neepheid

Also props to @andruca for the write up on their SB500S which helped push me over the edge and snag this one - cheers!  Nice playing in the demos you put up, btw.

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/502833-nbd-pretty-nice-1981-yamaha-superbass-exemplar

I picked this up cheap because it's in a bit of a state and I felt sorry for it.  It's not a particularly common bass around these parts, so I figured I could get it back to being hale and hearty again.

It's pretty dirty - the tuners are green in places and I had to wash my hands after stringing this bad boy back up - boak!  But that's just dirt.  The main issue with this bass is the neck pickup.  The coil windings have been... interrupted shall we say.  Thankfully most of the coil is intact, the break is pretty close to the beginning/end of the coil so I'm going to try to unwind it slightly back to good wire then solder it back up and see if that works, failing that I guess I'll need to get it rewound.

A wee project for the weeks ahead.  Its mostly cleaning and polishing, the pickup to attempt to repair, and maybe some finish repair on a couple of nasty chips in the neck finish.  Dunno if it's worth a build diary, so I'll probably just document my progress here.

FWIW, the remaining pickup sounded pretty decent in my wee Laney 30W combo in the office here.  For all the dings/dents/scuffs/scrapes/lacquer cracks, the bones appear to be solid and it feels quite nice to play.  I think with a bit of work this will end up being a fine counterpoint to my BB1200.

6 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

 

I am in my mid 50s. The days of frequenting random gigs mid week are 30 years behind me. The generation that you need for that are teenagers to mid twenties and like it or not they get their information from the digital space. 

You assume I play mid week.  And I'm only 5 or so years behind you...

16 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

I do. I just tend not to blindly pay £25+ for tickets, £7+ plus a pint and £15 plus on transport on a whim. Like most people. 

Aim lower - at the local level here at least, door tax is less than a tenner, and the pints are £5-6.   Still no effer want to get off their fat one (and their heads out of Instagram's backside...), but that's our fault for not being all "HEY, WE'RE IN A BAND, WE'RE GOOD, YOU SHOULD COME AND SEE US" all over the socials, because it's bloody gross and quite ikky to have the begging bowl out, whoring ourselves to hell and back again just to try to coax a few folk to come and see a band.

Long scale?  Epiphone Jack Casady.

*mic drop*

Narrow it down for us - what scale length are you wanting?

Don't worry, The Inevitable Teaspoons are currently recording our second album, all by ourselves, in our RF hellhole of a rehearsal room, with whatever mics we can find and a Zoom R24, mixed by me who knows hee haw about mixing.  What could possibly go wrong?  But it will sound about as far from AI generated "perfection" as it's possible to be, and even though no effer will listen to it, it might poison the AI well a touch...

It's important enough to say it twice - do NOT use your truss rod as a means to control string height/action.  That it has a small effect upon string height when you're adjusting at it is neither here nor there.  It's there to control neck relief, to keep the neck straight (or with a very slight concave bow in it) to counteract the forces being placed on it by the strings.

I will be bringing 2 amps - a Markbass Mini CMD121P IV combo for louds, and a TC Electronic BH250 which will be headphones only, that worked really well for me at the SWBB.

12 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

What would you do?

Learn to play right handed

But in all seriousness - 80s Yamaha - BB perhaps - I think they did a few lefties?

I have a second hand Nespresso machine in my office.  Classic, so I can buy pods at Lidl or whatever's on a deal - Nestlé isn't getting a penny out of me, lol.  I even learned to like black coffee, saving even more money. 

I do buy my lunch at lunchtime most days though, because I'm a lazy so-and-so.

1 minute ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

It will be interesting to see whether Fender keeps Leo's workspace intact — or if his tools etc went in the skip, and whether they put the fullerton factory up for sale, keep it as a factory, or turn it into as museum or other public venue.

The factory was hired, had to be emptied for new tenants next month.

24 minutes ago, Suezee said:

Did you read my post? Brand new batteries tried and of course I check the volume is up full & my EQ is flat once Im plugged in.

Yes, I did read your original post.  Your original post said nothing about the EQ on the bass itself.

Go fix it yourself then, you can naff right off with the attitude.

Despite the somewhat sarcastic delivery, Hellzero is not wrong in the philosophy - back to basics.  So, the volume is up full, the EQ (on the bass) is set flat, and you've tried a fresh battery, correct?

15 hours ago, Chadu25 said:

Thanks so much for taking a pgoto of your bass! I’m going to get one from guitarguitar. 
 

cheers mate!!

Basschat, thy work is done.

9 minutes ago, Misdee said:

I would just like to point out that technically speaking I am Scottish. I could actually play for the national team and claim residence after independence. Regardless of that, I am quite happy to  subsidise methadone and deep fried Mars Bars for some time yet, just so long as I don't have to listen to Runrig ever again. 🙂

 

The reason I mention Scotland is that in recent history they have made a point of passing some "progressive" legislation that the rest of the UK would not dare even contemplate, ie  student finances ect. In light of that, I could see this scheme appealing to Scottish politicians aiming to boost what I believe they nowadays call "soft power", ie the idea that Wet Wet Wet et al enhance Scotland's international profile and influence. Personally, I'm sceptical, but I suppose you never know.

Aye aye, politics and stuff *handwaves*.  But are you any good, like at fitba or rugby?

