Jean-Luc Pickguard

Today I've been using some 60/40 I bought from Clas Ohlson a while ago to wire up a jazz bass and I quite enjoyed it - in stark contrast to the frustrating time I had the last time I had some soldering to do and managed to make a total mess of my attempt to put together a P bass harness with lead free.

...is not as good as the other stuff is it?

I used to have TI flats on everything but I'm currently using Fender flats on my mustangs & Cobalts on my thunderbirds and I always dial in some grit from the VT Bass

It looks like someone's puked a gutfull of skittles on it 🤮

When I first got my CIJ mustang I had serious GAS for an original 1966 one in Daphne blue with lollipop tuners - basically the JMJ sig. I saw one advertised in good condition which I could have bought for £600. I didn't feel I could justify the cost to the missus. It'd be worth a lot more these days. I have a JMJ now which cost half as much again and is a fantastic bass, but it would have been good to have a 'real' one with a little less roadwear.

Rosetti is the UK distributor & sell complete sets of knobs https://www.rosetti.co.uk/guitars-accessories/spares?p=3 perhaps they could supply just the bit you need

Drugs - just say no!

I had a theramin briefly a few years ago. It was great fun but it's not as easy as it looks & I didn't get past the 'ghostly noises' stage in the few weeks I had it. I bought it as it was very cheap in the local trash converters (even before I knocked them down a tenner). I recognised it as a US made burns B3 model & I made a tidy profit putting it on ebay.

... maybe this is the mustang David Byrne used for 'burning down the house'

I used one of the angled red neutrik "silent" plugs to plug into the bass for a cable I soldered this week and it is a revelation - no speaker thump when plugging or unplugging - I'll have to upgrade a few other cables with one of those.

Just the thing for a tribute act called coalplay

I have an enclosed strat cool rails double blade humbucker in a '72 musicmaster which looks just like the original pickup when its fitted and sounds fantastic. A similar but open hot rails in my other '72 doesn't work quite so well though - its a bit clanky for my taste.

I happened across this video: Looks like a good idea for any basses which don't already have rolled edges and smooth fret ends. Has anyone here tried this? Is the method in the video a good way to make these improvements?

Looks like a job for...

Who else had a go on the Eich bass board that was on demo? I'd quite like one for home but I'd just stand there hitting the open E repeatedly & enjoying the foot massage.

Looks great with the chrome hardware - much better than the black hardware of the one in the video.

I have a set of Gotoh GB640 res-o-lites (same as Gotoh GB640-R but not reverse winding) on my vintage pro thunderbird amd agree they are indeed excellent. The reverse ones would probably confuse me so being able to choose between reverse & non-reverse ones was good for me. They are noticably lighter than other tuners, turn smoothly & look great. One bonus to these over traditional reverse winding tuners is that the baseplate is flat so they don't have the protruding nubbins on the back which need little dimples drilled in the headstock to accomodate them. Now I have a second vintage pro I'll probably get another set of GB640 soon.

I didn't get to attend any of the performances or workshops so I can't comment on those but I met a lot of people (including some basschatters) as I was helping on the Chowny stand where it was encouraging to see several youngsters coming up to play the basses. I had a good chat with Tony Butler who was playing his ultra cool Chowny signature bass, and I met met Mike Upton on the Kala stand where I bought a set of flatwounds for my u-bass. I also got a comfort strapp from bass direct and an incredible little amplug2 fly bass headphone amp from blackstar. I was expecting the weekend to be loud so I had my earplugs, but I only needed them a couple of times on Saturday and not at all on Sunday.

That's weird. I had a 1990 MIJ '62 reissue, and I am certain the pole pieces were all flat to the pickup's surface on mine. When a precision pickup's pole pieces are staggered to compensate for a quiet A string, just the two for the A string are raised normally,

I think I sold mine for about £180 which I was happy with at the time as I only paid £100 for it a few years earlier.

I googled it for you: It is Hot Tone - https://www.hotoneaudio.com/support/FAQ_28.html

The look of the headstock & pickups are weird & fugly. I dread to think what the resale value is likely to be on these.

I play covers but don't stick to the original basslines as we're not a tribute act slavishly trying to recreate a recorded version. I'm all for constructive suggestions, but I wouldn't take orders to play something in a way that doesn't work as well as my alternative.