Jean-Luc Pickguard

My JMJs have a lacquer finish that came with fake playwear and any I've added isn't really noticable. Most of my other basses have a poly or similar hard finish so only Edward Scissorhands, Freddie Kruger or that character Hugh Jackman plays would be able to add any playwear.

A drum screen is overkill for a pub gig and will look ridiculous if the setup is anything like the small pubs I've played in. The drummer needs to recognise that he is part of a band, and what the band sounds like as a whole is more important than his fragile ego.

The Woman Next Door — The Felice Brothers

This Charming Man — The Smiths

Brie-Bop-A-Lula — Gene Vincent

Lady Grinning Soul — David Bowie

Recently I was clearing out a cupboard full of boxes that hadn't been disturbed since moving into the house over twenty years ago, and I came across my old Morley Sync-Attack. The 'pik' cable was with it but the metal 'pik' itself was missing. I managed to get some metal picks from aliexpress and today I soldered one to the cable and covered it in adhesive vinyl. I plugged it in to test and it still works exactly as I remember from forty years ago. It is a bit of a weird effect — it detects the pik being grounded when it touches a string. This drops the signal to zero and fades it back in with the speed set by the control on top. I'm sure there are modern pedals that perform this kind of effect better without needing a kludgy pick attachment, so I think this is more of a pedal collector's piece than something that would actually be used on a gig. It was somewhat surprising to see the kind of prices these have gone for, so I'm probably going to list it on reverb and/or ebay for a bit less than the one below.

Dancing On My Own — Robyn

Dandy — The Kinks

Soup 'n Old Clothes — Frank Zappa

Naughty fake fender decal on the headstock. As if anyone would be daft enough to think fender would create such an abomination.

Shart — The Jam

The Hardest Fart — Blondie

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Best and worst was probably my Sienna Sunburst Player Mustang bass. It was my best purchase due to it having a very nice grain pattern on the body, where I've seen others that are nowhere near as attractive, and I was able to buy it in near mint condition with a nice Fender short scale gig bag included for a very good price on ebay. Once I had set it up with a fresh set of 30" scale chromes, It plays very nicely and the pickups have some punch to them. I'd say it was also worst as Fender don't specify the best electronic components for the player range, so I had to do some work to turn it into an instrument I'd be happy to gig with. The stock switch was junk that did not always make contact when switching, the pots were Korean "Jin Sung" which I know nothing about, and the output socket, although looking like a switchcraft was of lighter construction. A bigger issue was that with the volume at anywhere less than 100%, rolling down the tone pot also reduced the volume which I have since learned is normal for this model and I have seen described as "50's style wiring". I wasn't too worried about the issues as the neck, body, pickups etc were fine and I already had all the bits available to build a new loom, so I shielded the cavities with slug tape and built a new loom bases on a typical P bass circuit with CTS pots, a switchcraft switch, orange drop capacitor, and pure tone socket. The bass is now how it should have been originally. I also fitted a Fender Hi Mass bridge as I had a spare one and I prefer these to a standard BBoT, and a thumbrest as I use these on my JMJs. If I had not been confident and capable to take on the job to fix the shortcomings of the stock electronics, I would probably have been quite unhappy with the bass, however I am used to tinkering with my instruments so I wasn't at all worried. I quite enjoyed the project and there was a good feeling of accomplishment when everything worked perfectly first time once I had reassembled it. I took it to rehearsal, and the range of sounds available make it more versatile than my JMJs, but it feels similar enough that I could easily switch between them on a gig. Details of the upgrade project are outlined here -> and here ->

I know exactly who you are referring to, however the link doesn't seem to go anywhere. That may be a blessing based on previous listings.

When fitting the switchcraft switch after applying the copper tape, there was a possibility that one of the teminals of the switch could short out on the copper. To prevent this, I used a section cut from a plastic water bottle placed against the area as an insulator.

I recently received a Fender FBSS610 as it was included with my sienna sunburst player mustang bass. It seems to be at least as good as my trusty urban short scale bass gig bags. I really like the bag that came with my US acoustasonic jazzmaster, it seems like it offers almost a hard case level of protection. I believe it is a Fender FE1225, however it is internally around an inch or so too short to accommodate a mustang bass. There is a version for long scale bass called the FB1225, but if a short scale bass version was available I would definitely buy two.

Fireball — Deep Purple

One Mint (Sauce) Julep — The Clovers

Earlpilanz aka Brian Pillans is based in the UK, so I have no idea why ebay would say he doesn’t ship here — it was probably a glitch on the link you clicked. I have a few pickguards he made, and they are top notch, as is Brian’s service.

Baa-baa Ann — The Beach Boys

Big Girls Don't Cry — Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

I figured that as the components needed to be connected together in a different configuration, I would need to take it all apart and rebuild it from scratch on a card template, and if I was doing that I might as well upgrade the components. The original Korean pots and the output socket might be perfectly fine, but I feel more confident the new ones will last. Here is how it looked after shielding the cavities with copper anti-slug tape before working on the loom. I shielded the P-pickup route, but didn't touch the route for the J pickup. It seems okay, but if I do notice it picking up noise when the J is switched in, that'll be an easy job for another day.

Here are the components I used to rewire my Sienna Sunburst Fender Mustang Player PJ Bass Here is a wiring diagram to illustrate how I wired it up.