Let's get down to the real issues here

1 minute ago, Gazz said:

I'm looking for a decent replacement pickguard, if you know of any? 

If you have an original, get it copied, either by Brian Pillans (earlpilanz on ebay) or Tinytone.  Other pickguard makers are probably available, but those are the two who spring to mind.

2 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

That's the sad part of it, Dad.  I don't believe they were trolling

11 hours ago, Hellzero said:

 

 

Nope, definitely the Rolling Stones third era (the first being with Brian Jones and the second with Mick Taylor) for one photographed rehearsal of Some Girls in 1978, with Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman (with his Travis Bean TB2000 bass) and Mick Jagger.

 

And if you don't recognise them, it's time for an eye check as it's more than obvious: Click twice on the image so see it in full definition.

 

 

Oh yeah, I didn't recognise Bill Wyman with his bass neck down there...

6 minutes ago, Misdee said:

We are a nation of philistines, and it's going to get much worse very soon. There is no chance of this ever being adopted in the U.K, except possibly by Scotland, and they would expect England to pay for it. 

Did you have to get that wee lick in there at the end?  That right wing sentiment rubbing off on you or something?  Don't make me come down there and educate you about Scotland's net worth to the United Kingdom.  I'm worth half of the Barnett Formula alone.  But if you want me gone, just say the word.

3 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

Just a short one as I have 'things' going on.*

 

A halloween party gig at The Cricketers in Westcliff on Friday. Decent turnout with a lot of people making the effort to dress up. We were a guitarist down and used yet another female dep singer who we didn'tt have much to to prep with. She did a decent job, but a couple of songs clearly weren't in her comfort zone, so we should have addressed that sooner.  I felt quite liberated being able to fill some of the physical and musical space left by the absent guitarist, throwing in extra licks and fills here and there, juicing up my usual tone with a little more overdrive, and I had prepared a couple of special presets on my Anagram to simulate powerchords blended with my bass tone for several songs. The crowd seemed to enjoy it, dancing for most of the evening, and gained some new followers.  So a decent result.

 

*lets just say I had a colonoscopy the day before and the results are not what I had hoped for. Still yet to have more scans before knowing conclusively and what impact it will have.

Felt like I needed to follow up my post like with a "yay for decent gig, but boo to unfavourable test results".  Hope it's not too bad, all the best.

Friday night (Halloween), played Grays Inn in Mastrick, Aberdeen with Nine Lives.  Wasn't the best of gigs, file it under "alright".  Oddly, the pub didn't seem to be doing anything for Halloween, but that didn't stop a bunch of people being in fancy dress anyway.  Including me - who you gonna call?  Neepbusters!

Anyhoo, we were late starting because one table of folk who had finished their dinner wouldn't vacate the area for ages, leaving us a lot less time to set up than we usually have.  Grr!  Put me in a bad mood, ngl.  But we got going about 10 mins late, and managed to get an OK sound from the get-go.  It was busy enough at the start, but I suspect a lot of folk had kids and once they left, the place cleared out pretty bad.  There were a few stragglers, but it was mostly dead, leading to a fairly meh gig.  Oh well, still get paid, I suppose.

Gear was the Sire Z7 followed by the Yamaha BB1200, into the ISO Standard modular bass rig.

2 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

That's exactly the reason I sold mine, many years ago - I was used to the weight of a Thumb and there was this featherweight thing, great to play but felt so insubstantial. I'd rather like a 5-string now, decades later.

Thankfully, there are several people here who give the impression that they won't touch a bass which weighs more than 8lbs, sadly more often than not for health reasons, so hopefully it will find some favour in these quarters.

What a year it has been.  Tried to go abstinent, failed in March, and then went a bit mad, oops.  So much good gear, but I have to rank as #1 the bass which put me out of this year's Gear Abstinence Challenge, a bass which had been living rent-free in my head for the past dozen years or so - the Greco LGB-700 in purpleburst...

I know they say "don't meet your heroes" but this bass is absolutely fabulous, everything I dreamed it would be.  Of course, I made it mine by altering the control system a touch (instead of the stock VVV it's now 6 way Freeway switch then VT), but the pickups are great, and it looks utterly fantastic.

Honourable mention go to the Boss XS-1 Poly Shifter - hands down the best pitch shifting pedal I have ever heard in terms of preservation of tone and tracking.

Worst?  I haven't bought anything truly awful this year, it's more a case of "least good" really.  I suppose it's the SGC Nanyo Bass Collection SB310 I picked up.  Was really curious about these basses and wanted to try one.  It's a fantastic bass, but it's not for me, mostly because it's too damn light!  It's for sale now.  A shame, if it had a bit more heft about it I'd probably have kept it.

10 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

It has been confirmed on Phillip McKnight’s podcast that FMIC (Fender) has bought G&L.

This is a quote I found which I think came from someone who used to work at G&L

"I ran the [G&L] custom shop the last 2 years. The factory has been emptied out. Fender didn't take any of the guitar inventory we had, which was substantial. That was all sold to MIRC out of Tennessee to be sold through their channels. 
All fender wanted was the IP and Leo's likeness and signature."

So, looks like a clean break.  Makes sense, didn't think Fender would want the bother of selling stuff they didn't make.