Jean-Luc Pickguard

That stack would be enough to put anyone off gigging. I wonder if it hurt to "put metal angles on the front bottom"? sounds painful

[url="http://www.healeyviolins.co.uk/"]Malcolm Healey[/url] in Sutton is a double bass specialist. If I had some spare money I'd take mine in for him to work his magic on it.

This is my favourite Funny Bass Video Don't panic Mr Manring!

Thanks for the tips chaps. I'm a bit undecided whether to go ahead, but if I do, I'll probably post some before/during/after pics. The scotchbrite pads method seems appealing so maybe I'll experiment with that & some 2000 grit wet & dry on my old 80s westone guitar first to get a feel for both methods.

Pointless thread. If everyone liked the same thing the word would be a very different place. [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']Have you seen the Bass Day 98 DVD?[/quote] Nope [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']Have you listened to all of his albums?[/quote] Nope [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']Or have you just watched the Youtube clips where he's 'shredding'?[/quote] Not past the first few seconds [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']What were you doing at that age? Playing with toys, I imagine.[/quote] I won a lego competition at my local toy shop - but I don't expect anyone to worship me for it [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']He has the most awesome slap technique on the planet, so why not show it off once in a while?[/quote] Fine, but not everyone actualy enjoys listening to "thwakkatta thwakkatta thwakkatta thwakkatta" no matter how much skill goes into making such a sound. [quote name='Pete Academy' post='487219' date='May 13 2009, 08:18 PM']What do you want him to do at a trade show or clinic...play some rock and roll basslines?[/quote] I couldn't give a toss 'cause I won't be there I didn't post on the other thread, but I felt compelled to reply to this one. I must admit I don't really give Mr Wooten a second thought most of the time as what I've heard of his playing says nothing to me and I have no aspiration to play any of the kind of music he plays. I'm not at all into slap - I can understand some people are, but then again it takes all sorts. I really don't care about Vic's playing. I'd rather watch/listen to Willie Dixon or Duck Dunn doing their thing.

[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' post='486880' date='May 13 2009, 01:08 PM']Will be fine if you clean the tip off straight away after doing it. Try not to breathe the fumes too much![/quote] or use an already knackered one. I have a late 70s Fender Bass case in my loft that has a split alongside the handle. I might try this to try to repair it.

I usually play my NS upright or an ashbory for acoustic gigs. Also my mustang with TI324 flats does the job well through a small amp.

If you don't mind me sticking my oar in (as a pro web designer), but your new site will gain better google juice by having real indexable text on the front page and on the headings on the inside pages instead of the pictures of text you currently have. Also it would help to separate out content from presentation by using css rather than tables to position elements. If you want to get into SEO (search engine optimisation) further, make the pagename go before the sitename in the page title meta tag & include a description metatag on each page that summarises the content.

[quote name='Bay Splayer' post='484459' date='May 10 2009, 06:36 PM']didnt deon estes play bass for wham?[/quote] Wasn't he the little bloke in 'it ain't half hot mum' with Windsor Davis?

My favourite bass is my cheap & cheerful CIJ mustang. The neck is a lovely honey tint, but is very glossy. I like the matt finish on my highway 1 jazz's neck and also a squier 70s style telebass that had a silky matt finish. I'd rather leave my mustang's neck as it is than do a half-arsed job of deglossing it, but if a great result is easily achievable I'll probably do it. So who's taken a glossy neck & made it matt? what are the steps? How did it come out? I'm guessing remove the neck & hardware, mask off the fingerboard & headstock, rub all over with very fine wire wool Is this right? Any tips, comments, pics of deglossed necks would be very helpful. I'm not sure whether to do the back of the headstock as well or is it usual to mask off behind the nut?

