Leaderboard

There's been a bit of a development. I was talking to a band a while ago but it all went quiet. Yesterday I heard from them again and they sent over some new material and it's really good. I'm going to give it a good go, write some bass parts and see how it goes.

A bass t shirt. Apparently.

Well I did it. After watching this one for over 2years online with the local agent, I pulled the trigger and bought myself the one bass I will never put down. I have promised both myself, my long-suffering better half and most of my mates that this is genuinely the last bass I ever buy. Feel free to screenshot this post and remind me if you see me lurking 🤣🤣🤣 But anyway, here she is: One N.O.S. 2021 American Pro 2 Jazz bass 75rh Anniversary FSR Dark Night with Rosewood board. Genuinely cannot describe how beautiful this thing is, all around. It feels amazing in the hand, sounds exactly like a Jazz should and it has the most beautiful rosewood I have ever seen on any neck! This is a pretty good place to end my GAS Odyessy 😎

We had a lovely day yesterday. It was a VE80 celebration organised by the local council and the Royal British Legion branch. It started off at 2:30 with the Leicester Big Band. The decorations were fantastic and the room was packed. After that was a ukelele band in the other room (I was, erm, too busy to go and watch them 😜) So the evening was then split between our guitarist's brother's Beatles tribute band and us. We shared kit - most of it ours. I didn't get any photos of us, but shot these 3 that I've chucked together in a collage... I was quite pleased with that set of shots Usual Sire into Rumble. More importantly footwear were my custom suede Converse

A bit late posting but we played another fund raiser last Sunday at the cathedral in North Bay where we played in February of 2024 to help raise money for roof repairs and this time they even paid us for our efforts. Probably at least 200 in the audience, a bit lower than we hoped but it was a beautiful spring day and I think some folks decided to enjoy the good weather. We had a vocalist with us this time and she was great as usual and really knows how to work those old jazz tunes. We did a swing set and then I switched to tenor banjo and one sax player used a bari sax to play a bass line and we played a shorter Dixieland/trad set. Good fun and the church and the band both made money. Shen SB 100 into the Bose PA and Baldwin Ode banjo. The word on the cross above the bass sums up how I feel playing some of the songs. 😊 Edit: Keyboard player is there but hidden behind the alto sax player.

Played The Lending Room in Leeds on Saturday supporting The Faces Of Sarah. It's a decent-sized venue with a great PA and lighting system, but is upstairs from a student pub. Every time, no matter what time of year, I have been here, the pub downstairs has been rammed full of students all in fancy dress getting very drunk. It's a complete contrast to the audience upstairs. A slightly smaller crowd than usual, but still very appreciative. Plenty of people down the front dancing. Fewer problems than two weeks ago. The footswitch problem appears to have been solved by a different choice of footwear and the wireless bug stayed firmly attached to my bass. However our singer managed to forget the words to the second verse of a different song to last time. Still sold a decent amount of T-shirts and CDs afterwards. We're close to selling out of copies of "Lost Souls", we have two gigs coming up in a fortnight's time and after those they may well all be gone. As usual gig photos courtesy of Oh My Goth: Next gigs are in two week's time first on Saturday 24th May in Bradford at the 1-12 Club as part of the ReVamped event and then on Sunday 25th in Nottingham at The Chapel as part of the Dot-To-Dot Festival.

I played two gigs this weekend with blues rock band ‘ The Alligators’. Saturday night we were at a pub on the east coast, which we’d done before. Not many punters in when we started our first set, and then quite a few left due to a guy who was off his head ( not from drink) floundering dangerously around the dance floor in front of the small stage. At one point he tried climbing the stairs onto the stage, so I stopped playing and gave him my best death stare, something I’m not great at to be fair. Amazingly he backed off ( thank god) but by this time the damage was done. Second set was brought forward and only saved by a group of ladies coming in on a night out. Got paid and then beat a hasty retreat - we have two more dates at this venue later in the year, but I’m not keen to return. Sunday’s gig was entirely different, thank goodness. Nice pub in Filey where we played a late afternoon session, starting at 4pm and finishing around 6.30pm. We had nearly a full pub of blues fans, including a few local musos, and went down really well. The landlady is soon moving to another venue in West Yorkshire and wants us to play there, so could be interesting. Used my usual passive Precision Lyte straight into my Rumble 500, along with a very comfortable ( but potentially uncool/embarrassing ) pair of Clark’s trainers. No photos of the gigs, but a nice one of Filey looking towards Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve. Also for the vintage gear heads, a shot of our ancient ( (1970’s?) Peavey PA amp - and yes, those are jack inputs 😆

