MoonBassAlpha

Lovely looking finish! Nice work there.

Are Elites still available even? I used to buy them all the time, but haven't for about 20 years.

Red silks on Rotosound last time I used them (years ago)

Something like this?

For me, that's the perfect single cut upper bout shape. Lovely design work. This would be a nice match for my buckeye headless Sei...

I wouldn't go anywhere near a bass with anything containing acetone. It's vicious stuff on many plastics.

A digital storage oscilloscope would do a good job

Good stuff chaps! Unusually, the top 3 came out in my order of preference too.

If it's PVA, I'd go the gentle heat route, hairdryer. I've tried stripping poly off with heat and a hairdryer wouldn't have touched it.

Yeah! Why not?

I've always found ACG's single cut like this: https://www.acguitars.co.uk/project/028recurveclassic5-2/ to be the most pleasing design as it gets away from the sperm whale look, and is more sleek.

On the other short scale thread I asked what these are like. Anyone reading this thread got one?

"Hi Jules, Further thoughts: Those Laney Supergroup 50’s and 100’s are indeed essentially based upon the old Fender Tweed 5F6A Bassman / Tweed 5F8A High Power Twin (see also Marshall JTM45/ Marshall Super Lead/ Plexi) circuits respectively, but lovingly made in Brum with heavy industrial steel chassis and Radiospares capacitors, resistors and other parts (like most British amps of that era). The key to them sounding distinctive despite this, in my opinion, is the use of a certain strain of Partridge Transfomers (different to those Partridge types used in say, Hiwatts) that have Primary windings with impedances that bias up in such a way that there's always some evident crossover distortion regardless of idle current, though not unmusical. There's also a unbypassed shared common 10 Ohm cathode resistor between the cathodes and the chassis for reading the overall bias current as a voltage (by Ohms law: 1V = 100mA) which might just cause some tangible cross-coupling or back-biasing. In my experience anyway they've never sounded especially clean, perhaps this was somewht deliberate, as the late 60’s timeline fits the advent of then-fashionable heavy rock, who knows? ! I only had one 100 in for a service (I’ve done several 50’s) and noted that it used a big Wirewound resistor rather than a choke in the HT supply (some do, some don’t, but all the 50’s I’ve seen had chokes fitted). One amp guru I know detracts from Laney’s by saying they sound "like a Marshall with a cold” However, I still really like them for guitar (adopts Brummie accent “yeah roight….wouldn’t mind one meself, loike") as they sound very ‘electric’ and scary, in a good way and don't need cranking quite as loud as a Marshall to achieve that ‘smear' from saturation! 'Hear me Calling’ on the 'Slade Alive!’ from 1971 is testament to that Laney sound: there are Supergroups visible in the ‘live’ session photos. More obvious than Sabbath as far as i’m concerned. But I guess Geezer Butler also had quite a fruity tone when he used them. The Paranoid recording session photos from 1970 show a 100W Laney Supergroup head and cab for Geezers bass, but also a Vox AC30 with Rangemaster treble booster(s) behind Tony Iommi, which I suspect he used (as did Ritchie Blackmore similarly when in the studio e.g. on 'Machine Head’). I’ve been listening to late-era Move and early ELO today….guess I’m a ‘Brumbeat enthusiast'! Hope this helps." Reproduced from an email, with permission, from my acquaintance Dan Coggins, designer of Lovetone pedals, and more recently, Dinosaural and Thorpy FX I hope you find this useful, there was another email about amps he considers louder, but that's slightly outside the scope of this thread!

Back in the 60s you would have played one of these through 2 4x12 cabs, so that would have been plenty loud enough! I asked a valve amp expert about this issue, and unsurprisingly, he had quite a lot to say. Long and short of it was these do not stay as clean as some similar power designs. I can post here or pm if you're interested?

The one I did had only 3 controls and the 2 switches. V,v,t.

Nice job!

If the fretless was fretted I would have bought this off you! I love an ebony board. Which one do you still have?

One thing to bear in mind when you get the paint off is the front and back will have a layer of veneer, so don't expect anything attractive, cos it isn't!

Hofner still make the exact pickups used in this era. They're about a ton each. They're the same as used in the German Violin basses. The Chinese- made pickups that look similar, used in the lower range models aren't quite the same size. I bought an almost complete one to give to my best mate. Similar to one he had when he was 15-17 It was missing pickups, surround and the bottom of the bridge . I didn't want to spend much more so i bought Chinese pickups, and made them fit into a proper Hofner surround at the bridge. Wiring was all intact. The bridge base was made up in aluminium by a chap at work on the cnc, from dimensions I got off an original Was all rather nice once set up.

I quite like the look of the Cort Action junior, anybody got one? Also, the Mensinger Cazpar? I need a good reason NOT to buy one!

Studiospares own brand M1000 phones are pretty decent for the money. Detachable replaceable cable, spare pair of earpads included, and I believe the individual phone part is available as a replacement part. They're pretty robust too, I'm always treading on the cable and dropping them in my tiny studio space. They're about £50

Ahead of the times too - he was Covid-ready back then!

My drummer says it sounds like porn music on acid. " Just needs some sexy sound effects on top", apparently. Gotta love drummers, eh?

Back in the room! I went for an unstable feel on this one, alternating bars of 7 and 9 keep it sounding wrong, and unbalanced. No synthesizers were harmed in the making of this tune, but it does mark a reappearance of my trusty Sonic Screwdriver, and a debut for my electric drill. And bongos.