lonestar

I recently went to spend a sunny afternoon in a pub garden watching a bass playing mate of mine’s band. Bunch of 60+ Essex geezers all pleasant enough, helped them set up etc( all fine so far. One of them was wearing white shirt, white slacks and white shoes. There was some banter about him being in Miami Vice, and whether he was Crockett or Tubbs. He replied “so long as I ain’t that black C***t!”

Being half Mauritian, so of mixed race and little bit brown I answered in a dead-pan humourless tone “No, I expect that’d be me.” I think that it went straight over their  numb-skulled heads. 
I couldn’t leave as Steve was driving.

Suffice to say I won’t be offering my services if they ever require a dep.

I'd recommend low-tack masking tape, having once peeled off some varnish on the edge of an old maple board. If you only have regular tape run it across your t-shirt first, it may work!

I normally use 0000 wire wool followed, by Duraglit or Brasso

At a huge outdoor gig in bright sunlight I couldn’t see the leds on my pedal tuner.

No problem, I have a backup Korg lcd screen tuner. Tuned my 5 string and started playing. Horrible; I must have been about a third of a tone out. I had to stop playing, grab my backup bass and carry on with some very odd looks from my bandmates.

At the interval I just couldn’t work out what was going on. The sound guy sussed it. I’d knocked the calibration switch on the tuner in my haste from 440hz to something else. Doh!

I’ve been playing this for a few weeks now and loving it even more! I’ve adjusted the pickup heights slightly, resulting in an improved tone and even volume across the strings and tweaked the relief/action a little.
Played a large outdoor festival the other week, through an Ampeg SVT and 4x10 on a big stage with a proper festival PA. My bass sounded great and lots of nice comments about my  sound at this gig from the crew, and from my band mates at rehearsals. I couldn’t be more pleased with it.

I was photographing it for the late David Redfern.

I photographed so many festivals and gigs back that I was a bit blase about the whole thing. After I'd got what I needed I left, jumped on the tube , went went home, moved the telly into the French doors and watched the rest in the garden with a few cold beers.

13 hours ago, Geek99 said:

You have bass solos? I thought these were the stuff of legend .. a unicorn appeared, wearing a trilby hat, and then it was my turn to solo kind of thing 🦄
 

"when drums stop,very bad....."

10 minutes ago, peteb said:

 

They've probably just got it back from being repaired after the last time you used it...! 🙂 

 

HaHa 

What are all these switches for then? Does it go up to 11?  What if I turn all these knobs up to full?

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

This sounds ace.

It was my ideal gig, living the dream! Shame we weren’t playing for a bit longer. 

We’re back playing a full set indoors at Venue 16 in January

Had a great afternoon at Summer Soul Vibe Festival in Ipswich. We played a 40 min set mid-afternoon.

Exellent stage, crew and pa playing my first gig with my new Sadowsky ME.

The back line  the same SVT I played with a year ago at another festival, same hire company! Proper green room in Venue 16, with lasagne, soft drinks tea and coffee and staff looking after you.

Really nicely done.

Good to get great comments from the sound guys and I could see the foldback  engineers having a good time stage

 left of us. Which is always nice.and reassuring.

NBD 

Quick string change and setup. First impressions it’s very nice, apart from the  placky battery cavity cover.

I’ll fit the VTC preamp when I get a chance.

Thanks for the heads up.

I think I’ve just ordered the last set in stock

Not sure if they’re still around but I have a Mighty Mite fender licenced neck on my bitsa P bass. Lovely

On 30/11/2024 at 15:57, glassmoon said:

Quick question for you all... Who here has upgraded their MetroExpress with the VTC circuit, and how much of an improvement is it really? My bog standard eq is all flat and both pickups are on full. How much "more" will the VTC bring to the party? 

 

Thanks, as always... 

 

Julian aka Glassmoon 

I added the VTC to mine and it was worth every penny.

Mine is a 2020 model and although there were none of the common noise issues from that time, the vintage tone control, better pots, and versatility of tones has made a big improvement to my bass. 