There's something so energising about an audience up and dancing and loving your music! LA Mixtrax (@lamixtrax) • Instagram photos and videos Had a couple of great back to back gigs on Friday and Sat night, at two different venues, both of which left me and my crew with a happy grin on our faces. Could have been a disaster last night with our drummer having a flat tyre! But he managed to set up double quick, and we started our sets with only a 15 minute delay, and made up the time by taking a shorter break. Our PA/sound set-up is relatively simple: 2 x RCF 912As (no backline) which delivers a meaty low end without needing a sub, but is not as good as the higher-end RCF 932A's for mids so we probably will think of upgrading at some point this year. The band had a few line-up changes at the start of the year and we no longer have a keys player; so it's now a pretty basic instrumental trio of guitar, drums and bass with female vox fronting, but we're starting to figure out how to fill out the sound e.g. by making sure that any doubling-up of bass and guitar lines are kept to a minimum or me occasionally adding a little octave or synth when the guitarist is solo'ing. The current line-up all use IEMs (wasn't the case previously: guitarists, in particular, seem to much prefer their amps and backline to IEMs, whereas singers seem to love them - maybe because it shuts out the guitarists' amps? 😅). The band are all starting to appreciate the flexibility provided by our A&H CQ desk to give them their own personal monitor feeds and I'm sure this has been key in IEMs now working so well for us. I love the work that has been put in by the new band members to get on top of 5 hours of set material which allows us to keep things fresh/varied at our residencies for both us and our audiences, and we're all getting rewarded by the reception we've been getting when things fall into place, as they seemed to on Fri and Sat night.

New venue for Blockbustarz last night in Croftfoot Bowling Club in Glasgow. This was a special event for us as singer Lynn was brought up in this area and it was a special birthday for her and both her sisters came along with partners so we had an honoured guest Pat Bonnar goalkeeper for Celtic football team and he looked like he was having a great time along with everyone else. Small stage so both singers on the dance floor which I'm never comfortable with and that was justified when an over excited girl knocked over singers water which ran straight towards a mains bar. Quick mop up by club members and off we went again. Very hot last night even with the 18" fan on full I was still soaking wet. All part of the job I guess. All seemed to go well and we test run 3 new songs which were played well enough for a first outing. We just need more plays to get to the point you don't need to think about what you're playing. 2 x 1hr sets extended for the encores. Club wants us back same time next year as they are fully booked. Decided to use the Handbox WB100 again for this gig and what a difference an all valve amp makes. It's full, deep and warm sound just fills a room far better IMO and I'm always able to hear myself better. Had the gain set just right where I got a nice full warm tone when aying a little lighter but when I dug in for some songs I got that slightly overdriven edge with a bit of clank to go with it. Had my Keeley comp on just to limit my volume. Sandberg Vm4 into WB100 and Mesa cabs. Just glorious. Nice wee one hr drive home mostly motorway with no hold ups. Happy chappy this morning and will be using my HB more often. I think I'm just a valve amp guy. I always get a better sound. Dave

Good fun last night in Nottingham at the Tap and tumbler. Wasn't sure how we'd go down but seemed to be really well received. I had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction....accidentally wore a random black shirt somehow....I won't go onto detail. Anyway, sound was great and and a good night all round....

