been one in the Gallery in Camden that I've looked at several times, and today I pulled the trigger, so it'll be here in a few days - probably after Xmas. I went for the new model, as [from what I've heard] the new 'Coastline' pickup (apparently derived from the 'Pure Vintage' series pickups) sounds very warm at the bottom, but has clear highs without the nasty nasal honk. Basically quite similar sounding to my previous Am.Professional I. We'll see how it plays after I've set it up...

Oh no it doesn't! 😁

Our last one before Christmas was at The Jubilee Club in Ashton in Makerfield. A good friendly and appreciative crowd, lots of dancing, mainly in the second half. They filmed us and have put one song up...

He’s always been there hasn’t he, calmly doing his thing. If I was gonna be a rock star, I’d want to be the Chris Rea type of rock star. RIP Chris 🙏

I got a new wallet. Which will never have any money in it as long as I play bass. There. That’s bass related.

A little video, not much good but it gives a good idea of what the bass might sound like in better hands!

I've cut the grill to size and used Gorilla tape on the outside of the frame just to keep it clean tidy. I've printed some riser blocks for the outside of the grill that fit in the corners of the cabinet. The ones in the picture are far too large, but they're to check things out and I'll print some better ones shortly. These will be glued to the front of the baffle (NoNails) and will have a M3 nut embedded in them. The hole for the nut is aligned to the holes in the grille. On top of the riser block will be some adhesive rubber, 1mm thick), to stop vibrations. More riser blocks may be needed, but the principle is set now. I have the "advantage" of not gigging at the moment, as there's only me and the drummer, so little chance or marauding fans rushing the stage sadly. It's very, very likely that I'll design some M3 handbolts to screw into the riser block. These will probably have the felt washers that are on the guitar strap buttons to further reduce vibration (or may not). I designed a lot of hand bolts for astrophotography, you can check them out here (https://starclamps.com/), these are all parameterised so I have lots of options. I also have some nice brass ones somewhere which might look nice. The red corner pieces have been redesigned so that they don't protrude as far into the baffle area as before, to give the grill some some space. The hand bolts should allow the grille to be taken off easily, Once I've painted the baffle board matt black, most of the riser elements will simply disappear, well that's the idea. Lets see how it works. but I'm off from tomorrow to London so nothing will be progressing. Have a good Xmas all Rob

This is my solution, single PUP wired to jack 🙂

My Thumb NT cost £900 in 1988, which apparently is the equivalent of £2750 in today's money. The equivalent would be a Masterbuilt, €8900 plus shipping. That's wildly outstripping inflation, and shoots past "too f*cking expensive" into "you've got to be f*cking kidding" territory.

I've put the original bridge back on just to see the difference. I actually prefer it - somehow the D and G strings in particular are warmer and fuller, whereas the Albridge is more treble and more even. Whilst this might be more desirable on fretted bass, for fretless I think the original sounds better - there's more 'cross talk' between strings and overall the whole bass feels more alive, less clinical. Trills, for example, are much more pronounced and there's a thicker more midrangey 'mwah' to the notes, despite the bridge not going as low in terms of action as the Albridge. I really was quite surprised by the difference, it was really clear from the first note. As a result, I might sell the Albridge if anyone in the UK is after one (I'll list it later) There's something about the shonkiness of the original that I like, too. Whilst the D and Gi intonate very well (more by luck than judgement) the E and A are fairly close up to the 9th, close enough for fretless... The Osmo oil finish on the fretboard is holding up perfectly, I am pleased to report. Amazing stuff!

Next Sunday (28th Dec) at 7-15pm. Jah Wobble talks about bass, bass and bass. Sounds good to me. BBC Radio 4 - Illuminated, Bass Notes https://share.google/mAXXaQY45g9XE5spg

I found a broken paving slab in the back garden and used that. Lo and behold, 15 mins later, it looks a lot better. Lesson here is don't use a softwood base (cut bad puns) to hammer against. Masked the area off and cut it with a Dremel and new cutting discs and the cutting is almost done. I forgot to take into account the rubber edges which hide the raw metal so it's possibly one row of holes too large in each direction. The blue tape is just to hold things together as the rubber edge really wants to curl off I'm still thinking about how to fix it to the speaker cab OR to the red corner pieces. Magnets might be the answer here. I have a lot of the strong ones and a simple addition to the red corner pieces might work well. A little bit of velcro through a few holes would allow it to be pulled off easily. With a black baffle board, it might look quite good for me. Rob

I felt the need for a bare minimum board for the occasions where the Big One is overkill. Or I'm too tired/lazy to carry it. Polytune 2(?) > 3 Leaf Audio Mini > Way Huge Pork Loin > BassRig Fifteen All powered by a Truetone OneSpot into the Gigrig modular system.

The latest iteration of my gigging board while I was experimenting with adding a noise gate yesterday. I bought that Donner to prove out the concept and it does the job. I'm not sure what a high-end bass-specific noise gate would give me but am willing to learn. The big change with this board is the addition of a second compressor. I play about 50% of the set with a pick, the other 50% fingerstyle and previously was only ever happy with the compressor for one or the other. I also tried comp off for fingers, comp on for pick and just couldn't get a setting I was happy with. I then mocked up a dual comp patch in the HX Stomp and reached a point where I was happy switching between pick and fingers. If you use 2 comps, you quickly learn that the two "stack" so you need to think about ratio settings. Signal path: Spector with EMGs and LHZ Haz-clone into: Front End: 1. Korg Pitch Black Bass Tuner. Brilliant, accurate like nothing else I've got. 2. [sfx] Microthumpinator v2 I've had one of these on/under my board for about 15 years. 3. Origin Effects Cali76 Bass Compressor (Pick Attack) Switched on for when I'm using a pick. 4. Origin Effects DCX Bass (Sparkle) A tone/EQ-shaper that I've got really attached to. It works nicely with the Spector/LHZ and is always on. The filters on these are very good and allow you to keep your low end intact. 5. Origin Effects DCX Bass (Overdrive) Dirt. These boxes are so good and have such a nice range of drive sounds that it made sense to snap up a bargain when it presented and get another. I love these as dirt pedals, so versatile giving warmth and breakup right through to smooth fuzz that reminds me of the SansAmp DP-3x. Effects Loop 6. Aguilar Chorusaurus v2 (Shimmer) I've been through a lot of Chorus pedals over the last 20 years. This one is the winner. You can see that I use quite a subtle chorus. I use it a lot. 7. Origin Effects Cali76 Bass Compressor (Always On) An utterly marvelous compressor. 8. Noise Gate We'll keep an eye on this and see how it performs in the wild. The board is a D'Addario expanding one and I use a Pedalsnake to run power and signals through the loops. A future addition could be an Emma Discumbobulator v3. We'll see how the set list evolves.