wintoid

Great stuff, I enjoyed that

So far, I've had the most fun with the Stevie Wonder suggestion. Really enjoying Master Blaster Jammin. Good arpeggio workout. That's a great suggestion, thank you!

Some great suggestions, thank you!

I've been having a lot of fun playing along to tracks as a practice, trying to get myself tight et cetera. I'm working on finger style and looking for pop, funk or soul sort of things. So far I've had the best time with artists like Shalamar (great basslines), Chic, Duran Duran, The Meters, some Motown, even Abba. Just wondered if people had some recommendations of other artists/albums/tracks I should check out given how much I've enjoyed the ones I listed. I'm probably less interested in rock or jazz at the moment. Trying to get funky and in the groove. And yes, I appreciate the question has rather a wide remit, but it should still be interesting to see what anyone recommends. Cheesy is fine! P.S. I've been trying to master some of the Pino basslines on things like Go West and Paul Young, but often they're just a little tricky for me

I'd never heard that, thanks for sharing. Just as you said!

Thanks!

I’ve heard a few people speak highly of Wunjo. Peach say they don’t do commission, so perhaps I’ll try Wunjo in the new year.

It’s a masterbuilt cs nocaster. A total extravagance, and way too nice for my meagre talents. I’ve got no idea what I was thinking!

No not at all, there's really no rush. I'll have a think about that. I guess maybe March-ish might be a better time.

Thanks all. I didn't know Peach did commission sales. Maybe I'll try that in the new year.

Thanks. I don't fancy subscribing to anything, but I'd consider a one-off hit for an accelerator course. If it's closed, I guess I'll keep my money. If I happen to notice when it's open, I'll probably give it a try. 12 months though...

I seem to enjoy buying and hate selling. I really don't fancy eBay or selling something myself. I could use a shop to sell on commission I suppose, but I was wondering which good shops do reasonable trade ins. I've ended up treating myself to a rather nice guitar a while back and then realising I'm never going to be good enough to do it justice. I should stick to bass. So I need to trade in a 6 string against hopefully some sort of nice bass. Places like Bass Direct or the Gallery are bass only, which doesn't help when you have a 6 string guitar to trade. Just wondering which outlets people would be using.

So enrolment is now closed. What's the point of that?

Thanks @Boodang In true Basschat fashion, the only reasonable thing to do was to replace the bass, which is what I've done. My new one is not headless, and I've been enjoying trying different strings!

I decided to try some flatwounds for the first time since about 198x. My current bass is a headless Roscoe, and I bought Thomastik flats as an experiment. With my headstock, you have to trim the strings and clamp them at approximately the right length. When I went to trim the first string (G), I tried to match the length to the string that was coming off. That meant I clipped it so that there was no silkwound string at all. The old string still had some silk at the clipping point. Subsequently, as I tightened the string, it slipped quite a lot, and basically mangled the string where it was clamped, so it's now unuseable. I've had to go back to the Rotosound roundwound. Looking in the documentation that came with my bass, I found a piece of text in the letter which says "we do not recommend the use of taperwound or contact core strings due to issues with intonation and setup". I don't really know what this means. Are Thomastik flats taperwound or contact core? Hoping for some guidance here. Do you think the problem is that flatwound strings are just not compatible with this method of clamping, or was the issue that I clamped where there was no silk? If it's the silk, should I order 32" strings for my 34" bass, or will they be too short? Any advice gratefully appreciated!

Terrible news, RIP Robbie

Just fantastic!

Ohhh that was a treat, thank you so much!

Thanks, I appreciate it.

Thanks, I'm basically nowhere so far, just thinking about it. I like a graphite neck, that much I know, and probably a narrow jazz one sounds good to me. I need to learn I think.

Thanks, much appreciated. I'll hang out here and read up!

I had a quick search, but not really sure what to search for. I was hoping there might be a sticky with some basic information about how to get started with building basses. So just a few really basic questions if no one minds... Is there a good resource for learning about what the problems are, and how to resolve them? For example, if I wanted to buy a graphite Status neck and fit it to a Jazz body of some sort, what do I need to look out for when choosing components, and is it as simple as bolting it together, or what is likely to go wrong? Secondly, just at a high level, do you need high levels of dexterity and great carpentry skills to do this stuff, or is it more like lego/meccano and you just bolt it all together and off you go?

Oooh! Thank you! Just briefly tried this and it looks to be the solution. I was sure I'd tried that, but obviously not. Thanks so much for your help.

I'm using an RME Babyface Pro sound card, which is a USB device, and powered entirely from the USB connection to my computer (Mac Mini). I've treated myself to a preamp/active DI box, which is the EBS Microbass II, and supposedly this can be powered over XLR phantom power. So, I've connected the Microbass to the Babyface using an XLR cable, and powered it from a 9V battery initially. No problem, this works OK. I've been into the RME TotalMix software, found the bit where phantom power is turned on, and done that, which results in an orange light turning on on the Babyface. However, the Microbass is not detecting the phantom power. Am I missing something obvious? Is there not going to be enough juice for a USB-driven soundcard to also power an active DI box over phantom power? Did I need to ensure my XLR cable had some particular characteristic to get this to work? Any help much appreciated. I literally have never used phantom power before, so I know nothing about it.