Bass Culture

Have sanitised the mild swearing in my original post after the profanity filter rendered it as 'Sir Richard head III'. Brilliant! 😄

This will be sacrilege for many here - and hate would certainly be overstating - but I never really clicked with my ACG Custom Finn 4. It was a bass I appreciated but never really loved and I always felt the filter pre-amp lacked a bit of personality and 'soul' (if anyone else wrote this I'd be shouting 'D**khead - how can a preamp have personality?!'). I tried, I really did, but I knew the game was up when it went back to Alan for a new neck to be fit and I picked up a Tanglewater Jazz which I added one of Kiogon's wiring kits to, to tide me over, and found myself unable to walk past it without playing it every time. Never had that with the ACG, unfortunately.

My first set of Newtone roundwounds (steelies, round core) went on my Zoot passive last night. Bloody fantastic! Had been using D'Addario nickels recently and forgotten how much I like the extra zing of steels. Very flexible (went for the 42-96 gauge), feel good under the fingers too - bit of 'feedback' but I've still got the skin there after an hour or so of playing last night. Early stages but I think I'll be getting more for my other basses.

Ha ha - that must be some sort of record for brevity of ownership!!

I had a play on this fiver when I was there. It's superb! Did it stay in South Wales or go back to sunny Essex with, Mike?

Well, drove down to South Wales on Saturday to collect this from Mike and meet up with Daryl Cook, the friend he was staying with. The weather was fantastic so the drive was really spectacular. Daryl turned out to be a lovely bloke and a great player himself. Mike was in good form too. The bass itself is simply superb. The East u-retro is very powerful and, in truth, probably overkill for my usual 'set and forget' preferences. But, because it's so powerful it does enable me to dial in precisely the sound I'm after. Tiny tweaks can have significant impacts on tone so I'm finding I really do have to be careful. But the playability of the bass - my God: it's simply fantastic, an absolute dream to play. And it looks so fabulous when I'm not actually playing it I find myself just staring at it! Anyway, if anyone is considering a custom build I would strongly urge you to think about a Zoot, and I'd be happy for anyone who wishes to, to pop round to Chez Bass Culture to try mine as a 'taster'.

A few more snaps for those interested:

I'll just leave this here...32" scale; under-sized, chambered body; Haussel pickups and John East Uni 4 preamp. Driving down to Brecon on Saturday to rendezvous with Mike Walsh for collection. Can't wait.

Thanks for the responses so far - much appreciated. Keep 'em coming!

Can anyone recommend a decent - low-cost (say, up to about £60) - pair of over ear headphones for bass practice and general use? Preferably ones where the surface of the padding doesn't disintegrate within 2 or 3 years, unexpectedly leaving black 'paint' round my lugholes on one of the infrequent occasions I expect to use them. I've seen AKG K92's on the GAK website for about £31.00 which look good but I'm pretty clueless really so would appreciate some real world advice. Thanks.

Oh, I think you were probably 80% there anyway! 😉

Excellent choice, Merton.

Thanks all for your time and comments.

Excellent advice both - many thanks. I feel an MS-60B purchase coming on!

Thanks both. I'll do a bit of reading on these two then. In the past I've had similar but moved them on when I realised I had no particular interest in the vast array of amp simulations and other facilities some of these pedals have. That said, it really shouldn't beyond me to set me the three or four 'pedals' I think I'm after and ignore everything else!

I'm no great user of effects live but do like to tinker at home. I've tried various multi-fx only to sell them all on when I realise they do more than I'm interested in or could use and that it would take more time than I'm prepared to invest in using them properly - basically I get bored. Likewise, when I even think about building a small board the minimal amount of use it would ultimately get puts me off going to the effort (yep, I'm lazy!). But, are there any simpler multi-fx out there that simply combine an octaver (one up and down); chorus, reverb and distortion? There's obviously candidates that get close but don't combine exactly those elements. The nearest I've seen is something like the TC Nova system but, again, that seems to do quite a bit of other stuff too. Anyone know of anything else? Thanks, BC

Mike's a great guy to deal with. I spent an hour with him myself on Friday afternoon, just finalising the colour for my own Funk meister, which is a couple of months from completion. It'll be my third Zoot. They are superb basses and he's a straight, honest guy to deal with. If anyone's thinking of going the custom route you owe it to yourself to speak to Mike before you make a decision.

I think one of my faves was '5G' from Bruford's 'One of a Kind'. It was your virtuosity and fluidity in a technique that - let's face it - has generally not predominated in your playing. I thought it was hilarious (in a good way!). Thank you.

I love this! Thanks for posting.

Sat there and watched this with my mouth open one NYE: And this - dreadful quality but beggars can;t be choosers, I guess:

Just sold my BB2 to Andy (Ruarl) and I can thoroughly recommend him as an all round top guy. He brought his newly acquired (from Simisker) Sei 6 and a lovely Squier Jazz along to try the cab out. We talked all things bass for a good hour or so and it even looked as though one of the cats might decide to move in with him. As Simisker said above it's good to know a piece of kit you've used and enjoyed yourself is going to have a new lease of life with someone who'll enjoy it as much and put it to good use themselves. It was a please meeting you, Andy.

Losing finalists in Essex Band Search back in about 1986 with my band at the time, Night Dance (Christ, what a name!). The bands in the competition final formed the support bill to New Model Army (if memory serves) on an outdoor stage somewhere in West Mersea. First time I'd ever played on a stage that big and felt we were completely detached from each other. It was 'fun' at the time but I could almost see the dream evaporating a bit more with each of the three or four tunes we were allowed to play.