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I was doing a gig with the blues/rock band yesterday We only usually do one a year but the BL decided to do a warm up gig in what was a great venue but. They've taken the carpet out 3 Guitarists stupid Bose PA right behind me I had my ACS custom moulds in and by half way through the 2nd set it was hurting my ears The guitars just kept turning up and up During a dreadful rendition of Heroes by Bowie I signalled to the BL that I couldn't hear and it was too loud H e wound the song up early and I said I'm done. It's loud, it's hurting me and I walked off stage I'm not a diva but I actually feared for the hearing I have left I'm still fumimg this morning

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 🙂

I would have walked at ‘blues/rock’, or if not then, then definitely at ‘3 guitarists’! 😄

We've just done the first of two gigs today... We had the 1350-1420 slot at Rebellion Festival Arena. We played there two years ago and the sound was awful, boomy, feedback and generally horrible. So now they've put the stage facing across the room, and it's now the best sounding room at the Festival! For the first time in many years I went directly into the PA from my Helix. Our other bass player used the supplied AmpegSvt and Fridge. As a result, he was happy with trousers flapping indistinct mush, and I was very happy with a slightly slappier JJ Burnell-esque tone which suited my far too many notes style. We played ok, a number of mistakes due to nerves from our two new members and also a serious lack of rehearsal, but I shall eventually beat the songs into them good'n'hard. However, audience of 2-300 seemed happy (we were up against 4 other bands in the other Winter Gardens venues, plus the Typhoon and Red arrows flypast at Blackpool airshow. Afterwards we didn't get a kicking, and even sold some merch... Gear- Sandberg Basic, Helix, PA. Shoes - TUK zebra creepers. T-shirt - original UKSubs Another Kind of Blues from about 1978-9.

First gig back for 7 months for various reasons….. Good warm up, bit rusty, but a fun one.. Then the following night, a hot one, but I had a great on stage sound, full Ashdown rig on full tilt, a lot of fun…..

Had our first gig with the new lineup last night to a packed venue with close to 150 people in this tiny room. And we absolutely smashed it. I went DI for the bass - Tonex One into cheap generic passive DI box into FOH, and wired IEM packs. Struggled to sleep overnight from the adrenaline, but that's about normal for me after a gig.

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

9AM start for me yesterday to pick up the guitarist and a bunch of gear, then a long drive through constant traffic to Blackpool. A bunch of jobsworth's checking the gear at the load in bay which is unusual for Rebellion. One lad stopped me "I need to put a tag on your hardware case" What's the point of that? "It's a security measure, it shows that it's been searched" Do you want to search it then? "No, I trust you, you don't have any drugs in there do you?" No mate, the drugs are in my other bag 🤷‍♂️ Then the stairs. So many stairs. All the way up to the Opera House to play our first set. It's such a massive stage and they barely even line checked us. The sound on stage was abysmal. They had the guitarists' amp modeller clipping so it was just a horrible fizzy mush. We struggled through but seemed to go down really well. I've seen some footage since and the sound was fine FOH so they must have had separate feeds on the guitar. Very reassuring! After that were more stairs up to the Almost Acoustic stage. So many stairs. For this "acoustic" stage, the only hard and fast rule is "no bass drums". I'm sure I've posted on here about this before but my work around is to put a mic in a tupperware tub and hit it with a standard kick pedal. It's so weird that they prefer to plug in this contraption than mic up an acoustic bass drum, but it is what it is, and we've done it loads of times before, so we cracked on. This room is a nightmare for sound. A very distinct slap back echo on everything. It's OK when I'm in charge of the groove but when the guitarist is on his own it can put him off. Anyway, once again, we seemed to go down really well Lots of new fans, sold loads of merch, and had a good laugh. So many stairs on the way out. Then the lift was broken at the carpark. I was on the top floor. My legs would like a rest now Ace to see @Leonard Smalls sounding tight AF, trousers in full effect!

