Angel

Rush were one of my most important bands late teens. I absolutely loved the band, well, until the Hold your fire album. I found that plus everything after waaaaaay less interesting. They became a different band.

But yeah Geddy Lee & Billy Sheehan and my two rock bass Gods.

I'm so disappointed that I have such a rubbish voice for singing. I'm 2 out of 10 at best. No range, often can't find the note, and 5 mins of singing in the car and my throat seems ripped to shreds. I love sitting at a piano at home, bashing out some chords (which I'm pretty good at!) and singing along, I just wish I could get to 'average' singing and be able to do it with others, or at a station piano if the world ever gets back to normal. If I used emoticons I'd stick a sad face in now ....

On 10/10/2020 at 19:09, Stub Mandrel said:

Shame on you.

I am Greenslade's fan!

Have you found someone to pass the torch to yet? 

6 hours ago, Bilbo said:

Me too but, for some reason, I never got into it. Love Patrick W, though. Had for years before this album came out. Have you seen his Web page? 

http://www.patrickwoodroffe-world.com/

Yeah, I always kept track of him. His Mythopoeikon (er .... not sure I spelled that right?) was one of the most important books of my youth, as was The Pentateuch of the cosmology (book illustrations, not the terrible Greenslade music!). I'm creating an illustration to put on my bass at the moment and the eyes I drew were influenced by Patrick!

23 hours ago, KevB said:

I don't do much recommendation stuff but based on your list, if you are not familiar with them then maybe worth checking out Pallas, especially The Sentinel album

 

I bought the Sentinel on vinyl on its day of release!

Neo prog is my favourite thing. Great Patrick Woodroffe artwork as well.

3 hours ago, Rich said:

For me, the appalling drums on Script for a Jester's Tear make it pretty much unlistenable -- Fugazi was a quantum leap forward in quality. My favourite Fish-era Marillo album is Clutching At Straws.

For me the first 4 Marillion albums with Fish were amazing. The musical love affair of my life. I actually like them in the order they came out. I was a big fan from before they had a record deal so the first album was rather special (although the production was terrible!). 

I think they are a great band with Hogarth still, I just don't enjoy the music all that much personally.

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

But not best vocalist, nor the best looking (obviously with the best haircut) or most able to compete with your pet dog? 

er ... no. Can't sing to save my life and I've never been a looker.

I spent a few hundred pounds on bass pickups at a well known dealer. They showed up and annoyingly one of the 4 'tube' springs was missing from one package. I sent them an email stating that one was missing and could they stick one in the post (I'm all out of spares, and my OCD side would prefer 4 the same even if they can't be seen!). Ignored. I ended up buying some tubing off of eBay. The upshot is I have unsubscribed from their newsletter and will be going elsewhere in future for bass-related purchases. 

OK, so today I was going to install my old John East J-Retro 01, and to my consternation I found that I had lost the earth wire. I searched all over but couldn't find it. I emailed John and asked if I could purchase a replacement, and not 10 minutes later he had replied with "I've stuck one in the post for you". Now THAT is great customer service! Many thanks to John!

I'm the best guitarist, bassist and keyboard player of all the bands I've played in.

OK, confession time. I've never been in a band.

I love early to mid Yes

I love early to mid Rush

I love early to mid Genesis

I love early Marillion

I love all Pendragon

I love prog. It's my bestest music. Generally prog bands seem to have a sell by date though and for most it was a few decades ago.

That is fascinating ...... and tempting!

I'll have to give this some serious thought if someone doesn't snap it up. 

I've actually had the bass assembled a few times to try out around the house with no sound. I'm loving it! It's actually quite a wrench to pull it apart again and sort the next stage out. Dare I say that it is turning out better than I expected.

Pickup holes sorted. I also used this as a template to mark the routes on the body.

As the Precision pickup is under the pickguard I just routed it out freehand. I made a template for the Jazz pickup though. I actually made two, the first one wasn't good enough. The second one wasn't great, but good enough for me.

