Beer of the Bass

That's a plywood bass, but potentially a decent one. It might not be made in London unless it's clearly marked as such - Selmer were in the import business and many similar looking basses came from Germany. I'd have a look in through the f-holes to check that the end blocks aren't cracked and the bass bar isn't coming detached, as those would be expensive repairs. Even if it's all healthy you could easily spend as much again (or perhaps a bit more) getting it set up and playable though, which is something to bear in mind.

I can stand on a Neutrik jack and it doesn't break. Not that I make a habit of it, but these things happen on cluttered, poorly lit stages. This has a big chunky box with a battery door and power button on each end and I'd be surprised if it was as robust as that. I presume we'd have to remember to switch each end on, and check the batteries. For a "more reliable" alternative this would appear to have several more potential failure modes.

It's very close to being done now, all I have left is to make a nice looking overlay for the control panel and a nameplate for the front. I had a go at this, but wasn't very happy with the first attempt. The Sharpie labelling is definitely a temporary measure, but otherwise it's ready to gig and I may as well get it to the friend I'm building it for so that he can be playing it in the meantime. I'm playing bass with him for some gigs over the next few weeks, so it'll be interesting to hear what he does with it. This was my first go at tolex. It's definitely more hassle than Tuff Cab, but I think it turned out OK. Tolex hides small imperfections in the ply a lot better than Tuff Cab does, which I was glad of. I used the water based tolex glue from TubeTown where I bought some of the parts, which was quite pleasant to use as it gives you a little working time before it grabs hard and it has very little odour other than a faint rubbery whiff. I've used aluminium mesh for the vents in the top, and the reverb tank is in a little pouch made of leftover tolex strapped inside the bottom of the cabinet. I have a feeling I may end up adding side handles as it weighs just sort of 25Kg. Still, my friend wanted this much power and with decent transformers and a stout speaker it all adds up. It sounds great though, it almost makes me want to do another amp in the same style for myself (though I'd go for less power). I'd been testing it through a bass cab, but it's more fun with the WGS ET90 speaker I've put in the combo cab - the bass is less pronounced but it's more clear and open sounding. As well as the expected crunch, the cleans are very nice too.

Thomann sell the black putty that's supplied with AKG contact pickups. It works OK and seems relatively kind to finishes but can spread out and creep after a while. Ordinary stationery white tack seems fine too - I've used both.

I'd guess they'd be more likely to have had UK-made speakers originally. Eminence speakers usually have an EIA code on them (beginning 67- for Eminence) which shows the date they were made, so you should be able to figure out when they were replaced.

I've got a friend who still makes mixtapes, but he's updated his setup and now has tracks cued up on his iPhone and Mac (and turntable), going into a mixer which feeds the cassette deck. He seemed quite surprised that I found this amusing...

It's hard to tell from a forum post, but I'd guess the two avenues to look at would be setup and technique. If your bass has a high nut or bridge or too much scoop in the fingerboard it might play fine with low tension strings but be hard work with the steels. Alternatively, it could be that you've developed playing habits which you can get away with on low-tension nylons but which cause you problems on steels. If you've only been playing since September (or even come back to it after a break), maybe a few lessons might be worth thinking about, and you could probably get some feedback on your bass setup at the same time.

I hope he has discovered the joys of switching jack sockets, so that it can still work with a single amp. Though I rather suspect he won't have done...

You'd probably be able to find a used Fender Hot Rod Deluxe in that price range. Those are quite versatile and seem pretty much ubiquitous at the moment - most of the bands on my local scene seem to be using them!

[quote name='Painy' timestamp='1469274403' post='3097103'] There was a Squier VM P5 on eBay recently that was relisted several times for a fair chunk over the new price. Eventually the seller gave up and relisted as an auction starting at 99p. Sold for £180 in the end which is probably about right but given its the kind of price range bass that inexperienced youngsters will often be looking at, someone could easily have been ripped off. [/quote] It seems to be an increasingly popular strategy to list things on a long-running BIN priced over the odds, and just keep re-listing until you find that one person who'll click the Buy button.

How thick must that neck be? It looks like a thick fingerboard, and it says there's a 1" diameter steel reinforcement underneath that.

I do like to hear some extra upper mids/lower treble (maybe 2-4K or so) with flats to bring out a bit of grunt. But some amps and cabs accentuate this range anyway, so I don't always need to do it with the EQ. With the three-piece I'm playing with right now, what seems to work is to really dial in plenty in this range, take the tone control back a bit for mellower songs and open it up for the rockier numbers. It's been several years since I tried gigging with rounds at all, so I'm not entirely sure how my approach with those would vary. I've got an unopened set of stainless steel rounds knocking about - I might stick them on for a few days some time, just to remind myself.

