Jean-Luc Pickguard

I'd bang their heads together and tell them to stop bickering.

Spicks And Specs — Status Quo

I've owned two five string bass guitars. I didn't really get enough benefit from having the extra string on either occasion, the B didn't sound particularly good, and I don't really like active basses so I sold both of them. When I upgraded from a dean pace EUB to an NS Design seventeen years ago, I went for the CR5M. I have no plan to ever sell it as it is a wonderful instrument, and having a 43" (or thereabouts) scale means the B string sounds as good as the other strings. Also The EMG/Haz labs electronics make sense on the CR5M.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267073179522 This 4003 is listed as being a 2004/5 model in the title (and 2017 in the description) having been purchased by the seller as a teenager and then left unplayed for some undisclosed period of time. The pics don't look like a 20 year old bass — the roller bridge only arrived in the last few years and the skunk strip returned a few years after the new bridge, having being shelved in the mid 80s

I like the little micromesh pads - there's a nice set of small squares of all of the grits on amazon

Here's my entry, 'Ramps' I just managed to finish it off and put together a simple video before tunning out of time. I aimed for a cinematic feel to go along with Iris's cool ramp action. Recorded in Logic, using Logic drums, My Fender Vintera 70s telecaster custom & Gibson non-reverse thunderbird went into my Fender mustang GTX100 amp connected to the Mac Mini via usb. Stock logic plugins were used for keyboards and processing.

This is a new product that is fulfilled and shipped from China, there's a bit about the fulfilment & delivery time on the product page. For orders below £135 or the euro equivalent, the cost shown at checkout including shipping should be the total including taxes.

Its only going to get colder after xmas so a bass jumper would be better than a t-shirt https://bassthing.uk/product-category/knitwear/ full disclosure: bassthing.uk is my online store

La Grainger — ZZ Top

Captain Peacock in My Pocket — The Stooges

Abraham Martin and John Inman — Marvin Gaye

Most of mine have had a little modding, even the JMJ mustangs which I opened up & shielded with anti-slug tape. My Epiphone Vintage Pro Thunderbirds have had the tuners repaced with Gotoh GB-640 tuners and I've fitted thumb-bleeders (the little pointy indicator thingys) under the knobs. My Gibson non-reverse thunderbird has a babicz bridge. Anything that came with a flimsy (ie destined to fail at the least convenient moment) output socket got an upgrade to a switchcraft or pure tone. Probably the smallest amount of modding was on my guild starfire II — I wasn't keen on the white switch tip so I replaced it with an amber one.

These in nickel should work from James's home of tone: https://www.homeoftone.co.uk/products/pickguard-screws-for-fender-styles-nickel edit: just noticed James is out of the nickel ones at the moment so it might be worth shooting him an email to see if he has a spare few kicking about or an eta for new stock.

Passive — preferably on a single pickup bass. I just don't feel the need to tweak the tone any more than a passive tone pot allows. Also I don't like batteries in basses.

Or you could use firm neoprene-type foam under the pickups and not bother with springs.

I've always liked the look of a stingray, but have not been tempted to aquire on as I mostly play short scale basses, and I don't get on with active electronics. When I heard about the (passive) short scale stingrays I checked out the sterling version online thinking it would be more to my taste, but the metrics just look a little off, so I decided it wasn't for me after all. Yesterday a short scale musicman stingray appeared onscreen when I was idly looking at ebay and it doesn't look oddly proportioned like the Sterling. Am I imagining things or do the metrics of the EBMM look way better than the Sterling by MM version? In addition to the better proportioned bridge, it looks like the US version might be using a smaller control plate where the Sterling uses a full size control plate as used on the long scale basses. Whenever I see the Sterling version I can't unsee how oddly large the control plate appears to be — it reminds me of a toddler stomping around in his dad's boots.

Daddy Sang Bass — Johnny Cash

Papa's Got a Brand New Haggis — James Brown

I have an early 80s Fender bass case which has a split alongside the handle. I've not attempted to fix it yet as it currently lives in the loft. I have seen various youtube videos which show how to fix splits in ABS (car bumpers etc) and the variety of different solutions has put me off attempting a fix in case I chose the wrong method. I'm torn between using a soldering iron with an old (but clean) bit to melt the plastic together, possibly embedding staples to hold the crack together, or using a solvent — eg breaking up pieces of spare ABS and dissolving it in acetone to make a kind of slurry/putty that melts into the area around the crack and holds it together. I'm not convinced though by the method that uses black cable ties, melting them with a soldering iron into the crack as I'm fairly sure that they are made from nylon rather than ABS. For a crack in the foot area of a Ric case, the Rickysounds kit looks like a no-brainer and should make for a tidy repair, but I would probably be inclined to also use the soldering iron method to seal the crack to (try to) prevent it from spreading further before fitting the parts in the kit.

The blue one is so tempting, but over time I seem to have acquired vintage pro thunderbirds in all of the original colours — Sunburst, black, & white, so I already have more of them than I need.

Was I the only one who after seeing the defret job, checked whether the tuners were fanned out at jaunty angles?

Suzie Queue — Creedence Clearwater Revival

Hollow Hills — Bauhaus