neepheid

Eerily prescient - see below! A weekend of gigs to report on. Friday night with Nine Lives at The Leathan in Portlethen, near Aberdeen. It's an odd place to play - hard floor, low ceiling, band area walled in on both sides half way up. Caused a plethora of sound issues to be worked around, we were a few mins late starting. From gremlins with the singer's wireless mic (a lot of hiss for some reason - went wired in the end), to having to drop the bass down a lot because too much boom. But when we did get going, we had a good time, sound got better in the second half, probably because it got a bit busier. It was a good night - a small crowd but lots of enthusiastic dancing makes it worth double. Gear was Sire Z7 then G&L wunkay into the usual Markbass tone cubes. Saturday afternoon I did some wiring work on my Squier Jag H, was feeling cocky so I took it to the gig at night (with a backup, of course). Saturday night was at Gray's Inn in Mastrick, Aberdeen, again with Nine Lives. What a difference a room makes - wide open space, carpeted floor, high ceiling. Setup was a breeze and the drummer (who has taken up the challenge of being main sound guy, as well as being a sound guy!) nailed the levels almost right away. A less busy time, but we still had a few folk up dancing. I went walkabout through to the other bit of the bar where people were being shy and took 25% of the show to them. You can run, but you can't hide when the bass player's wireless! The Squier Jag H performed flawlessly, what a glorious sound in series mode! I was having so much fun I played it for the whole night (sorry you left the house for nothing, Triad). Modified Squier Jag H all night into the yellow and black modular bringer of boom.

Ah ken fit's fit.

You'll have to catch me first, lawman!

I use a set of Lekato WS-70 - UHF, so neither 2.4GHz or 5.8GHz. I've had great results with these - gone on walkabouts round the entire pub before. Lasts a 3 hour gig on a full charge no problem (I think the full life is 7 hours per charge, but I wouldn't like to risk playing 2 gigs back to back without charging in between). Seems to handle active basses OK (I've used them with my Sire Z7 in active mode without issue). Also can be had for anything between £30 and £60 depending on where you look. I bought these for a first stab at going wireless and honestly I don't think I need to "upgrade" as these have been doing the business for me for the last 6 months or so. If anything went wrong with them, at these prices I'd probably just buy another pair.

G&L MFD

This is the bridge, in case anyone sees it and thinks they might want to give it a go: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B8VZGRP6 Oddly enough, it uses hex heads for both the string height grub screws AND the intonation adjustment screws.

Last night I did a little bit of work to kick the can down the road... 1) fitted new bridge - I have nothing against the BBOT per se, but I do have a problem with it when it's got rattly springs that I can hear reverberating when I pluck a string. Giving a cheapo Guyker £19 Amazon job a go. Kinda like those part threaded saddles. 2) Drilled out a hole for the three way switch in the Jag's control plate. It was late, so I did it by hand. Which took a predictably long time, but at least it was quiet.

If it doesn't fit, make it fit...

Since the removal of fees, I'm 1 sale in, only one lowballer then someone simply paid my perfectly reasonable price. Sold within hours. No hassle.

Show's over - DHL picked up the bass this afternoon. I really don't understand why Thomann couldn't have let me keep the bass for like £100 or something - it's barely worth that now. It must have cost them to send DHL to my door. There's an invoice in there for around £30 for my time, mileage and packing materials I had to buy to make up for their utter lack of them in the original packaging. Oh well. Hopefully get my refund in the next couple of weeks.

Bought a Digitech Bass Synth Wah from Mike. Smooth transaction with good, clear comms. Pedal nicely packaged and arrived promptly. It's a yes from me!

Not any more - moved to Newcastle. Which I'll accept - has been Scottish a few times over the course of history... I just ordered a guard from Brian for my Jaguar H, and he did a pickguard for my G&L Tribute LB-100 a while back - top notch stuff.

I reamed out the holes and fit standard 1/2" tuners. Absolutely no help to you whatsoever, but have some free Bronco pron.

Bloody traumatised, min!

A half hour of fettling with files and sandpaper and the original pickguard can now fit over the new pickup... I couldn't find my round file so had to improvise in the corners - they're maybe a tad square but TL:DR, it's on.

Random Reddit image, I'm bringing it here second hand, sorry I've got nothing else.

Whoops, thread derailment/sidebar, sorry!

I'm still on the same roll of solder I had when I was a kid, I think I'll be fine, frequency-wise

Once bitten, twice shy. I'll just keep using my cored leaded solder, I'm happy with my soldering life.

You don't have to understand it. If it's working great for you then happy days. I didn't find it easy at all, I found lead free solder useless - it just balled up and fell off my tip, couldn't even tin with it. Leaded solder all the way for me.

Any ideas, BC hive mind? (the middle, amber coloured one)

Nah, I've been looking at it sans pickguard and it looks wrong. Control plate in isolation looks so lonely and a bit bereft.

Some early adopter blues, it seems

Hee hee, 10 weeks to go...