KingBollock

I can’t remember what my first amp was called. It was a Star something, I think. Just a little 15w combo. Laney Klipp Carlsboro Stingray 100 Peavey T-Max 500 Behringer V-Amp Pro H|H Bass Baby (combo) Hartke HD15 (combo) Marshall 1960B 4x12 Vox 2x18 Peavey 410TX And a couple of no name 15”s I don’t own the Laney (boohoo!) or the Carlsboro (yay!) anymore. I basically let the magic blue smoke escape from the Laney because no one told 13 year old me even the basics of looking after a tube amp. And I swapped the Marshall 4x12 for a crappy 1x15 because 14 year old me couldn’t carry it. It was fine while I was rehearsing in the youth club 100 yards up the road. I had nicked a low trolley from the warehouse section of the local Co Op and only had to lift the cab six inches onto it (I managed to sneak it out under their security gate one night). The damned trolley would squeal every inch of the way there and back. It’s a shame. That Klipp and the Marshall was a cracking rig together.

Short list for me, too. In order: Westone Satellite Westfield Aria Pro II Cort BC Rich Epiphone I got the Satellite P Bass while I still had the Westone, but I was given it for free by my boss’s son. Even though I liked the Satellite, I didn’t keep it for long because I didn’t see the point in owning more than one bass. I honestly believe that if I hadn’t been forced to sell the Westone, I would still own just one bass. The Westone and Satellite are the only ones I don’t currently own.

I always wanted one of the Korg DTRs but they were always a bit too pricey for me, even used. Then the Korg PB05 came out, and it only cost me £55 brand new. It looks incredibly cool! It’s not so good at picking up an open low B string, but I tend to use the 12th fret harmonics anyway, I just find it more accurate, on everything, that way. Unfortunately, they’re discontinued now and go for a lot more than I paid for mine. There’s a used one on EBay at the moment, asking for nearly £200! And then they want £23 postage, which is ridiculous because, while it is 19” long, the other dimensions are tiny, and it weighs practically nothing. Around 1989/1990 I worked in a guitar shop. Rack gear was all the rage. It took me a long time to actually get my own, but I do think a big ol’ rack, full of different coloured gear and lots of knobs and glowing LEDs, is a wonderful sight to behold. I currently have an 8 unit rack, with both my bass and guitar gear in it. But there are a few other bits I want to add, so I am going to build (from scratch) myself a floor standing, studio rack.

Yesterday I suddenly had the urge to listen to The Dickies, for the first time in ages. I haven’t stopped. I needed something uplifting. Always loved that film, too.

I really want to try these, but I don’t want to have to buy a five string set to get the .120 for D standard tuning. The highest the four string sets go is .110. I’d be happy with .115, I think. However, I don’t know what the tension on the Black Beauties is like. Would their heavy: 50 70 90 110 set work for D standard? There’s a taper option for that gauge, too. What would be the advantage? I did struggle to get the .120 into the bridge, but some gentle persuasion with a pair of pliers did the trick.

Nope. I have never actually been able to get all the way through that film. I have tried several times, but I just find it incredibly dull (now comes the roasting!). I don’t know when I started using the Mudflap Girl image, or where I first saw it. When I first started getting tattoos, I decided that I wasn’t going to get a load of skulls and dragons, because it was just going to be a phase that I would grow out of and I’d end up regretting it. One thing I knew I would never grow out of, was scantily clad ladies… I am covered in boobies! I have a Mudflap Girl just above my right wrist, where it can be seen when I am playing. Unfortunately, I actually regret not going full on skulls and dragons ( mostly skulls). I do have a couple of dragons and skulls. However, over thirty years later, I am still skull mad. I have quite a collection of skulls, from tiny pin badges to a huge (though not full size, sadly) Tyrannosaurus skull. Most of them are resin, but I do have a couple of real fox skulls and one from a rat. I do still like scantily clad ladies, though, so I was right about that.

Another question… The mudflap Girl that is on the scratchplate. I did it in white because that is the colour usually used on the original plates, both the Goth and the Gibson one (which came installed on this bass, with the Goth plate also included). Originally it was the only thing I was going to do to the bass (other than changing the machine heads), but I got carried away… Like I said, my life seems to have a black and red aesthetic, so when I started thinking of other things to add, I went for red. So, should I change the Mudflap Girl to red, too? The people that have seen it, that I have asked, have said to leave it white. But I’m not sure… Also, would either of these be just that bit too much? I already have the card suits on Gloomborn (my Cort 5 string). I will try to get a better photo of the truss rod cover, which is cut like tribal style flames. I did try to do the flames with the scratchplate as well, but my scroll saw died half way through. I fixed the saw (it was a dodgy motor brush) but I didn’t have a lot of acrylic left and didn’t want to bugger it up (which I did do a couple of times because the screw holes are quite close to the edge of the plate and the acrylic is very brittle. I had to be very, very careful how tight I screwed the screws in) so kept it simple.

Thanks. I only asked because I think I remember someone saying they had tried it but ran into difficulty. It may have been that the dye was rubbing off or something, I can’t remember the details. Why I think it would be any different to work with than any other wood, I don’t know. Unless it’s a lacquered fretboard, which this isn’t.

