grandad

My poor man's Gibson SG bass is a Tokai. Medium scale at 32". Well made and preferred to the EB3 I then moved on. I also liked the distinctive look. The sound is very deep and warm with flats.

Both my One10's have some peel to the rear but I'm not too bothered. I imagine most new products have some teething problems. From all reports BF do take the time and trouble to address customer concerns.

Good post and I agree, albeit a bit pricey, they do make a good product. Worth it? For me yes. Got myself a One10 last year at 70 years of age. I just wanted simple and light-weight. To complete my rig I bought a TC BH250, so no pedals or tuner needed. Sounds good and goes loud. This year I bought a 2nd One10. Sounds good and goes louder.

I'm sure there are plenty of murdered songs but here is one example of me liking this version over the original though that may be an age thing.

I owned one a few years back. Lovely tone and EQ but not very loud for 100W. Comfortable to carry but not ultra light at 28lbs. To use an ext speaker you need to disconnect the internal speakers. If it's loud and portable you want then I'd say a BF One10 + small class D head is the way to go. That would be about 20lbs weight and fit in a cajon bag.

My preference would be pearl white. I have this combination on a fiesta red Squire Mustang and I think it's a good match.

Well they, with Cliff set the path that others would follow, they, The Beatles, etc. Get a hit single, make an LP, do a tour or 2, smarten up, guest appearances on radio & TV, Sunday Night At The Palladium, Xmas pantomime, The Royal Variety Show, make a silly film a la Carry On model, all in the pursuit of a show-biz career. I think it was the influence of the then management types that were around at the time, Larry Parnes being the big name with many dodgy individuals to follow.

The original clip is not the Shadows, it's Bruce Welch's Shadows with only Bruce as an original Shadow. Shadowmania was a yearly event for Shadows tribute bands and fans with Bruce's Shadows and The Rapiers and others playing the old Shadows tunes over a weekend once a year. I think the last one was 2012. There are still some very good Shadows tribute bands around but the die hard fans are dying off. There's a Shadows club near to me in Great Wyrley that I played at some years ago. Most members seemed to want to emulate Hank Marvin and played to backing tracks. Some were very good. The Shadows were a huge influence on so many groups to follow.

Also played on Sunday afternoon outdoors but thankfully under a canopy. It was still uncomfortably hot and I did not enjoy the the gig. Also not happy with the sound outdoors, it seemed a little thin without the reverberation of 4 walls.

Presently trying to work out a bass line for "The Nearness Of You". I seem to play something different each time, which is OK I guess as it sort of meanders.

For anyone wanting to try there is a HCT violin on fleabay at the moment for £275. Looks good and that's a bargain price. N.B. Ref the above post: My violin has normal strap buttons.

RH and right leg.

Enjoy, I liked mine so much I bought another one.

Birmingham. My elder brother and his mate were both in bands through the 60's. I used to follow them around and act as a roadie so, although underage, it got me into clubs and pubs. Along the way I learned to strum a few chords. Their claims to fame - one once shared a stage jamming with The Move, the other did a stint in Germany a la Beatles. But like many others they got married, settled down, had kids and worked at their day jobs for a secure income as did I. Fast forward to 1998, (with all our children grown up and all of us settled and prospering in our respective careers), at my 50th birthday party, brother and mate had a strum together in my back garden on acoustics, singing and playing 60's tunes. "We should get together and form a group", said one to the other. "You'll can play bass" they said pointing to me. I was loaned a no-name P Bass and an amp. Another old friend took up drums and another thought he could sing! Weekend get togethers ensued and we started playing at family parties, (to the amusement/embarassment of our collective teenage off-spring). The journey then began that would be familiar to many: new drummers and singers, new and better instruments and amps, pub gigs, club gigs, weddings, functions and local summer festivals. Our playlist consisted of Shadows/Ventures instrumentals and early Cliff stuff, Beatles and Kinks, Animals and Elvis, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, Hollies and Searchers, etc, the usual 50's, 60's, 70's hits: much like hundreds of other cover bands. After 15 years or so we found gigs fewer and far between with venues closing and the remuneration poor for the all the effort involved, and we were all getting older, (those 3 a.m. Sunday mornings after unloading and stowing all the P.A. etc back in the garage didn't seem so much fun anymore. We stopped being weekend warriors but now run a music club for has-beens and wannabes at Quarry Bank community centre. Oh, I was also invited to play with a local amateur Jazz quartet, so I'm learning to play properly now. The question 'Why?' could have been answered by just saying that I thought Jet Harris looked cool, as I I later found him to be when I had a nice chat with him. Just bumped into him at the NEC around 1999ish at a 'Mad About Guitars' show where he and Hank were separately doing demo's/workshops. Now that was a really nice day out because the first LP we had for Xmas, must have been 1961, to play on our new Portadyne record player was The Shadows first LP. We played it to death through it's 4" elliptical speaker. Those tunes are stuck in my head. We still play them at the music club sometimes. It's about time I shut up, I've got the grass to cut today, front and back lawns. But that's uninteresting and belongs in another thread along with the cup of coffee I'm about to make and enjoy whilst I have a read of yesterdays Daily Mail. Can't you just tell I'm retired with far to much time on my hands?