I’ve felt no need to change the pickups, since swapping the VTC preamp and controls, but I did swap the string retainer for a Hipshot one, as inspired by Andy Irvine. That in itself seemed to improve the tone somehow and “tighten” up the sound is the only way I can think how to describe it. Roger Sadowsky has posted a very useful how to video on Youtube.

Get your soldering iron out and go for it!

https://shop.warwick.de/en/instruments/electric-basses/sadowsky-metroexpress/24-fret-modern-bass/38977/sadowsky-metroexpress-24-fret-modern-bass-roasted-maple-fingerboard-5-string?number=D0444556001717328263A1-D0890850001700158009A5506

Anyone tried one of these?

I’m intrigued to know how it compares with the JJ 5string

Any offers before I have to resort to Fleabay ?

Open to offers 

This is the, I think early nineties or late ‘80s Precision copy that I posted about recently and now need to move on to make space for something else. It’s a reluctant sale really, because it’s a really nice bass; lightweight, low action and sonically does what a P bass should. I did,as I mentioned in the other thread:

Replace the pickup and wiring loom with a recent 2018 Mex Fender Player series one.

Lined the cavity with copper tape.

add New shiny knobs

Glue crack in the pick guard by the jack socket

Gave the fingerboard and frets a bit of a spruce up. 

It’s aging nicely with the pick guard and neck looking a lovely vintage colour.

There is a bit of a ding in the back of the neck but otherwise in very good condition, having spent much of its life in its gig bag in the cupboard.

It'll come with a cheap gig bag and the nylon strap in the pics.

I’d prefer it if you’d like to come and pick up, kettle will be on or meet to collect nearby.

I do have a big heavy Thomann packing box for postage if you’d like to arrange a courier.

Nice one playing at Kings Lynn Cocktail festival. A surprisingly sedate crowd*, I can’t imagine they’d hit the cocktails very hard. However we played well and they seemed to like us.
 

* unlike these lovely ladies photographed outside the venue about 7:30pm, who seemed to having a fine Saturday night out.

On 19/04/2024 at 12:06, Barking Spiders said:

They sure get overplayed on the likes of Heart, Smooth and Absolute. Back in the day it was kinda heretical to profess a dislike of the Eurythmics. As well as There Must Be...equally turnoffable IMO are Sweet Dreams, Who's That Girl, Right By Your side and Thorn In My Side.  ABBA i don't mind. Can't think of any of their songs have me booting the radio out through the window

I like Annie Lennox; she seems a very nice, talented person and singer. I just really dislike her voice.

Quite a lot of the usual cover band staples on here are strong contenders for my worm sandwich list i.e I'd rather eat one than play any of them again. However, Bohemian Like You is head and shoulders way above any of them in a list of songs that I hate. I absolutely loathe everything about it and have never understood why anyone would want to hear it; I hated it from the first time I listened to it and played it in a band.

Looks like Thomann have very little stock of the old 5 string.

This is about half what I paid for my late 2020 one although I think the headstock on this says 2019.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/sadowsky_metroexpress_21_5_vin_mo_sgmp.htm Still very tempting.

I did the usual to mine; fitted a VTC preamp, filed the fret ends and added a hip shot string retainer to mine and I love it. It’s sadly not my Ampeg rig in the pic though.

The Bottle- Gil Scott-Heron

MPB Womack & Womack

Shaky Ground The temptations/Phoebe Snow

pic courtesy of Emma Bowden @armadillocentral.com

Brilliant gig on Saturday at The Plough in Shrepreth. Good turn out, some lovely comments from the audience and staff and being not far from home. I had lots of friends and family in; which is always nice.Very good friendly venue; a great local pub that prides itself on on being a proper music pub- nice stage, good house PA and an owner who also knows his way around a desk; he did a great job on the sound while running a busy bar and looked after us really well. He also happens to stock some great beers and Mrs C was driving !

We had a great time one of the best pub gigs I’ve played.

Is there no start to this man's talents ?

22 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I'm surprised we made it all the way to page two before the inevitable "the Beatles weren't all that" comments started...

All I did was post a light hearted paraphrase of an Alan Partridge quip and off it all went.  It's as if they'd said that they were bigger than Jesus or something... Oh hang on.

BTW I like the Beatles; There I've said it.