Eh Up Mi Duck festival on Saturday night. All day drinking tends to mean a lot of early nights at these festivals but we were on at 9:15 which is a good time to start. Quick line check and sound was ready in under a minute. Sounded great from behind the kit and loads of compliments afterwards! A single error - When I do any "out there" fills, it can put the singer right off. I try to concentrate and use the same fills over and over, keeping anything slightly "jazzy" for the recording studio. Unfortunately as the huge crowd were so into it, I found myself go to auto-pilot - enjoying the crowd response and "vibe" instead of concentrating on the drums. Out came a particularly off-beat fill (I'm sure any drummers would appreciate it) and sure enough the singer went half a bar out! Ooopsie! 🤣 Other than that, an absolutely flawless gig and such positivity from the crowd I'm still buzzing two days later We sold loads of merch. The new songs from our forthcoming album are going down great and people seem to know the words already! We put it on "pre order" this morning and we've already had orders for 20+ CDs and a load of vinyl and bundles. Very cool

Just back from playing a solo gig at VE celebration in a local pub beer garden. Personal best - 3mins door to door from my house yay! Scorching hot afternoon but my acoustic guitar miraculously stayed in tune despite the heat (I took a big cloth to cover my kit when not in use). First time there but it went down well enough for the gaffer to ask me about coming back, so that’s a win.

A few days late and no pictures (so no incriminating evidence), but I had fun gigs on Friday and Saturday. Friday was with The Underbites, loosely a punk band playing originals. The venue was Arlene’s Grocery in lower Manhattan. Arlene’s is a fixture in the rock scene in NYC. Good backline, good PA, good house engineer and, overall, just a great place to play. We had a modest crowd but they were enthusiastic. We played a fast, tight set that was well received. The high point for me was that the young crowd that had come to see the earlier (and much younger) band stayed to hear us as well (not always a given in NYC) and they were VERY complimentary. I don’t think they were expecting the old guys to be a much better band - but we were! Saturday was another punk band; Bedpan Fight. An absolutely hilarious group with ridiculous original songs. I’m a recent member of the band but I’ve known them for years. The (excellent ) drummer, my old friend Vic, is even newer to the band but we’ve played together many times and we’re a formidable rhythm section. The venue was Mr. Beery’s, a dive bar about an hour outside the city on Long Island and the lineup was four female-fronted punk bands. All the bands were great, the atmosphere was very collegial, the local crowd was very welcoming and it was a really fun time. The high point of that one was the bassist from one of the other bands, a very lovely young lady who was easily six feet tall ( and a very good bassist) , coming up to me to tell me how much she loved our set, loved my playing and thought my Rickenbacker was beautiful! It takes one to know one. That ended up being a very late night for me; by the time I dropped the drummer off at his apartment in Queens and then drove home to Brooklyn it was past 2:30 but it wrapped up two fun nights of gigs.

It has taken me some time - quite some time - but I’ve finally got my hands on one of these. It’s about as close as I’m likely to get to an actual Status T-Bass. This was the bass that first brought me to BassChat as a longtime lurker, before a registered member. I never actually thought I’d get a T-Bass, despite coming very close a couple of years ago, there was one on Fb marketplace, but the seller was very cagey with his answers to my questions, and he just didn’t inspire any buying confidence in me at all, so that one passed. (A decision I’ve regretted for letting the bass go, but I always felt it was the right decision due to bad vibes from the seller.). And here I am today, making this post. I've the bass exactly a week now. Pros : It’s a T-Bass! That headstock (you can’t really want a T-Bass if you don’t like the headstock). The colour (I'm not sure if it's faded white or supposed to be this off-white shade). Cons : It’s a TE, not Status. It’s the 3-piece neck. Just before PoiDH, a super-massive shoutout to @NigeJ and @HeadlessBassist , who both took time out of their lives to go and meet the seller and check/inspect the bass for me. Just prior to Nigel’s viewing it developed an electrical fault - seller said it was due to a battery leakage and provided pic of removed battery box with green residue on it - which is why I needed Richard to go and check it out after the issue was fixed, which he did, tested the signal and all OK. Without these two, I wouldn't have this bass now, so thank you very much gents, your time was very much appreciated. The bass isn't perfect, there's some dings in the finish and a couple of splits in the finish as well, the black marks you see in some of the images in the Flickr album may just buff out, I've got some polish to try and remove those. I've got some Rotosound flats on order as well as some strap lock buttons. I'll revisit this thread once the above have been put on and I've had a go at giving it a cleanup. Enough words, PoiDH below … Plenty more images in this Flickr album. Mark

