Jean-Luc Pickguard

Three Wheels On My Wagon — The New Christie Minstrels

I fitted a Tonerider TRP1 in my Squier mini P Bass a few weeks ago, also making a new loom using mini CTS pots and other quality parts. I thought the stock ceramic pickup sounded okay, but the tonerider made a much bigger improvement to the sound than I thought would be possible.

I could probably be tempted by a headless d-roc.

Surely scaling the bass down to build something with similar metrics to retrovibe's l'il Richard would be so much better, but of course it would cost more for RIC to tool up for that.

For me it's the bass equivalent of uncanny valley.

Fizzy — The Jesus and Mary Chain

I had a blue v-amp ii. It was pretty good for its time, but that was 23 years ago. If you can find a psu for well under a tenner (and assuming the unit itself still works) it might be worth a play, but I wouldn't spend more than that to get it working. I recall it has a weird din-style plug on the psu for some unknown reason.

Baldhead — Professor Longhair

I've been playing my lake placid blue squier classic vibe bass vi a lot recently — It was a little underwhelming until I shimmed the neck and raised the bridge, but now it is a lot of fun to play. It has a set of LaBella flatwounds on it and although I have not noticed any obvious shortcomings, however I can't help but wonder whether I should upgrade to the vintera II bass VI? I'd appreciate any comments from anyone who has spent some time with both the classic vibe and vintera II versions of the Bass IV.

Albatross — Fleetwood Mac

On my track, 'Electric Man', I used my Squier Classic Vibe Bass VI and Gibson Les Paul Standard, both played with a Dunlop 1.3mm Primetone pick. The Bass VI, strung with LaBella flatwounds, was recorded directly into Logic via my Focusrite 2i2. The Les Paul is still fitted with its stock Brite Wire 10s, and it was tracked through my Fender Mustang GTX100 amp using Fender Princeton, spring reverb and Boss DS-1 models, recorded via the amp’s built-in USB interface. For drums, I used Logic’s Scientific Method+ kit, while the ES2 and RetroSynth provided a pad sound with the Cosmic Departure and Aurora Borealis patches. Logic’s Q-Sampler was used for the lo-fi acid arpeggio.

Old Shep — Elvis

Maul Simon

New York Dolts

Tit Machine

I expect they'll be the same quality as JMJ mustang bass but less roadworn. If so they'll be worth every penny.

When I saw the headline as these were announced yesterday I initially assumed that all of the instruments in the vintera II series would get a model in this range. My wallet let out a massive sigh of relief when it realised there was no roadworn bass vi.

Prelude & Yodel — Penguin Cafe Orchestra

If you’ve seen the viral videos being spread on social media that say Kier Starmer is bringing in new banking rules so that bank transfers over £800 will be frozen for 24 hours from 1 October to allow for advanced AI checks, reporting to HMRC and preventing scams, this is not true. I don’t know who is responsible for making up and spreading this 🐂 💩, but the world would be a much better place if that kind of person didn’t exist.

I used to use TI jazz flats on my first mustang. When my mustang collection expanded I tried various outher strings and found that I preferred d'addario chromes. I didn't rate the LaBella MUS set as the set I bought had so little top to them straight out of the pack that the tone control on the bass had hardly any effect.

For a multifx with amp & pedal emulations, usb audio interface for recording, DI box, tuner, looper and even drum patterns built in, a secondhand zoom B3 would fit the bill and hard to beat on cost. Although this model is a few years old, the sounds still stand up, and it is still the easiest multifx I have ever used.

What might be the benefit of a wound third?