neepheid

Complexity, solved.

Speaking as someone who has brought everything to a bash, I would advise that you don't - be editorial and try to bring what you think will be interesting. I will be bringing 6 of my 14 basses, with another 4 or so which I will bring if anyone asks.

I'll also wager that your next gig is in a large population centre, quite close to other large population centres, relatively speaking. But even in our isolated outpost of civilisation, I'd like to think that one might hook in a few curious people. Maybe people are so skint that spending a fiver on a lineup of bands they don't know is a gamble too far. I think I'm going to be on a hiding to nothing with this point, as I'm sure a fingerpointing from someone at our lack of initiative when it comes to self promotion is in the post, so I think I'll leave it there.

Plus, at the local level, we find it hard to get people to get off their backsides and pay a fiver at the door to come see us. Please, restrain yourselves from commenting on the quality of the fare on offer, you scamps - you know what I mean!

Yup, I just checked in Chrome and Edge, filters do hee haw when you click on them - they should present a drop down menu to choose from, yes?

My usual reaction these days is "Eff off! I'm not paying that!" Scot's gotta Scot. But it is getting ridiculous, and it's not just gig tickets. Someone's making money at our expense, and it isn't me, that's for damn sure. I rarely go out to the pub these days, never mind gigs, because the price of a pint is taking the p!ss. Maybe it has to, because if it's not the pubs who are taking the mick, then it's someone above them in the supply chain taking the mick out of them, to then take the mick out of me. I'm not having it. My wallet has a vote, and it's voting "no" a lot more often these days.

Heal up first. You'll remember more than you think when you return to the bass. I didn't play bass for two years during lockdown, and nearly quit altogether but thankfully I got back on the horse and it all came flooding back. Your bass playing will be fine and it can wait. Don't compromise your recovery by trying to do physical things before you're ready. I haven't ridden a bike for years, but I'm pretty sure I won't need my stabiliser wheels put back on...

That's what you get for not paying your bills?

Something Gibson-esque (speed knob, bell knob, witch hat) in keeping with the EB-ness of it all?

I used strips of wood veneer to make rings of wood to make up the difference... https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/514065-it-came-from-the-black-lagoon/#findComment-5523942

Stop being sensible now

After a wee break, am back on the gigging horse with Nine Lives at the Balaclava in Fraserburgh on Saturday 25th Oct.

I suspect Inga is on a quest for quick post count amassing... do people still care about that these days? It's like having a visitor counter on your Geocities web page, lol.

Well indeed, apart from the TRC I can't see what you're looking for here. But I'll throw some fuel on the T-40 parts fire... When I fitted a T-40 pickup to my DeArmond Jet Star, the pickup ring was a bit warped and sad, so I got one 3D printed using this model - fits great! If they're not bothered about originality of parts, this could get someone out of jail - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3587735

Recently sold a pitch shifter pedal to Magnus. Sound as a pound, great comms, prompt payment, chatty and no nonsense transaction at the same time. A pleasure doing business with you.

u ok hun?

Schaller are bloody great at answering queries like this. Glad to see that's still the case, even if they couldn't help you. They should be able to tell you the length/thread/head type that you need though, then any good hardware/fastener supplier ought to be able to help you out when presented with this info.

According to https://bassesbyleo.com/allen_wrenches.html - G&L (USA) went fully metric in 2006.

Yeah, sorry mate, that doesn't look right - this is my 2020 CLF L-1000... 4mm hex iirc.

I don't refer to myself as an artist. P!ss artist, maybe... If other people want to refer to me as an "artist", I won't correct them though

Hee hee, got a borrow of an expression pedal - guess who's having some whammy fun tonight with his XS-1...

I guess right now, it's the Fazley Hot Rod. This is the result of my "£150 giggable bass challenge", and it has quite a story to it. Buoyed by the positive result of buying a bass for £150 (the Gear4Music LA Select bound P bass thingy) and then mucking about with it (replacement pickup, tuners etc., bit of fret work), under the banner of "how bad can a £150 bass be?", I decided to lower the bar further and set myself a new challenge of setting the entire budget of the project to £150 - that's initial cost of the bass plus any remediation required, new parts only, (postage ignored) because I'm quite mad. Back in September 2024 I spied the Fazely Hot Rod on Bax Music and thought to myself, damn, I like the look of that. Surf green, no pickguard, reverse P, single volume control. £84 at the time, perfect as the starting point for a £150 project. It was out of stock but I placed the back order anyway, knowing that it would take several months for a new batch to arrive. It's not like I don't have other basses to play after all. So the ETA begins to lengthen - was initially end of 2024, but the date kept slipping and you probably know why - Bax Music went bankrupt in April 2025. I am in the privileged position to be able to shrug off an £84 loss so shrug I did. In the interim, as I had pickups lying around waiting for basses to go into, I snagged an Epiphone Embassy Special IV locally for £150 and chucked an Entwistle neodymium pickup in it, and very nice it is too, but that's another story. To my surprise, rumblings of Bax Music being bought over and coughing back into life happened, and to my further surprise, I got an email at the end of May saying that the newco was going to fulfil back orders. Despite my scepticism, I played along, answered any questions they put to me (like opting to wait on the goods ordered instead of getting store credit now). It took a few months for them to get around to my order but to my amazement, a parcel was dispatched to me on 7th August and I recieved it a few days later. So it took the best part of a year to arrive - but was it worth it? Oh hell yeah. I honestly don't know how they did it. The only cost saving areas I could find were the comically bad pickup (which I was going to change anyway), the finish is a bit wibbly wobbly in places (like ripples in it if you look really close) and zero cavity shielding. Oh, and the stock strings were absolute thin, rough garbage. But the fretwork is great, it even has a subtle chamfer/roll to the fretboard edges. The tuners are acceptable at the price point, and acceptable as tuners go in general. The bridge was your bog standard BBOT, nothing to complain about there. So, to get it up to snuff, I replaced the pickup with a Tonerider Duke, shielded the cavities, replaced the bridge (didn't have to, but I had a £19 Guyker bridge lying around which has partially slotted saddles and hides the ball ends of the strings for a cleaner look), fitted a triple string tree (because I like them), and the finishing touch - a giant volume knob! Final tally was £144.67. I've only gigged it once so far, but it was great - I'm not much of a knob twiddler at the gig but there was this weird sense of extra liberation when there's nothing bar a volume knob to p!ss about with! I'll shut up now, but TL:DR this is currently my budget #1.