As mentioned in the SGC Nanyo thread, I have joined that gang - yesterday I acquired what I think is an SB310 with a Glockenklang preamp. Spent the afternoon restringing it (it came to me strung BEAD - my poor little brain can't handle that!) and giving it the once over - a clean, lemon oil on the fretboard, new strings, full setup, sorted out a little niggle where there was an odd screw in the bridge which stuck out because the head was too big to fit in the hole - found an M3 machine screw in my spares which had a small enough head to fit in the recess. Chrome instead of black, unfortunately, but it's a lot less noticeable than before! Only thing left to do is new knobs - these are press fit knobs but the pots on the Glockenklang are solid shaft so they kinda work but want to keep turning after the end of pot travel. Got some tasteful black flat tops coming in which are set screw fitting. I tried to find period correct ones but it seems the bevel topped ones with the white dot like the ones which SGC Nanyo used back in the day are only available as press fit - boo! I might revisit this though, been looking at ways to convert press fit knobs into set screw... Anyway, enough guff, here are some pics:

Played an end-of-season outdoor festival at a local(ish) footy club; you know the thing - bouncy castles, ropey burgers, BYOB, a charity raffle, generally a family day out on the pitch, with a proper stage, unfortunately facing into the sun, so it was verrrry hot (the drummer/PA engineer's iPad shut down at one point because he'd left it on the stage in the sun and it overheated), but a good day. Mostly singers with backing tracks, a couple of solo acoustic types, we closed it out for an hour at half seven. I'd brought my QSC 12.2 just in case the cobbled-together PA wasn't up to much bottom end, and it's a good job I did, as one of the (12") subs (we had 2 x 12" full range cabs each side, too) sharted itself just before we went on, so I brought the QSC up to the front on my side (where the bust sub was) and didn't go through the desk. Made it loud onstage on my side, but I went out front with my wireless and blimey charlie o'reilly that QSC can generate some bass; lots of it even a good way from the stage. Admittedly we weren't at Knebworth levels of volume, but lots of people said how well it all sounded, and I'd never have imagined playing an outside venue with one bass cab and being heard more than 40ft from the stage against a miked-up drummer, guitar and vocals in the PA. Extraordinary. It didn't break a sweat, either, and was on about 75% volume, with 50% more (linear) input from the Stomp to come, too; clean (Stomp patch dependent) and very nice...as I say, the onstage sound was naturally bass-heavy on my side, but it was the overall amount of sound the thing is capable of which surprised me - I can't think of a full stack rig I've ever used that would've made more, and that's including an Ampeg fridge and SVT...

In fairness, it's not a proper bass as it has 5 strings. 😀

So I've spent the last week rehearsing & playing bass for the excellent (and lovely) Whitney Lyman - a singer songwriter from the USA. I got booked a few weeks back and she arrived from LA last Monday. we rehearsed Tuesday, then played in London on weds, then a few gigs up North at the brilliant Focus Wales festival. Some recording got done yesterday and a little more later in the week, then she's back to sunny California. Had great time, band was sh1t hot and enjoyed it. Used my Jazz basses, Peavey MiniMax500 and my Barefaced 2x10 - good compliments on the sound from the sound engineer too (and the EQ was flat as a pancake). Plans being made for another visit and some festival dates all being well..... just need to get asked to do some USA dates now 🤣

Ok, the gig at Capones. Interestingly enough, someone was talking about places that aren't consistent with live music. Well, Capones has a lot of bands booked. however I didn't get the sense it was a music crowd at least not for us. I assure you we went into it with a positive attitude. We did the best we could. It wasn't a good gig. I mentioned we haven't played a bar in years. We felt like we had went backwards. The sound was awful. Boomy and and a lot of echo. We have another gig booked there on August 12th. We decided on the way home to cancel it. One good thing. It was an $800.00 gig. I really don't like complaining about gigs, but this one was painful. Daryl