Great thread @kwmlondon Really laughed a lot reading everyone's posts...😂😁🤣 What an irrational lot we are. Many of my irrational prejudices have been posted already, but the one that really grinds my gears that hasn't been mentioned so far is this one. It's social media or Basschat posts that we bassists share frequently about our upcoming gigs, with wording to the effect of... 'tonight's office' Or 'today's office' That come with a tasteful picture of some basses and a bass rig. OMG, that winds me up like nothing else because... It's not a f*#king office for f*#k's sake!!! 😡 It's a gig, a venue, a place where people congregate to do nice things (in the main)... I play music to get away from the office, and the last thing I'd ever want to associate playing music with is a f*#king office. 😡 There. Said it. 😬😜 I need to go and lie down in a darkened room for a couple of hours now... 😁🤣

Just back from Ipswich, where we played Rock Against Leukaemia - it’s ninth year now and they’re doing amazing work. It’s always a fun show, this one had us getting ‘glitter beards’ at the request of our singer’s little girl. (The things you do to keep kids laughing!) We played a truncated set well, plenty of dancers, and it was an opportunity to play a heavier than normal set, with Metallica, Fall Out Boy, Sabbath, Nirvana, Lit and a few others. Great night and can’t wait for next year’s 10th birthday for RAL! edit, I supposed I’d better show off said glitter beard, eh?

Which logo do you want on your Cort?

Couple of gigs for me this week. Regular Wednesday evening at the rock and roll club - busier than the last few weeks and we played tighter too, we’re really starting to gel now. I’m thinking of trying my Danelectro Longhorn out down there at some point, may fit in nicely. Last night saw our acoustic duo playing at a birthday party for a farmer a couple of villages from where I live. He sells sunflowers from one of his fields, so the marquee was suitably decorated. I took my Fender Kingman bass, and we used his PA - RCF tops with Mackie bass bins, a throwback to his previous life as a DJ. The initial brief was 3 x 40 min sets - first one background stuff as the guests arrived, second one taking requests as they ate ( gourmet burger van, excellent!) and then the last set playing stuff for dancing. However, largely due to the free bar people got up to dance early on in set 2, so we had to keep it going. Really pleased we had the large PA, as it needed to kick a bit and it did! Last set was full on, lots of the audience on the makeshift dance floor. We finished around 11pm, absolutely knackered though. We packed away and left the party which remained in full swing. Still, we were paid handsomely, well fed and watered and also gave out a few business cards so overall a good gig. Just glad I have today to recover. 😆

We played The Major Goolsby stage at Wisconsin State Fair this afternoon. It was a good gig. We were well received. The whole thing went over a lot better than last year despite the 100° weather. We played three 45 minute sets. As usual I couldn't get any decent pics. We

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" 😄

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!

