Huge Hands

Hello all, I am very late in posting this up, but Christmas 2023, I bought my son a Harley Benton acoustic g****r from Thomann and managed to sneak myself in a PB-50 (sunburst a'la Sting) into the order. All delivered to my house from Germany before the big day for under £200. I don't really play 4 strings these days but I love the original Precision look. I have not seen a decent 5 string one without blowing a wads ot cash on a custom, so thought I would get it for my own guilty pleasure, and at that price (I think it was £105), it was hard for me to refuse I liked the bass straight out of the box and apart from filing down a few rough fret edges, it was ready to go. I spoke to forumites on here who kindly sent me the templates to cut down the headstock to match. This concerned me as with my blunderbuss approach and giant sausage fingers, I reckoned I'd be left with a snapped headstock and a bloodstained house. But then during Christmas 2024 I had a dafter idea. I have always loved the look of upside down headstocks, so why not look for a lefty neck for it? I also looked for original look bridge and pup covers.... I was talking to @Merton about it last week and realised I hadn't posted a thread about it I did complete it in January and don't have the greatest amount of photos from the build, but happy with the results, so here we go ...

Methinks another meet up is long overdue! EDIT - although I think I have exactly the same gear as last time lol!

All I can add to this is that I met up with @eude and @Merton a good few years ago and they both kindly let me have a try of their ACGs. I felt like a bit of a poor relation handing my trusty old Squier over to them in exchange! I am a bit of a traditionalist and (perhaps stupidly) prefer the look of a painted P or J bass to these works of art so not sure they would be for me, but the one thing I did take away from the trial was the low B strings on them and how good they felt/sounded. PS - I know Alan's newer Retro series is closer to the traditional look, but there is also the fact that I'd never get a custom purchase past the Bank of Mrs HH.....

Oh wow, So sad to hear of @Mrs Tinman's passing. I remember having a few chats with her on here and FB years ago and she was always funny and kind. All the best to @Tinman and your wider family.

I laughed at that a lot more than I should have......

Looks like you might not be missing much:

"....and on BBC News tonight - man is convicted of murder after Police checked his internet search history....."

If I remember correctly, if you watch the new "Get Back" remaster thing of the Beatles that Peter Jackson did, you can see a set list taped to the side of Paul's Hofner, presumed to be from their Shea Stadium gig?

I own 2 Barefaced 210s but mainly only ever use one. I spoke to Alex originally as I wanted a big driver cab (my previous rig was a Ashdown MAG 210 combo with MAG 115 extension cab and preferred the 15). However, he talked me into the 210s (they were a new model at the time with his talk of extra excursion in the drivers and the way he did his ports. I was sceptical at first, but I have never experienced any issues with low Bs on any of my guitars at any volumes, and I can get pretty loud (occasionally). The pair of the cabs set up like a 410 is immense, but I rarely play gigs that warrant the need for a 2nd cab. Having said that, I have no idea if it would fit in an MX5 boot, but I would hope so. My brother has a mk1, but it is buried in storage at the mo, so can't try it for you (plus I'm down south and he's near Newcastle).

Hi @broken_strings - maybe you should have listed it as a "heavy relic" - then you might have doubled your asking price To be honest, at one point I almost gave in and ripped the Tolex off mine too (see earlier post about peel and my addiction to it). I was just lucky that I live fairly near BF, so was able to take them back to Alex to get them fixed.

I can see the headline now: "Shortage of bassists in Aberdeen after they were all press-ganged into working on a galleon....."

This doesn't really help the OP, but for my points: In the concert band I play in, I have moved from using paper sheet music to an iPad. It is a game changer, but I have to be very careful with the angle of my stand as it sometimes ends up sitting in a position that is on the varifocal divide between far and short lens, so can get a bit blurry if you look at it from the wrong angle. In my late 40s, my back is already shot, so although I use pedals, they have to be pre-set before a gig and switched by foot only as I can't bend down far enough to change settings on the fly!

Saturday night was in a school hall playing bass for the local concert band and it's 25th anniversary concert. Was good fun but a total sweat box, especially when the band committee insisted we all walked on stage in full uniform - ie shirt, tie, trousers and heavy band blazers. Luckily the jackets came straight off when we got on stage.....

I have 2x very early 210s, If memory serves they are serial numbers 9 and 10. Alex sent me the labels after I got the cabs, and I put them on myself. Mine had really bad Tolex peel issues around the access panel on the back and had to take them back to Alex twice. After the second time, I have not had any issues since. When I was a kid I had my own issues with being a bit addicted to peeling wallpaper in my bedroom. The old woodchip had started to come away in places, and I would pull on it. I don't know how I thought my parents would ever not notice the ever-growing patch of bare wall next to my bed, but I just had to keep pulling at it. I wonder if this is what happened here......

