neepheid

I think I've bought a bass from the guy before - the Burny LP shaped confection which I put lipstick pickups in. He's a sound bloke, got a pretty nifty collection of instruments, had a fine yap with him when I was picking up the Burny. Should have just bought his one (as it looks minty fresh if I recall correctly), but then what fun would that have been?

So, I've made a start at restoring this bass (or at least minimising my chances of catching ebola from it ). The pickup is with an electrical technician at work to see if it the coil can simply be reconnected, we got talking about it and it turned into a "give it here" type situation. This suits me - he's got much better equipment than me (much finer and temperature controlled soldering iron, magnifier light thingy) and well, it's his job so he's less likely to make an arris of it than me. As for me, I've dismantled the tuners and put them in a cola bath to try to clean them up, remove tarnishing etc. I've made a start at polishing up the tuner bushings (E string done in the photo). Going to do them in situ rather than pop them out - I dislike press fit bushings at the best of times and these old things are in there nice and tight. If I pop them out then there's no guarantee they'll go back in as nicely, so they're just getting polished as best I can where they are.

Wishaw, aye?

Now, I know I popped off ad nauseum at the price of the Grabber. Because it was effing ridiculous. But I'm not so outraged about this one. Why? Because they seem to have done a better job of this one in the following ways: Functionality identical to the OG bass (in terms of pickups, controls etc.) Strung through the body like the OG bass Bridge is WAY better than the OG bass The pickguard is still wonky, but the silverburst kinda hides it - I think because the pickguard follows the shape of the burst, giving it some context instead of it just floating there I think I'd like to get one, because it ticks all the G-3 boxes which a former (and very regretful) Gibson G-3 owner would be looking for, and while it may well still be a tad overpriced for what it is, it'll be a damn sight cheaper than trying to procure a Gibson G-3 now, or commissioning the likes of Decibel or Baard to make me one.

Yay!

Well, I'm a plum. I wrote a "I got home for reals this time" message yesterday, then forgot to hit the submit button. D'oh! TL:DR I got home safe

Well, that's me half way home in one piece. Thanks to our wonderful organising committee for putting together an excellent bash. Great to put some faces to names, and I played some fun basses which made me smile, in particular the 12 string Hamer and the teeny tiny Harley Benton micro Jazz. If I'm not gigging - see you next year! Cheers Matt

I stopped playing during the COVID lockdowns. I don't get much joy from playing bass on my tod, so I didn't. Honestly, it was 50/50 whether or not I would go back. Then I gave my head a wobble, treated myself to a royal purple G&L CLF L-1000 and got back on the horse.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

Basschat, thy work is done.

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