Friday evening was my first gig as an official member of the Bonnevilles, rather than a dep, as efforts to communicate with the previous bassist have proved fruitless. A few days on from playing inside at the Anker Inn, this was an outdoor multi-band charity fundraiser. This was for a local charity, a Nuneaton hospice. Arrived a little after it started, the band on when I arrived featured a couple of the guys who were providing the PA. The bassist was playing a 5-string Ibanez BTB, which was nice to see and hear (I've grown bored of 4-string Fenders and Squiers, almost all one sees on open mic nights with bands). Next up was a country singer and guitarist with backing tracks. He revealed partway through his set that his father had died on Tuesday, and had been cared for in the hospice. Then it was us. We were using supplied backline which was OK but the guitarist's sound was a bit indistinct. I'll use that as an excuse for missing my cue back into the "Light my fire" intro after his solo. Then we got a pissed-up woman who told us it was her birthday and wanted us to play f*cking "Wonderwall" and said she could sing it. We ignored her and continued to the end. After doing an encore, the guitarist and I had got our gear off stage when our singer picked up his acoustic and started playing f*cking "Wonderwall", and the drunken woman sang, in a variety of keys, none of which were correct. As a bit of a postscript to that, the next act on were a duo - male lead vocals and lead guitar on an SG, female rhythm guitar on a slimline semi-acoustic Tele. They were very good and managed to survive the drunken birthday woman thinking that she could make a positive contribution to "Go your own way" (before someone removed her from the mic and the stage). Gear - Antoniotsai 5-string fretted dragon bass -> Lekato WS-50 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Ashdown combo as on-stage monitor, Caravelle memory foam trainers. Then it was Saturday afternoon. For several years, an open mic player called Rick has hosted an event known as Rickstock in his back garden. This stopped a little while back but he decided to revive it as a charity fundraiser for the charity "I'm homeless get me out of here". Rather than his back garden, it was held at the Shirley British Legion. I had a slot mid afternoon, which I did with my usual crap vocals (Mrs Zero having gone to Bloodstock), and as I finished, Rick said to me "the next act's bassist hasn't turned up, can you do it?". I foolishly said yes (I had played with the guitarist who was on next once before and it was freeform jazz, so I expected to have my boundaries further expanded). Then David the guitarist launched into "Sunshine of your love" and I felt safer. Three more songs - "La grange" which I don't know but bluffed through, and "All right now" and "Black magic woman" which I had no problem with. The personnel were guitarist David (pronounced in a German fashion as he's German), keyboard/vox David (pronounced in an English fashion as he's English), and Phil on drums. Plus me, of course. Gear - Hohner B2AV -> Lekato WS-50 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Red Sub combo, unbranded velcro-fastening trainers. So then I headed off to the Dirty Roses gig in Sutton Coldfield. We were at the Sutton Park Hotel (which I think is probably no longer a hotel). Car park was rather full and I got a space about as far away from the doors as was possible. After doing my cardio for the next couple of months I got loaded in. The usual chaos of setup ensued and we started up at 9. The applause was a bit more enthusiastic than "polite" but fell a bit short of "rapturous". Things did seem to shift up a gear for the second half though - one of the songs is Time Warp and that's a bit of a barometer. There were several dancers, and the guitarist and I went walkabout to check them. Another few crowd pleasers and the usual encores. Afterwards, the manageress said she was really pleased with us, wanted us back, and then as we were about to go, one of the bar staff (who had been videoing us all evening) told us she didn't like bands but we had been really entertaining. And some bloke in the toilet asked me if we were playing anywhere else locally. Which was all very nice. Ringing the changes, gear was Sei Flamboyant 5 -> Lekato WS-90 -> Zoom MS-60B+ -> Tecamp Puma 900 -> GR Bass AT212, and footwear the same unbranded velcro-fastening trainers.

Two gigs on Saturday. Started with a dep at 12 just down the road from home … just as well as I pulled in and remembered I hadn’t loaded my IEM transmitter, so a quick return home to collect then set up. Early start for a festival gig and next to no one there but fun all the same. Took a little while to get the IEM mix right but the sound guy was new to the desk 24 hours previous but we got there by the end and no stress. I’d spent a while getting the dots sorted and down for Footloose then it got dropped for time and two of us depping - me and drums. Annoying but a good workout for me and I’m sure I’ll get a chance to run it at another dep so no problems 🙂 Home for a shower and a nap then out to gig two with my usual band. Small (tiny) venue and we used an electric kit for the first time. Worked great for me on full IEM’s and seemed ok in the room. Good tight night though not a lot in with the heat. Happy with the BV’s and getting properly sorted on those with some of the newer ones that are now working in nicely. Bit of a moment towards the end when guitarists were telling me I was in the wrong key - I wasn’t, sounded fine in ear - and whatever it was apparently sorted itself in the chorus, so no idea what happened there.

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

We had a gig in a tiny tiny pub. I'd gigged there before. It's a pain unloading as the pub is in a really narrow street, not much wider than a car itself and the set up area is compact 🙂. Despite me warning the rest of the pub's quirky location and size, or lack of, they were still a little gobsmacked when they saw the reality 🤣🤣 We had a fun gig, lovely pub, lovely crowd (I say crowd in its loosest term considering aforementioned size), we played well and will get asked back. Result.

Had the third of 5 Saturdays in a row for us. Another British Legion ( put your preconceived ideas away). Long narrow room next to a lounge bar that was pumping out Sabbath and Ozzy tracks in a belated tribute. As usual setup was tight and so I had no time to take photos and the better half will not put down her drink to take photos in case it is spiked Again the reduction to a four piece means.we are are much tighter and really enjoying ourselves It is holiday time so the crowd was a little sparse but they seemed to enjoy themselves.