Yes I agree, without the scratch-plate.

I've owned a few Violin basses, Epiphones, Tokai, Alden and eventually a HCT which is one of my favourite instruments. Everything about it is just right. I've set some up myself and found they needed tweaking over a period of time to get a medium to low action. My HCT I've had set up by a luthier with Labella Beatle bass strings, (flats), which pass easily through the small tuners. One of the Epiphones needed the bridge shaving to get a low action. Intonation is never perfect but good enough, set up on the E and G with the floating bridge. They are always a fiddle but you can get them set up to suit. I really enjoy owning and playing mine, it is to my ears the most hi-fidelity bass I have and having mastered the quirky control panel it makes sense to me now. Love the tones coming from those very powerful PUs. One question to ask - with or without scratch-plate, which do you prefer?

An interesting video, thanks for posting. I honestly haven't got the time to listen much contemporary music, I'm still discovering and rediscovering stuff from the early 1900's. Since retiring from being a weekend warrior and joining an instrumental Jazz quartet I'm delighted to have the opportunity to learn and play some wonderful tunes such as 'Blue Skies', (Irving Berlin 1926), 'After You've Gone' (Turner Layton 1918) and many others. More modern stuff is also included but most does seems to be from the early 1900's onwards and then tailing off after the 60's. On the other hand, the music club I help run which is really a gathering of the hasbeens and wannabes seems to regurge 50's, 60's & 70's songs with the occasional original folkie/grungey on a bad night. My particular preference is country/folky/rock JJ Cale sort of music and this has led me to listen to a lot of CW stuff this year and to read about it, what a minefield that is. It's time consuming sorting the wheat from the chaff. I like live music that can be performed by one or two or a few folk getting together and plugging in. Oh, not too shouty either. So to answer the original question, I think the video tells the truth in that commercial music has become more a product now than it ever has been.

Well done, you are the best sort of ambassadors.

If the PA is for vocals only a Stagepas 400i will do for small pub open-mic events. The Stagepas 600i is an excellent compact system and will do pubs and clubs for vocals. The Yamaha padded bag which houses both speaker cabs and the mixer-amp makes it an unwieldy lift. Better a couple of separate Hotcovers. I've used EMX Yamaha mixer-amps for the last 20 years and never had a fault with any. They are excellent pieces of kit for a working band. There are others just as good and other BCers will testify to their experience. If you want something a bit more powerful have a look at the EMX5 I have for sale on here on BC but I think the 600i sounds more suited to your requirements. It's a bit stressful trying to decide which PA is going to the best for your band and I've spent wads working my way through various makes over the years. I ended up with an EMX5016f into EV SX300s. The best wedges I've used were Yamaha DXR10s, but recently acquired a couple of Behringer B205D which were great for vox. You're probably getting to much information with folks throwing various make and model numbers at you. I should have just said, having owned and used the Stagepas 600i, I think it's a great little PA and sounds like it would suit.

What size venues? What's your budget?

If as I suspect, you have a string through bridge/body, then I recommend the LaBella 760F-MUS set. I would describe the tension as comfortable.