[quote name='pete.young' post='482534' date='May 7 2009, 10:36 PM']Clip-on blue LED light, supposedly for lighting up the fingerboard but makes you look like you've got luminous smurf hands too.[/quote] where from? I want smurf hands

If the 80s ever become cool that'll be worth a lot more than the current price. (& so will my Hohner B2A)

[list] [*]planet waves SOS tuner - can tune up accurately in silence [*]shower hose washers (a quid for 20) to replace all my grolsch thingies [*]microfibre cloth from the 99p shop to wipe down the strings after a sweaty gig [*]behringer limiter pedal [*]spare 9v batteries [*]bass string winder [/list]

I loved my Ashdown MAG300 (with 2cabs) but replaced it with my LMII which I love even more as it still amplifies the tone from my fingers, but is smaller, lighter and now gets seriously loud (eaily loud enough for the largest pub gig) with a single cab - the Schroder 1212L. I'm happy running the LMII more or less flat - it sounds great in a most venues I played without any tweaking.

Not a bass, but I love the shape of the guard on my CIJ reissue '72 telecaster thinline like this: some of the funky ones jeannie makes for lakland basses are cool: [url="http://home.comcast.net/~pickguards/home.htm"]http://home.comcast.net/~pickguards/home.htm[/url]

30mins if rushed and its somewhere we've played before. Up to an hour if not rushed.

I used to use a Casio midi guitar. The lag was very off-putting, but you could do chord pads on it with the actual guitar sound creating the attack. This looks like it wouldn't be any better as it will still need to hear enough of the sound to be able to calculate the frequency so there will be an audio lag which will get worse on lower notes. The casio, like the roland pickup has a separate pickup for each string, but of course this thing would probably go all over the place if presented with a chord. No matter how cheap it is, I can't see it actually being any good unless you want to sound like early depeche mode.

I wonder if he's such a numpty that the neck isn't actually warped, but just needs a truus rod tweak or possibly a fretstone. [size=1]edit for misspelling numpty [/size] :blush:

I have a few active basses, but I find I don't really need the extra tone shaping capability to get the sound I like. My actives: [list] [*] Hohner B2A - never gets used. I'm not sure the active circuit still works or not [*] Peavey 5 string Millennium - always play with everything set flat. Shape the eq on the LMII [*] H1 Jazz with J-retro - used to be my main gigging bass, but I used to fiddle with the eq during gigs - great sounding ew, but too much choice for me. [*] '81 Fender Precision with active EMG pickup - I originally put this pickup back in as a stop-gap until I found a passive P-Bass pickup I liked, but its staying in as it sounds like a bigger & better passive P bass to me. Its just the pickup that is active - there's no extra eq on the bass. I originally took it out as it sounded a bit lacking in dynamics with a 9v battery, but the sound really opens up with a very simple modification to run it off 18v. [/list] The only one of these I've gigged with recently is the '81 P. My main gigging bass these days is a CIJ mustang, which gives me 'my' sound with the LMII more-or-less flat.

do these look like they're coming off the same production line as SX?

I have two - a blue one and a black one. If you treat it like a instrument in its own right rather than a shrunken bass guitar it is a very rewarding bass to play once you realise the limitations, stengths and practice the specific techniques that get the best out of it. The most important thing I learnt is that to get good intonation you play between the fretlines rather than on them like you would a lined fretless BG. The best talc to use to. Despite an uniformed previous poster, vibrato is possible - it just that you move up & down the string rather than stretch it. Properly talced this is easy with practice. In the right hands it is a unique and expressive instrument. There is an example of a track with a very simple ashbory line on this page: [url="http://www.o5b.co.uk/ashbory-bass/"]http://www.o5b.co.uk/ashbory-bass/[/url] It serves as an example of the basic tone of the thing rather than any techniques as I only bought my first Ashbory during the recording sessions for that album. My Ashborys get a lot of use for acoustic blues sessions and jam nights. The easiest way of tuning them is by using a Planet Waves SOS LED tuner. There's a great website that is a wealth of info on all things Ashbory at [url="http://www.largesound.com"]Largesound.com[/url]. I like toys.

I'd like to predict a backlash against soulless autotuned machine music. Not sure my prediction will come true, but it'll be nice if it did. I heard akon the other day - he's so autotuned he sounds like a dalek. I have to wonder whether he was signed up & marketed as a result of a trading-places style bet at the record company.

As far as I can tell Tony Hadley still sounds like a foghorn.

I've yet to hear any bass with as strong a B as my NS-CR5M upright with the magnetic EMG pickups - but that has a scale length of over 40".