A last minute booking that came in yesterday morning from the Parasite, er I mean the Agent. Just a trio job ten minutes up the road at the Village Club, Spondon. A lovely crowd, but got a very interesting comment from an 'audient' - he said that he was really pleased to be able to hear all the individual bass notes, as usually with bands the bass is an undefined mess and too boomy - Must be the wooden stage and how people EQ. I blame the flat wound or long dead strings, personally. 🫣

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!

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.

Saturday we played our much-hyped (and I mean much-hyped, I don't think as much effort has gone into promoting a gig since I've been a member) gig at The Hop in Wakefield. Our guitarist Jen is a local to the area (three of the others are all from over Bratford way) so had been going mad with excitement for the last month and there had been a great many posts on "the socials" including from her employer. She had gathered a huge list of shout outs that she wanted to do but which we had to quite sensibly curtail - I made the point that with the amount she wanted to do we may as well ditch the set list and just do shout outs! The venue was reasonably compact but a nice size, and the stage was a decent size. It was a warm evening so we managed to get the AC turned on above us, but it was pretty useless and so it was a pretty sweaty one. I decided to go with my Sire V7, Ashdown ABM and the trusty Barefaced cab, with the Elf on standby just in case. During soundcheck everything sounded OK but the on-stage sound during the gig was very hit and miss - there were a few songs where we were relying on some sequenced drum tracks to keep the drummer in time, and thence to keep the rest of us in time, but there were a few songs where he could barely hear it and so we went a bit wrong on a few occasions, notably during the bass solo of Club Foot where I made a right hash of things. For the most part though things went pretty well, playing-wise, and our newly-prepped track Shout was amazing to play live, as well as giving me a chance to break out the Mooer octave pedal I got for Christmas! The atmosphere in the venue was absolutely tremendous, and playing issues aside one of the best gigs I've had with the band. Our guitarist's husband even went so far as to say he thought it was the best one he'd seen of us. People were up and dancing and singing right from the start, and the number that did so only increased through the night. We played two encores and left them wanting more - I was at the bar getting a drink afterwards and two lads were talking to each other about whether we were coming back on or not, and were disappointed when I told them we were done. My next door neighbours came to see me and looked like they were having a great time, possibly too great as they left immediately after we'd finished. We'd priced ourselves as low as we'd normally go to get the gig, but from what I was told they took almost well over double behind the bar what they'd normally take on a Saturday night. We hope we'll be invited back after that, and we'll definitely be pushing for a bit more in the way of fee. It's an Ossett Brewery pub, and we were told that they would pass on our details to others owned by the brewery, so fingers crossed. I think someone from another pub may have been in that night because we got an enquiry over Messenger during our mid-set break. Hopefully this will lead to us getting a few more diverse gigs for next year.

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

Last night, played at Wilsons in Aberdeen with Nine Lives. Gig went well, pretty busy, decent crowd interaction. Nice to see a few of my mates came down to support - much appreciated, lads! Including two guys I met for the first time at a mate's house the night before. For once, the casual dropping into conversation about me playing a gig the following night paid off! Playingwise, I played pretty well, no major oopsies, and new song in the set went without a hitch (apart from me forgetting to engage my OD like I said I would, oops). Really emptied out about five songs before the end though - I guess people had other places to go! Ahh well, from the start until then it was decently busy. Good night, really enjoyed it. Gear was the Greco LGB-700 followed by the Epiphone Em-bassy into the ISO standard modular bass rig.

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

Topics about irrational prejudices.

After our Rebellion afternoon gig went and watched @cheddatom 's band Headsticks - they were, as usual properly excellent... So following some refuelling with pizza, tiramisu and double espressos we carted our gear 200m to the Washington pub which was surrounded by punks watching Year Zero (decent band!). We schlepped everything (actually, twas only Raph's bass amp, our instruments and cymbals) through the throng, set up and proceeded to play. And we made far fewer mistakes - slight speed errors here and there but starts, stops and changes were perfect. Good thing we'd had a rehearsal at Rebellion earlier 😁. All seemed to go down well, folks jigging about and no complaints when I did unnecessary slap'n'widdle solos. Which was nice! Gear and clothes exactly the same as earlier, apart from provided big Ashdown combo that sounded pretty awesome once I'd tamed the feedback. And the rest of the band went to watch Bad Manners in the Strictly Ballroom while I had a Glenfiddich 15yo in the hotel bar...