There’s one scene in the second book, The Cold Commands, that would make even that bunch queasy… And that’s ignoring all the gay, alien bum sex!

Anyone got any advice on the best way to go about (or the best ways to not go about) staining (dyeing?) the fretboard ebony?

You should be aware that they are very, very Grimdark. They are very graphic and can be rather uncomfortable. Richard K Morgan usually does sci-fi, which I also love. He wrote the Altered Carbon books that the TV series is based on. On a lighter side, I have started reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. I have temporarily put those on hold because a sci-if novel that I have been waiting a long time for, just came out (Jack McDevitt’s A Village In The Sky). Another fantasy series, a new one (just the one book so far) that is interesting, is Clay Harmon’s Flames Of Mira. Which I enjoyed a lot. I can’t wait for the second book. Other favourites, more traditional, have been Dragonlance and Death Gate Saga series from Weiss and Hickman.

That has been, and continues to be, considered. It is very tempting. My Warlock (Ravensfriend) has an ebony fretboard and it looks great. The bass came with black tape wound strings on it, which looked very cool. But I need to keep this bass tuned to D standard, so I had to change them. I might see if I can find some other black ones in the right gauge. Though the bridge really didn’t like the .120 string!

Well, I stole two of them, so go for it! Ravensfriend is a sword from my favourite fantasy trilogy A Land Fit For Heroes by Richard K Morgan. The sword’s full name is: “I am Welcomed in the Home of Ravens and Other Scavengers in the Wake of Warriors, I am Friend to Carrion Crows and Wolves. I am Carry Me and Kill with Me, and Die with Me Where the Road Ends. I am not the Honeyed Promise of Length of Life in Years to Come, I am the Iron Promise of Never Being a Slave.” Mourneblade is another fantasy sword from the Elric of Melniboné books by Michael Moorcock. One of my PCs and it’s drives is also named after mythical swords from books and games. (My main PC and it’s drives is named after ships and stations from the Alien franchise) Gloomborn is just something that popped into my head while looking at the bass. It’s finish puts in my mind the image of beetles with iridescent, shiny carapaces, that live in the dark.

The bass now has a name, too: Angelbane. I have a habit of naming my instruments. I don’t force it, though, it has to come naturally, some of them don’t have names because they don’t have the right personality. How pretentious does that sound?! She joins the ranks along side Ravensfriend, Gloomborn and Mourneblade.

Thank you! I thought I’d get well and truly roasted… All the additions are removable. I made the scratch plate and truss rod cover myself, so I still have the original parts. Just in case anyone is worried…

Finally ready to show off my Thunderbird. It’s cheesy and I love it!

I actually received this bass at the beginning of the year but I had some plans for it, so it has taken a while to get around to photographing it. Please keep in mind that I bought this for a Hair Metal (mostly Motley Crue if the drummer has his way) style covers band... When I play, you can see on my picking forearm tattoos of a Mudflap Girl, playing cards and flaming dice. I have represented these on the bass. I have also made a truss rod cover in the shape of tribal style flames (the photo of it didn't come out very well). Also, my lair and PC are themed in black with red accents. I am thinking of making a t-shirt (probably a vest) with "I Ate Vince Neil" on it, because I ain't no Nikki Sixx!

I remember when I was a kid an had started mucking about with electronics, I had an idea… I had been given a pair of 1x12 speaker cabs. They were huge, something like 24”x18”x18”. I assume they were PA cabs or something, they weighed a lot, too. Anyway. Each had a port along the front bottom (haha!) of the cab, and I had the bright idea (pun totally intended!) of wiring a painted (by me) car light bulb in series with the speaker. The idea being to give me a kind of disco light effect shining from the port. Surprisingly it worked! But I had no idea, at the time, that I was actually making the cabs better! (Although, they didn’t actually have tweeters).

You could try detuning the bass to something like D standard (D C G F instead of E A D G). This would loosen the tension from the neck but still be playable while you do some research to decide if you’d be confident enough to have a crack at setting the neck relief yourself (often, confidence is key). I find this site useful: https://www.studybass.com/gear/bass-setup/adjusting-neck-relief/

As long as one end of the capacitor goes from the correct lug on the tone pot, and the other end goes to ground, it will work. In the left hand diagram, you can just make out that the lug that the capacitor is connected to on the volume pot is also connected to the back of the pot, which is grounded via the foil shielding on the pickguard. Both options rely on that shielding for ground. I would go for the right hand option but run a wire connecting the backs of both pots together, for no other reason than an abundance of caution. Having said that, if I am mucking about with wiring, it is because I am doing something like adding a push/pull (or push/push) pot for coil splitting, series/parallel switching or a blend knob (I don’t own a bass with only one pick-up). And, despite going to college to learn electronics, I still always follow a diagram because I never quite trust my ability to see/grasp exactly what’s going on. So I know how you feel. And I only really do this because I enjoy tinkering, I rarely need those options.

Thank you!

What sort of gauge do they go up to? I’ve got a bass I’d like to make a bone nut for. I’d like to have a crack at a stainless Steel nut, too. That should be fun. I have alternative tools and plans for that, though.

Habe you got a link? I’m too lazy to troll through trying to find the correct set!

Though I don’t know why because it makes me feel so utterly, utterly, painfully alone. It’s an amazing song.