Maude

Everything in that video is achievable as long as you aren't a cack handed klutz. 😁 Seriously though, with care and patience you can do everything pretty much as he says in the video. There's a couple of of bits that make me wince but that's just me being fussy. Rubbing in straight lines with your fingertips, in the same direction as your fingers are pointing is a no no, you'll encourage a rippley surface. Use a rubber block with the paper and rub at forty-five degrees to direction the block is facing, ie aim the front edge of the block at twelve o'clock but rub the block towards two o'clock (ish). It stops the edge of the block making lines. For the areas a block isn't suitable use your fingers but keep your hand flat and rub more with pads of your fingers and the area between the two finger joints rather than the tips, also use that same forty-five degree motion as much as possible, or ninety degrees to fingers, never in line with your fingers. Also stay away from the corners, I know it doesn't have corners but I mean rub the front and back down, then all around the sides and leave the little roundover until last and just give it a tickle with some fine paper, this will be the easiest part to rub through, which you want to avoid. As with anything, the more care and time you take the better the end result.

The trouble with buying these is that I'd have to pop a new bass in the order to get free shipping.

TNT - AC/DC

She's Not There - UK Subs 😉

By the looks of it it hasn't got the tight radius of a doublebass so won't feel like a doublebass to play, having a Jazz neck will make it feel like a bass guitar to play. “An acoustic bass guitar should be a small contrabass, not a big guitar”, and then goes and puts a standard bass guitar neck on. 🤦

Cut Up - Ned's Atomic Dustbin

The Hills Have Eyes - The Meteors

Pretend We're Dead - L7

Me and My Friends - RHCP

You're correct, the 735 is a more modern design, and arguably a more modern tone with it's active pre amp, but does that make it better? Sometimes simplicity is king. I've had a 1024x and a 734a, the 1024x has a solid tone with it's own character and lacks nothing, the 734a is a very, very good bass but just sounds slighty bland and sterile. I actually still own the 734a but sold the 1024x, but that's only because I own a 424x which has been modified and either the 1024 or 424 had to go as they're so similar. If I had to keep the 734a or 1024x then the 734a would have been up the road. Ultimately only you can decide though, and I don't think you'd be disappointed with either.

Personally I feel the 1025 is a better bass, but ultimately it depends if you want/need active or not. If you don't need active I'd go for the 1025 all day long.

Living For The Weekend - Hard-Fi

On the flip side I just went to practice and on the second song my NUX's battery has died, on the intro to The Snake, how very apt. I hate this piece of rubbish. 😂 To be fair I knew it needed charging but hoped I could squeeze another half an hour out of it, nope. It actually lasts a decent amount of time on a single charge.

The newer one seems to be called the Mighty Plug Pro as opposed to just Mighty Plug. To be fair they're closer in price now, when I bought mine it was on offer at £50 compared to nearly £100 for the Pro, and didn't warrant the extra outlay for the two extra features. I actually practice more now as it's so convenient to use. I'm a fan, can you tell? 😁 This is the earlier one.

I dont know, I'll have a look., 😁

Obviously up to you if you did get one but I wouldn't bother with the newer version. The only difference (I think) is it's USB C rather than B, and it's got a volume control, which I thought would be handy but I've found I don't need it. The NUX presets are set to a comfortable level using the app and I just adjust the phone volume to suit. I have the earlier version BTW.

I've got a Session Cake but it's a far bigger faff to use compared to the NUX. Session Cake, phone, headphones and bass all connected with leads compared to headphones essentially plugged straight into the bass. You can get up and walk around with nothing extra to carry. It's the simplest way to practice I've found short of buying the Boss Waza, which is significantly more expensive. Being USB rechargeable is another bonus over the Session Cake.

@rushbo, 3M Refix Tape is a very thin double sided tape, often known as glue on a roll as it's once the backing is removed it's pretty much just a film of adhesive. It's about a centimeter wide and plenty strong enough to hold a pickguard with a two or three short strips. Should be easily and safely removed from poly with acetone, lighter fluid or similar. It comes in a box of four 10m rolls and is pretty expensive so PM your address and I'll pop a few strips (or the end of a roll if I've got one) in the post for you. 🙂👍

Lick My Love Pump - Nigel Tufnel

Just set up some presets using the app and then you don't need it. You can have seven presets and scroll through them using the main button on the Mighty plug, the button lights up a different colour for each preset. Bluetooth your phone to it and balance the bass volume (on the Mighty Plug) against your phone volume (on your phone) and away you go. As said above you need wired headphones but I bought a short lead so it doesn't trail around, just long enough to reach from bass to headphones with a little slack so it doesn't get pulled.

Stupid Kid - Sultans of Ping

I picked up an old Encore P in a charity shop last year. Gave it a good clean and polish, did a fair bit of fret work (levelled, reshaped, polished) and rounded over the fretboard edges, put a Tonestyler pickup in and it is honestly one of my favourite playing basses, it just feels so nice to play and sounds great. £50 for the bass and £25 for the pickup. The mid nineties ones just have Encore on the headstock, these and older I feel are the better ones, the newer ones have Encore Blaster on the headstock. As with most basses there are good and bad from any era, a place we use for rehearsals has one like mine but it's terrible, it could probably be made to feel nicer but visually it doesn't do it for me. I lucked out and got some really nicely grained wood on the body and neck.

The Lunatics (have taken over the asylum) - Fun Boy Three

Tina Turner's version of Proud Mary. I'll quite happily listen to the original by CCR, but there's just something about Tina Turner's version I dispise. Compounded by the way any woman has to do that horrible, bent over, arm pumpy shuffle thing whenever it comes on in a pub.