And here's them both done. Hopefully to the correct depth! you can also see where I moved the bridge back on this one.

I spent ages checking and double checking bridge placement and here I am drilling the holes. After all that I wasn't happy with the placement so I filled these and re-drilled new ones! bl**dy amateur!

This is the pickguard paper template stuck onto the plastic. Took a lot of faffing getting the shape how I wanted.

And this is the basic cutout, done with jigsaw, files, sanding etc. I have now worked out and marked pickup placement.

I've been a bit lazy with updates, and I forget to take pix at times, but there has been progress ...

Basic neck shaping:

A bit of a jump as I forgot to take pix, but it's shaped, varnished and tuners added:

Headstock - router split a bit off at the top early on! Oh well, I ain't a pro and I ain't that fussy!

Just a quick question - 4 & 5 string jazz basses , do they have the same size body dimensions?

9 hours ago, casapete said:

Here you go - my Jazz (bitsa) and my 63 Precision in the gear4music foam case. Must admit the slightly offset shape of the jazz means it's a tighter fit than the P-bass, but both well protected and snug! Hope this helps, cheers.

Thanks for that! most helpful!

The only problem with all these is knowing if the bass will fit! The most useful photo would be a straight on shot of a standard bass (maybe jazz or precision) so you could judge by how that firs the space. Why does no-one take a pic like that??

2 hours ago, casapete said:

I bet a few people are waiting for me to recommend these, and I hate to disappoint!

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar-and-Bass/Bass-Guitar-Foam-Case-by-Gear4music/C87

Honestly one of the best things I've bought in years - in fact I bought one as a spare in case the first ever gives up the ghost. This is looking extremely unlikely at the moment, probably 6 or 7 years down the line. Used it on every gig I've done with my main band, so at least 500 gigs in and out of our vehicle. Still looks virtually new, and has protected my bass perfectly. Lighter than a standard case, tons more protection than most gig bags, shaped so not overly large and dead easy to use. Quite a few mates have seen mine and got one, everyone commenting how good they are. Best thing is the price - £39.99. You really can't go wrong. A few other companies do ones not a million miles away (SKB, Gator?) but they tend not to be shaped and therefore not as user friendly IMO. And cost a fair bit more too....🤨 

(just to add that my 4 string jazz fits in one of these, so although I can't guarantee your 5 er will, there is a fair bit of space around the headstock on mine so chances are it should.)

I'm liking that! If my bass fits then that's what I'd go for for sure!

Anyone got a recommendation for a good bass gig bag - Something roughly 5 string jazz bass size?

I'm not a fan of hard cases, and my instruments rarely leave home. I'd like to get a decent quality gig bag with some padding, not one of those flimsy things!

Money as always is a bit tight so I'm not after something diamond encrusted that you can drive over in a Sherman tank.

Any thoughts?

I'm on the lookout for a quality gig bag but I'm a zillion miles from Dudley unfortunately!

I was surprised many years ago when I bought a Sammy Hagar album and reading the notes found out that the bass player was .... Eddie van Halen!

I seem to recall that Yngwie played bass on one of his own albums.

Music at school was rubbish (being polite there). The teacher was a grumpy unpleasant man, and for some reason he hated my pal so we all got treated badly. I really wanted to learn the Flute. They passed one around the class once and said 'blow into this'. The two people who got a note out of it got to learn flute. I felt robbed, my one chance was pathetically unfair.

Yup. I'm into Prog as my main thing, and never before have there been so many amazing bands out there! We had the giants back in the day, Yes, Genesis et al, but what we have now is a VAST amount of musicians playing prog-related material.

My best find in recent years has been Peter Jones, an amazing blind multi-instrumentalist with a superb voice. He's played live with both Camel and Francis Dunnery's It Bites in the past year, learning all keyboard parts with no help from reading a score! His own albums, under the name of Tiger Moth Tales are superb.