Didn't Gear4Music hoover up all the GAK stock too? I know they are probably getting it all at a bargain price but wonder if they will be able to shift it all!

It is also worth noting they did a shoulder strap for the NXT - looked a bit like a big black banana and like it had been made from bits of pram handle. I bought one, tried it, it felt a bit weird, so never ended up using it. I think it is in the loft somewhere.....

I remember about 9 years ago I left my tripod at a gig and it took the venue about 3 weeks to find it so had to buy another whilst I assumed it was lost. I seem to remember that was about £100 back then.....

I have said this many times before here on BC, but I've always found with my NXT that when I stand next to it and play it, it doesn't sound all that "DB-like" to me. However, when I've then heard it on a recording from the back of the room, it really does! If you can get your head around that, it should be fine.... and this comes from a bloke with very little DB technique and has kept the low action it came with. As for the tripod comments, I've never notice the neck "springing back" but I as I said I have never really had any DB training so probably don't use the arm weight thing. I do find the instrument can be easily moved around while playing, ie I would often tilt it back slightly on to the back leg and swivel it left to right, giving me that end-pin feel without having to hold it up all night. I am a big fan of mine! I just don't get to play it enough these days.

Have you Googled it? I was looking into Helixs recently and thought I saw there was a common issue with the crashing during updates, but I don't remember it being said as if it was a terminal problem? Maybe other users have found a fix for it? I work with other DSP based systems and sometimes manufacturers have ways to get the CPU back by using direct to chip recovery software.

That 1993 video is the ultimate lineup for me. I got to see them live twice after the 2nd and 3rd albums with Derrick on drums. Although I thought Derrick was really good, I always wished I had seen them with Nick Van Gelder on drums - I wonder why he left so early on - he seems really spot on in this gig. I always thought JK was a bit of a pillock, but absolutely loved the Zender era music they produced. They definitely lost something when he left IMHO.

About 25 years ago I used to sound for cabaret shows at a well known holiday camp. The venue had a house band (keys, bass, gtr, drums) but a lot of the big shows would be tracked to allow for sound effects, extra instrumentation etc, but mainly chorus backing vox which avoided the need for 10 cast members with variable reverb taps (headset mics) running around the stage and trying to sing while gasping for air when dancing. I remember a latin show we did where I was told by the director to keep the mics always on for reaction "whooping", In rehearsal I suddenly heard a load of crashing and banging. I looked up and realised a cast member had decided to stand and pose with her arm on the percussionist's (MD pretending to be a percussionist) shoulder. Mics off - backing track up! They usually whooped loud enough that you could hear them through one of the principle cast's mics anyway. One of the best ones I remember was a Sinatra show where they toured 3 top brass musicians to add to the house band to look the part and also play solos. The rest of the "big band sound" would be tracked. It used to work really well, especially as the size and sound of the band (tracked) would grow as the story of his career progressed. I also remember playing in a crew only band one year for a staff end or year party where the bass player pulled out due to fear with a week to go (I was the drummer). The guitarist quickly knocked up about 5 songs with bass on track so the gig could still go ahead. So in summary, I can't really knock backing tracks....

Sad times if so. I bought a Roland electronic drum kit there about 11 years ago and the sales guy was really helpful and chucked in about £100 of free sticks with it. I often would buy online from them if competitive on stuff too.

For me, being dropped in the deep end and allowed to bumble along listening to the pieces while I learned was the only way it worked. I had bought some notation books in the past and tried to work it out by myself (I had a head start because I had played trombone in my school brass band reading treble clef) but looking at the books it didn't stick with me either. Bearing mind you are joining a band where you don't know anyone, I did initially have to suffer the looks of disdain from a few musical snobs in the band, but on the whole most either couldn't tell the difference, or were very supportive. If you did reconsider having a crack at it, I guess the main thing to look for is to whether you feel the MD and band would be patient enough to have you make mistakes and "learn on the job". As others have said, these bands often have varying skill levels and may just have been happy to find you, as the reading bit puts a lot of people off. It will also be down to whether you can keep a lid on your own anxieties and personal feelings of "I'm not good enough" which I got a lot (and still do). Believe you me, if I get given a new piece with any semiquavers in it, I still shake with dread every time! (Or quaver triplets with rests in them).... I remember once years ago before I tried to read myself, asking a bass player in a cabaret band how he managed to sight read visiting act's arrangements on gigs, especially the rhythmic patterns and fiddly bits. He said you begin to recognise common patterns in pieces of music which means you can anticipate it coming better without specifically counting or reading in detail. I think he is right there - it certainly gets a bit easier the more you do it.