2 gigs today with Stevie Daniels. First one was an afternoon noon car show somewhere deep in the fens. (Why do all those fenland towns look the same?). We were placed on a flatbed stage across the entry road from the bar and the crowd. As a result, very little crowd interaction and lots a dust every time a new vehicle came through. And, we were facing the sun…hot!. Second gig at the Burleigh Club in Peterborough. Nice pub and small but enthusiastic crowd. Used the Dynabass, trace head, and GB 1 12’s. Footwear was Justin western boots. No gigs now until the end of June.

Our first time back at the Black Horse in Whitwick since just before Christmas. It was a quiet compared to normal - it's usually rammed. A good, enthusiastic crowd though and much dancing took place. It's a bit of a strange weekend, what with a public holiday last Monday and the VE80 stuff going on. Our little drummer boy is still riddled with bronchitis, so Rob was kind enough to step in again and did a great job. It's so nice to be able to lock in with a good drummer, even if we threw a couple of songs at him out of the blue. We had a great night. Footwear were purple suede Gazelles - they don't come out often. I took the Sire P, going into the usual GT-6B and Rumble 500 combo. My favourite patch at the moment is the Octa-Fuzz which got quite a feature in Born to be Wild amongst others. Only the one photo of the compact stage, dimly lit after we'd finished playing

Stillingfleet Beer Festival, Saturday afternoon. I've played there probably half a dozen times in the last 15 years and the weather has always been glorious! The band's first proper gig, albeit with a stand in drummer - kudos, he was great! We went down well and were happy with how we sounded, with some lessons for future bookings.

Gig yesterday afternoon. Multi band outdoors community event. Nothing special to report about the gig, but it seems the pa guy was kinda stitched up as to the nature of the event. So we took along our Soundcraft Ui24 which we use for gigs (which we run a silent stage). We also use this for rehearsals with IEMs. So we all plugged into that as normal (Roland Electric drum kit), gave him a stereo feed with our ipad for mixing and took our aux feeds as normal. Worked a treat. Great sound on the IEMs and had a hassle free fun gig. Win win

Wonder if they'll get an angry letter from John Hall's legal team for the shape of the bass?

This is what my uncle used to say. Lovely bloke, terrible ringmaster.

Acoustic gig. We played a Community Service Award Event tonight. Strictly background stuff. We played a 45 minute set and " walk on" music for the award winners. Nothing to share, other than it was an easy gig. A 5 minute commute for me. I think we probably sounded pretty good in the house . The full Maple Road band plays Saturday night. Were going back in time a doing a late night bar gig. We haven't done a bar gig in years. Daryl

Not a bad night in Portsmouth but quiet at the venue which was a shame. We were pretty tight having thrown in a few we’ve not played in a while but they went ok despite having played them on the 5 previously and have been using the FrankenJazz with a Hipshot so I was still experimenting with different positions and flipping between E and D to fit which led to a few errors in position when dropped. Worst for me was the end of Rollin’ In The Deep when I got songs muddled and was playing (in our tuning) D-E-F#-E-D instead of F#-E-D-E-F#. Guitarist said after “I thought you were going for different inversions but actually it ended up as the “jazz” version. Sound was good from where I was and at one point vox came over to me, nodded at my rig and said “oooo that sounds awesome” … he was right, it did 😁 Annoyingly I’m still waiting both for my new IEM’s with a new mold for a hopefully better fit, and the old ones repaired after one side stopped working ☹️ Meant I had to use the KZ’s I picked up as spares. I haven’t managed to get a good fit so the sound from them is never as good as the molded set, but it was better than nowt. I ended up one in / one out which was ok. On stage the sound seemed well balanced. Hopefully out front was the same!