I don't like crowds so I play jazz.

Two more days were spent filling the exposed ends of the fret slots with lacquer, which is a slow process of dripping stuff in with a pipette and then filing it down. After that I was ready to start painting in my newly aquired (from Argos) spray booth/greenhouse. I was a little stumped by how to hold an instrument that has no tuning peg holes or neck pocket to use, but decided on a big M-10 eyebolt through the jack socket hole. And here's how it looks as of right now. Don't worry, this is just the first step in what will be a fairly elaborate finish.

Think you made the right choice, if volume is painful whilst wearing ear protection then that’s way too loud.

Sunburst with tort scratchplates.

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.

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. 😆

Better photo from Rebellion...

It's done! I went to the Mech Engineering Workshop at work today, because I needed some help to get a hole through from the new pickup route to the cavity. Yes, they had a sufficiently long drill bit to be able to enter from the neck pocket and drill through, into the new route then onwards and into the bridge pickup route... Bridge pickup is foam suspended, so the foam will simply deform around the chunky multicore wire. After that, it was pretty much just a case of wiring it all up. Except it wasn't - because there were a few wrinkles in the plan (isn't there always?). First thing I learned is that the T-40 pickup, while splittable, doesn't give you access to all four ends of the coils - it only has three wires plus a shield coming out of it, so all you can do is series/single by shunting one coil to ground. So I had to change from a three way mini toggle to a two way. Then gotcha 2 happened - the new switch had less of a threaded section on it than the previous switch, so out comes the drill again with the forstner bit to remove a little more control cavity to make the new switch poke through the top of the guitar enough. With those little issues out of the way it was just a case of wiring it up... Quick tap test on the pickups made me suspect that the pickups were out of phase when both engaged, so I swapped the wires of easiest one (the bridge pickup). Then I tested it for real. IT WORKED! I am delighted with this mod - I've had to learn a lot of new things, and I hope to never have to route an already finished bass ever again

We did one, where the head lining band provided the PA and sound engineer. It was so loud I did the gig with my 19dB ACS IEMs and 30dB ear defenders over top. That was the last gig I did with that band. When the headliners came on they turned the levels up, and even outside the venue it was too loud to not have hearing protection. Me at the gig, looking p***ed...

I have had this for over a month but the crown mother-of-pearl fret stickers only arrived this week from US. I think they look the part and also tone down the Judas Priest 50 logo at 12th fret. Nice slim neck profile and a comfy 8 lb 2.5 oz in weight (this is the one I got from the Gumtree chap who has a gazillion basses for sale who was the subject of another thread).

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**

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

If you're wearing protection and it is that loud, then that is seriously wrong. People need to take this more seriously. I'm extremely wary of loud environments, which is why I have an app with an SPL meter on it. OK it's not 'accurate' since a proper reading requires measuring distances etc., but it's a useful guide.

Small step forward today - tuners arrived. Because nothing ever goes smooth, the (pre drilled) holes in the headstock of my neck were way too big - and in my opinion having way too much slop to fix by wrapping tape around the tuner bushing. So, in steps some 0.6mm basswood veneer I have. Did a quick and dirty test fit and it worked pretty damn well. That one was a bit short though, so I cut some new strips of a more correct length: You've got to steam them first - they snap if you try to bend them that much when dry: After steaming, they're pliable enough to curl into shape and drop in the hole. Nice and tight, tuners fitted. Small job done.

Artificially relic'd basses

Oasis. What a pair of unspeakable twàts.

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

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

You did the right thing, well done. I’ve recently left a blues rock band, mainly because the stage levels were ridiculously loud. Gigs which should have been very enjoyable were becoming significantly less so for me, and my hearing is far more important.