Frank Blank

Do you know I’d barely noticed those! I now have a fretted and fretless Mouse, after careful consideration neither are going anywhere!

Well, it's been a bit of a whirlwind start to the year bass wise as my search for a fretted bass that I get on with continued at a pace. Back in November I purchased a Sandberg from @DoubleOhStephan after seeing another similar Sandberg on the Bass Gallery website. Obviously, due to lockdown, I was unable to pick up the bass. In late January I also decided to buy a short scale Warwick from The Lord of the Dead @Osiris thinking that really this was my last dealings with full scale basses and that I'd probably settle with the short scale Warwick, essentially it was my backup in case of disappointment. Due to lockdown I was also unable to pick up the Warwick either. By March I was going up the wall and my resolve crumbled. I bought the original Sandberg that had tickled my fancy on the Bass Gallery site. It arrived on the doorstep and here it is... ...it has everything aesthetically I want in a bass, matt sunburst finish, gold hardware, it is simply one of the most beautiful basses I've ever seen. I played it for 10-15 minutes and put it in the rack. Last Saturday I was granted an audience with the Overseer of the Egyptian Underworld to pick up the Warwick. I got the bass home, here it is... ...I was really surprised at the build quality, an amazing bass for the money, gorgeous, lovely. I played it for about 10-15 minutes and put it in the rack. On Thursday I finally drove down to @DoubleOhStephan to pick up the original Sandberg, I got the bass home and here it is... I don't know what it is about this bass but I can't put it down, perhaps this is the one?

I think Crafter get a bad press, the one I’ve got is a lovely thing, can’t fault it.

I have let other bands use my rig four times, each time there was varying degrees of damage, each time I pointed this out to the perpetrator I was simply greeted by bemused shrugs. The final time I warned the bassist, he seemed to be taking it all in, they started playing so I went to the bar, when I came back there was a pint glass, an ash tray and spilt beer on my amp. I just wandered on to the stage unplugged the bass and began packing up my gear as the were playing. When I pointed out the bassists infractions he began arguing with me so I threw the remainder of the beer over him and continued packing up. It got close to a punch up but despite being the kind of chap who would, if involved in fisticuffs, close his eyes and wave his hands like poodle swimming, I do look far meaner than I actually am so (thankfully) they thought better of it. Since changing to an FRFR set up I no longer have this problem as most bassists take one look at my rig and just scratch their heads.

In fact… Mmmmm

I have a Crafter CT-120 and it is a lovely thing. I have played a couple of the Godin ACS guitars and they are gorgeous… Damn, might have to go and buy one now.

Just finally picked up a bass from Steve that I bought back in November! Excellent transaction, great comms, the man is a gentleman. Cheers Steve.

Welcome @JSbass

You can hear mine from space.

Apart from those coming from your knees?

A third surreptitious meeting in what’s slowly becoming our Lovers Lane to pick up the Warwick I bought back in January. Rather than repeat myself banging on about what a first rate gentleman and capital fellow @Osiris is, here’s the Banana Splits...

I was driving through Loughton today as well! But I was listening to...

Max Pax & The Rialto Ballroom Detectives

Welcome @rockerbox

Exactly what I do. I have different patches for each song in a set some are with electric bass, some with an acoustic bass which has a hot output so each patch has to be tweaked and saved so an even signal is maintained throughout the set.

I glanced at that and thought Dave who attacks Gary Moore?

Well mostly by manifestation as an ethereal form and by engaging in robust and lengthy sessions of origami.

Beautifully and succinctly put Sir. This should be page 1, paragraph 1 and line 1 of the one lined Bass Tone Bible.

Welcome @BrigadierBass

Welcome @NeatBass

Welcome @Eko

Welcome @Jim C

Welcome @robscott

So, there’s usually a reticent quality of endeavour about my bass tone and at the same time, in cognitive and, indeed precognitive terms, it’s a very natural rhapsodic augmentation of my living environment. When someone playing complex passages, passages say, that attempt to convey the minutiae of human lives in all their manifold sensuous and intellectual complexity is asked to define the nuances of their tonal output, we can see for ourselves the branches and leaves of opprobrium working their noble way into the twilight of aural comprehension. Not only that, but the parts of the brain employed when playing or listening to the bass or making love are illuminated by the very act of discussing the inherent architecture of bass tone, or drawin a complex and over detailed diagram of love making. Long before such tonal schematics became de rigeur, the Albanian visionary and goat herd, Maximilian Coque, argued that the portrayal of bass, both behaviourally and proto-subjectively, in modern musical culture was actually a comprehensively valid field for theoretical psychoanalysis in a post-reductionist, albeit tonally abstract, environment. Recent advances in aural science allow us to put Croque’s theories to the test under laboratory conditions and it turns out that the old man was right on the money. Fancifully, I wonder how these whimsical speculations over bass tone might appear to the audio technicians of the future, and whether they could turn this endless rumination over what is, in essence, a very basic and fundamental sound in to a simple three dimensional structure composed of papier-mâché and dried macaroni? Food for thought. In the spirit of Croque and his theoretical ruminations I would describe my bass tone as lamb madras mopped up with the last chapati and then a walk home in the rain because I missed the last bus.