After 33 years, my covers band, The Three Amoebas, grind to a halt. Admittedly we've done naff all for the past few years, with just the odd gig here and there. The band has always been a complete laugh and piss take, doing rock/metal/punk covers the way we want. People have always liked us, possibly because they're usually mates😄. We've been good friends since the eighties, but sort of drifted offvto do other stuff life wise, musically and job wise. The drummer's on Talksport and Planet Rock, and recording his own stuff, the guitarist has his other bands, and I'm doing old school death metal. Our last ever gig is in June. A bit bittersweet, but hey, life goes on.

Considering how bad a lot of modern statues are, this one is an exceptional likeness. I've nicked this pic of the statue in the workshop, because it's the only image I've found so far that clearly shows the face. Nice detail on the hands too "Cast in bronze, the statue portrays Lemmy with his Rickenbacker 4001 bass, his head tilted up towards the microphone, playing the opening chord to their 1979 hit Overkill" Excellent job,both the artist and Stoke on Trent should be delighted.

HEY FOND DU LAC AREA FRIENDS! Maple Road Blues Band is coming to your neighborhood THIS SATURDAY NIGHT! Join the party at Capones! www.mapleroadbluesband.com My concerns. We've never played there before, It's a late night bar gig and I'm 71. At my age I'm just not comfortable being out at night in a bar even though I'm technically working there. I'm not sure if this place is known for having live music. I'm sure I'll have stories tomorrow. Daryl

Like this: Thanks @AndyTravis for facilitating.

I can go for the shortest. A squire strat from next door neighbour. It took all of 20 seconds

I just flew from Istanbul to Houston to get a birth year Rickenbacker. I tell myself I did it to see family but that’s a lie.

I'm a proud new owner of an MTD to show off and can't see an MTD owners thread, so here it starts! MTD Kingston Andrew Gouche AG5. Here it is in the wild: It plays very nicely, I'm impressed. The neck and fretboard are real standout features - probably the best of any 5 string I've owned, good feel and low action. Only thing I might change is I think some smoked nickel knobs would go well on it.

Always been curious about those parametric eqs, specifically that one or the slightly larger one he makes. I'd probably also get the tiny DI he makes too ... How are you finding it? Great pedals but have to ask, what are the connectors/cables? In other news I finally got around to putting my QC on a board. I have been using my Stomp-based board through essentially inertia as everything was already set up, but as I find myself not actually in a band, but depping for 3 bands and rehearsing with a fourth, it's all getting a bit messy. Decided to start from scratch, and now with 267% more buttons!

I bought this because I wanted something that will handle two ohms, I've been using a Mesa D800 up to this point but it's started to get unreliable, I've also got a trace Elliot AH300SMX, which I love but I can only use it with one cab. I wanted something old school, I know I'll probably start an argument now, I don't mean to, but I don't really like class D, preferring old school solid state, I'm convinced I can hear a difference. Anyway, I read loads of reviews on the Fafner and they were all pretty good. It's of a size, not being overly big and heavy, that means I can take it to smaller venues with just the super compact, , but it'll pack some punch through both cabs at larger venues. Pretty excited to try it out at it's first gig tomorrow night...with both cabs!

Picked my Euro LX from the tech this morning. LHZ-03 preamp installed and some luminlay fret markers installed too. Only played it briefly through my headphone amp, but the LHZ sounds fab! Have to wait about a week to hear it cranked through my GK amp, but I think I’m going to be impressed 😊

Arrival of a GT 1000 Core has meant I've been able to cut down on a lot of individual pedals I was previously using for gigs when I had my Zoom B1-4: the GT Core provides an excellent drive/fuzz, along with the usual modulation fx and not too shabby an up-sweep filter either! So I've found myself just using the two pedals shown, and wanted to get a compact pedal board to match which can more easily slot into my gig bag. I found one by a previously unknown brand "Strich" - the feet were a little too tall for my needs at 4cm & 3cm respectively, but easy to unscrew and replace with four 2cm ones, which still allows plenty of clearance for my HB Iso Pro 5 PSU on the underside.

This is what it boils down to. If you like the sound of 15s (and don't mind carrying them), the technical arguments are irrelevant, even if they are true. If you are happy with the sound you make, you will be more relaxed and confident and play better.

A few changes. Does everything I want it to do (famous last words...)