Jean-Luc Pickguard

Sit Down And Talk This Over — Wilson Pickett

Gimme A Pigfoot and a Bottle Of Beer — Bessie Smith

Yes, the labella danelectro set are low tension. They don't really pull on the neck much so the truss rod needed to be slackened off pretty much all the way to get any relief.

It looks like it'll start walking towards you as soon as you turn your back on it

The Green Green Grass Of Homeopathy — Tom Jones

Cindy Tells Me — Brian Eno

Just seen this: https://www.soundonsound.com/news/apple-logic-pro-11-incoming Logic pro 11 will be available on Monday — 13 May and will include a few new goodies including Bass & Keyboard equivalents to the drummer track, Stem splitter, and a new saturation plugin. The cost will be £199, but the best part is that it will be a free upgrade for existing users. It looks like the new keyboard player plugin is going to be limited to piano, but I hope it gets extended to include hammond organ styles also as I would probably enjoy playing with that. I already own RipX for splitting songs into stems for remixing old recordings or rehearsal / gig recordings from the zoom H2n, so it will be interesting to see how the Logic splitter compares.

I never solder anything when I shield a bass and I've never had less than perfect results. I ensure there is continuity of the tape, ie a strip of tape betwen the pickup cavity and the control cavity, the bits of tape overlap (the adhesive on most copper tape is conductive) and extend a tag to one of the control plate screw holes so it connects to the control plate — you can see these have been done in the pic I posted above. One further tip, don't be tempted to get the wide tape thinking it'll mean less bits are needed. I've found that the 1" (25mm) wide tape works best, anything wider gets unmanagable and tries to stick to itself before you want it to.

Papa Was A Rolling Stone — The Temptations

I love the bass balls. In the 80s I had an original one without an LED. I have no idea what happened to it, it might be in a long forgotten box in the loft or I might have sold it, given it away, or left it somewhere. I now have a Mooer bass sweeper mini pedal which does a good job of copying the bass balls with a bonus that it has a pair of external knobs in place of the internal trimpots of the bass balls.

Here I Am (Come and Take Me) — Al Green

My First fender. I hated every minute of working in bejams over the summer in 1982 after leaving school, but I was doing it to buy this new from Rockbottom in Croydon for £260. It was actually made up of two separate basses in the international colours series — I asked if they could get one in with the body like the cherry sunburst precision (that had a rosewood fretless neck) and a fretted maple neck like the one on a yellow precision. After confirming that this was a serious enquiry, they took the two basses into their workshop for ten minutes and came back with the necks swapped. I was eighteen at the time and had never played a real fender before so I had no idea that a precision bass really shouldn't weigh as much as a small elephant. It currently has an EMG Geezer pickup & electronics, and a Fender High Mass Bridge. It sounds fantastic, but can't compete with my JMJs for comfort.

And here is my guitar board

Oh Pritt! — Buzzcocks

This would probably be right up my street if I hadn't recently put together my ultimate pedalboard of six boss compact pedals, which I am really happy with and gives me the all sounds I need for the set. I used to have the big red GT-6b, and although I liked it, there was still a bit of faffing about in using it. Comparing the two, the ME-90B looks to be more aligned with how my brain works. Being able to run it off batteries is a bonus.

Semolina — The Residents

Here's Event Horizon, where I aimed for a 70s Krautrock feel. It is is about looking into, and being pulled over the Event Horizon of a black hole which might actually be a wormhole into a parallel universe.

Ingrid's Oily Tongue — The Residents

I hang my ukuleles from picture rail hangers like this, but I wouldn't trust anything heavier than my ubass to resist gravity.

You Need a A Little Something Extra — William Bell

It Snot Unusual — Tom Jones

John (Noakes) I'm Only Dancing — David Bowie

I bought an akai deep impact for £50 and let it go for £85 — I should have hung onto it a bit longer. I listed my japanese boss HM2 on ebay with a start price of £40 expecting it to go higher and it went for that price. I used to own an original 70s coloursound tone bender. I thought it sounded like crap and I either gave it away or possibly sold it for next to nothing not realising they're supposed to sound like crap. I have had some good deals that have more than offset these though

D'addario medium scale (32") Chromes are a perfect fit for a mustang with thru' body bridge.

The fatbasstone one looks like a no-no for me as it has knurled pots, and you'd really need solid shaft pots (or a kludgy workaround) to be able to fit proper vintage-style jazz bass knobs. I'd suggest spending the money on top quality components (CTS pots, switchcraft or pure tone jack etc) and a soldering kit. If you've not done it before, soldering is a useful skill to have and it really isn't difficult. With a little practice you'll be able to make something just as good as any of these with the satisfaction of putting it together yourself and using exactly the components you want. If you are upgrading something like a squier to use better quality pots, and reusing the original control plate, you will probably also need a tapered reamer to open up the holes for the pots as the mini/far east pots commonly fitted in cheaper instuments typically use a smaller diameter hole.