[quote name='Twisted Blues' timestamp='1469179483' post='3096317'] Thanks for all the advice and help I checked and the transformer is 115v only. I bought a 300W step down transformer and that's done the trick, just another heavy lump to lug to gigs in the name of all valve authenticityt!! Pretty miffed with the seller though, not my best introduction to owning a MESA. The story is not yet over though. Amp powered up and going through all the EQ and power options i discover that th1/2 power function produces a noisy overdriven distorted sound. I switch back to full power and its fine? Any ideas?? Cheers Andy [/quote] This is unlikely to be the cause of your distortion, but a 300 watt stepdown transformer is cutting it extremely fine with a nominally 250 watt valve amp. Valve amps are relatively inefficient and use a lot more power than they put out to the speakers. I'd be inclined to look for something like a 1000W stepdown transformer if you're depending on it for gigging.

I like the feeling of having more room for my right hand with less than 24 frets, but the lack of a high E note on a 20 fret bass does occasionally annoy me. So 21 or 22 seems a happy medium.

I'd concur that they look like Thomastik Superflexibles - I've used them before and still have a couple stashed away somewhere. Those are a high tension string (despite the name), I'm not sure of the numbers but they feel at least as stiff as Spirocore Mittels. So most of the strings mentioned so far would be a pleasant step down in tension. It's an interesting looking bass - the grain on the top is quite unusual and I like those old hatpeg tuners.

An ebony tailpiece like on a Benedetto archtop guitar would look very classy. Lots of work though!

From the few I've done, payment in advance seems to be the way. It's nigh-on impossible to pin down the bride or groom on the day, and I wouldn't like to try.

I've been using the studio's Bass 350 on top of a Peavey 4x10 for the last couple of rehearsals I've done. It's a good sounding amp - I'd always associated SWR with the Marcus Miller slap sound (which is cool but not for me) but it turns out to be quite flexible and easy to get my preferred sound out of. It does seem to hit the limiter sooner than I'd expect, but I am playing with a guitarist who likes to crank things a bit, and it's an 8 ohm cab. It would be interesting to play my own rig in the same room with the same band for the sake of comparison some time.

[quote name='Twincam' timestamp='1468691090' post='3092723'] And too add to what I said that's the same when testing pots. If you measure when things are connected its going to effect the reading. So your measurements are not accurate there. [/quote] Components in parallel will reduce the resistance reading across the pickup, but never increase it. So while measuring a pickup coil in circuit will under-read slightly, a 256k reading almost certainly indicates an open coil. I suspect the meter will be seeing the 250k resistance of the pot, and the coil would measure open if tested out of circuit. Depending where the break is, it may be possible for the repairer to just unwind a couple of turns and re-solder rather than doing a full re-wind.

I get the impression that Danish oil varies between brands, but it doesn't seem to get that sheen on it as readily as Tru-oil does. A further derailment; that walnut guitar in the first post is lovely! I've got a nice plank of walnut leaning in the corner waiting to be something, I just can't decide what yet...

I had a look back over my photos from when I did the Jazzmaster body. I had remembered wrongly - it was a spirit based stain that I used. I didn't try wet sanding until I had several coats on already, as I was also a bit apprehensive of going through the stain. The colour has held just fine, and it hasn't stained any shirts. Here's a pic from several coats in.

Those are looking great, and the finished weight is impressive. They'd probably make a decent small PA, too...

While the weather's nice, I've been doing some back garden carpentry. I used up most of my budget on the amp itself, so I'm using re-claimed 18mm plywood which was part of the stage in a short-term arts venue (Edinburgh is handy for that sort of salvage). It's not the nicest looking plywood or the finest bit of woodworking I've done, but the tolex should hide a multitude of sins! I'm building the combo cab in a similar manner to the old Marshall combos - chassis mounted on the back panel with controls at the top, and top vents to keep things a bit cooler. The speaker will be an ET90 from Warehouse Guitar Speakers - it's supposed to have a Celestion type voicing, is rated for 90 watts and I've seen comments that it makes for a big sounding 1x12" combo so it seemed like a good choice for this amp. I've also got to the bottom of my low volume issue with the amp. After spending a few hours measuring voltages and poking around, I tracked it down to a bad solder joint which was throwing out the biasing of the second preamp stage. I'm sure I learn more from figuring out mistakes than I do from the actual building...

Good looking finishes there. I did an alder guitar body in green stain and tru-oil a couple of years ago and it's held up very well, although the alder is quite prone to dents. IIRC I used a water-based stain from Rothko and Frost, thinking that it would be less likely to be soluble in the oil. Are those water based inks you're using?